think, to talk, and to act. I say, the people; because if this subject shall ever take a spring, I believe the impulse must come from them. SEQUEL OF MY FRIEND LOVETRUTH'S COMMUNICA TION. The perusal of this letter added to the sympathy which already glowed in my breast. " Melmoth, said I, whether thy gloomy forebodings be, alas! too well grounded; whether thou mayest still live to see thy Edward in the maturity of manly perfection, in the dignity of active worth, and social usefulness, I lament, profoundly lament, with him, and with thee, the shameful, the wretched destitution to which our youth is surrendered; a destitution which either neutralizes and annihilates every principle of native mental energy, or tears our sons from our fond bosoms, and from the lap of their country, to send them where, they find, it is true, rich and vigorous shoots of science, but where rank weeds of political error spring up in their path, with equal luxuriancy "Melmoth was now less agitated; his countenance bespoke, not the absence of feeling, but manly fortitude, and christian resignation. "Lovetruth, (replied he; in a deeply impressive tone,) as a citizen, as a father, I have always deemed this a pre-eminently important subject; even now its magnitude presses on my mind, with increased force. My eyes view, perhaps for the last time, this map of Virginia; here is a state that was foremost in our glorious revolutionary contest; a state, that has produced men whose very names are sufficient to infuse into us a generous pride, and dignified views; a state, swarming with a numerous youth, whose genius is in most cases, naturally strong, inquisitive, and bent upon improvement a state, whose gigantic advances in population, industry, commerce, and wealth, have led the philanthropist, and the patriot to expect, at least, some incipient exertion in favor of literature and science. Yet, what has been done for either? We call our children the blossoms, the hope of the republic; yet what fostering care is displayed by us, as a nation, to mature, those blossoms into fruit, and to realize that hope? Our apathy, with respect to them, is truly deplorable, it is mean, it is pitiful; it is treason against common sense, against humanity, against patriotism., An English monarch founded our only university, the munificence of the illustrious Washington has liberally endowed another institution; but I am considerably mistaken, or we cannot boast of having erected, on the basis, of national patrou age, even a single school, where children my learn to read, to write, to worship God, to honor their parents, and to love their country! "In the prolongation of this disgraceful torpor, of this mischievous apathy, several causes obviously concur. Some men have dared to assert, and pretend to believe, that knowledge is by no means an essential element of public virtue, public liberty, public happiness.-Others recognize, indeed, its friendly, its salutary influences; but, to whatever is suggested for its promotion, they oppose, as an insuperable obstacle, our want of national resources. -Others, again, desirous to elude the forcible appeal of the rising generation, point to the private establishments already in existence, and proclaim them fully adequate to our intellectual wants: nor are those wanting, whom petty jealousies, and local interests, deter from engaging in so hoble a cause. Finally, individuals are found among us, who, when driven to their last entrenchments, sneeringly enquire, What, then, are we to do? Where are those sublime conceptions, those regenerating plans, by which the resurrection of our moral character is to be accomplished?' "Oh! that my feeble voice might resound over the whole extent of Virginia! Its last accents would warn my countrymen against that miserable sophistry, that mischievous egotism, that low, creeping, inactive policy, which would contract, instead of enlarging our intellectual sphere, and paralyze, instead of vivifying our physical resources! But that voice shall be heard even when my earthly remains are mouldering in the silence of the grave. The press imparts wings to useful thoughts, stamps them with immortality; and like the sun, incessantly sheds torrents, of pure light and of genial heat, which must ultimately dispel the mists of error, and dissolve the icy ramparts, behind which ignorance and apathy intrench themselves. In this bureau, Lovetruth, thou wilt find a few essays written in my leisure hours, not with a view to literary fame, but from the nobler motive of diffusing beneficial truths. In one of these, I have endeavored to shew the intimate relations that link knowledge with the morals, the liberty, and the prosperity of nations. I there prove that, far froin being deficient in pecuniary means, we possess resources more than adequate to the desirable appropriations which I recommend; and that by the ostentatious votaries of fashion and luxury, nay, by those very economists, who affect so tender a respect for our purses, more money is lavished on frivolous, or culpable gratifications than would suffice to establish and main tain institutions of extensive and splendid usefulness. I, then, take a candid, an impartial view, of those schools which private exertions have raised, and which private patronage supports. I examine their defects, and demonstrate from the very nature of things, the utter impossibility of such establishments presenting to our youth a regular, systematic and sufficiently wide range of instruction. But even here I cheerfully pay a tribute of praise and gratitude to virtuous intentions and individual zeal. Truth holds, and candor guides the pencil; but philanthrophy and benevolence soften its austere tints. The petty objections of local interests are, next, tested in the crucible of justice, patriotism and sound policy: Their aggregate vanishes into thin vapors, and leaves no residuum.