to be observed by those who thus endeavour to promote the education and enlightenment of the people, is a clear and firm persuasion in themselves that such a method of interesting men in the pursuits of literature or science, can only be considered as initiatory, and preparatory to something higher, and that at last knowledge must stand recommended to the mind by its own intrinsic charms, and by its grand and native tendency to further a man's spiritual advancement. It is scarcely to be doubted that the oversight of this has greatly contributed to occasion the failure of many of those popular schemes and institutions which have had for their object the intellectual improvement of the people. Starting with the flattering assumption that literary and scientific information possessed the power of raising men to social consequence, it was presently perceived that the result was not answerable to the expectations which had been excited, and that the more generally intelligence was spread, the greater was the competition for the advantages in view, and the less the chance of attaining them. By being taught to regard their education as a means or process whereby they might be more readily and securely inducted into positions of emolument and honour, not only were the people misdirected with respect to the real and authentic signification of manly culture, but even the inducements held out as the encouragements of their efforts were found to end mainly in disappointment. The generality were not, and could not be enriched, nor very sensibly elevated in the estimation of the world; they did not usually attain to what they had been taught to aim after, which was, in most cases, antecedence of their fellow-men, distinction and exalted notice in the eyes of accredited respectability. The conditions of society to which they were subjected limited most of them to their old employments and pursuits, and it only occasionally happened that a man's personal fortunes were very materially promoted by the intelligence he had gained through studious exertion. If, by some favourable concurrence of circumstances, one might chance to attain eminence, or realise any considerable share of the substantial possessions of life, for every individual thus fortunate, there has probably been a thousand whose efforts were utterly unproductive of any such success. Upon the whole, it is evident that the more universally the benefits of instruction are extended among a people, the casual prizes which were formerly accessible to rare examples of ability and intelligence become less and less easy of attainment, and have an eventual tendency to become distributed altogether without reference to that intellectual superiority which, when education was less general, more invariably commanded them. The peculiar distinctions which knowledge is competent to confer must be looked for in other directions than those which are supposed to lead to the acquisition