42 LIFE OF BENJAMIN SILLIMAN. 



an amusement in place of deer or partridge hunting, con- 

 sidering mineralogy and geology as the sciences most ap- 

 plicable to useful practical purposes, but, like most of the 

 things of the greatest utility, neglected, having long given 

 up all idea of changing the opinions of man as a labor far 

 above my abilities. I have been endeavoring, for some 

 twenty years, to change the education of children, and 

 stumbled by accident about eighteen years ago on the 

 school of Pestalozzi in Switzerland, which subserved the 

 useful purposes that I had formed to myself of a rational 

 education. I have been ever since doing something towards 

 propagating and improving the scheme, and the success in 

 the fruits are more than I expected ; for it has won some of 

 the most promising young men in our country, such as 

 Henry Sybert, &c., &c., but has not been able to penetrate 

 deep into the crust of prejudices which is early interwoven 

 with our self-love, so as to make the greatest part of man- 

 kind jealous and inveterate enemies of any system that 

 gives knowledge on cheaper terms than they themselves 

 paid for it ; though I have little doubt that in time some 

 such system will generally prevail in our country, where the 

 power, being in the hands of the people, through the medium 

 of our popular governments, renders a diffusion of knowl- 

 edge necessary to the support of freedom, and of course the 

 necessity of an almost equal division of both property and 

 knowledge, which the advantages given to those who can 

 afford to send their sons to colleges very naturally counter- 

 acts. In the letter enclosed in the small box of lavas, you 

 will receive four of my political essays translated into 

 Spanish, by which you will perceive the consequence I 

 attach to an almost equal division of property, knowledge, 

 and power, as the only firm foundation of freedom which 

 includes the happiness of mankind. The disgraceful ignor- 

 ance of the higher orders in this country * is the most for- 

 tunate circumstance in favor of the freedom of the Spanish 



* Spain. F. 



