public as speakers? Do they deliver no Inaugural or Baccalaureate addresses-no introductory lectures-no colonization, temperance or Bible society speeches? If they do, are their pieces published and dispersed far and wide among the people? Now, in Kentucky, every public address of a college instructor appears forthwith in print as matter of course, and may be found in every cottage in the commonwealth. To give one example. The Inaugural Address of the late President of Transylvania University was published not only in pamphlet form, but in every journal and newspaper, whether political, religious, literary or scientific, in Lexington, and I believe throughout the State. It was thence copied into many papers in the adjacent States: and I recollect to have been informed at the time that it was published entire in at least one of the Nashville gazettes. The same course is pursued in regard to the introductory lectures of our medical professors-and thus everybody becomes acquainted with their talents, principles and literary qualifications. I have seen, within a few days past, the most laudatory reviews of a Lexington "introductory," in your City papers,-while not one of them contained a syllable about your own excellent university.

Your professors must either be culpably silent, or their productions must be deemed by your critical sages utterly worthless, or they must be singularly modest, or somebody must be at fault that nothing from their pens should ever reach the public eye. I tell you, Mr. Editor, that if the Tennesseeans are like the Ken

tuckians, their college will never assume its proper rank, until the newspaper press shall be fully enlisted in the cause, and its officers be made through it to speak to all the people. Had I depended on your citizens for my knowledge of the Nashville University, I should have gone home without even dreaming that it could possibly be equal to an ordinary Kentucky grammar schoolperhaps even without having heard of its existence! I now leave you, resolved to send my own sons to be educated here, in preference to any other college in the Union.

A KENTUCKIAN.

A HINT TO THE EASTERNS.*

[JANUARY 17, 1832.]

IN the November number of the "Monthly American Journal of Geology and Natural Science," there occurs, at the conclusion of an elaborate article, the following remarkable passage,-"And whilst geology and other branches of natural history are cherished and taught in every public institution, devoted to education, in Europe; there is not, as far as we are informed-with one exception-an officiating professor of these attractive and useful branches of knowledge, in any of the universities or colleges of this country."

With about equal propriety might one of our sapient backwoodsmen, who had never learned better, affirm that, as far as he had been informed, there is not, in the whole world, a city equal in size and magnificence to Nashville! What right has any man to assert in print, what is or what is not, in relation to any province or subject, about which he is not well informed? Because the Journal does not happen to know of more than one college where geology is taught, it proclaims, that this and the kindred sciences are neglected in all the other literary institutions of our republic. Is such logic inculcated in the Novum Organum of Bacon, or in the ponderous folios of the Stagyrite? I acquit the writer of

* Printed in the Nashville Republican, January 17, 1832.

any design to misrepresent facts:-he has doubtless sinned through sheer ignorance. But then it was his duty to have made himself acquainted with the actual condition of the American colleges, before he undertook to enlighten the world on the subject..

I beg to apprise the writer and the Eastern skeptics generally, that "geology and other branches of natural history are cherished and taught, by an officiating professor of these attractive and useful branches of knowledge," in the University of Nashville-situate, lying and being in the State of Tennessee, and not far from the 36th degree of northern latitude. For the precise locality, I refer him to his favourite Tanner. In this institution, the learned and accomplished naturalist, Dr. G. Troost, is, and has been for several years past, the faithful, laborious and devoted professor of geology, mineralogy and natural history. Dr. Troost was a pupil of the celebrated Abbé Haùy of Paris, and his superior cannot be found on this continent. His cabinet of minerals contains at least ten thousand specimensand is not, for any useful purpose, inferior to the Gibbs collection belonging to the college, which we presume to have been excepted in the sweeping flourish already cited. It is our misfortune to live west of the mountains, where, it is taken for granted, ignorance and barbarism are destined to hold universal and perpetual sway. Pray, Mr. Editor, do tell the Philadelphians and Bostonians and Londoners, that we are not all "ganderpullers," nor "gougers," nor "regulators," nor "half-horse and half-alligator."-That some of us geologize, and

botanize, and read Greek, and talk French, and write poetry, and spout political economy.-That we receive, by every mail, loads of Scotch, English, French and Eastern periodicals of all sorts and upon all manner of subjects-scientific, literary, political, religious, miscellaneous. And do tell Mr. Walsh in particular, that I have read the whole twelve volumes of the "Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution,” edited by Mr. Sparks; and that I very heartily approve of his late review of the same-as also his seasonable article on the manufacture of silk. This Quarterly, by-theway, is worthy of all praise.

I moreover entertain a favourable opinion, on the whole, of the Journal of Geology, and cheerfully recommend it to the patronage of our liberal and enlightened citizens. Though I most religiously believe we could get up a much better one here in Nashville, without the least assistance from abroad.

When I read, some time ago, Mr. Journal's translation of Cicero's recently discovered treatise De Republica, I confess, I formed no very flattering estimate of his talents or of his knowledge either of Latin or English. But then he was out of his element. He looks better among the mastodons and buffaloes and rattlesnakes and quartze and hornblende and anthracite with which. he is now principally conversant. May he live a thousand years in peace, health and prosperity-and have a successful voyage to the golden metropolis of Captain Symmes' central geological elysium!

TUCKAHOE.