(that we may take the lowest term of national welfare;) and that they can
be content to rest that security on expedients which, in keeping the
people in order, make them no wiser or better. It would truly be a
glorious change in our history, if we might at length see the national
power wielded by enlightened, virtuous, and energetic spirits, not only to
the bare effect of withstanding disorder and danger, but in a resolute,
invincible determination to redeem us from the national ignominy of
exhibiting to the world, far in the nineteenth century, a rude,
unprincipled, semi-barbarous populace.

Thus far the hopes which had flattered us with such a change, as a
consequence of a political movement so considerable as to be denominated a
revolution, have been grievously disappointed. We must wait, but with
prognostics little encouraging, to see whether a professed concern for
popular education will result in any effective scheme. That profession has
hitherto been followed up with so little appearance of earnest conviction,
or of high and comprehensive purpose, among the majority of the
influential persons who, perhaps for decorum's sake, have made it, as to
leave cause for apprehension that, if any such scheme were to be proposed,
it would be in the first instance very limited in its compass, indecisive
in its enforcement, and niggardly in its pecuniary appointments. Many of
our legislators have never thought of investigating the condition of the
people, and are unaware of their deplorable destitution of all mental
cultivation; and many have formed but a low and indistinct estimate of the
kind and measure of cultivation desirable to be imparted. Very slowly does
the conviction or the desire make its way among the favorites of fortune,
that the portion of humanity so far below them should be raised to the
highest mental condition compatible with the limitation and duties of
their subordinate allotment.