names and cherished companions. In short, though they are not taught to speak Latin at Cambridge, we believe that the acquirement would be as easy as it would be useless. Another evidence is, that on the occasion of a public examination at Cambridge several errors in the pronunciation of the students were detected. We can believe this, without supposing any remarkable inattention of the instructers. The truth is, that pronunciation is learned early and changed with difficulty, and that formerly many of our schools were exceedingly deficient in this particular, and very probably some of them are so still. The consequence was, as we suppose it now is, that some students were admitted to College with a good knowledge of Latin and with an indifferent pronunciation. Any person, who has observed the offences against Walker, which are not uncommon among gentlemen otherwise well educated and accomplished, and that too in spite of considerable watchfulness on their own part, may suspect that the errors noticed by Mr Pickering did not necessarily imply a blameable want of diligence on the part of the instructers. Those who have some experience in this matter, and recollect the almost unintermitting and apparently hopeless endeavour at the Cæsaris and Consulis which within our memory characterized the Latin recitation room, will think this charge upon the instructers a hard one.

After all, we admit that the students in Harvard College generally do not make so much proficiency in classical or in any other branch of learning as might be wished; but this, we think, arises rather from their own want of diligence than from any defect of opportunities; and of the modes of remedying the habits of the University in this particular we have already spoken. While on this subject of classical earning, we cannot avoid remarking upon a note appended to this speech. It relates to the practice of employing foreign professors, and is as follows:

The practice of employing foreign professors is common all over the continent of Europe; and even in England, where there has been less inclination than elsewhere to adopt it, there are instances of professorships founded upon the express condition, that they shall be open to all nations. As, for instance, in the Savilian professorship of geometry and astronomy, at Oxford, the electors and visitors "are solemnly conjured by the founder to seek the ablest mathematicians in other countries as well as our own; and without regard to particular universities or nations, to elect those whom they shall deem best qualified for the office."

But we are not told the founder's reason for this earnestness. It is, as he informs us in the preamble to this deed of gift, "that geometry was wholly abandoned and unknown in England, and that the best learning of the age was the study of the ancients." This is the state of things from which the English colleges, and more particularly our own, have degenerated, and we trust that the restoration of the ancien regime in the literature of the country, is no nearer at hand than it is in its politics.

We may observe here that one of the best methods of acquiring an accurate knowledge of the dead languages, and indeed of every language, living or dead, is the practice of composing in them, and that this practice is too much neglected, not in Cambridge only, but in every American school or college, one only excepted, of which we have ever had any knowledge.

We do not exactly take the force of the following anecdote in relation to this subject.

Mr Pickering said he was permitted (by the honourable chairman of the Committee) to mention a little occurrence in the life of that late distinguished man, Mr Pinkney (not long since our minister in Great Britain), who used to relate it to his young friends as a warning to them. While that gentleman was at the court of St James's, it happened, at a social party, that some little question in classical literature became the subject of conversation at table, and the guests, in turn, gave their opinions upon it; Mr Pinkney being silent for some time, an appeal was at length made to him for his opinion, when (as he used to relate with much feeling) he had the mortification of being compelled to avow his incompetency to give any opinion upon the subject; and what was the consequence? This distinguished man, brilliant and commanding as were his native talents, confessed that he felt constrained, in his mature years, to take his grammar and dictionary, and actually to put himself under the instruction of a master in the ancient languages.

Certainly this can have little to do with the state of our colleges, since the eminent statesman alluded to never enjoyed any regular collegiate education; and as to the advantages of classical learning, it would appear to prove that a man may attain to high fame, usefulness, and honour without it.

The result of the debate concerning the reports of the two committees was the reference of both to the corporation. This body, after consideration of the whole subject, presented to the board of overseers, at their next meeting, a new code of laws for the future regulation of the University; which, having been ratified by them, will be in force the pres

ent college year. We shall offer some remarks on this code, after bringing down to the same period the history of another important document, the memorial of the resident officers.* [To be continued.]

Outlines of Political Economy, being a Republication of the Article upon that Subject, contained in the Edinburgh Supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica. Together with Notes, Explanatory and Critical, and a Summary of the Science. By the Rev. JOHN M' VICKAR, A. M. Professor of Moral Philosophy and Political Economy in Columbia College, New York. New York. 1825. 8vo. pp. 188.

