Note 5 — Chapter XXXV · OF JEALOUSY

There ought to be instituted at Philadelphia an academy, whose sole occupation would be the collection of materials for the study of man in the savage state, instead of waiting till these curious peoples have been exterminated.

I know quite well that such academies exist—but apparently regulated in a way worthy of our academies in Europe. (Memoir and Discussion on the Zodiac of Denderah at the Académie des Sciences of Paris, 1821.) I notice that the academy of, I fancy, Massachusetts wisely charges a member of the clergy (Mr. Jarvis) to make a report on the religion of the savage. The priest, of course, refutes energetically an impious Frenchman, called Volney. According to the priest, the savage has the most exact and noble ideas of the Divinity, etc. If he lived in England, such a report would bring the worthy academician a preferment of three or four hundred pounds and the protection of all the noble lords in the county. But in America! For the rest, the absurdity of this academy reminds me of the free Americans, who set the greatest store on seeing fine coats-of-arms painted on the panels of their carriages; what upsets them is that, through their carriage-painter's want of instruction, the blazoning is often wrong.