ON SCHOOLS, &c. 



banifhcd from this common republic. Men of 

 great and refined talents are every where fcarce. 

 But to attribute to certain climates an exclufive 

 faculty of producing beautiful poems or paint- 

 ings, is a capricious notion, repugnant to reafon, 

 and daily contradifted by experience. Literary 

 focieties act very wifely, therefore, in admitting 

 men of ability, of every country, to be ailbciated 

 with them. 



X. Academies^ in the laft place, are learned 

 communities, inflituted by fovereigns, to im- 

 prove, encourage, and recompenfe thofe who 

 have diflinguimed themfelves in the republic of 

 letters, and excel in the arts and fciences. Theie 

 eftablithments are not intended to inftruct the 

 ignorant, but to improve the learned, to pro- 

 mote the further advancement of letters, and of 

 the arts , and to reward thofe who therein excel. 

 To be admitted to the honour of bemg a mem- 

 ber of a renowned academy, is to be crowned 

 with the laurels of Apollo : it is to obtain the 

 blue ribbon in the republic of letters. The 

 royal academy of fciences at Paris, inftituted for 

 the cultivation of natural philofophy, mathema- 

 tics and chymiftry : the French academy for 

 promoting the purity of that language : that of 

 medals and infcriptions : the academies Delia 

 Crtefca and Del Cimcnto at Florence : the royal 

 Vmy of fciences and belles lettres at Berlin, 

 which was projected by the renowned Leibnitz, 

 and founded and perfected by king Frede ric ; 



and 



