Excerpt from An Address, Delivered at the Dedication of Williston Seminary, at East-Hampton, Mass: December 1, 1841 That individual happiness is connected with extensive and accurate information respecting the past, with a perception of facts, and laws, and relations, as they exist in God's universe, and with that general culture of mind which the acquisition of such knowledge implies and induces, cannot admit of a question. This is generally admitted, but it may be doubted whether it is upon right grounds and education can never do for man what it ought, till it is pursued with reference to its highest ends. Many suppose that the chief advantage of education to the individual arises from the facility it gives him to acquire property, or to take a better relative standing among his fellow men. This View of education, so far as it is true, ought not perhaps to be discouraged. If these advantages are to be gained by it, I see no reason why they should not be thus sought, more than Ido why men should not put their sons to learn mechanical trades, or behind the counter, with the same View. But this is a low and mercenary View, and I do not hesitate to say that if it were universal, all that now excites theenthusiasm and warm devotion of the highest order of minds would be gone. The moment that takes place, literature is prostituted, and its institutions, being but the means of a selfish advancement to a few, will lose their honor, and perhaps be trampled in the dust. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.