The first object to be attended to, with a view to
the comfort, happiness, and security of a nation, is a
proper provision for the education of youth. That
country is the happiest, (says a great writer,) where there
is the most virtue. To suffer the youth of both sexes
to be ill educated, and to be reared to maturity with-
out a proper sense of religion and virtue, and an
abhorrence of vice, is to establish a nursery for
crimes.

In a new country like America, where the popula-
tion increases so fast, it becomes an important deside-
ratum, that the means and facilities to obtain a
virtuous and proper education, should keep pace with
the constant increase of the youth of both sexes.
Where national institutions of this nature have been
established in Scotland and in Switzerland, the hap-
piest effects have been produced. On the contrary,
where this great measure of state policy has been
neglected, the manners of the people have exhibited
strong instances of a deficiency, manifested by
extreme ignorance and immoral conduct, as it respects
a considerable proportion of the lower classes of
society; and hence it is that crimes multiply, and
that the adult becomes often enervated and useless to
society at that period of life, when labour ought to
be most productive.

Upon the subject of education, the reports which I
have transmitted, published by the society for better-
ing the condition of the poor, furnish many excellent
hints and suggestions.

The next object, as it relates to criminal offences,
and which is of the highest importance to civil
society, is a proper attention to those, whose indi-
gence or idleness render them burdens upon the
other classes of society. This evil becomes a hydra
in every nation, where appropriate regulations do not
exist for educating the offspring of indigent and
profligate parents, or orphans who are cast upon the
public; and also for propping up adults, reduced to a