TWENTY-FIFTH CONGRESS, 1837-39. 161 



character ; nor is it possible we ever should liave, as it 

 appears to me, on our present systems of education. Not 

 that our literature, such as it is, is inferior to that of other 

 nations produced at the present day. No ; mediocrity is 

 the character of all literary works of the present day, go 

 where you will. It is so in England, it is so in France, the 

 two most literary nations of Europe. It is true, learned 

 men and great scholars are every where to be found, indeed, 

 they may be said to abound more than ever; the whole 

 world, too, has become a reading world ; the growth of the 

 press is prodigious ; but it is all ephemeral and evanescent — 

 all destined to the grave of oblivion. Nor is it that our 

 countrymen have not the gift of genius for literary works 

 of that high and immortal character. Probably no people 

 were ever blessed with it in a greater degree — of which 

 every where we see the indications and the evidence ; but 

 what signifies genius for an art without discipline, without 

 knowledge of its principles, and skill in that art ? 



" Vis consill expers, mole ruit sua ; 

 Vim temperatam, Dii quoque provebunt, 

 In majus." 



Literature is now evei'y where mediocre — because the arts 

 of literature are nowhere cultivated, but everywhere neglect- 

 ed — and apparently despised. I recollect to have seen in a 

 late and leading periodical of Great Britain, an article in 

 v/hich the writer congratulates the age upon having thrown 

 off the shackles of composition ; and says (in a tone of tri- 

 umph) that no one now thinks of writing like Junius, (as if 

 it was an easy matter, but beneath him, to write like Juni- 

 us,) except, he adds, some junior sophister in the country, 

 corresponding with the editor of' some village newspaper. 

 The whole tribe of present writers seem, by their silence, 

 to receive this description as eulogy — as a tribute of praise 

 properly paid to their merit ; while in truth it is the charac- 

 teristic of a barbarous age, or of one declining to barba- 

 rism ; it is the very description applied to mark the decline 

 and last glimmering of letters in Greece and Rome. 



The object of education is two-fold — knowledge and 

 ability ; both are important, but ability by far the most 

 so. Knowledge is so far important as it is subsidiary 

 to. the acquiring of ability ; and no further; except as a 

 source of mental pleasure to the individual. It is ability 

 that makes itself to be felt by society ; it is ability that 

 wields the sceptre over the human heart and the human in- 

 tellect. Now it is a great mistake to suppose that knowl- 

 edge imparts ability of course. It does, indeed, impart 

 ability of a certain kind; for by exercising the attention 



