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change this Knowledge for that of the Schools -technically so called- w·hen more refinement of. manners supplanted public virtue, from that moment their greatness declined and they fell under the sword of the invader- It is a mere chimera then that we ascribe virtue as the dis- tinguishing principle of Republics if at the same tim[e] we content ourselves with merely skimming over the theory of it in the mind re- gardless of the practise- for in this way we shall only Succeed, it is to be feared, in presenting an instance of the truth of the startling position laid down in that work of a celebrated English author- There was no lack of intellect in France at the period of her first great revolution, but that intellect- the learning of her Encyclo- pedients- unchecked & unchastened by the virtues of a Lycurvgus, blazed around the political fabric and crumbled it into ashes- Intel- lect apart from moral culture can never be relied on in the prosecu- tion of any of the great practical ends of society, it teaches indeed how to rear but is powerless to perpetuate. The loss of liberty in Rome was nearly contemporaneous with her greatest intellectual achiE>ve- ments- It is not so much a Knowledge of their rights that the people regard as a virtuous & rigid appreciation of the great principles of civil liberty- Education then [s]hould be of a two fold character always- directed to the culture as well of the moral as of the in- tellectual principles of the rising youth of our country- Their vir- tues as citizens of a free commonwealth, can alone guard against the gradual inroads of these insiduous habits, and the associations that attach to them which are more despotic than Laws- It eminently be- hooves us to cultivate those principles of public duty their fidelity to which won for the Spartans at Thermopylae the noble inscription of the Grecian port, that those who fell there died in obedience to the Laws of their Country- Without that abiding sense of what we owe ·to the Republic we may at no distant day exhibit the mortifying spectacle of a people who though still living under a free Government have yet lapsed from that virtuous simplicity of manners that should characterise a Republic, and become· the Slaves or those co [n] ven- tional ideas, and the practices that flow from them, that should 'find ·eountenance and support only under despotic institutions- It is not to be disguised then that the only adequate correction for those evil-; which in spite of academies may yet spring up around us, shadowing the superstructure of our liberties, and perhaps finally _undermining it, will be found to consist in such a system of Education as shall prepare the ·hearts as well as understandings of the future yourth of our Country for entering upon the great business of the Republic with a grave and solemn sense of the vast debt of responsibility which they owe to the institutions under which we live- a system that shall have for its end true good and appropriate glory of those match- less institutions, and for its sanctions the high and ennobling lessons- the great example taught us by the Sages and patriots of Republican integrity [Incomplete] 111 occasion to present the merits of this fruitful theme, and I have only "From this point the document is in the hand of W. Jefferson Jones. It ls written on a separate sheet, but was found with the preceding essay and :seems to be conclusion for it.
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