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LETTER XIV.

Sweet

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Cambridge Harvard University-Public Schools
Auburn-Consecration of a Cemetery - Fresh Ponds
Ice Extensive Traffic in it- the Fine Arts at Boston
Nahant Quincy Granite Quarries - Churches - State of
Religion - Depart for the White Mountains -- Salem
Oriental Museum - Notorious for Witchcraft - Portland
the Tariff-Floating Bridge -
Quality of the Land
Climate Disputed Territory Gardiner-Banks of the
Kennebec Interesting Family- Traits of Character.

Gardiner, Banks of the Kennebec, U. S. 15th Oct. 1831.

MY DEAR FRIEND,

AMONG the

agreeable excursions

which a residence of three weeks enabled me to

make in the vicinity of Boston, was a visit that I paid to the lovely and rural little village of Cambridge, three miles distant from the former, and where is situated Harvard University, one of the oldest literary institutions in the country, and, I believe, the most celebrated. The establishment consists of various colleges, or halls, erected in a spacious square, decorated and shaded by a luxuriant growth of trees, where about 300 young men

HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

371

are annually educated. Having been favoured with a letter to the Honourable Josiah Quincy, President of the University, a gentleman not more distinguished for his learning than for the kindness and urbanity of his manners, I was very politely taken by him through the different buildings, while, at the same time, he explained to me the system of education pursued there, which agrees, in its essential features, with the principles. and discipline adopted in our colleges in England. The branches of knowledge taught at Harvard include Greek, Latin, Spanish, French, Italian, German-mathematics-moral, natural, and political philosophy—theology, law, rhetoric, logic, oratory, chemistry, medicine, anatomy, history, Greek and Roman antiquities, mineralogy, &c. The public library contains about 35,000 volumes, and is esteemed the best and most extensive in the States; and the philosophical apparatus is on a scale of excellence highly respectable. There is, also, in the mineralogical department, as splendid an array of specimens as I remember to have seen any where, and arranged in admirable order.

The endowment of the institution is considered one of the richest, if not the most so, in the Republic, amounting to nearly 600,000 dollars; and under the auspices of this alma mater, some of the most distinguished characters of the Union have

372 LITERATURE OF THE NEW ENGLAND STATES.

received that education which has qualified them to hold the highest stations in the councils of their country. Among the number of these great men, if I am not mistaken, is to be enrolled the name of the celebrated Dr. Franklin, who was a native of Boston, and to whom a cenotaph has been erected over the grave of his parents in the churchyard closely adjoining the Tremont House.

The New England states, indeed, take a conspicuous lead in the ranks of literature, and, like their "northern lights," cast the flashes of their superior intelligence far and wide around them. Science and learning are here cultivated with a con amore spirit and vigour that reflect a peculiar credit on their inhabitants: and though the southern states possess the greater advantages of a happier soil and more genial climate; the moral, intellectual, and religious virtues flourish here with a native force and luxuriancy that more than compensates for this inferiority. The balance between them appears to be very equally struck: Nature has done every thing for the former-while Mind has poured forth the treasures and blessings of a brighter excellency on the people of the latter.

Massachusetts was the first state that recommended and put in execution a system of general education; and to this benevolent as well as politic design, the Lyceum at Boston, and the

LITERATURE OF THE NEW ENGLAND STATES. 373

innumerable schools established there and scattered through the province, bear ample and honourable testimony. At the present moment there are, I believe, in a course of instruction, in the public schools of that city alone, about 10,000 children, and for the maintenance of which 80,000 dollars are annually expended. These schools are all free, and open to every order of society; and to these are sent, in considerable numbers, along with the poorer classes, the sons of the most wealthy, and, if I may so say, aristocratic members of the community, as offering more solid and extensive advantages, with respect to learning, than the private seminaries. As may be expected, Boston, as well as the other towns of that state, has reaped, and will continue to do, a rich harvest of moral benefits, in the good order and virtuous conduct of its society, and which are the wellearned fruits of its early and laudable exertions.

That knowledge, under every view in which it can be considered, is a blessing, and not, as some suppose, a curse to mankind, I cannot for a moment hesitate to believe; but, were I at all in doubt, I should have all my scruples at once resolved into "thin air," on casting my eyes over a Newgate Calendar, or that of any other prison, and ascertaining therefrom what an overwhelming majority is annually exhibited of convicts who can neither read nor write. The comparative

374

ADVANTAGES OF EDUCATION.

absence, in these gaols, of persons who have received even the rudiments of education, is, to my mind, the best possible proof of the happy consequence of instruction, and tests the soundness and excellency of the principle by a result as satisfactory as that of a mathematical demonstration. To argue against this conclusion, on the ground of there being a certain proportion of educated persons who are, nevertheless, found guilty of crime, seems to me rather a sophistical mode of reasoning; since some natures are so entirely depraved as to rush recklessly, and in defiance of all restraints, example, and advice, "per vetitum et nefas ;" and though fenced in by innumerable checks, still violating every law, both human and divine. Besides, it is, after all, but the exception, which proves more strongly the existence of the rule.

In the case of America, however, the political and greater necessity that exists for a general, if not universal instruction of her population, than under monarchical institutions, is apparent, when it is considered that the people here are the sovereigns. It is the majesty of the people, and not of the monarch, that holds in this country the sceptre of power; in whom reside all the functions of government, and the administration of every thing connected with the existence and well-being of society — legislative, executive, and judicial.

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