[Footnote 11: Although our political institutions have the effect of directing the matured minds of the country into the field of politics and morals, yet we are not to suppose, on that account, that the mathematical and physical sciences will be neglected here. In almost all our colleges, particular attention is paid to these latter branches. In fact, so far as I have been enabled to examine into the condition of our colleges and universities, I would say the moral and political sciences are almost always too much neglected. It is easy generally to fill the mathematical and physical departments with able professors, because those who are well qualified to fill those departments, can find no other employments so lucrative and honorable. But those who would make eminent moral and political lecturers, would be generally well qualified, with but little additional study, to enter into the learned professions, or into the still more enticing field of politics, with the most unlimited prospects before them. Hence, whilst in many of our colleges the physical and mathematical chairs are most ably filled, you find the moral and political professors but second rate men. Now talent and real comprehension of mind are particularly required on the subjects of morals and politics. In the mathematics and physics, the merest dunce, if he teaches at all, must teach correctly. He may not give the most concise, or the most beautiful, or the most recent demonstration; but if he gives any demonstration at all, his reasoning is irrefutable, and his conclusions undeniably true. How vastly different are our speculations in politics and morals! What fatal principles may ignorance or dishonesty inculcate here! In our colleges, then the fixed sciences do now, and are likely in future to receive most attention; and consequently, we need not fear that they will be neglected. On the contrary, the danger seems to be, that they may be studied too exclusively. Again, the wide extent of our country, the variety of our soils, our immense mineralogical resources, our mountains and rivers, our diversified geological phenomena, our canals, our rail roads, our immense improvements of all descriptions, open a wide and unlimited range for the research and practical skill of the physical and mathematical student, which will always stimulate the talent of the country sufficiently in this direction. Our past history too, confirms my remarks; and the great names in mathematics and physics, and the great and useful inventions in the arts, which have already shed a halo of glory around our infant institutions, point us to that brilliant prospect in the vista of the future, when our mathematical and natural philosophers, if not the very first, will certainly rank among the greatest of the world.]