THE author of this work is Mr M'Culloch, late of Edinburgh, who has been honoured by being selected as the first lecturer, on the foundation established by the late Mr Ricardo. Professor M'Vickar has caused its republication, for the purpose of "diffusing in a more popular form a valuable essay on a most important subject." This enterprise is worthy of all praise. In no country ought the knowledge of political economy to be more widely diffused than in this, at this moment; not merely on account of the popular frame of our legislative institutions, in consequence of which great power is thrown into the hands of active and able men of every class in society; but still more, because the country is not yet tied down to any system; it is not yet necessary to persevere in any course, merely because it has been for time immemorial established;-and because, also, the country is unfolding itself so rapidly, that there is no time to be lost. We must every day take steps of vast moment, in the national march; and it deserves all attention, that they be taken with

In an early number of this article, when comparing the price of board at Cambridge with the same at other Colleges, we stated the latter in some instances too high. That at Yale, for example, as we have since been informed, being $1 75, instead of $2 25, we take this opportunity of observing that we were not then aware that any change had taken place in this particlar at Yale since the publication of our authority, Worcester's Gazetteer. We had no intention of misrepresenting the state of that, or any other College, but were only attempting to show that this charge at Cambridge was not, considering the local circumstances of the College, an extravagant one; and this position we do not think affected materially by the correction now made. We regret the error however, and the rather if it has given the impression in any quarter, that we intended to bring Harvard College and other institutions into comparison, to the prejudice of the latter, as to the subject of expenses.

such care, that hereafter we may be spared the odious and almost desperate task of applying the remedy to inveterate evils.

Mr M'Culloch's Essay can hardly be called classical; that is, a treatise perfect in all its parts, containing nothing superfluous, omitting nothing essential. Being written for the Encyclopædia, it passes over several topics, as already disposed of, or to be treated in subsequent articles. For popular use, the Notes of Professor M'Vickar, though we cannot join him in all his criticisms, enhance considerably the value of the book. He supplies some of the omitted topics, explains some things stated over briefly in the original Essay, and especially refers to various authorities still farther illustrative of the important subjects successively brought up. He has performed a valuable service to the science in the preparation of these Notes, which display a full acquaintance with a subject, many of whose topics are exceedingly subtile and

abstract.

It is not designed to detract from this commendation nor to qualify it, when we add our impression, that Mr M'Culloch's Essay is not so well adapted to the object, which Professor M'Vickar had in view, as it would have been in his power to render an essay of equal compass, which should have been entirely of his own composing. The science of political economy is at a lamentably low ebb in this country. Of the only considerable treatise which has been produced in it, Mr Raymond's, almost every proposition in any degree peculiar to that gentleman, is wholly false; and the newspaper political economy which is bestowed upon the country in some of the widest circulated journals is wholly exploded in every other region. We venture to say, that if a work should appear in London or Paris, in which much was said about "the drain of specie" or "the balance of trade," the price of hellebore would advance perceptibly. Far different is the case here. Though among those conversant with the subject, we have reason to believe a very great majority entertain sound general views upon it, a far greater zeal has been employed in propagating the antiquated prejudices. The battle against these is not yet fought out; nor are we quite ripe for the exquisite analysis of the school of Ricardo.

It is very desirable that a popular manual treatise of political economy should be composed for the use of this country. The strong peculiarity of the state of things here

existing requires a different selection of topics from that which would be made for an European community. The slight burden of taxation-the abundance and cheapness of good land-the absence of a class of tenantry-the infancy of the manufacturing system, are so many features of the state of society in America, requiring topics to be pressed, wholly different from those which are of leading importance in England. The doctrines of rent and wages are here of scarce any importance; at the same time that the exquisite subtilty of the speculations, on which they are founded, by the writers of the school of Ricardo, must prevent their gaining access to the minds of those, whom it is of most importance to illuminate. The great doctrine of political economy, which ought to be inculcated in this country, not merely as a truth in science and as a doctrine essential to the accumulation of na tional wealth, but as a part of our grand system of liberty, is, the greatest possible freedom of trade. The community ought to hear inculcated, with the same perseverance that the reverse has been inculcated,-that the wealth of the citizens is the wealth of the republic-that the will of the citizen should be his guide in the choice of a pursuit-that commerce is an exchange of values-and that protecting duties are a tax levied on all the community for the benefit of the manufacturer. While it is conceded (as Adam Smith concedes, and every judicious man must not so much concede as assert) that manufactures are a source of wealth, a step in the national progress, a means of enhancing the value of land and its products-of calling into valuable exercise the power of natural agents; it ought to be at the same time taught, that all these desirable objects ought to be attained, in the course of nature: that it by no means follows from the fact that a thing is good, that it is good to tax the people to enable the manufacturer to produce it; in a word, that any manufacture, which permanently yields the article at a dearer rate than it could (without duties) be imported, is and must be,however profitable to the undertaker-though villages rise around his factories as by enchantment, though the voice of the water wheel be heard out of the deepest glen of the mountains, a waste of national wealth.

We have observed, that though we admire the acuteness of many of Professor M'Vickar's Notes, and the good sense of most, we cannot agree with him in all. We do not join him in his exception to Mr M'Culloch's doctrine, that capital iş