useful art or another, or promoting discoveries as applicable to the existing and growing occasions of the country; and in general pursuing the twofold object, of collecting and scattering knowledge.

"Knowledge is power," says the text of the day. It heads a discourse to at least one of our literary societies, in the South. Together with power, let us devoutly trust, and assure ourselves that, taken in a genuine sense, both the pursuit and the acquisition will, nay must, be happiness, seeing that, in relation to our national career, it may be said, the knowledge we aspire after is, how to curb and finally to expel the evil, which has been unguardedly suffered to gain a footing in this our world; and how best to cherish and promote the growth of good;—the good which, notwithstanding, we have providentially been permitted thus far to become possessed of, in no parsimonious degree; not physical alone, but, be it said with due acknowledgments, moral also.

And, reverting for a moment to public schools and primary instruction,-I would observe, that our comptrollers of these schools, and especially I speak of this one of the Pennsylvania districts, are of that description of persons who, taking a comprehensive survey of the subject, feel a conviction that ignorance, or obscurity of intellect prevailing among any of the orders of a community, not excepting the very lowest, is the great strength and stay of vice and depravity,

liberal information a necessary ground-work for incentives to virtue; and believe that, of all the preservative measures which society may adopt against the spread of vice, and in favour of the security and durability of the social establishments, no one can be so efficacious as that of universal education to a certain extent; they believe that in general, the several duties will be best performed, where best understood; where the understanding is most enlightened upon the true nature and tendency of them. Accordingly, actuated by this principle, their endeavours are not spared to induce parents and guardians of poor children, in all cases, to cause the proffered benefit to be availed of: and a course of instruction in useful elementary learning, with observances pointing directly to a future moral conduct, is ready to be imparted gratis, to every indigent child, of both sexes, without distinction of colour.

A fact, which I feel more than an ordinary degree of satisfaction in here taking notice of is, that in the city of Philadelphia, there has been instituted, by a coloured man of abilities, a society called "The African Literary Society," whose exercises consist in essaywriting and debating, and the Society is composed of thirty or forty members. They do not, it is true as yet, publish their transactions; nor do they, I am so informed, admit strangers to their debates. The name of the person alluded to, is Russell Parrott; and he is said to be preparing for the gospel ministry.*

*He is since dead.

You have now the subject fully and clearly before you; that is to say, fully as the same was within my own comprehension, and clearly as my mediocre qualifications have enabled me to spread it for your contemplation.

There is no danger of your mistaking some passages of what is written, for attempts at disquisition in the science of political economy. The occasion called not for it, had even my pen been qualified. With the exception of one evil, which indeed must be acknowledged to be burthensome, and to merit the most serious and persevering thoughts towards a discovery of proper means to counteract its tendencies, the circumstances of this country are happily such as not yet to call for the absolute determination of the seemingly intricate points which in some other countries have, of late years, occupied the pens of so many eminent writers on that science, and still occupy them most laudably. The modes of producing wealth in the nation, as things are at present here constituted, it would seem, are pretty thoroughly under

stood, and the distribution also has the appearance of going on, pretty nearly as might be wished. I mean by this, no more than to observe, that in the actual situation of the country, wealth does, by a natural and easy circulation, cheer and invigorate the system through all its ramifications of industry. It flows, as it were by a natural impulse, along and through the various channels thereof, apparently without obstruction or irregularity that hath need of any artificial interference. Nevertheless, be it remembered, that now is the nation's happy adolescence; and, although at present, so singularly happy as to have her tide of prosperity distributed with pure equality, and seemingly without an exertion; yet time must necessarily bring its changes, and one-day the powerful competition alone of a vast population, may, without other causes, possibly require all the ingenuity and energy of the statesman; all the philanthropy and disinterestedness of the patriot, with the aid, more and more, of positive institutions or enactments, to maintain and perpetuate so even a balance as that which now prevails, or the same clear and open avenues to wealth, and the happiness that wealth confers, throughout the community. And an unremitted study, therefore, of the principles of political economy, it is evidently of very high importance to us, should be followed up, and this noble science be examined and sifted to the very bottom. An accurate investigation into the principles of it, as they are to be traced and tested by continual observation

upon the circumstances of other nations, may furnish the most valuable conclusions, and these be to us, if we sedulously store them up, a real depot of wisdom, against the day that shall call for its salutary exercise.

What I have attempted is, too, for the best of reasons, still more remote from any attempt at analysis of government, or discussion of the particular merits, the particular defects, or excellencies of either of the three branches of our national administration, or their relationship one to another and to the whole. Disquisitions on these high points, and suggestions of modes for amending, improving, qualifying, and best adapting to a permanent end, must come from other quarters. Content am I with being one in the multitude of recipients and no more, for such portion of this kind of knowledge as opportunities happen to afford, coming, in the shape of judicious remarks, from the statesman the professional character or the man of genius. In the review I have taken, my business has rather been with the physical, moral, and intellectual capabilities of this great country, and with our national institutions taken in the aggregate; assuning for truth, the general excellence of the latter, in virtue of the experience had, down to the present day, of their effects; also the probable stability of the same as to essential outline and feature, in virtue of a matter-of-fact or two, which, relative to that topic, I have stated. And, in thus treating the great sub