Nations lately become Literary. 405 



Cmisite for completing a course of instruction, as 

 to render it necessary wholly to dispense with, or 

 lightly to hurry over, some of the most important 

 branches of knowledge. Accordingly, in some of 

 these institutions, Mathematical Science is unpo- 

 pular, and the acquisition of as little as possible 

 especially of the higher branches of it, enjoined on 

 the student. In others, Classic literature, and es- 

 pecially the Greek language, 6 is in low estimation, 

 and not more studied than is indispensibly neces- 

 sary to obtaining a diploma. If well bred scho- 

 lars ever issue from such Seminaries, they must be 

 formed by a degree of private and individual ap- 

 plication rarely to be met with in youth. 



2. Want of Leisure. The comparatively equal 

 distribution of property in America, while it pro- 

 duces the most benign political and moral effects, 

 is by no means friendly to great acquisitions in 

 literature and science. In such a state of Society, 

 there can be few persons of leisure. It is neces- 

 sary that almost all should be engaged in some 

 active pursuit. Accordingly, in the United States, 

 the greater number of those who pass through a 

 course of what is called liberal education, in the 

 hurried manner w T hich has been mentioned, en- 

 gage, immediately after leaving College, in the 

 study or business to which they propose to devote 

 themselves. Having run over the preliminary steps 

 of instruction in this business, probably in a man- 

 ner no less hurried and superficial than their acade- 

 mic studies, they instantly commence its practical 

 pursuit; and are, perhaps, during the remainder of 

 life, consigned to a daily toil for support, which 

 precludes them from reading, and especially from 

 gaining much knowledge out of their particular 



b In some American Colleges, we are told that no more knowledge of 

 Greek is required in those who graduate Bachelor of Arts, than that which 

 fciav be derived from the Grammar and the Greek Testament. 



