Many persons are under the impression that moral and political studies need not be prosecuted at college—that the physical and mathematical sciences are the most important subjects, and should be studied to their exclusion. This opinion seems to be based upon the popular notion that moral and political subjects may be comprehended without the assistance of a teacher, and may consequently be prosecuted to most advantage when the student has finished his collegiate career and entered upon the great theatre of life. This impression is certainly erroneous and highly pernicious; and in justification of the system which we have adopted in our own college I must employ a few moments in attempting to explain its thorough fallacy. In the first place then, I have no hesitation in affirming that moral and political studies are the most important of all. These subjects are of universal application; they concern every member of the human family. We cannot escape their influence or connection, no matter what may be our destiny through life. The great _high-ways_, and the little _by-ways_, of our existence, if I may be allowed the expression, alike pass through the regions of morals and politics. From the village gossip who tells the tale of her neighbor’s equivocal conduct, and significantly hints that it was no better than it ought to be, to him who watches the movements of empires and penetrates the secret designs of statesmen, all are concerned in these universally applicable subjects. It is a matter of very little practical consequence to us what may be the opinions of our neighbor in mathematics or physics—whether he believes two sides of a triangle may be less than the third, or that the earth is the centre of our system, and that the sun, moon and stars revolve around it. We may laugh at him once or twice during the year for his ignorance, but his opinions wound none of our sensibilities and run counter to none of our interests. But the moment our opinions clash upon the subjects of morals and politics, that moment the case is altered. The opinions of my neighbor are no longer indifferent to me. If he has notions of morality under which he is constantly condemning my course of life, or a system of politics entirely at war with mine, then does the collision become indeed a serious one. It was a matter of very little moment to Castile that King Alphonso should believe the solar system miserably defective in its arrangements, and that he could suggest some most important improvements in it. But the case was seriously altered when he believed that he was responsible to God alone, and not to his subjects, in the administration of his government, and that his wisdom was sufficient to make and unmake the laws of his country. The fact is, morals, politics and religion are the great concerns of human nature. They spring from relations of universal existence throughout the human family—relations from whose influence none of us can possibly escape.