Every human society wants to be officered by a
best class, who shall be masters instructed in all
the great arts of life ; shall be wise, temperate,
brave, public men, adorned with dignity and accom-
plishments. Every country wishes this, and each
has taken its own method to secure such service to
the state. In Europe, ancient and modem, it has
been attempted to secure the existence of a superior
class by hereditary nobility, with estates transmitted
by primogeniture and entail. But in the last age,
this system has been on its trial, and the verdict of
mankind is pretty nearly pronounced. That method
secured permanence of families, firmness of cus-
toms, a certain eictemal culture and good taste;
gratified the ear with preserving historic names:
but the heroic father did not surely have heroic
sons, and still less surely heroic grandsons ; wealth
and ease corrupted the race.
In America, the necessity of clearing the forest,
laying out town and street, and building every
house and bam and fence, then church and town-
bouse, exhausted such means as the Pilgrims
brought, and made the whole population poor;
and the like necessify is still found in each new



100 SOCIAL AIMS.
