No. 216.] 471 



When the mind takes an enlarged and calm review of the rude 

 manners and warlike customs of our ancestors, it is irresistably 

 drawn to the conclusion, that they were ignorant of this healthy and 

 ennobling art; and their bloody and superstitious traditions are a 

 sickening evidence of their frigid indifference to the other hand-maid 

 occupations. 



For glance at the history of by-gone ages, and you will find it 

 replete with those terrible national scourges, war, pestilence and 

 famine. 



How could agriculture, amidst the fierce and continued storms of 

 turbulence and barbarous conflicts, have other than a crippled and 

 dwarfish growth? In the dark ages, when the baronial chief isolated 

 himself in his lofty and impregnable castle, bidding defiance to the 

 haughty foe, the enemy was marauding the defenceless vassals, the 

 poor and degraded populace whose persons were exposed to the most 

 humiliating insults, and heaven's image was marred by a system of 

 debasing and fickle slavery. Here all was insecurity or the feverish 

 sense of insecurity — no protection to the hungry mechanic or stinted 

 husbandman. For rapacity ever stood ready to prowl on their pre- 

 carious and meagre accumulations, while famine followed in the train, 

 drying up every spring of industry. 



The revival of letters dispelled by degrees the gloom and dark- 

 ness which for centuries had shrouded Europe; and the clergy who 

 then monopolised almost all the learning deposited in the penetralia 

 of cloisters and monasteries, established' those universities, and foun- 

 ded those colleges, which gave an immense stimulus to literary tal- 

 ent, and trained the youth in that knowledge which was calculated 

 to build and adorn their order. The sowing the seeds of Roman 

 and Grecian literature, in the soil of those nascent seats of knowl- 

 edge, gradually caused a healthy growth of those elements of general 

 and useful education to spring into life which have contributed so 

 much to improve and exalt our species. 



A sacred obedience to law framed in the spirit of equal protec- 

 tion and liberty to all, order reigning triumphant over the selfish 

 passions of our nature, a laborious and comprehensive induction, and 

 free discussion, are the rich triumphs of modern -improvement. 



We make no crusade against liberal education, nor do we feel like 

 those, who think they snuff something in its influence, tainted and 