-Lastly, I propose a plan, which, like that of the human system, establishes a central point of vitality whence invigorating streams are conveyed to the extremities, and, in their course, feed and animate the various parts of the national body, whilst other streams, flowing in a contrary direction, supply the common source of intellectual life, with new elements, upon which its beneficial agency is incessantly exerted. Thus is the metropolis connected, for the purposes of instruction, with the various districts and Counties of the state. A board of education, under the control of the Legislature, and a national Press, for the diffusion of moral and physical knowledge, through all the classes of society, are primary objects in the plan alluded to. This Press, by discarding the useless pomp of typographical luxury, and by being devoted exclusively to works of general utility, would, without much expence to the state, disseminate among us the most valuable, the most prolific seeds of improvement and excellence. The departments of instruction, embraced by this plan, are founded upon the three principal ramifications of the human mind, pointed out by Lord Verulam, and the Encyclopedists, I mean, sentiment, reasoning and memory. Into the necessary details, I have fully entered.-Aware, however, that the progress even of salutary ideas is slow, and, indeed, imperceptible; that a considerable lapse of time, and a multiplied collision of opinions, must precede their triumph; desirous in the mean while-anxiously desirous, that something should be quickly done for the promotion of so noble a cause, I conclude by inviting our legislators to try, at least, those moral levers, the force of which was so well understood, and so successfully employed by the sages of antiquity. Woe, say I woe to those nations whose rulers think, that nothing grand, nothing transcendantly useful can be accomplished without gold! Whose chiefs do not know how to seize, how to vibrate the mysterious chords of the human heart! Were they founded upon gold; those civil and political institutions of Greece and of Rome, whose effects still astonish us?-The Olympic Wreathe was a single laurel; the Civic Crown, a bough of verdant oak. What supernatural influence, then, rendered both so desirable, so productive of sublime emulation, of efforts scarcely to be credited? Legislators, if your coffers are empty, have you no similar rewards to bestow? Have you no smile for virtue and science? no frown for vice and brutality? Cannot one solitary day of each legislative session be devoted to the rising generation, to those youths, so precious to our common country? Ah! what germs of native genius and worth might be developed by your parental care! In you, resides the majesty of the people; but you would become the images of God himself, upon earth, by ascending to such a height of creative wisdom and benificence !" The above, good Cecil, is the part of my last conversation with the worthy Melmoth, which I have thought not entirely foreign to thy purpose. Adieu; may God preserve thee for thy friends and thy Country. Cordially thine, TIM LOVETRUTH. I have several polite and obliging communications to acknowledge; some of them merely complimentary and others intended by their writers for publication. Of the latter, several seem to be written by very young men, who after a little more age and experience will be well qualied I doubt not, to amuse and instruct their readers. The objects of the Old Bacheler, however, are of great moment and require the vigor of maturer arms. I must beg my youthful correspondents to remember the admonition of Apollo to his son! Magna petis, Phaeton, et quæ non viribus istis L Number XIII. Auream quisquis mediocritatera Hor. Lib. II. Car, X. The man within the golden mean Where sordid want and sorrow dwell, Francia. I thank Heaven for no earthly blessing more than for this; that I was born with an equal and contented mind. It is incalculable from how much disappointment and vexation and misery, this single trait of character has saved me, Neither plodding avarice, nor wounded pride, ncr scheming ambition ever planted one thorn in my pillow, or troubled for an instant, that sweet and careless repose, that nightly sheds its poppies around my head. I thank Heaven too, that my native equanimity has been so happily exempted from disturbance by extraneous circumstances; that I have never experienced either that pang ofpoverty which, is, on all hands, admitted to be so dangerous to virtue, nor the equally dangerous impulse of redundant wealth. If I have been obscure, I have nevertheless been happy; at least, as much so as an Old Bachelor can be. Satisfied with the private station in which I was born, I have endeavored, to the utmost of my ability, to discharge the duties of it, and have never envied either Woolsey his dangerous honors, or Dives his damning gold. 1 take no credit to myself for these advantages; the orderly current of my blood and the happy mediocrity of my fortune are, alike, the free unmerited boon of Heaven. I dare say that many of my young readers, far from envying me either of these blessings, are ready, hereupon, tô denounce me, as a poor-spirited fellow; a drone who never felt the sting of genius; and this, I grant, is true. But they cannot justly reproach me with having been so dull and stupid in my youth, so prone to the low and beaten track of my ancestors as never to have paused to look around me; and to examine and compare the various routes through life which opened themselves to my view and courted my choice. Nor can they say, that I was so |