by the mutations of our corporeal frame, and undestroyed by the
wreck of the material universe.



ESSAY II.
OF THE DISTRIBUTION OF TALENTS.

{Greek - omitted} Thucydides, Lib.I, cap. 84.

SECTION I.

PRESUMED DEARTH OF INTELLECTUAL POWER.--SCHOOLS FOR THE EDUCATION
OF YOUTH CONSIDERED.--THE BOY AND THE MAN COMPARED.

One of the earliest judgments that is usually made by those whose
attention is turned to the characters of men in the social state,
is of the great inequality with which the gifts of the
understanding are distributed among us.

Go into a miscellaneous society; sit down at table with ten or
twelve men; repair to a club where as many are assembled in an
evening to relax from the toils of the day--it is almost
proverbial, that one or two of these persons will perhaps be
brilliant, and the rest "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable."

Go into a numerous school--the case will be still more striking.
I have been present where two men of superior endowments
endeavoured to enter into a calculation on the subject; and they
agreed that there was not above one boy in a hundred, who would