THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 THE COLLECTION OF 
 NORTH CAROLINIANA 
 
 C378 
 
 UK3 
 
 18U7M.1 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILU 
 
 00036720986 
 
 This book must not 
 be token from the 
 Librory building. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
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 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
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ADDllESS 
 
 BEFORi: THfc; 
 
 ALUMNI ASSOCIATION 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA, 
 
 DELIVERED IN GERARD HALL, JUNE 2, 1847, 
 
 (the evening preckdinu commencement day,) 
 
 HON. JOHN Y. MASON, LL. D. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 
 BY ORDER or THK DlALEf'TIC AND PHILANTHROPIC SOCIETIES. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 PRINTED BY J. AND G.S. GIDEON. 
 
 184T. 
 
v^ 
 
CORRESPONDENCE. 
 
 At a meeting of tlie Alumni Association of the University of North Carolina, held 
 in Gerard Hall on the evenine: of the 2nd June, 1847, it was unanimously resolved, 
 on motion of the President of the University, immediately after the delivery of the 
 annual address by the Hon. John Y. Mason : 
 
 "That the thanks of the Alumni Association be presented to Secretary Mason, 
 and that he be requested to furnish a copy of his address for publication.'" 
 
 His Excellency Gov. Graham, the Rev. Prof. Green, and the Hon. Judge Battle 
 were appointed a committee to carry this resolution into effect. 
 
 Chapel Hill, June 3d, 1847. 
 Sir : The undersigned have been appointed a committee to tender to you the grate- 
 ful acknowledgments of the Alumni Association of this University for the very 
 able, interesting, and i)istructive address which you delivered in Gerard Hall last 
 evening, and to request a copy for publication. 
 
 With the highest regard, we are, yours, &c., 
 
 WILL. A. GRAHAM, 
 WILL. M. GREEN, 
 WILL. H. battle. 
 To the Hon. John Y. Mason, present. 
 
 Chapel Hill, June 3d, 1847. 
 Gentlemen: I have received your esteemed favor, in which, as a committee, you 
 tender to me the acknowledgments of the Alumni Association for the address which 
 I had the honor to deliver in Gerard Hall last evening. Happy in having met the 
 wishes of the Association, and deferring to their judgment of the merits of a pro- 
 duction on which you have kindly expressed so favorable an opinion, I will comply 
 with your request, and transmit to you a copy of the address as soon as I can pre- 
 pare the manuscript for publication. 
 
 With the highest respect and regard, 
 . • - Your obedient servant and friend, 
 
 J. Y. MASON. 
 - Messrs. Wm. A. Graham, 
 
 ■ . Will. M. Green, 
 
 ff\ Will. H. Battle, 
 
 W^ Chapel Hill. 
 
 ■v 
 
 ^ 
 
 '#J 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Mr. President, and gentlemen of' the association: 
 
 In appearing before you to-day, while I regret that your invita- 
 tion had not found one possessed of more leisure than I have had 
 in which to meet its requirements, I am glad of the opportunity 
 which has thus been afforded me, to testify my continued interest 
 in my Alma Mater, and my sincere regard for those great pur- 
 poses of science and of virtue which it is the fortunate office of an 
 American University to promote. 
 
 After intervals of absence — some of them embracing more than 
 a quarter of a century — we visit again, mindful yet of our literary 
 brotherhood, the cherished scenes of our youthful studies, and re- 
 new for a few brief hours, amid the fragrant memorials of Chapel 
 Hill, our ancient companionship of letters, and our old associations 
 of classic life. Turning aside from our accustomed pursuits, we 
 exchange the greetings of friendship in halls long sacred to religion 
 and to truth ; and before the altars of our early worship, we gather 
 fresh motives of gratitude to the venerable Institution whose vir- 
 tues they commemorate. We surrender ourselves to the mild in- 
 fluences of the day and the occasion. We forget the discords of 
 professional strife; the hard competitions of business; the feverish 
 thirst for fame : and hushing all the thousand voices of party zeal, 
 we bow ourselves in unresisting submission to the divinity of the 
 place.. 
 
