HERO-WORSHIP OF THE FOREFATHERS. 493 



to all comers. College expenses in this State average 

 from 150 to 200 dollars a-year, of which about 50 dollars 

 are paid in fees. If these fees were paid out of a public 

 tax, the expense of university education would be dimi 

 nished from one-fourth to one-third. But the result of 

 this reduction would not necessarily be to increase the 

 number of students. Dr Wayland has rendered it exceed 

 ingly probable I may say, has almost demonstrated 

 that the cause of the falling off in the number of students 

 in the New England universities is not the expense 

 incurred, but the inadequacy, in kind, of the instruction 

 given in these institutions to meet the more pressing 

 wants of a people advancing rapidly in all the arts of life. 



Without desiring in any way to lessen the merits of 

 the Massachusetts school-system, and of the people of the 

 State in adopting and supporting it, there is one historical 

 fact which ought to be borne in mind in treating of the 

 alleged originality of those who were the first to introduce 

 it. I have already adverted to the tendency to hero-wor 

 ship in the New Englanders, in reference to the pilgrim 

 fathers ; and to their habit of investing these men with 

 perfections, moral and intellectual, beyond their contem 

 poraries, to which they have in reality no claim. Un 

 familiar with the social condition of Europe in the times 

 of the Reformation, New England writers assume, that 

 whatever superiority in mental freedom and foresight 

 the first emigrants to North America exhibited beyond 

 the people at home as a whole, was their own especial 

 possession, and marked their individual superiority to 

 those whom they left behind. But they only brought 

 with them, in reality, a few of the ideas which for nearly 

 a century had been fermenting in the leading minds of 

 reforming Europe ; that is, ever since the first voices had 

 begun to be raised against Papal oppression. 



As to the general education of the whole people, for 

 example, all the leading Reformers were satisfied that it 



