fected without a "single loan! What pro- | in the work of reform, is the erroneous duced such inconceivable effects? and pernicious system of education, genThere was scarce a citizen who was idle, erally adopted at the colleges and semior one unoccupied in useless labors. In-naries of the United States. Instead of stead of producing riches to form the immense revenues of the Court, and of the rich class of society, which revenues were expended to contribute to the enjoyment of a few, their labor was applied to useful and necessary things; those who before made coaches, made carriages for cannon; those who formerly made laces, now made coarse linens and woolens; those who ornamented

boudoirs, built forts and cleared land. Those

per

attending to subjects practically useful, the students are compelled by custom and fashion to study languages that contain little or nothing worthy to be known; instead of studying Political Economy, or the glowing pages of patriotism with which the history of our country abounds, they are forced to pore over the licenwho had rioted in the inutilites of life were the literature of Rome; of a people, tiousness of ancient heathen mythology, compelled to gain a subsistence by the formance of services which were wanting.-- says the Westminster Review, "whose -They discharged their army of useless domes religion was theoretically and practically tics, and left them to be employed by the la- a fraud; whose justice was but cautious borious class, while the nabob himself per- rapacity, bridling itself in until the mohaps became a clerk in an office. This is ment should come when it might gorge the whole secret of those prodigious resour- in security; whose passion was conquest, ces in a crisis so great; they are ever to be without regard to humanity or faith; found in all countries where the revenues are in the hands of the producers, the creawhose heart was hardened by the contors of riches. Let Germany, for example, tinual inroads of debasing motives and leave entirely in the hands of the industrious habits-all the gold in Mexico could not class the revenues which serve for the pa- gild the aristocracy of Rome. Oppres geantry of its small Courts and rich abbies, sors at home, bandits abroad, bloody and and you would see her invincible.-base, covered with the ulcers of public Whenever and wherever the great mass of and private vice, no sympathy can ever property is in the hands of the idle men, wher- be with them. The hand is despicable ever government enriches its favorites and makes great expenditures in useless things, luted lips." And this is the nation whose that holds the cup of praise to their polyou will see langour in the midst of resources, misery in the midst of riches, and weak-literature the youth of our country are ness in the midst of all the means of strength. forced to study! These are the patriotic The taste for superfluous expenses, the principles that are to prepare them for principal source of which is vanity, nourishes usefulness to their country in after life! and exasperates it. It renders the understanding frivolous, and injures its strength. It produces irregularity of conduct, which engenders many vices, disorders and disturbances in families. It leads readily to depravity and avidity-to the loss of delicacy and probity, and to the abandonment of all generous and tender sentiments. In a word, it enervates the soul, by weakening the understanding; and produces these sad effects not only on those who enjoy it, but likewise on all those who serve it, or admire it, -who imitate or envy it. We cannot now discuss the question, whether luxury being acknowledged hurtful, we ought to combat it by laws or by manners; and also how we can favor production, and give a useful direction to consumption. Those who devote themselves to this great study are persecuted; there is reason for this; they show the mass

how useless the idlers are.

Another vast difficulty to be overcome

Most of our colleges are under the influence and control of clergymen-the very last class or profession that ought to be allowed to train up youth in a repub lican country; as they have ever in all ages of the world, with here and there an exception, been the untiring enemies of liberty in all its forms. They know little or nothing that is useful respecting the world in which we live, and are there. fore incompetent to form the youthful minds of those who are to be public men. Our colleges at present are little better than hot houses of aristocracy; indeed the enemies of Equal Rights unblushingly assert that nineteen-twentieths of the graduates are aristocrats-an untitled nobility. Matthew Carey some years ago generously offered to found a profes. sorship of Political Economy in the Uni

versity of Maryland, paying the salary ering the subtle poison beneath the sweethimself, and his offer so far from being est flowers. Who taught Alexander,the complied with, that even his letter was great butcher, to become a hero? Hoallowed to remain unanswered!

