My views touching the modes, in which the best results of education are to be obtained, whether just or erroneous, have at least the advantage of being entirely practical. I am sufficiently convinced, that there must be an adequate and happy organization and mental development, without which no education, however wise and assiduous, will ever effect anything more, than mediocrity of character and acquirement. In the present state of public opinion, as great mistakes are made by expecting too much from the training of schools, as were formerly committed by attempting too little. The opulent, and people in the higher walks especially, are tempted by their condition to believe, that wealth and distinction can purchase, and even command mind, and that cultivation of it, by which more enlarged and distinguished minds differ from the common measure of intellect; a mistake, than which no other is more universally, and palpably taught by every day’s experience. The Author of our being reserves, and will never impart his own high prerogative, to bestow mind; and he as often dispenses the noblest and richest endowment of it in the lower, as in the upper walks of life; though, as we have seen, he has indicated, in the order of nature, a process of unlimited improvement of organization and endowment.