a future state, as the bravest and most upright of the Thracian nations. And Juvenal ascribes the horrible depravity of the age to the reigning infidelity which had exploded from the public creed the Stygian Lake, and other terrors of the ancient mythology.

The Christian religion, armed with power, endowed with light fortified by truth, and revealed by God, foretold in the prophecies, attested by miracles, sealed with the blood of the saints, and sublimed by the morality of Heaven, is thus presented to man, exhibiting him in a state of probation, and enforcing his good conduct in this transitory state in order to secure his felicity in the regions of eternal bliss. It places what Archimedes wanted, the lever of power on another and a better world, and controls all the operations of man in union with the prescriptions of Divine love.

Feeble and imperfect as this view is, it notwithstanding presents powerful inducements to encourage your animated perseverance and redouble exertions in the cause of philanthropy and religion. Institutions like this unite in the bonds of friendship and charity all their cultivators, without regard to kindred, sect, tongue, or nation. In this place an altar is erected to concord-peace is declared among the most discordant sects-and the parti-colored coat of Joseph is exchanged for the seamless garment of Christ; and in such a holy cause, be assured that the visitations of Divine approbation will attend your proceedings that opposition will prove like the struggles of a river with the ocean-and that although mountains of sophistry may be piled on mountains of invective, like Ossa on Pelion, yet that all such attempts will terminate like the fabled wars of the Titans, and can never prevail against truth and Heaven.

Free Schools.

1809.

The cause of popular education was ever near to the heart of Mr. CLINTON. He was an early friend of the Free Schools, and was President of the Society, and delivered the following address to the benefactors and friends of the Society in the city of New York, on the 11th of December, 1809. The occasion was "the opening of that Institution in their new and spacious building." It will be remembered that he was at this period Mayor of the city of New York. In connection with this address, it may be interesting to give an extract from the last Message of Gov. Clinton to the Legislature, 1st January, 1828. In the following address, and in the message, the subject of classical or collegiate education for the most promising and talented of the children of poor parents is considered and earnestly recommended.

Thus in his Message, he says:-"Permit me to solicit your attention to the two extremes of education, the highest and the lowest; and this I do in order to promote the cultivation of those whom nature has gifted with genius, but to whom fortune has denied the means of education. Let it be our ambition (and no ambition can be more laudable), to dispense to the obscure, the poor, the humble, the friendless, and the distressed, the power of rising to usefulness and acquiring distinction. With this view, provision ought to be made for the gratuitous education in our Colleges of youth eminent for the talents they have displayed, and the virtues they have cultivated in the subordinate Semi

naries. This would call into activity all the faculties of genius; -all the efforts of industry, all the incentives to ambition, and all the motives to enterprize-and place the merits of transcendent intellect on a level, at least, with the factitious claims of fortune and ancestry."

The FREE ACADEMY in the city of New York, will accomplish this object. The following is the Address of 1809, above referred to:

Address.

On an occasion so interesting to this Institution, when it is about to assume a more respectable shape, and to acquire a spacious and permanent habitation, it is no more than a becoming mark of attention to its patrons, benefactors and friends, assembled for the first time in this place, to delineate its origin, its progress, and its present situation. The station which I occupy in this Associa tion, and the request of my much respected colleagues, have devolved this task upon me-a task which I should perform with unmingled pleasure if my avocations had afforded me time to execute it with fidelity. And I trust that the humble objects of your bounty, presented this day to your view, will not detract from the solemnity of the occasion-" That ambition will not mock our useful toil, nor grandeur hear with a disdainful smile the simple annals of the poor."

In casting a view over the civilized world, we find an universal accordance in opinion on the benefits of education; but the practical exposition of this opinion exhibits a deplorable contrast. While magnificent Colleges and Universities are erected, and endowed, and dedicated to literature, we behold few liberal appropriations for diffusing

the blessings of knowledge among all descriptions of people. The fundamental error of Europe has been to confine the light of knowledge to the wealthy and the great, while the humble and the depressed have been as sedulously excluded from its participation as the wretched criminal, immured in a dungeon, is from the light of Heaven. This cardinal mistake is not only to be found in the institutions of the old world and in the condition of its inhabitants, but it is to be seen in most of the books which have been written on the subject of education. The celebrated Locke, whose treatises on government and the human understanding have covered him with immortal glo. ry, devoted the powers of his mighty intellect, to the elucidation of education-but in the very threshold of his book, we discover this radical error-his treatise is professedly intended for the children of gentlemen. "If those of that rank (says he), are by their education once set right, they will quickly bring all the rest in order;" and he appears to consider the education of other children as of little importance. The consequence of this monstrous heresy has been, that ignorance, the prolific parent of every crime and vice, has predominated over the great body of the people, and a corresponding moral debasement has prevailed. "Man differs more from man, than man from beast," says a writer, once celebrated. This remark, however generally false, will certainly apply with great force to a man in a state of high mental cultivation and man in a state of extreme ignorance.

This view of human nature is indeed calculated to excite the most painful feelings; and it entirely originates from a consideration of the predominating error which I have exposed. To this source must the crimes and ca

* Montaigne's Essays.

lamities of the old world be principally imputed. Ignorance is the cause as well as the effect of bad governments, and without the cultivation of our rational powers, we can entertain no just ideas of the obligations of moral ity or the excellencies of religion. Although England is justly renowned for its cultivation of the arts and sciences, and although the poor rates of that country exceed five millions sterling per annum, yet (I adopt the words of an eminent British writer), "there is no Protestant country where the education of the poor has been so grossly and infamously neglected as in England."* If onetenth part of that sum had been applied to the education of the poor, the blessings of order, knowledge, and innocence would have been diffused among them, the evil would have been attacked at the fountain head, and a total revolution would have taken place in the habits and lives of the people, favorable to the cause of industry, good morals, good order, and rational religion.

More just and rational views have been entertained on this subject in the United States. Here, no privileged orders-no factitious distinctions in society-no hereditary nobility-no established religion-no royal prerogatives exist, to interpose barriers between the people, and to create distinct classifications in society. All men being considered as enjoying an equality of rights, the propriety and necessity of dispensing, without distinction, the blessings of education, followed of course. In New England the greatest attention has been invariably given to this important object. In Connecticut, particularly, the schools are supported at least three-fourths of the year by the interest of a very large fund created for that purpose, and a small tax on the people; the whole amounting to seventy-eight * Edinburgh Review.