 In such influences we find our best preparation for the Anniver- 
 sary which we celebrate. It is a festival less of the head than of 
 the heart. It has more concern with generous impulses and warm 
 
nfi'ections, than with ihe coltl deduciions of reason, or the dry spe- 
 culations of metaphysics. It is wisely intended, not so much for 
 the exhibition of hoarded knowledge and the discussions of abstruse 
 thought, as for the promotion of kind feehng, the strengthening of 
 good resolves, (he awakening and cpiickening of a spirit of improve- 
 ment in ourselves and in others. It brings together, from remote 
 places and from various paths, those whose only memories in com- 
 mon cluster around this seat of learning; and it thus perpetuates 
 attachments which might otherwise lie buried for ever in the dust 
 of years. In this view of its ciiaracter, it claims the rewards of 
 patriotism, no less than the regards of friendship; and strengthens 
 our union as citizens, by reviving our connection as students. The 
 bonds which hold together our extended confederacy of States, are 
 not those alone which are to be read in written constitutions and 
 gathered from the enactments of legal codes; but those, rather, 
 which are found in the interchange of social kindness; in the at- 
 tractions of literary intercourse; and in the manifold associations 
 which spring from the communions of religion and the pursuits of 
 business. Every institution, therefore, which, like our own Soci- 
 ety, gathers its members at frequent periods from distant sections 
 and different States, forms a new link in that most important chain 
 of causes, upon which we must chiefly rely, under Providence, for 
 the support and perpetuity of our republican system. 
 
 In behalf of that system, how numerous and powerful are the 
 motives which appeal to us on an anniversary like this. The 
 tranquility of those academic walks, the circumstances, all of them , 
 under which we assemble, speak to us of a beneficent Government 
 and a prospered country. The experience, too, of every one of us 
 enforces the same lesson with the strength and vividness of ac.per- 
 sonal conviction. 
 
 In what other nation has honest ambition so wide a range, and 
 merit so certain and so brilliant a reward? Wiiere else, in the civ- 
 
ilized world, can a virtuous education be eo surely obtained, and 
 lead to results of such transcendent worth? 
 
 '^ A distinguished iUustration of this truth we have present in our 
 own coiupanionsliip to-day. The youth, whom some of us re- 
 member as a student of Chapel Hill in the class of 1818, whose 
 feeble health had threatened to quench his ardent thirst of know- 
 ledge, returns to us now, the occupant of the highest political sta- 
 tion which is known on earth. We recognise here no distinctions 
 of artilicial rank; no claims of lineage; no assumptions of wealth; 
 but we acknowledge that the honors conferred upon our brother-in- 
 letters are reliected back upon our University and ourselves, and 
 we recognise them as the fruit of wise instruction, and as incent- 
 ives to eflbrts in others, to whom opportunities are ofTered, more 
 favorable, even, than were his. We greet him on this auspicious 
 occasion, not alone as the Chief Magistrate of the Republic, but in 
 a more near and friendly relation, as our ancient associate in study, 
 and a graduate, with us, of the same honored institution. Here, 
 where in the bright morning of life he laid, in virtue, in industry, 
 and in science, the deep foundations of his subsequent success, he 
 comes back with us, to pay the sincere homage of gratitude for 
 those early privileges to which he owes so much, and which he can 
 now, more than ever, value as they deserve. In his recollection, 
 as in the memory of us all, this ancient place yet glows with its old 
 attractions, and our affections fondly turn to it, amid the wander- 
 ings of earth, with something of youthful ardor, as well as of filial 
 respect. However in other scenes and less tranquil pursuits, 
 
 " tlie ear is all unstrung, 
 
 "Still, still, it lovea the lowland tongue." 
 
 But time, which n)atures and ripens, also destroys; and as our 
 eyes wander over this assembly, we mourn the absence of many 
 afamiliar countenance and many a beloved form. While we ac- 
 
8 
 
 kiiovvledffe new and welcome accessions to our number from the 
 youthful graduates of the year, we are compelled to remember that 
 they occupy the seals of earlier companions, who have been swept 
 away in the lapse of years, and who repose now in the silent sha- 
 dows of the grave. To those of us who were together here thirty 
 years ago, '■'•rari nantes in gurgile vasto,^^ these mournful recol- 
 lections come home with peculiar power. Like dim voices of the 
 dead, they speak to us from the chair of the instructor as well as 
 from the bench of the pupil. . . • 
 
 " Now kindred merit fills tlie sable bier ; 
 
 Now lacerated friendship claims a tear ; ■ 
 
 Year chases year ; decay pursues decay ; 
 
 Still drops some joy from withering life away." 
 
 And here I should do injustice to the occasion and to my own 
 feelings if I did not purs.ue this painful theme for a moment, to pay 
 the tribute of my affectionate regard to the memory of him who 
 for so many years, often under most adverse circumstances, 
 but still with signal success, administered the affairs of the Uni- 
 versity as its presiding officer. No one, I am sure, who has ever 
 shared his counsels or profited by his mild reproofs, can easily for- 
 get the wisdom and the virtues of President Caldwell. Uniting 
 extended learning with sound judgment, he possessed the rare and 
 difficult art to temper admonition with kindness, and to render dis- 
 cipline more effectual by making it less repulsive. 
 
