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acts directly upon science, and has hitherto done so with 

 a beneficial influence; — and has been stimulated perhaps 

 to greater exertion, by the revolutions so frequent in 

 France, by the emulation growing out of its foreign con- 

 nections, and also by its relation to the military science 

 of the country, which since the time of Louis XIV., has 

 been collected in a species of military college at the de- 

 pot de la Guerre. 



The other European Academies resemble this, and dif- 

 fer from the English, in that they are connected with the 

 government, and even still more dependant upon the 

 bounty of their sovereigns, by whose mere authority they 

 have always been created. The distinction, therefore, 

 between the French and English, presents all that can 

 be interesting to us in considering similar establishments 



In our own country, though the public instruction be 

 in some cases under supervision, all other societies for 

 the promotion of literature have been entirely free; and if 

 as yet no one of them have arrived at such predominance 

 as to entitle it to the character, or enable it to perform 

 the functions of a National Academy, this has, perhaps, 

 arisen partly from the youth of the nation, which, con- 

 sidering only utility, discredits and discourages abstract 

 science; and may, perhaps, in some degree be attributed 

 to the prevalence of party spirit, which, though it may 

 be necessary to the safety of the'government, does by no 

 means tend to the advancement of knowledge. It affords 

 indeed much room for speculation, to think how any in- 

 stitution combining the strength of the science and litera- 

 ture of the whole country, shall first become accredited. 

 Whether the continued rivalry between free associations, 

 shall, in time, produce such excellence in one of them, 

 as to give it preponderance and authority; whether some 

 department of the government, having the management 

 of scientific projects may become virtually invested with 

 the functions of a National Academy: or, whether the 

 government, feeling, in this instance, its duty and interest 



