vain imaginings and devices of his own heart, or to be governed by the chance-medley, hap-hazard contrivances of individuals, very many of whom have neither the capacity, knowledge, experience, nor inclination to devise the best practicable methods for accomplishing the grand purpose of education. Politics, law, physic, absorb nearly all the talents of the State; while the vital business of instructing the rising generation; a business which requires minds of the very highest order and moral excellence to execute it properly, is generally left to be pursued by any who list--pursued far too often most reluctantly, as a mere stepping-stone to some other profession, and to be abandoned as soon as possible for almost any thing else that may turn up. The inevitable consequence is "confusion worse confounded;" driving parents and guardians to frequent changes both of schools and teachers for their children, where changes of books and modes of instruction follow, almost as matters of course; for those who are to handle the new brooms rarely believe they will be thought cleaner sweepers than their predecessors, unless they display their superiority by pursuing some entirely different method. This petty ambition would be too ridiculous to deserve serious notice, were it not for the vast amount of evil which it produces, by not only retarding the progress of all youths under a course of instruction, but by constantly and powerfully tending to bring the whole class of teachers into general contempt. Under these circumstances, the existence of which none can deny, where shall we seek an adequate remedy for evils of such magnitude; where turn our eyes but to well organized voluntary associations for the promotion of education? These would collect and combine the powers, the talents, the knowledge of a very large portion of all the individuals in our society best qualified to accomplish the object. They would create a general taste, an anxious desire for intellectual pursuits; they would elevate the profession of the teacher to that rank which its vast importance to human happiness renders essential to its success; and would assuredly extend their influence to the remotest limits of our community, far more rapidly than could any scheme of legislative creation. It has been so in every other State, so far as the experiment has been tried. Why then should we doubt their success among ourselves? We who believe ourselves possessed of the wisest, the freest, the happiest government on earth, are incalculably more interested than any other nation (if our belief is true), in the cause of universal education; for on _its_ success, the very existence of free government itself, nay of individual and national happiness so far as government can affect either, must ultimately depend.