388 NATURAL AND CIVIL, 



opposes with obstinacy, all improvements in 

 society ; and requires, with a peculiar insolence 

 the submission of all other men, to its own 

 weakness and bigotry. The only remedy for 

 the difficulties which arise in society, from this 

 cause, is the increase of knowledge and educa- 

 tion. And where society is destitute of the 

 means and institutions, which are requisite to 

 promote knowledge, it is without one of its 

 most essential advantages ; the means of her 

 own cultivation, and improvement. 



The education of children for the common 

 business of life, is well attended to. But the 

 customary methods of education lor the profes- 

 sions of divinity, law, or physic, are extremely 

 deficient 5 and do not promise either eminence, 

 or improvement. The body of the people seem 

 to be more sensible of this defect, than profes- 

 sional men themselves. P>om the first assump- 

 tion of the powers of government, the assembly 

 had in contemplation, the establishment of an 

 university in the state ; and with this view, re- 

 served one right of land in all the townships 

 which they granted, for the use of such a sem- 

 inary. In November, 1791, the legislature 

 passed an act establishing the university at 

 Burlington, upon a liberal, catholic, and judi- 

 cious foundation. It has not, as yet, entered 

 upon the business of instruction. If it should 

 be furnished with able and judicious instructors, 

 by extending the benefits of education, and pro- 

 moting an attention to the arts and sciences, it 

 would greatly assist the intellectual and moral 

 improvementof the people: These improvements 

 are of essential importance to men, in every 



