228 SELECTIONS FROM ADDRESSES. 



endowed with perpetual life, and with the capacity of unlimited 

 accumulation, in many of the corporations of which I am speak- 

 ing. The income which supports these institutions, however la- 

 tent and imperceptible the channel through which it flows, is 

 drawn, in its original source, from the earnings of labor. Much 

 of this income, without doubt, is devoted to useful purposes, but 

 much is worse than wasted, so far as the producing classes are 

 concerned, by creating an excess in the non-producing classes, 

 to live on the producers. The practical tendency of these high- 

 er seminaries, as they are now constituted, supported, and con- 

 ducted, seems to be to increase to an undesirable extent the pro- 

 fessional and non-producing classes. In these remarks, it is not 

 intended to disparage the learned professions. In the refined and 

 complicated relations of society of this age. the professional pur- 

 suits seem a necessary part of the social machinery, and the 

 labor of the mere literary man is no doubt beneficial in refining 

 the public taste ; in acquiring and diffusing general knowledge. 

 The evil most heavily felt, is from an excess of the professional 

 and non-producing classes, who are not only educated, but must 

 be supported, from the earnings of the wealth-producing por- 

 tions of the community. 



Man is the creature of circumstances, and is often compelled, 

 against his better judgment, to yield to the influences which 

 surround him. Replace the individual members of these pro- 

 fessions with others of the community, and the result would not 

 be materially different. Man, under like circumstances, acts 

 alike ; and to change his actions, you must change the systems 

 which influence and control him. The learned professions, in 

 themselves, are not objectionable, but needful, in the present 

 condition of society ; but the systems which entice too many 

 into these classes, and thus, as it were, force them to live on 

 abuses, require a rigid revision. In doing this, there can be no 

 desire or design to suppress the higher seminaries of learning ; no 

 wish to close your asylums and hospitals; no purpose to over- 

 turn your churches ; but to reform and make more useful insti- 

 tutions, in themselves good, but which are now, it is believed, 

 sustained, to a greater or less extent, by a needless, excessive 

 and unprofitable drain from labor. With a less number in the 



