No inquiry can be more important than that which proposes to discover the legitimate purpose and the best course of general education. All men, how much soever they may be distinguished from each other by a variety of circumstances, connections, and pursuits, have yet one common set of duties to perform; and it is in forming this character, and imparting the ability to discharge these duties, that the business of what may be called, in the most general sense, a good education, properly consists. Such an education may, therefore, fitly be described to be that course of discipline which is accommodated to man, as he is man; which is to lay the firm foundation of excellence in future life; and by which it is designed to effect the highest preparatory culture of his whole nature. It happens, however, that the foundation of those virtues which are to render us useful and happy must be laid at a time when we are least willing to receive instruction,--when we are in search rather of amusement for our imagination than of employment for our reason. Aware of these difficulties, the instructors of mankind have been in all ages solicitous to discover popular and efficacious methods for their admonitions. Theories once embraced as judicious and complete are succeeded by others which, in turn, are declared as erroneous and defective. Plans at present deemed ill-concerted or impracticable are the same which it was once thought reasonable to adopt. Where government, national or state, insists upon having every child given over to it for the first and formative educational period, it assumes an infinite responsibility for the judicious and reasonable training of the young committed to its care. And they have, in turn, the right to conclude that the instruction given is that, of all others, which the wisdom and wit of the age have pronounced to be the most beneficial and important for them to receive. The system of education is proportionately more enlightened and liberal as the liberty of the subject is the basis and aim of the constitution. The interested caution of a despotic government cares not to open too wide every avenue to science. The state of public instruction is one of the greatest glories of Switzerland. There is no country where primary instruction is more developed and more wide-spread. A Switzer will tell you that every child in the Confederation, unless under the school age or mentally incapacitated, can read and write. This is true to the extent that the exceptions to the rule are not sufficient to constitute an illiterate class. Keeping school is the permanent business of the state, and the attention to it is not merely a fixed and formal business, but an unceasing and engrossing duty. A school is one of the first things present to the eyes of a Swiss child, and one of the last things present to the mind of a Swiss man. On reaching a certain age, the right to stay at home and play ceases; the school seizes the child,