country particularly, where we have so few either of the injurious or innocent luxuries of older communities, where the most unexceptionable of all, the fine arts, are considered by many too expensive to be cherished as they deserve, without the aid of government, that we should value a source of recreation, so pure, so copious, and so accessible. We have said nothing of Latin as the original language of the civil law, nor of Greek as that of the New Testament. Both theologians and lawyers are too sensible of the importance of a minute accuracy on legal and religious subjects, to trust completely to the fidelity of any translation. It would be equally unnecessary to combat the objections sometimes adduced against classical literature on account of the pagan mythology. To us they appear about as well founded as the opposition of Rousseau to the perusal of fables by children, because truth is violated by representing brutes, as speaking and thinking. We think the false mythology of the classics more than outweighed by their enlightened ethics, and it is not the least of their claims to our respect that they diffused the light of morality over the most cultivated nations on earth for ages preceding the dawn of Christianity, and have since lent no inconsiderable aid to her influence.

These soft fires

Not only enlighten, but with kindly heat
Of various influence, foment and warm,
Temper and nourish, or in part shed down
Their stellar virtue on all kinds that grow
On earth, made hereby apter to receive

Perfection from the sun's more potent ray.'

Had we been content to rest the question, which we have endeavoured to elucidate, on authority instead of argument, we should have saved much labour to ourselves and our readers. What was the opinion of the first settlers of New Englaud, those ancestors whom we extol so loudly and justly? Did they look on classical literature as injurious, as useless, or even as merely ornamental? Did they consider it as a luxury of a doubtful tendency, to be introduced, if at all, only in opulent communities? Was it not one of the earliest and most favoured objects of their solicitude, and that too while they were continually struggling with the most doubtful prospects for their very existence? Yet these were not prejudiced theorists, not mere book-worms, not men who re

tired from the duties of society to indulge themselves in heaping up a mass of knowledge, which should remain concealed in their own bosoms till it descended with them to the tomb. They were men who read, that they might the better think and act, who considered acquired information rather as the source of wisdom than as wisdom itself, and as most valuable for the original reflections which it awakens; who felt that we should study the works of others, to render our own minds the fountains, rather than the channels of instruction. They saw the connexion between one kind of useful knowledge and another, the influence of what we read on what we write, and say, and do; of contemplation on practice. It was for the purpose of securing as well as ornamenting their civil and religious institutions, that they raised at an early period those classical seminaries which we have done comparatively so little to enlarge. Scarce a generation has since passed away without leaving a living testimony to the correctness of their views in the characters of many of its most distinguished citizens. Were we as liberal in proportion to our means as our forefathers, the advantages of classical learning would be no longer a subject of discussion, for they would be too evident to be denied for a moment, if our youth could be enabled to pursue them with better success, by the improved condition of our schools and colleges. To render these what they should be, nothing is required but encouragement; and it would be an easy matter to remedy all defects in the machinery, if a proper force and direction could be given to the current of public opinion, which must set the whole in motion.

APPROPRIATIONS FOR THE SUPPORT OF LITERATURE IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK.

WE avail ourselves with pleasure of the opportunity of correcting an error, and supplying a deficiency in an article of our January number, which is furnished by a statement in the Albany Argus of July 20. In speaking of the degree, to which our state legislatures had patronized the literary cause and establishments, we observed, that New York had liberally endowed Hamilton College,' leaving it to be inferred, that the literary bounty of our most powerful state had stopped

6

here. The statement in the Argus, to which we allude, furnishes abundant means of rectifying this error, and we take great pleasure in doing it. Several appropriations, it is true, enter into this statement, not of the kind which we had in view in speaking of the magnificent amount of the literary funds of Virginia and Connecticut. In justice to our own state, also, we ought to say, that though we have nothing which bears the name of a school fund, yet if a calculation were made of the whole amount of literary patronage, into which should enter the various donations to our colleges and academies, as well as the support of grammar schools, ordained by law in every town of the state of a cer tain size, it would probably appear, that quite as much was annually paid by the people of Massachusetts for the support of learning, as by any state in the union; without our being able to boast of a fund for this purpose. As our object of course is to attain only general results, we doubt not we shall be excused in the respectable quarter, from which the statement in the Albany Argus proceeds, for the abridgment we have made in its details.

