2397. EDUCATION, Higher.—[further continued].
When sobered by experience,
I hope our successors will turn
their attention to the advantages of education.
I mean of education on the broad scale, and
not that of the petty academies, as they call
themselves, which are started up in every
neighborhood, and where one or two men,
possessing Latin and sometimes Greek, a
knowledge of the globes, and the first six
books of Euclid, imagine and communicate
this as the sum of science. They commit
their pupils to the theatre of the world, with
just taste enough of learning to be alienated
from industrious pursuits, and not enough to
do service in the ranks of science. * * *
I hope the necessity will at length be seen of
establishing institutions here, as in Europe,
where every branch of science useful at this
day, may be taught in its highest degree.—
To John Adams. Washington ed. vi, 356.
Ford ed., ix, 464.
(M.
July. 1814)
