hich lasted
five years. I had come to the end of my tether; I could make nothing
satisfactory of Induction, at this time. I continued to read any book
which seemed to promise light on the subject, and appropriated, as well
as I could, the results; but for a long time I found nothing which
seemed to open to me any very important vein of meditation.

In 1832 I wrote several papers for the first series of _Tait's
Magazine_, and one for a quarterly periodical called the _Jurist_, which
had been founded, and for a short time carried on, by a set of friends,
all lawyers and law reformers, with several of whom I was acquainted.
The paper in question is the one on the rights and duties of the State
respecting Corporation and Church Property, now standing first among the
collected _Dissertations and Discussions_; where one of my articles in
_Tait_, "The Currency Juggle," also appears. In the whole mass of what
I wrote previous to these, there is nothing of sufficient permanent
value to justify reprinting. The paper in the _Jurist_, which I still
think a very complete discussion of the rights of the State over
Foundations, showed both sides of my opinions, asserting as firmly as I
should have done at any time, the doctrine that all endowments are
national property, which the government may and ought to control; but
not, as I should once have done, condemning endowments in themselves,
and proposing that they should be taken to pay off the national debt. On
the contrary, I urged strenuously the importance of a provision for
education, not dependent on the mere demand of the market, that is, on
the knowledge and discernment of average parents, but calculated to
establish and keep up a higher standard of instruction than is likely to
be spontaneously demanded by the buyers of the article. All these
opinions have been confirmed and strengthened by the whole of my
subsequent reflections.

CHAPTER VI.

COMMENCEMENT OF THE MOST VALUABLE FRIENDSHIP OF MY LIFE. MY
FATHER'S DEATH. WRITINGS AND OTHER PROCEEDINGS UP TO 1840.

It was the period of my mental progress which I have now reached that I
formed the friendship which has been the honour and chief blessing of my
existence, as well as the source of a great part of all that I have
attempted to do, or hope to effect hereafter, for human improvement. My
first introduction to the lady who, after a friendship of twenty years,
consented to become my wife, was in 1830, when I was