From the Albany Argus, July 20.

Besides the reservation of two lots of six hundred and forty acres each, for the general support of the gospel and of schools and literature, in every township of the fertile and extensive tract of land set apart as a bounty to the officers and soldiers of the revolution, two distinct and separate permanent funds have been established and for ever set apart by the legislature; one for the support of common schools' throughout the state, and the other for the endowment and maintenance of colleges and academies, under the direction of the regents of the university. A statement of the particular items of which each of these funds is at present composed, and of the revenues derived from them, as well as of temporary grants made for literary purposes, I beg leave to subjoin:

I. The fund for the support of common schools already amounts to

$1,229,076

In addition to which the net proceeds of all lands which may escheat to the state in the military tract are appropriated to this fund; and it is supposed that a very considerable increase will be acquired from this source, though no estimate can at present be made.

The revenue of the school fund for the last year was estimated at

But an act passed in 1819 directs the payment and distribution, for the present year, of eighty thousand dollars, and annually thereafter not less than that sum, until the revenue of the school fund amount to ninety thousand dollars. A sum equal to the dividend upon the fund must be raised annually in the several counties, in proportion to the sums received by them respectively upon the distribution. So that for this year the sum of one hundred and eighty thousand dollars will be raised and distributed among the common schools established in convenient districts of every town in the state.

A particular additional fund, applicable to the same object, amounts to

78,944

3,832

Making an aggregate amount of funds permanently appropriated to the support of common schools, over and above the escheated lands, of 1,232,908 II. The fund for the promotion of literature' at present amounts to

The income of this fund is annually distributed by the regents among the incorporated academies, and in special donations and endowments, and the revenue for the last year, exclusive of the quit rent, may be stated at

Of this, the sum of five thousand dollars was distributed among twenty five incorporated academies, in proportion to the number of classical scholars contained in each.

Independently of these permanently established funds, which have thus been consecrated to the support of learning, the following occasional appropriations have from time to time been made: I. To the regents of the University II. To Columbia College

III. To Union College

IV. To the College of Physicians & Surgeons

in New York

V. To Hamilton College in Oneida county
New Series, No. 4.

54

201,439.41

5,288.74

28,750

113.275

418,500

68,100

જી.

VI. To the College of Physicians & Surgeons} 15,000

in the Western District

Aggregate amount of grants to Colleges

VII. To the New York Historical Society

721,675.00

12,000

35,800 25,631.56

X. For a public Library at the seat of gov'ment 5,100

Amount of grants to the regents of the University

Amount of grants to Colleges,

Amount of grant to Historical Society,

Amount of grants to Academies,

Amount of grants to charitable and free schools,

Amount appropriated to State library,

Aggregate amount of occasional appropriations
Making in the whole the sum of

1,232,908

201,439.41

1,434,347.41

28,750

721,675

12,000

35,800

25,631,56 5,100 828,956.56 $2,263,303.97

And if to this be added the value of the escheated lands, and of the proportion of clerks' fees belonging to the school fund, together with the value of the unappropriated literature and school lots in the military tract, the general aggregate of appropriations for the support of education and learning in this state, during the last thirty years, exclusive of the annual revenue of the permanent funds, will exceed the sum of three millions of dollars.

I am, sir, your obedient servant,

Albany, July 29, 1820.

W. A. D.

As nothing will better guide us in our efforts for the encouragement of literature than an accurate knowledge of what has already been done, we should feel highly grateful to any person who will furnish us with statements, equally precise as the foregoing, of the extent of the literary appropriations in the various States of our country.

THE EDITORS.