AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 77 



eye, in the family, until he is prepared for the world, and the 

 handing him over to an asylum to be dealt with as one of many 

 bantlings, and so be introduced into society. Now the report was 

 neither a piece of cotton nor linen, nor a bantling of flesh and 

 blood and mind. The figures could both be pictured, and there- 

 fore, according to Blair, were good figures — but neither of them 

 proved anything. 



Let us, now, for awhile, study some of the prominent institu- 

 tions of education and improvement in science and the arts, and 

 consider the wants of which they are the exponents. 

 Schools, Jlcademies, Colleges. 



At the basis of the whole — sunk deep in the national soil- — 

 below, as I doubt not, the reach of every frost — are the common 

 schools, common to all as a rule- Neglected in some parts of our 

 country, and worthy of the other sense of the word common, but 

 generally appreciated, and, having employed some of the best 

 minds in their organization and advancement— I feel a profound 

 conviction that no substitute for these schools, adapted to the 

 wants of society in the United States, can be found; and that they 

 should be fostered and improved, until they supersede all other 

 establishments of their grade. Neither private education, nor 

 that by associations, either religious or charitable, can take the 

 place of general public education. Where the public schools are 

 not as good as the private ones, these institutions have not sup- 

 plied the want of which they are the index, and require further 

 development. The public schools should be the best schools-— 

 the- training in them the most thorough that can be had anywhere. 



Above these schools, adapted to a diiferent age, comes the 

 academy, or high school, or college. Over a large portion of the 

 country, these institutions, representing the want of a culture of 

 a higher grade, and addressed to a more advanced age than the 

 common schools, have no connection with the former. In some 

 parts, I fear, there is almost antagonism in their positions. When 

 this is so, will not the good and. patriotic seek to devise a remedy 

 for so unhappy a state of things % As the rivers are fed by the 

 streams from the mountain-side, or the hill-side, or the gently 

 sloping plain, collecting the drainage of the whole land, so should 