Why is the mind called from the contemplation of the vast volume of nature, to ponder over antiquated lore; why deprived of the privilege of acquiring a knowledge of things, by the endless study of mere words; wasting the precious season of youth upon the obscurity of heathen ignorance, in acquiring "a dead language of a dead people," who have left us nothing to edify, amuse, or to instruct; neither virtue to imitate, or great ness to admire.

mer. Who Charles 12th? Homer.So much did Plato dread (himself also a Pagan) the influence of Homer's writings that he forbade the reading of them in his republic. a his republic. And yet christians-aye, christian ministers-six days in the week place in the hands of the young and inexperienced pupil, whose tender mind is ready like the wax to receive any impression, the works of the Latin and Greek authors filled with the divine beauties of heathen mythology and the philanthropic descriptions of wholesale Why are priests placed at the head of butcheries, and on Sunday discourse to all our seminaries of learning-tutors in them about forbearance, meekness, and all the families of the wealthy-thus man- forgivness of inquiries, inculcated by aging to control what they cannot pre- the religion of Jesus Christ; can it be wonvent or destroy, and turning into the dered at that we hear of duels, murders, channel of their own ambition the stream pride,and revenge when the minds of our that otherwise would have fertilized the youth are formed by reading these rewhole earth. cords of barbarism?'

This great question is beginning to re

'Latin and Greek are not indispensably necessary to a good education. Language ceive that attention from the public its

is merely an arbitrary sound of characters immeasurable importance so imperativewhereby men cominunicate their ideas ly demands. The mightiest minds in to each other. The English language is Europe are examining the subject with capable of conveying all the ideas most untiring attention; Brougham, Combe, men may be able to acquire during a Bulwer, McCauley, and a host of others, long life of patient industry; is it not have spoken in a voice of majesty and then vastly better for us to improve the power against the present system of sense through one language, than waste learned ignorance. How many of the our time in gaining a knowledge of mere most promising youth of our country have sounds? Especially when we take into been hurried to a premature grave, in orconsideration the brevity of human life. der to become "mere men of languages" Men do not live on an average above thirty-machines of memory. There is not or forty years. Of this brief period take an individual who has studied Latin and ten of childhood, which leaves thirty. Greek but will admit that the knowledge To spend five or six years of this in learn- acquired, does not compensate him for ing an almost useless language (or dead the labor the acquisition has cost. These languages) when all that is worth posses- studies may be useful and proper in their sing in those languages is translated into place, but to make them of the first im our own, seems the climax of folly. Be- portance, as at present, is pernicions and sides the tendency of most of the Greek absurd. Says Bulwer, "it is knowledge and Latin authors is any thing but favor- not learning, in which I wish you to be able to the promotion of virtue, peace, and skilled. The object of education, is to morality. Where among them all are instil principles which are hereafter to found the winning graces and social vir- guide and instruct us; facts are only detues the humane feelings and generous sirable so far as they illustrate those emotions? See Homer throwing around principles; principles ought therefore to the worst passions that disgrace human precede facts! What then can we think nature, the rich eloquence of language of a system which reverses this and the mantle of poetic inspiration, cov- der, overloads the memory with facts,

very or

of the most doubtful description, while it all the children in the land. This alone leaves us entirely in the dark with regard startles the tyrant in his dreams of powto the principles which would alone ren-er, and rouses the slumbering energies of der this heterogeneous mass of any ad- an oppressed people. It is intelligence vantage or avail? Learning without that reared up the majestic columns of national glory, and this alone can prevent them crumbling to ashes.

