through fear of their barbarous tyrant, lest he should inflict some equally cruel punishment on the informer. In proof of farther deficiency in the requisite qualifications to perform, even what teachers themselves often promise—to say nothing of what the public have a right to expect from all who profess to teach—I will notice two or three advertisements which I myself saw several years ago. The schools, by the way, no longer exist. I rely upon these public annunciations as conclusive evidence of incompetence, because, with ample time to prepare such notices, if persons who offer to undertake the business of instruction, do not, even with the assistance of friends, put forth an advertisement in passable English, the failure is a clear demonstration, that much more is promised than the individual is capable of performing. The first advertisement contained a promise “to teach English Grammar _orthöepically_.” The second notice informed all whom it might concern, that the gentleman would “_learn_” (instead of teach) all children all the branches which he enumerated, comprehending nearly the whole circle of sciences; but, notwithstanding this palpable proof, that he was ignorant of his own language, he soon obtained from seventy to eighty pupils. The third advertisement proclaimed, that all the various branches in which instruction was given by the subscribers, “were taught upon _reasoning principles_.” Many more examples might be given of public promises to teach, which were falsified by the very terms in which they were made, but these, I hope, will suffice. {481} For this evil of incompetent teachers there seems to be no corrective but public opinion. This, however, must be more enlightened—must be better educated, before it can interpose effectually. Something, perhaps, might be beneficially done, by a law forbidding any persons from acting as teachers without certificates of fitness from well qualified judges. This is done in other countries, and in some parts of our own, as to the professions both of law and medicine. But in these parts, as with us, it would seem as if bodily health and property were esteemed of infinitely higher value, than all the faculties of the mind and endowments of the soul put together. These last are left defenceless—so far, at least, as _law_ is concerned: the glorious privileges of ignorance are in all respects equal to those of knowledge, as regards the right to teach, or rather _to attempt_ its exercise: and he who proposes to vend nonsense—nay, mental poison, like the vender of damaged goods and quack medicines, stands precisely on the same footing with the wisest, the best man, and the fairest and the most honest dealer in the nation. Not a solitary obstacle exists to the success of either, but the difficulty of procuring customers, and this is easily overcome, simply by the proclamation of “cheap goods! cheap physic! cheap