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their fostering care. Men were found who entered on 

 it with ardor and alacrity. Not many years after their 

 appointment, I have seen on their minutes, repeated no- 

 tices of the subject of Common Schools, and they ear- 

 nestly solicited the legislature to give them that stability 

 and increase which our subsequent School Fund has been 

 the means of accomplishing. In the establishment of 

 Colleges and Academies, they looked to the endowment 

 that was bestowed. They understood not the doctrine of 

 political economy, that literary institutions will flourish 

 most, when altogether dependent on temporary and fluc- 

 tuating support. It is well stated by Dr. Chalmers, and 

 did I not fear to appear arrogant, I would say, conclu- 

 sively argued by him, that there are some institutions in 

 every enlightened country which cannot be safely left 

 unprotected.* The intelligent may and do see the want 

 of education; they understand perfectly, that each en- 

 dowment is more for the benefit of those in middling cir- 

 cumstances, and the poor, than for the richj and they 

 are aware, as all must be, who look at the subject, that 

 education will be neglected, if the state does not inter- 

 fere to nourish it, to raise its standard, and to encour- 

 age its servants. 



With such views, in advance at every step of existing 

 establishments of education, we may point to the labors 

 of many members of the board. Among general objects 

 to be effected through the medium of the institutions of 

 which he was a governor, there were two, on which Mr. 

 De Witt had long pondered, and both of which he suc- 

 ceeded within the last ten years in maturing. One was 

 to require from every academy a series of meteorological 

 observations, including the temperature, the quantity of 

 rain, the progress of vegetation, and indeed a notice of 

 all the phenomena that constitute peculiarity of climate. 

 No field could be better calculated for enquiry. Ex- 

 tending over four degress of latitude and seven of lon- 

 gitude, and re aching from the Atlantic to the lakes, our 

 ' See Chalmers on Endowments. 