 " His life was gentle ; and the elements 
 
 So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up, 
 
 And say to all the world, 'this was a man.' " 
 
 His character and his usefulness — what he was, and what he 
 was enabled to do — suggest a theme, which in this theatre of his 
 labors, and among these witnesses of his fame, it would be a grate- 
 ful task under other circumstances to pursue. But his own exam- 
 
9 
 
 pie would rebuke us, if we should allow evea his merits to turn 
 us aside from contemplating the great objects of his toil. Let us 
 seek rather to understand and to do homage (.o those vast interests 
 oi enlightened culture in our own country, which he lived, and, I 
 h«d almost said, he died to promote. 
 
 To this general subject we are invited, not only by the proprie- 
 ties of the occasion, but by its own intrinsic dignity and worth. 
 In its broad and comprehensive sense, the work of education is the 
 grand business of human life; and in these United States, I need 
 hardly say, it can never be neglected, but at the hazard of conse- 
 quences which no patriot can contemplate without alarm. 
 
 This belief was present with America at its very birth, and 
 stamped upon its rising institutions the great impress of freedom 
 and perpetuity. In the history of other nations, learning has been 
 the slow growth of a society already formed, and has existed, at last, 
 only as the ornament of wealth or the champion of power. But 
 with the Fathers of our Republic, next to religion, it was the first 
 thing thought of; not as a luxury, but as a necessity; not as the 
 handmaid of privilege, but as the nurse of equality; not as the 
 child of endowment or the accident of place, but as the surest basis 
 of public prosperity and of private happiness. They planted know- 
 ledge, therefore, in the wilderness; established schools as soon as 
 they builded habitations; and laid the foundations of a University, 
 while yet they were struggling with the ravages of disease and the 
 apprehension of want. More than a century ago the charter gov- 
 ernments were celebrated for ''promoting letters by free schools 
 and colleges" — and to this feature of their character has been 
 traced the secret of their great success. ''Every child born into the ''v 
 world was lifted from the earth by the genius of its country, and V, 
 in the statutes of the land received, as its political birthright, a I 
 pledge of the public care for its morals and its mind." 
 
 It has been said that, under a Government like ours, whatever is 
 2 
 
10 
 
 gamed in poliMcs is lost in learning, and that a nation becomes less 
 truly intelligent by becoming more thoroughly Republican. Yet 
 no country has done so much for learning in so short a time as 
 America. Unexampled as has been its growth in all the elements 
 of physical power, its means of education have multiplied with its 
 if.dvancing population, and gone hand in hand with its increasing 
 wealth. When this institution was founded in 1789 it had not 
 more than ten associate colleges in the whole Union; and many 
 of these, in every thing but the name, were hardly on a level with 
 our modern academies. There are nov^ in the United States at 
 least ten times that number, with an aggregate of nearly eight 
 hundred instructors, an attendance of twelve thousand students, 
 and a library of six hundred and fifty thousand volumes. Inde- 
 pendent of these, but laboring in the same field of usefulness, are 
 thirty-four schools of theology, thirty-two of medicine, and eight 
 of law, all of them in successful operation, and some of them mu- 
 nificently provided with the most costly apparatus and most valu- 
 able works. The true glory, however, of republican culture is 
 found in those less ambitious nurseries of learning which, scattered 
 broadcast over the Union, extend the opportunities of free in- 
 struction to almost every family in America. From the imperfect 
 returns of many of the States, and the different systems adopted 
 in various sections for accomplishing the same end, an accurate 
 summary on this subject cannot well be obtained. Five years 
 ago it was estimated that, in the whole country, there were not 
 less than two millions of pupils, who attended common schools; 
 but a better idea of their extent and influence may be gathered 
 from the statistics of a single State. In New York, there are 
 nearly eleven thousand public schools; not less than half a million 
 of pupils; and district libraries for the use alike of children and 
 adults, comprising in the aggregate more than a million of vol- 
 umes. In that State, I am aware, the school system has beers 
 
u 
 
 the work of many years; but even the system of Ohio, one of 
 the youngest States in the Union, may well attract our astonish- 
 ment and respect. Here, if any where in the land, considering 
 her late existence and marvellous growth . we might have looked 
 to see the cultivation of mind fatally postponed, if not wholly 
 overwhelmed by the thronging demands of enterprise, and the 
 pressing employments of active life. Yet her constitution de- 
 clares, in the genuine spirit of the Republic, " that knowledge is 
 essential to good government and human happiness," and that 
 '' schools and means of instruction should be encouraged in such 
 a way, as is consistent with freedom of conscience." Acting on 
 the admirable sentiment of this provision, she had established, 
 as long ago as 1840, eighteen colleges and nearly six thousand 
 Bchools, which were attended by two hundred and twenty-five 
 thousand scholars. 
 
