We have in our country a very complete system of literary institutions,
so far as external organization will go, and the prospect of success is
far more favorable in efforts to carry these institutions into more
complete and prosperous operation, than in plans for changing them, or
substituting others in their stead. Were it not that such a course would
be unjust to individuals, a long and melancholy catalogue might easily
be made out of abortive plans which have sprung up in the minds of young
men in the manner I have described, and which, after perhaps temporary
success, have resulted in partial or total failure. These failures are
of every kind. Some are school-books on a new plan, which succeeds in
the inventor's hand chiefly on account of the spirit which carried it
into effect, but which in ordinary hands, and under ordinary
circumstances, and especially after long-continued use, have failed of
exhibiting any superiority. Others are institutions, commenced with
great zeal by the projectors, and which prosper just as long as that
zeal continues. Zeal will make any thing succeed for a time. Others are
new plans of instruction or government, generally founded on some good
principle carried to an extreme, or made to grow into exaggerated and
disproportionate importance. Examples almost innumerable of these things
might be particularized, if it were proper, and it would be found, upon
examination, that the amount of ingenuity and labor wasted upon such
attempts would have been sufficient, if properly expended, to have
elevated very considerably the standard of education, and to have placed
existing institutions in a far more prosperous and thriving state than
they now exhibit.
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