"that school masters can keep us out of tyranny, so as to
enable nations to dispense with political law," is a dependence like that upon priests, to keep us out of purgatory.
But if a mode of education, like a standing army, can change
the nature of a government, and constitute the most formidable contrivance for despotism, a nation, to preserve its
liberty, must have wisdom enough to influence this moral
mode of destroying it, just as it must control a standing
army, for the same purpose, by the superior physical force
of a militia. Education must be supervised by the same
vigilant national wisdom necessary to defend liberty against
whatever can be used to destroy it; and the same care must
be taken to prevent it from being converted into an instrument by a sect, religious, political or chartered, as to withhold from avarice and ambition the use of a standing army.
The benefits derived by mankind from academical institutions, though fettered or corrupted by despotism or superstition, are a pledge for their effect when nurtured by the
principles of a free government. How great is our debt to
those of Athens only, during a short period! The objection
to an expense, of which a proportion falls on those who can
receive no part of the education, would be stronger against
publick taxes to support government, because many more
people participate in the good effects of academical institutions, than in the salaries or benefits of publick offices. An
augmentation of knowledge always dispenses some good to
the whole nation, whereas the majority frequently suffers
much evil from certain modes of civil government. The access to wealth and power is widened by education, and contracted by its absence, because genius, however poor, will acquire knowledge if it is introduced into a country, just as the
art of weaving has spread from a few looms throughout the
civilized world. A publick patronage of a few good colleges, is therefore a patronage of genius; and as the chance
for it is equal among all, the poor, from their superiority of
number, will draw most prizes in the lottery of knowledge,
established by means of colleges, chiefly supported by the
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