We regard it as a wise and liberal system of police, by
which property, and life, and the peace of society are secured. We seek
to prevent in some measure the extension of the penal code, by inspiring
a salutary and conservative principle of virtue and of knowledge in an
early age. We strive to excite a feeling of respectability, and a sense
of character, by enlarging the capacity and increasing the sphere of
intellectual enjoyment. By general instruction, we seek, as far as
possible, to purify the whole moral atmosphere; to keep good sentiments
uppermost, and to turn the strong current of feeling and opinion, as
well as the censures of the law and the denunciations of religion,
against immorality and crime. We hope for a security beyond the law, and
above the law, in the prevalence of an enlightened and well-principled
moral sentiment. We hope to continue and prolong the time, when, in the
villages and farm-houses of New England, there may be undisturbed sleep
within unbarred doors. And knowing that our government rests directly on
the public will, in order that we may preserve it we endeavor to give a
safe and proper direction to that public will. We do not, indeed,
expect all men to be philosophers or statesmen; but we confidently
trust, and our expectation of the duration of our system of government
rests on that trust, that, by the diffusion of general knowledge and
good and virtuous sentiments, the political fabric may be secure, as
well against open violence and overthrow, as against the slow, but sure,
undermining of licentiousness.
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