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tions be made to it, in money, books, apparatus, models or spe- 

 cimens; if funds are raised for it, whether for temporary or 

 permanent uses, by voluntary subscriptions, by lottery, or, as 

 in the case of the Albany Academy, by appropriations from a 

 city corporation — all this, be the amount in any given case 

 great or small, is endowment; and a httle reflection will satis- 

 fy every one how universal is the practice of endowment for 

 literary uses, as well in our own country as in every other. 



It is not therefore a question whether learning shall exist 

 with or without endowment. It will exist with it, or not at 

 all. It was the error of a great political economist to suppose 

 that the doctrine of demand and supply was apphcable to all 

 the dealings in knowledge, as it was to the trade in bread 

 stuffs and cotton fabrics. Before any such conclusion was 

 drawn, it should have been made to appear that there was 

 some analogy between the cases. If there was in the human 

 mind a natural appetency for knowledge, like that which ex- 

 ists in every man to supply his animal wants and to make 

 gain, a faculty which would educate itself and pursue its end 

 by the intelligent use of the most appropriate means, then in- 

 deed it might be concluded that it were better to treat learning 

 hke merchandize, and let it alone. But while it is fairly dis- 

 putable that any such distinct affection as a desire of know- 

 ledge exists ; while it cannot be shown that the mind feels any 

 original impulsion after knowledge, beyond what is observable 

 in the natural constitution of the particular powers fitted for 

 acquiring it, and which, like all the active faculties, are en- 

 larged and gratified by exercise, and are dormant without it; 

 and while it is certain that the ignorant and uninstructed can 

 not comprehend the higher uses or the true pleasures of know- 

 ledge, any more than the congenital blind can understand 

 colors, and are therefore not hkely to be drawn into the pur- 

 suit of it by any discovered charms in the subject itself, what 

 chance would there be, let me ask, for learning, if the cultiva- 

 tion of it must be left to be regulated only by the natural and 

 spontaneous demand? It should be enough to know, that no 

 system of education, for any grade or rank in life, in any age 

 <» land, has ever yet sustained itself, in the way in which a 



