the University by greatly enlarging its accommodations and course of instruction, and an asylum for the deaf and dumb. On this last subject of education he made a report to the General Assembly in 1817, comprehending these several topics, from which, since our limits will not permit us to recur to it again, we make one or two brief extracts as exhibitions of his style, his public spirit and his noble benevolence. The University then was, from causes which he details, in a state of extreme depression. He says: "When the pride of the State is awakening and an honorable ambition is cherished for her glory, an appeal is made to the patriotism and generous feelings of the Legislature in favor of an institution which in all civilized nations has been regarded as the nursery of moral greatness and the palladium of civil liberty. That people who cultivate the sciences and the arts with most success acquire a most enviable superiority over others. Learned men by their discussions and works give a lasting splendor to national character; and such is the enthusiasm of man that there is not an individual, however humble in life his lot may be, who does not feel proud to belong to a country honored with great men and magnificent institutions. It is due to North Carolina, it is due to the great men who first proposed the foundation of the University, to foster it with parental fondness, and to give to it an importance commensurate with the high destinies of the State." We may here remark that although much improvement has been made in the interim, yet even after the lapse of forty-odd years the outline of a system of studies in the University, which he therein proposed, has not been filled up. Of the necessity of public instruction for poor children he says: "Such has always been, and probably always will be, the allotment of human life, that the poor will form a large portion of every community; and it is the duty of those who manage the affairs of a State to extend relief to the unfortunate part of our species in every way in their power. Providence, in the impartial distribution of its favors, whilst it has denied to the poor many of the comforts of life, has generally bestowed upon them the blessing of intelligent children. Poverty is the school of genius; it is a school in which the active powers of man are developed and disciplined, and in which that moral courage is acquired which enables him to toil with difficulties, privations and want. From this school generally come forth those men who act the principal parts upon the theatre of life; men who impress a character upon the age in which they live. But it is a school which if left to itself runs wild; vice in all its depraved forms grows up in it. The State should take this school under her special charge, and nurturing the genius which there grows in rich luxuriance, give to it an honorable and profitable direction. Poor children are the