Let a system of education make provision for nothing but what is elevated and useful, and still space enough will be left for all the frivolity and sporting which any can deem to be absolutely essential. These things will take care of themselves, and will inevitably come in, on any plan that may be adopted, to secure all the advantages which they are capable of affording. Another objection which has been preferred to manual labor schools is, _that they contribute but little or nothing to the support of the student_. The truth on this subject, as could be satisfactorily shown is, that, as might naturally be expected, manual labor schools, being a novel experiment in this country, have had to struggle, as do all similar enterprises of benevolence at the outset, with formidable obstacles; and in some instances, through injudiciousness in their location, or mismanagement in their arrangements, have either been abandoned, or have failed to fulfil the expectations of their projectors. Mercantile and other adventurers often fail in their plans. At the same time it is undeniable, that some institutions of this sort have succeeded beyond all previous calculations, and the students that composed them have not only enjoyed better health than others, and made more rapid advances in knowledge, but a portion of them have, by the avails of their labors, defrayed _the whole_ of their expenses; a few have done _more_; and a majority have diminished them about _one-half_. Manual labor establishments, therefore, will do _something_ (we ought not to expect them to do _every thing_,) towards _cheapening_ education, even in the infancy of their existence; and the thought can hardly fail to be cheering to American republicans and patriots, that in the full tide of successful operation which we believe will attend their maturer age, "full many a flower" which but for them would be "born to bloom and blush unseen," will shed its "sweetness on" Columbia's "air." But admit for a moment that manual labor schools are an utter failure as regards _the pecuniary advantages which they afford_. Admit, if you please, that the manual labor feature is an expensive part of education, and that to comply with it an education will cost more than on any other plan. The argument for their utility remains alike unanswered and unshaken. Is not the education thus obtained a more perfect one? Is it not immensely more valuable? Are health, morals, useful habits, vigorous intellects, and life, worth nothing? Is money expended for the improvement and preservation of these thrown away? If manual labor schools increased the expenses of education _fourfold_, they would still deserve the warm patronage of the public, and all who have the ability should send their sons to them to be educated, in preference to any other institutions, even should they have as many of them as the Patriarch, or be endowed with the riches of Crœsus.