Under such a system as this, there is no one part more favored than the rest; but all are subjected to similar governments, and operated on by similar stimulants. In all other countries the term province is a term of reproach. Niebuhr tells us that in France the best book published in Marseilles or Bordeaux is hardly mentioned. _C'est publie dans la province_ is enough to consign the book at once to oblivion--so complete is the literary dictatorship of Paris over all France. In such a system as ours, we have no provinces; if the governments shall only move in their prescribed orbits, all will be principals, all will be heads--each member of the confederacy will stand on the same summit level with every other. While this condition of things exists, the institutions of one state will not be disparaged or overshadowed by those of another--not even by those of the central department. A great and flourishing university for example, established in one state, will but encourage the establishment of another in an adjoining state. The literary efforts of one will not damp or impede those of another, but will stimulate it to enter on the same career. Where, in all Europe for example, can be found so large a number of good universities for the same amount of population as in the states of Germany. The number, it is said, has reached thirty-six--nineteen Protestant, and seventeen Catholic; and nearly all of them, particularly the Protestant, are in a flourishing condition. Even as early as 1826 there were twenty-two universities in Germany, not one of which numbered less than two hundred students. And Villers tells us that there is more real knowledge in one single university, as that of Gottingen, Halle, or Jena, than in all the eight universities of San Jago de Compostella, Alcala, Orihuela, &c. of the consolidated monarchy of Spain.[6]