lower orders degraded to the last state of savage stupidity; and if this were done, we forget that such materials must yield to seduction, and artifice, as well as to the mandates of lawful empire ;-but the particular kind of ignorance such reasoners want, is an ignorance tranquil and submissive to its rulers; and full of active intelligence against those who would mislead it from its duty-an ignorance, which it would, by no means, be desirable to diffuse, if it were possible.

The situation of the poor, in this country, is, with a very few exceptions, perhaps, as good as human nature will permit; upon the number of understandings on which this truth can be impressed, the stability of the times essentially depends;-if, then, we have placed our happiness on the eternal foundations of justice; and if there is a rock beneath our feet, as firm as adamant, and as deep as the roots of the earth, how foolish to rest it upon the crumbling, and treacherous soil of ignorance, which every wind can disperse, and every flood can wash away.

I by no means contend, that the government which commands them can have nothing to fear from a people among whom education is widely diffused, because it is idle to say, that a government is ever completely out of all danger, from the madness of any people; but I say there is always less to fear from a people whom you have educated in the gospel, and to whom you imparted also some degree of human knowledge, than from any other people:-If such a people imagine a vain thing in their heart, they are soon called back to duty;-their repentance is speedy, and their excesses are light;-but when a human being rises up against us whom we have degraded to the state of a brute, he rises up against us, as that being would to which we have likened him,-to diffuse slaughter and destruction wherever he bends his steps.

Nothing brutalises human faculties more than the extreme division of labor; and this division, invaluable to commerce, and industry, is carried to such a height in this country, that it calls, imperiously, for the corrective of education. We

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are to remember the counteracting power gained by the increased knowledge of their superiors in rank;-all other classes have gained the good to be gained by education; to impart it to this, is not to violate the proportion of the machine, but to maintain it;-to be brief, these are the principles which have always guided the conductors of this charity in the long course of care, and attention, which they have paid to the education of the deserted poor, beginning at the earliest infancy, and ending as you now see it end.-Speaking for them, and thinking with them, I say, we believe, that the labour of the poor is founded upon their wants;-that God has commanded us to breed them up diligently in the gospel; -that the knowledge we are imparting to them, will protect them from that vice which proceeds from idleness;-that it will soften the hard heart, and teach them to respect wisdom more than strength. We are encouraged by all that has been done before, for the propagation of knowledge, and we feel all that confidence which results from experience; we are convinced there is less toil in teaching duties than in punishing

crimes; we think we are bettering all faculties, inspiring vigorous industry, and valuable enterprise, and giving to great understandings a fair range of action. of action. We think the more employment is simplified, the more the mind of man is degraded, and education rendered necessary, and we know that in spreading the word of God, and the mercies of Jesus Christ, we are conferring the most exalted blessings on the poor;-lastly, always, and at all times, we reject ignorance as a dangerous, and disgraceful auxiliary, and we say, with the great prophet, on knowledge, and on wisdom, the stability of the times shall rest.