good of others, proceeding from a union of moral and religious principle, should ever constitute man's highest honor here below, since it is certainly the most important of all his earthly duties. Literary institutions may bring to the utmost possible degree of perfection the methods of acquiring all languages, arts and sciences--they may invent matchless ways of making accomplished scholars, in the ordinary acceptation of the term--they may indoctrinate the youth of our country in every thing usually called scholastic learning--all this they may do with a rapidity and certainty heretofore inconceivable, yet they will fall immeasurably short of attaining the grand, the paramount objects of all which deserves to be called education, unless the fixing indelibly of moral and religious principles in the minds of all who are to be educated, be made the basis, the essence, and vital end of all instruction whatever. The idea is utterly preposterous that human beings ever can be taught to form adequate conceptions of the great purposes for which they were created--of the indispensable necessity of fulfilling most faithfully all their duties, in order to accomplish these purposes; and of the ineffable happiness both here and hereafter, that will be secured to all who do thus fulfil them, merely by teaching them all the languages, arts and sciences in the world,--if _that_ be omitted, without which all else is but mere dust in the balance,--I mean self-knowledge, self-control, self-devotion to duty as the supreme objects of our temporal existence. Do not, I beseech you, my friends, here misunderstand me. Far indeed, very far am I from underrating the real advantages, the true value of what is generally understood by the term scholastic attainments. No one can estimate more highly than I do, their power of extending our views, liberalizing our sentiments, enlightening our minds, strengthening our intellectual faculties, and exciting an ardent desire to increase our knowledge. Considered as the _means_ and not the _ends_ of education, I would always award to them the highest rank. But when we have said _this_, nothing more can justly be affirmed in their favor--if disconnected, as they too often are, from the ultimate and vital purposes of all perfect education. These undeniably are, (and it cannot be too frequently repeated,) to expand, to warm, to christianize the heart--to call into vigorous, untiring action, all our best affections, our noblest attributes, and to fit us thoroughly both for our present and future state of existence. Unless that which is called education will do _this_, we may safely assert that it is grossly _miscalled_, and that if it is never made to comprehend any thing more than what is generally understood by the term scholastic attainments, a mistake more fatal to the happiness of our species can scarcely be committed. Of this I would ask no better proof than would be afforded by an impartial examination of the actual