SECRETARY'S REPORT. 43 



corporated with the very being. Youth is emphatically the spring- 

 time of life. The seeds of knowledge then sown will the more 

 surely germinate, and at maturity yield an abundant harvest of 

 usefulness. 



The State has provided for the education of all the children and 

 youth, by establishing common schools, where the rudiments of 

 knowledge may be learned by both poor and rich. It has insti- 

 tuted academies, where higher attainments may be made. It has 

 founded colleges, where a small fraction of the young men who 

 have the time and means, can avail themselves of the thorough 

 course of preparatory discipline afforded by classical studies and 

 mathematics. It has added special schools of Divinity, Law and 

 Medicine, to qualify them for the practice of either of the learned 

 professions. 



These have all been connected together like separate links in the 

 same chain. The goal continually in view, in the great race of 

 life, by those who aspire to a liberal education, has hitherto been 

 to reach at least one of the professions, or take their chance in the 

 mazes of politics. Hence the whole course of instruction is sub- 

 servient to this great end. The academy takes its pupils from the 

 •common schools, and drills them principally in the pure mathe- 

 matics, and the dead languages. They then enter college, and 

 devote a large proportion of the time to the same classical studies. 

 At length they graduate after some seven years constant disci- 

 pline ; but having expended so much time and capital in this pre- 

 liminary training, they think they cannot afford to engage in any 

 common industrial pursuit, and have no inclination for it. Custom, 

 supposed interest and pride, all prompt them to enter such special 

 schools as shall best qualify them for the practice of the profession 

 selected. Thus it often happens that the supply exceeds the de- 

 mand, and the professions are crowded. Some monopolize the 

 business, while others obtain little patronage ; yet the latter, from 

 want of the requisite practical training, are unfitted for, and disin- 

 clined to, any other occupation, and in some instances become the 

 drones of the community; 



It is not intended to disparage, in the least degree, the system 

 of education adopted in our academies and colleges. It is doubtless 

 the best which the experience and wisdom of ages could establish, 

 for those who design to devote their lives to some regular profes- 

 sion, or the pursuit of literature ; but it does not supply the wants 



