340 UPON US IN GEEAT BRITAIN. 



in the recognition of the rights of humanity, and a 

 regard to the advancement of the human race as a 

 modifying influence in all international concerns. As 

 respects these lines of advance, our example will have 

 its weight with them. On the other hand, there are 

 lines of social and internal progress, upon which they 

 have far outstripped us, but along which their example 

 will in like manner hasten the forward movement among 

 ourselves. These are chiefly such as with us are more 

 or less obstructed by old habits, customs, vested rights 

 grown up under ancient laws, and other hindrances, 

 which in a new country are unknown. 



Now, among the most important of such changes 

 which have taken place in the United States since their 

 separation from Great Britain, I may enumerate first, 

 The extension given to the popular or democratic 

 element in the management of public affairs, involving 

 the abolition of the law of primogeniture, and the shift 

 ing of political power from property to numbers. Second, 

 the equalisation of all religious sects in the eye of the 

 law, and a general comparative lowering of the social 

 status of what in Europe are regarded as the more 

 favoured classes of the clerical profession. Third, a 

 provision, at least in the free States, for the general 

 secular education of all classes in the common schools, 

 and for the higher education of the more aspiring in 

 numerous academies and colleges. This provision, by 

 making a certain amount of learning general, and the 

 attainment of more very cheap, has taken from 

 moderate learning the moral weight and veneration 

 which, among less instructed nations, has hitherto 

 attended it, and has placed the learned professions, 

 generally, in a lower relative social position than they 

 occupy even among ourselves. 



Certain movements in these several directions have 

 been made in our institutions also, in regard to the value 