knowledge, is but a bundle of prejudices; a lumber of inert matter set before the threshold of the understanding to the ex- The great work of emancipation is but clusion of common sense. Pause for a mo- just begun-our political redemption is ment, and recal those of your cotempo- far from being accomplished. We are raries, who are generally considered well still enslaved by ancient traditions and informed; tell me if their information has hoary prejudices. The public mind is made them a whit the wiser; if not, it is still fettered by public opinion-not that only sanctified ignorance. Tell me if noble public opinion that gave our fathers names with them are a sanction for opin- their hardihood and unshrinking fearlession; quotations the representatives of ness, but "the wayward offspring of fashaxioms? All they have learned only ion and fear, whose law is caprice, and serves as an excuse for all they are ig- whose dictates are injustice—that false norant of. The great error of educa- and intolerant public opinion which tion is to fill the mind first with antiqua- weighs actions by their popularity, and ted authors, and then to try the princi- not by their effects-which bids us do that ples of the present day by the authori- which is customary rather than that which ties and maxims of the past. The re- is right; a dishonest, double-faced timeverse of the ordinary plan should be pur- serving sycophancy that is like an incusued. We should learn the doctrine and bus upon our boldest thoughts and best exprinciples of the day, as the first and ertions; making cowards of the brave, most necessary step, and we will then slaves of freemen, checking the progress glance over those which have passed of virtue and the spread of knowledgeaway, as researches rather curious than that darkens the land with its prejudices useful." and chills the heart with its cold decrees." Is all this nothing? Has the work been completed that our fathers begun? Do we not still imprison a man because he is poor, and murder those who are guilty of stealing a horse? Is it nothing that an intolerant and unrelenting priesthood, claiming to be a privileged body have placed themselves at the head of nearly all our colleges and institutions of learning, maOn a former similar occasion your pres- king them little better than theological ent speaker used the following language; seminaries, and the graduates little else -If the time shall ever come when this than monks? Is it nothing that the founmighty fabric shall totter: when the bea- tains of knowledge are poisoned at their con that now rises in a pillar of fire, a very source? Is it nothing that religious sign and wonder of the world shall wax incorporations are allowed to hold church dim, the cause will be found in the igno- property to an unlimited extent, for rance of the people. If onr Union is still which your labor is taxed, and you to cheer the hopes and animate the efforts upon to defend in the hour of peril, all of the oppressed of every nation; if of which is untaxed-a hierarchy of our fields are to be untrod by the hire- priestcraft-an oligarchy of wealth and lings of despotism; if long days of bles- perpetual accumulation, making a politisedness are to attend 'our country in her cal antichrist of both church and state? career of glory; if you would have the Is it nothing that we are governed almost sun continue to shed his unclouded rays exclusively by English laws? Are upon the face of freemen, then educate there then no dangers to be provided for,

There was a period when all the literatue of the world was confined to these languages; and yet in the minds of many there appears to exist the same necessity for studying these languages now, when they are the key to nothing useful or necessary to be known, as when they were the key to all the knowledge in the world.

called

no mischiefs and abominations to be battled with before they have waxed too mighty even for denunciation?

incarcerated within the walls of a prison because the hand of misfortune has laid its withering grasp upon his manly brow?

We have said that we imprison a man because he is unfortunate and happens Let this barbarous law be abolished to be poor, and our laws authorize us to and with it would cease our present unhang a man for stealing a horse; that is safe and rotten credit system. The able we esteem the value of a horse as equal editor of the New Orleans Bee remarks to the life of a fellow citizen. These rel- that it cannot be doubted that the degree ics of barbarism will not disgrace our stat- of advantage to be derived from credit ute books many years longer-inquiry is either to the borrower or to the lender abroad-the right to take life under any depends mainly on the character, habits circumstances, unless in self defence, is and prospects of the borrower. This is boldly questioned. History proves to a true of Bank loans and loans of any othperfect demonstration, that sanguinary er kind on interest-unless they be used laws tend to render a people ferocious with prudence and judgment they are and barbarous; that so far from prevent- not beneficial either to the public or to ining crime, that they increase it an hun- dividuals. The credits given by shopdred fold. Let the experiment of mil-keepers, storekeepers, and retailers of all der punishments be adopted, and the hap- descriptions, are pernicious to all parties piest results will be produced. Imprison concerned. The competition of such the criminal, but not the unfortunate; do dealers, and the indolence of purchasers not let us any longer consider poverty a disinclining them to pay cash for every crime. To be sure we do not like the thing they buy, combined with the anxRomans allow the body of a bankrupt to iety of the sellers to obtain custom, have be cut in pieces by the creditor; or if this introduced this species of credit systein, measure was considered too fiend-like in continued it and caused it to be generally atrocity, subject the poor debtor to chains, adopted-to such a degree does it prestripes, and hard labor, and sell his wife vail that few persons are in the habit of and children into slavery. We are told paying cash for any article of luxury or "That by the laws of the Twelve Tables, necessity-if we except the provisions it was ordained that insolvent debtors sold in market, and even these are freshould be given up to their creditors, to quently bought on credit. And thus very be bound in fetters and cords; and that many individuals who are not aware of they were in actual SLAVERY, and often the importance of close and accurate caltreated more harshly than slaves them- culation in such matters, go-a-head of selves. Although the odious law author- their incomes, and in the course of a few izing Imprisonment for Debt has been years or months they are involved in a modified, yet from this brutal, aye, sav- labyrinth of debts and difficulties, from age code, is derived the modern practice which it is difficult or impossible to exof imprisoning a man because he is poor. tricate themselves. Even in such a sitIf a person be guilty of fraud, for this uation, it frequently happens that they let him be punished-but not because he find storekeepers and venders of every is unfortunate. To imprison an honest kind of merchandize frequently willing debtor without trial or conviction, to drag to trust them, by which a loss is occasioned him away from a family depending on to one party while the other is involved his labor for support, is equally unjust in deep ruin.