 These illustrations evince, at a single glance, the extended in- 
 terest of our people in the diffusion of knowledge, and (he mag- 
 nificent results which that patriotic interest has achieved . If some 
 States have done less than Ohio for the cause of instruction, 
 there are others which have done more — and all of them , I be- 
 lieve without exception, have recognised its importance by wise 
 constitutional or legal provisions. The public funds set apart for 
 this purpose in the whole Union, including the generous grants of 
 land by (he Federal Government, to promote the sales of its pub- 
 lic domain, need not shrink from comparison with the boasted 
 literary endowments of Europe; and yet they fall very far short of 
 the entire expenditure in the United States for the education of the 
 young. The cost of private instruction forms of itself an ad- 
 ditional item of immense amount, while the grand aggregate is 
 still further increased by the frequent contributions of individual 
 beneficence, for the foundation of hbraries, or the improvement of 
 schools. In the field of letters, as every where else in our coun- 
 
 / 
 / ' 
 / 
 
12 
 
 try, the great principle of voluntary effort is ceaselessly at work, 
 and constantly rivals, by the energy of its movements and the 
 magnitude of its effects, the most successful action on the part of 
 Government. The exercise of their combined power has pervad- 
 ed the very heart of the people with the influences of moral 
 and mental culture, and has extended the means of education to 
 every grade of society and every condition of life. 
 
 Aided, however, by no combination with the State, the reli- 
 gious teachings of America are the work purely of private bene- 
 ficence. In the republics of antiquity, religion was only a part of 
 their political system, and the head of the State was also the fa- 
 ther of the church. This unnatural connexion, fatal alike to 
 Christianity and to liberty, which even yet lingers in the Old 
 World, has been wholly repudiated in the Neiv — and the land of 
 Roger Williams and Thomas Jefferson proclaims liberty of con- 
 science from sixty thousand churches, and inculcates virtue and 
 toleration in as many Sabbath schools. Free government is valu- 
 able, after all, not so much for any direct exertion of its own 
 power, as for what it permits the people to work out for them- 
 selves. 
 
 The Press began its work in 1639 : a century afterwards it had 
 earned the pi'ohibition of England, and was strong enough to defy 
 it ; and at this day, it asserts its freedom by an influence which is 
 only not despotic because it is not harmonious. Far outstripping 
 by its enterpiise the fertility of our own writers, the American 
 press appropriates unshrinkingly the literary treasures of the whole 
 earth ; while it almost forbids miportation of books by the cheap- 
 ness with which it reprints them, and the facility with which it 
 scatters them among all classes of the reading community. But 
 the most striking displays of its activity and power are only to be 
 witnessed in the field of Journalism, where it more than equals 
 France in energy, and knows no other rival throughout the world. 
 
13 
 
 It printed the first newspaper in America in the year 1704 ; in 
 1828 it had joined an additional number of eight hundred and 
 fifty ; and, at this day, it acts upon the popular mind through the 
 teeming columns of more than two thousand journals. Sharing, 
 as well as stimulating, the progressive spirit of the age, it advances 
 into the wilderness with our hardy pioneers ; keeps company with 
 our commerce among the islands of the sea ; and contends for 
 supremacy with the sword upon every batde-field which is won 
 by our victorious arms. Already it sends us shipping lists from 
 the Sandwich Islands, chronicles the news of the day in La Vera 
 Cruz, and echoes back the thunder of our cannon from the shores 
 of the far Pacific. Becoming thus the missionary as well as the 
 schoolmaster of republicanism, it plants among other nadons the 
 seeds of freedom, which it has itself ripened upon our soil ; and 
 having first contributed to the glory of America at home, it crowns 
 its labor of patriotism by making it better known , and therefore 
 more honored, abroad. 
 
