Some seem to think that the only thing necessary is to distribute money over a certain space, and the work is done. "The great object," says the authority we have quoted, "is to endow the masses with sound minds and discriminating judgments." A most noble undertaking, truly! But how is it to be done? Will the mere insertion of an item in the supply-bill create this magical power? It is very plain to one who thinks at all, that this "endowment of the masses with sound minds, &c.," must be somehow under the management of those who already possess "sound minds and discriminating intelligence," and this is something far more than a knowledge barely on a level with the instruction itself to be imparted within the walls of a district school. Something higher, too, is required than Normal institutions, supplying candidates more or less thoroughly instructed in the particular branches they are to teach, and thus placing them just in advance of their future pupils. No man is qualified to teach at all, unless his knowledge is much beyond that range of science to which his actual teaching is confined. There must be something higher than this--something more, even, than an acquaintance with particular branches far transcending that line. There must be an initiation, at least, into what we have called the _science of sciences_--the knowledge of knowledges. All this is necessary to make "_sound minds_ and discriminating judgments," capable of distinguishing in respect not only to the _quantity_ but the _quality_ of different kinds of knowledge--of determining what truly enter into the idea of education, and what belong to the partial, the sectional, or the ephemeral. Thus viewed as leavening the community with minds of broad and liberal culture, the college becomes not only the "foundation," but the elevator of the common school. It is just such a class of minds as are now most, needed in this country--a class of _thinkers_ in distinction from your men of _action_, your noisy demagogues, your self-styled _practical men_, of whom we have at present so great an overstock. We want a class of minds who shall gradually create a philosophical and learned interest, thus causing, if we may use here the language of political economy, a steadily increasing demand for the article they represent--elevating the profession of the teacher, and in this way the whole national mind, to react again in a more liberal and fraternal support of all our institutions, the highest as well as the lowest.