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Rh writing, arithmetic, and geography. I cannot but regard it as a serious defect in the schools in Liberia that so many teachers undertake to instruct their pupils in Chemistry, Botany, and Natural Philosophy, before they can write and spell with accuracy. It seems to me the wiser course is to ground our youth well in the elements of the simple branches, before any thing higher is undertaken. Where it is convenient and desirable, teachers may aim at something more. We are, most certainly, in need of learned men and accomplished women. The State moreover is not too young, nor our circumstances too humble for us, even now, to gather around us the fruits of the highest culture and of the profoundest attainments. But all learning in our schools should be built upon the most rigid and thorough training in those elements which enable people to spell and read correctly, and to understand and explain, such simple reading as comes before them in the Bible, the Prayer-Book, devotional books, and common newspapers, (b) But besides this, education must needs he made more general, superior masters secured, and the necessities of the case he put more directly icithin the control of the citizens, than it is at present. Perhaps there is no defect in our political system so manifest and so hurtful, as that its arrangements allow no local interests, whether it be in the election of a Constable, or the appointment of a Schoolmaster. As a consequence, all our growth seems to be the result of national, in the place of local enterprise; a feeling of dependence upon the Capital is exhibited everywhere: and there exists, universally, a lack of muni-