 The spirit of the college, he said, is the spirit of liberty.Thomson stated in the early days of Wesleyan that a college education should be a barrier to avarice by furnishing "the understanding, the taste, and the perspective that directs us to life's higher purposes ...It would serve political tranquillity, both by accrediting the truly apt candidates for office and by creating citizenry astutely able to assert its liberty against any government's tendency to encroach".