oved usages of
society. I will not say, that this is a great evil in comparison with
that state of mental vassalage and inaction in which nothing is
attempted, nor even conceived, for the true interests of mankind. For,
the mind unfettered, will ordinarily be corrected of its mistakes and
brought back from its wanderings, when truth is the object of its
aspirations, and happiness is the prize only of successful effort. But
we may learn from this infirmity of our nature, to be cautious in our
estimates of the good before us, and to use that moderation in our
endeavors which will leave us nothing to regret, when their end shall
have been attained.

"It will scarcely be doubted that the impulse which society has
received, particularly since the commencement of the passing century,
and which has evidently been connected with the growth of freedom in
this country, has been attended with many of these excesses, and not
the least probably in the department of education. Numerous
adventurers have set forth upon this field, with different pretensions
indeed, and unequal advantages, but all large in their expectations,
and confident of success. They have seemed to themselves almost to
realize the ideal good, to annihilate the space between barbarism and
refinement, to find in relation to intellectual attainment what
experimental philosophy had sought in vain, the mysterious agent which
should transmute the baser metals into gold.

"Without denying at all the actual advance of learning, or disparaging
the improvements which are taking place in the arrangements and
administration both of public and private seminaries, we cannot be so
fond (_absit invidia verbo_) as to accredit all the inventions of this
restless age. We cannot suppose that paths so various, which have been
struck out in the heat of competition, and systems based on principles
and conducted by methods so frequently differing from each other, will
all conduce to the purposes for which they are intended, except as
they may excite more general attention to the interests of education,
and furnish materials of which wisdom and experience shall at length
avail themselves, to perfect truer and more practicable systems,
suited to the intellectual and moral nature of man, and to the various
relations and interests of life. In this view, it is evident that the
conduct of public literary institutions, at the present time, is
attended with no trivial embarrassments. That expa