:Y2 Clinton's introductory discourse. 



number of families in this city to be two thousand, and the number 

 of physicians to be forty, which would make one physician for every 

 fifty families ; and he further stated that he could show, by " probable 

 arguments, that more lives are destroyed in this city by pretended phy- 

 sicians, than by all other causes whatever."* Nor was the profession of 

 the law on a more respectable footing. As there was no distinction of 

 degrees, the attorney and the counsellor were blended together, and the 

 profession was disgraced by the admission of men not only of the 

 meanest abilities, but of the lowest employments. 



While the theological profession exhibited a more respectable appear- 

 ance from the transatlantic education of many of our divines, the state 

 of our seminaries of learning displayed a most humiliating spectacle. 

 " Our schools," says the colonial historian, " are in the lowest order. 

 The instructors want instruction, and through a long, shameful neglect 

 of all the arts and sciences, our common speech is extremely corrupt, 

 and the evidences of a bad taste, both in thought and language, are visi- 

 ble in all our pioceedings, public and private:" and, at that time, there 

 were instances of some magistrates who were totally ignorant of the first 

 rudiments of instruction. 



Amidst the intellectual darkness which covered the land, some corrus- 

 cations of light were to be seen darting through the gloom. A prolific soil 

 and an enterprising spirit had, in some degree, surmounted the disad- 

 vantages of a colonial state, and the general ease and plenty which pre- 

 vailed through the province called off the attention of many from the 

 pursuits of laborious occupations to the cultivation of the mind. The 

 value of education was estimated as the privation of it was experienced, 

 and many young men were sent to the colleges of the eastern colonies. 



'• Independent Reflector. 