and oppressive; and any law authori- The ease with which credit is thus obzing such cold blooded injustice is an ar- tained is a great evil. In very few cabitrary assumption of power not delega- ses it is of the smallest advantage to ei ted to the legislature, and is a disgrace ther party, and as a system is certainly to the age in which we live. No one in detrimental to individuals and to the comcontracting a debt ever pledged his body, munity. It tempts even prudent persons his liberty, as security for its payment to obtain articles which are of no use to why then is he arrested and barbarously them and which perhaps their circum

pliance with the suggestions of unhealthy and artificial appetites-these are some of the principal causes which sometimes seperately, but more frequently in close league together, entangle the young man in the toils of debt.

stances in life make it unjustifiable in The fool and the profligate would laugh them to purchase, and hence the system at the picture which I have displayed to becomes the source of embarrassment, you-the one owing to his mental infirmand insolvency in many instances." ity, not being able to understand true libA forcible writer in Frasers Magazine erty-the other from the baseness of his has a graphic description of the miseries of nature, being dead to the degradation of being in debt. He says believe me servitude. But the man of an ingenious that of all kinds of tyranny by which and sensitive disposition, will readily al. the spirit of man is bowed down and low that there are fetters for the mind as crushed, and all his energies, moral and well as the body; and that, in order to be physical, paralyzed and withered, there apprised of a subjection to bondage, it is none so active in its oppression, and is not necessary that one should actually so bitter in its torture, as that which a hear the clank of the iron chains. creditor exercises over his debtor. It Another circumstance which tends to is a tyranny which can even quell the make the debtor's constraint more intolspringing elasticity of youth's sanguine erable, is, that in most cases the infliction ambition. Observe, too, that its exis- of it is either occasioned or expedited by tence does not merely depend upon the his own weakness and folly. A weak disposition or acts of the master. The submission to the imperious yet trifling latter may be the mildest and most long mandates of fashion, a vain competition in suffering man upon earth; and so far the race of extravagance with more from endeavoring roughly to enforce his wealthy compeers, and a shameful comclaims, may even refrain from asserting them. Still by the very nature of the relation of which subsists between the parties, is the debtor reduced to the conditon of his bondsman or serf; for the real intensity of the tyranny consists in this, that the creditor has ever in his service D'Israeli says that if youth but knew an officious and indefatigable agent, who the fatal misery that they are entailing on acts not only without his orders, but often themselves the moment they accept a pein spite of his express wishes, and that cuniary credit to which they are not enagent is the memory of the indebted par- titled, how they would start in their caty. The master may be willing to give reer! how pale they would turn! how time to his slave, he may even desire they would tremble and clasp their hands him not to be disquieted by the appre- in agony at which they are disporting! hensions of violence; but can the latter Debt is the prolific mother of crime; forget the existence of an obligation it taints the course of life in all its streams. which may be forced upon his memory Hence so many unhappy marriages, so by the slightest circumstance of the pas- many prostituted pens, and venal politising moment? Can he forget, too, that, cians! It hath a small beginning, but a however humare his present lord may be, giants growth and strength. When we his rights and claims may, after his death, make the monster, we make our master, pass to another of imperious and violent who haunts us at all hours, and shakes temper. Such are some of the consid- his whip of scorpions forever in our sight. erations which make the mere existence The slave hath no overseer so severe. of a debt, without any other aggravating Faustus, when he signed the bond with circumstances, in itself tyranny of the blood, did not secure a doom so termost loathsome description. The parish rific. pauper, despicable as his lot may appear, Were all laws abolished respecting enjoys a higher degree of liberty and in- imprisonment for debt, there would be dependence than the man who has put it in- no debts but debts of honor; and then to the power of another to come up to him the horde of heartless parasites who and say, 'pay me what thou owest.' Think now live, vulture like, upon the misfornot that my description is overcharged. tunes of their fellow men, would be