332 WRITINGS OP JOSEPH HENRY. [1854 



to bear in the market of the world. He asks that the literary 

 product of the foreigner may be paid for in order that justice 

 may be done his brother, and also that he himself may re- 

 receive a proper remuneration for his own labors. Would 

 there be any manufactories of cloth, think you, in this 

 country if the tailor had the means and inclination to pro- 

 cure free of cost all the material of the garments which he 

 supplies to his customers? And can it be supposed that 

 valuable literary works will be produced among us so long 

 as our publishers are allowed to appropriate without re- 

 muneration the labors of the foreigner? The want of an 

 international copyright law has, I know, produced a very 

 unfavorable effect upon higher education in this country. 

 It has prevented the preparation of text-books better suited 

 to the state of education among us than those which are 

 republished from abroad and adopted in many of our insti- 

 tutions of learning. 



Another result of the wide diffusion of elementary knowl- 

 edge without a proper cultivation of the higher intellectual 

 faculties, and an inculcation of generous and unselfish 

 principles, is the inordinate desire for wealth. To acquire 

 power and notoriety in this way requires the least possible 

 amount of talents and intelligence, and yet success in this 

 line is applauded, even if obtained by a rigid application of 

 the dishonest maxim that "all is fair in trade. '^ We have a 

 notable example of this fact in the autobiography of an 

 individual who glories in his shame and unblushingly de- 

 scribes the means by which he has defrauded the public. 

 No one who has been called upon to disburse public money 

 can have failed to be astonished at the loose morality on the 

 part of those who present claims for liquidation. The old 

 proverb here is very generally applied, namely, "the public 

 is a goose, and he is a fool who does not pluck a feather ! " A 

 full treasury, instead of being considered a desirable or 

 healthy state of the nation, should be regarded as the pre- 

 cursor of a diseased condition of the public morals. That 

 the tendencies which I have mentioned do to a greater or 

 less extent exist, and that they require the serious consider- 



