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sary to all human institutions, and its effect will be much 

 augmented on such as are destined for scientific objects, 

 when they are connected either with the government, or 

 religion, or public education of a country. For it is the 

 object of all government to keep things as stable and 

 constant as possible, and though we have passed the age 

 when an increase of knowledge can be supposed to 

 threaten the safety of existing establishments, still the 

 spirit of philosophy which is constantly grasping at new 

 truths, suffers and is repressed when connected with in- 

 stitutions whose principles to be efficient must be consi- 

 dered as fixed. The mere object of association could 

 have been attained in the several universities, particular- 

 ly in the universities of Germany, which had long before 

 the reformation given a character to the public education 

 of their country. But as these were then clerical esta- 

 blishments, and the polemicks of these days not of the 

 most orderly character, they could hardly have offered an 

 adequate remedy to the evil of which we have spoken. 

 It was to be avoided in the organization of national 

 academies by keeping them disconnected from any domi- 

 nant or militant sect of religion, and as much as possi- 

 ble independent of the government. The vice which 

 rendered the schools and universities of the earlier times 

 unfit agents for the improvement of the sciences, had 

 been many years before distinguished by the illustrious 

 Bacon. And his description of it presents one of the 

 greatest evidences of the clearness, the purity, and the 

 depth of his perceptions. The passage is from the 

 Novum Organum,* and is so characteristic that I shall 

 be excused for quoting it at length: "In the customs 

 and institutions of schools, universities, colleges, and 

 the like conventions, destined for the seats of learned 

 men and the promotion of knowledge, all things are 

 found opposite to the advancement of the sciences; 

 for the readings and exercises are here so managed, that 

 It cannot easily come i nto any one's mind to think_^^ 

 ' Pwt 1, Sec. 5-90, 



