week to transact such business as appointing officers, making and repealing regulations, and inquiring into the state of the school. The teachers had a right of negative on their proceedings, but no direct and positive power. They could pardon, but they could assign no punishment, nor make laws inflicting any. Such institutions have succeeded for a time when the principal has possessed a sufficient share of generalship to enable him really to manage the institution himself, while the power has been left nominally in the hands of the boys. Should this not be the case, as Mr. Abbott judiciously remarks, and should the institution actually be surrendered into the hands of the boys, things must be on a very unstable footing. And, accordingly, even in republican America, wherever such a plan has been adopted, it has in every instance been abandoned, and a more aristocratic system established in its room.

Education in America is more general but less thorough and accurate than in England. At the same time, it seems to be well adapted to the present circumstances of the country, which require a practical knowledge of many subjects much more than profound scholarship in any single science. Almost every American is more or less a working man, dependent for subsistence upon his own exertions. Where all have something to do, a practical

education is in universal demand. Hence it is that the student in mathematics turns his attention to surveying, rather than to fluxions; because he contemplates the probability of deriving advantage from the survey of some portion of the vast American continent. The classical student aims at acquiring a knowledge of ancient languages, not so much that he may enjoy their beauties, as that he may become conversant with the ideas on politics and morals which prevailed in ancient times, and apply his acquisitions to some beneficial purpose. The student in rhetoric and declamation looks forward to the time when he can successfully harangue the crowded assembly, and bend the democratic multitudes to his will. Learning, in short, is not followed for its own sake, and for its indirect advantages, but for the purpose of accomplishing a direct and immediate result. It was, perhaps, a partial view of this obvious truth which induced a respectable American to express himself in the following quaint terms, in an address lately delivered before a collegiate society in an eastern state.

"The multitude in this country, so far from favouring and honouring high learning and science, is rather prone to suspect and dislike it. It feareth that genius savoureth of aristocracy! Besides, the multitude calleth itself a practical man. It asketh, What is the use? It seeth no use but in that

which leads to money or the material ends of life. It hath no opinion of having dreamers and drones in society. It believeth, indeed, in railroads; it thinketh well of steam; and owneth that the new art of bleaching by chlorine is a prodigious improvement; but it laughs at the profound researches into the laws of nature, out of which those very inventions grew; and with still greater scorn, it laughs at the votaries of the more spiritual forms of truth and beauty, which have no application to the palpable uses of life. Then, again, the influence of our reading public is not favourable to high letters. It demands, it pays for, and respects, almost exclusively, a lower style of production; and hence a natural influence to discourage higher labours."

CHAPTER XIII.

LEXINGTON, &c.

Incorporation of the Theological Seminary.-Its Professorships. -Duties of the Professor of Sacred Literature.-The Students.-Course of study in Sacred Literature.-Description of Lexington. - Churches.-University.- Property of the Seminary. Inhabitants of Lexington. - Kentuckians.— Population of Kentucky.-Slaves.-Sects.-Literary characters in Lexington.-Dr. Cooke.-His offices in the Church. -Religious papers in America.-Episcopal papers.-Church Advocate.-Christmas Address.

THE Theological Seminary at Lexington was incorporated, on application, by the legislature of Kentucky, in February, 1834. The act of incorporation is worded in terms similar to those of another act by which a Roman Catholic institution on a more extensive scale, had been previously incorporated at Bardstown, in the same state. This act acknowledges the trustees already existing, and authorizes them to pass such by-laws as are not contrary to the law of the land. It also confers on them the usual privileges of a corporation,

in regard to the tenure of property; but requires that the rents and proceeds acquired by them shall never exceed 5000 dollars per annum. The trustees are to continue in office for one year; and the nomination of their successors is left in the hands of the bishop of the diocese; subject to the approval of the convention of the Episcopal Church in Kentucky. The property of the seminary is by the same act exempted from all state taxation whatever. The trustees are empowered to appoint the necessary professors in all branches of learning usually taught in theological seminaries. The professors are finally declared capable of exercising such powers as the trustees may delegate to them for the wholesome and faithful government of the institution.

The professorships were arranged as follows:The bishop of the diocese took the department of doctrinal theology and pastoral duties. The Rev. Dr. Coit, a distinguished Episcopal clergyman then president of Transylvania University in Lexington, gratuitously acted as professor of the ethics and evidences of Christianity. Dr. Cooke, a physician, eminent in the Church for his writings in behalf of Episcopacy, gratuitously lectured on the history and polity of the Church, while to myself were committed the more onerous duties connected with the professorship of Sacred Literature. I per