CHAPTER XII. 



Boston, Popular Education, continued. Patronage of Universities and 

 Science. Channing on Milton. Milton s Scheme of teaching the Nat 

 ural Sciences. New England Free Schools. Their Origin. First 

 Puritan Settlers not illiterate. Sincerity of their Religious Faith. 

 Schools founded in Seventeenth Century in Massachusetts. Discouraged 

 in Virginia. Sir W. Berkeley s Letter. Pastor Robinson s Views of 

 Progress in Religion. Organization of Congregational Churches. No 

 Penalties for Dissent. Provision made for future Variations in Creeds. 

 Mode of Working exemplified. Impossibility of concealing Truths 

 relating to Religion from an educated Population. Gain to the Higher 

 Classes, especially the Clergy. New Theological Colleges. The Lower 

 Orders not rendered indolent, discontented, or irreligious by Education. 

 Peculiar Stimulus to Popular Instruction in the United States. 



IT was naturally to be apprehended that, in a pure democracy, 

 or where the suffrage is nearly universal, the patronage of the 

 state would be almost entirely confined to providing means for 

 mere primary education, such as reading, writing-, and ciphering. 

 But such is not the case in Massachusetts, although the annual 

 grants made to the three universities of Harvard, Amherst, and 

 Williams, are now becoming inadequate to the growing wants 

 of a more advanced community, and strenuous exertions are 

 making to enlarge them. In the mean time, private bequests 

 and donations have of late years poured in upon Harvard Uni 

 versity from year to year, some of them on a truly munificent 

 scale. Since my first visit to Cambridge, professorships of bot 

 any, comparative anatomy, and chemistry have been founded. 

 There was previously a considerable staff for the teaching of 

 literature, law, and medicine ; and lately an entire new depart 

 ment for engineering, natural philosophy, chemistry, geology, 

 mineralogy, and natural history, in their application to the arts, 

 has been instituted. One individual, Mr. Abbott Lawrence, a 

 gentleman still in the prime of life, has contributed no less a 

 sum than 100,000 dollars 20,000 guineas) toward the support 