 With influences such as these, it more than pays back to our 
 country whatever of nurture it has received from it, and richly 
 atones for all the imperfections or abuses by which it so often de- 
 serves the reproaches of society, and sometimes seems, almost, to 
 require the censorship of law. The force of enlightened public 
 opinion constitutes, after all, its best restraint, and the only one 
 which would leave to it all its value. Under this guidance, if its 
 teachings are not always pure, they are seldom dangerous ; for its 
 errors are met by truth as soon as they appear, and, like the lance 
 of Achilles, it has the virtue to heal the wounds which it has itself 
 inflicted. In the higher branches of literature, the good which iS 
 confers is never doubted ; and if it is less free from censure in its 
 lighter publications, yet its agency even there is on the side of vir- 
 tue and in favor of liberty. '' Were it left to me to decide," 
 writes Mr. Jeflferson, '' whetlicr we should have a government 
 
14 
 
 without newspapers, or newspapers without government, I would 
 not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." Paradoxical as 
 this may seem, it cannot be doubted that no government can 
 be maintained in the spirit of hberty and purity, without tlie 
 chastening influences p' the newspaper press. 
 
 It is sometimes :.aid that a rich source of instruction is closed to 
 us, because America has no monuments ; and if by this it is 
 meant that she is not yet marked with the decay of age and the 
 ravages of time, the assertion is strictly true. But unless ruin is 
 more desirable than greatness, and the dim figures of antiquity 
 more precious than the fresh and glowing forms of youth, this 
 feature of her character is rather her glory than her reproach. 
 The monuments of America are not found in the scattered frag- 
 ments of the dusty past, but point all of them to the rising gran- 
 deurs of the far-ofi' future ; and while older nations '^ look back 
 through the twilight of ages that lose themselves in night," the 
 genius of our Republic goes forth in the dawn of morning, to meet 
 and welcome the approach of day. No feudal castles, crumbling 
 upon our hills, attest the ancient violence of robber-lords, and not 
 for us, do the glorious relics of a noble arjcestry bear witness, in 
 buried columns and broken arches, to the degenerate spirits of their 
 unworthy sons ; but in place of these, and far better than these, 
 we crown our landscapes with contented homes, we build altars 
 to science by the hearthstone of every citizen, and with the spires 
 of thousands of churches we point our children the path to Heaven . 
 While we can preserve, unimpaired to our country, /ree instruc- 
 tion, free religion, and a free press, vfe need ask no other support 
 for our institutions, and no other witnesses to our fame. 
 
 To the means of instruction which have been already mentioned, 
 I should do wrong not to add that other and peculiar education 
 which springs from the very working of our republican system, and 
 from which no member of the community can well escape, even 
 
15 
 
 kf he would. Under our policy, every citizen is a part of the Gov- 
 ernment, and some of its most important duties are periodically 
 devolved upon him, both by law and by necessity. He wields the 
 power of the elective franchise, and determines by his vote the choice 
 alike of measures and of men 3 not only ivho shall rule him, but 
 what shall rule him; he sits in the jury box, and the fortune, the 
 fame, nay, the very life of his neighbor, rest upon his decision; he 
 is called as a witness, and is sworn to give true testimony on ques- 
 tions involving the deepest interests and the most important results; 
 or, by the suffrages of his fellow citizens, he is clothed with still 
 greater trusts, and assumes responsibilities which belong only to 
 the highest stations in the gift of the people. A sovereign in his 
 own right, the symbols of his authority are thus constantly before 
 his eyes, and from every new exercise of his power, the American 
 citizen derives fresh excitement to his intellect,. and increased dig- 
 nity to his character. In all his public acts the double motive 
 presses upon him to ensure reward and to avoid disgrace. Under 
 a free government, he knows full well that, with intelligence and 
 fidelity, there are no plaudits which he may not win, and no prizes 
 of ambition which are above his reach; while, on the other hand, 
 no where else is corruption so inexcusable, and ignorance so wholly 
 out of place. In other countries, where passive obedience is the 
 fruit of despotism , a stolid people is t^ie natural accompaniment of 
 an educated prince; but the genius of ©ur institutions contemplates 
 no such thing as an ignorant man, and deems itself defrauded of 
 its just claims when it finds a citizen faithless to his duty. The 
 large requirements, therefore, of American politics, which are with 
 superficial observers the subject of hasty regret, constitute in reality 
 one of the most valuable features of our republican system, a most 
 affluent source of ennobling instruction, and tend, with inevitable 
 certainty, not only to increase the popular intelligence, but to give 
 energy, expansion, and elevation to the popular mind. Tran- 
 
16 
 
 quility and the repose of exclusive devotion to personal pursuits 
 are not the most favorable elements either for great conceptions or 
 distinguished action. The highest heroism, on the contrary, springs 
 from the strongest excitements; and the period of revolution is also 
 the period of awakened genius. The same causes which break 
 up ancient abuses in society, break up, with equal efficacy, old ab- 
 surdities in science and in art; and from the still-heaving waves of 
 tumult and reform, emerge side by side the warrior, the statesman, 
 the orator, and the poet. The sublime productions of Milton had 
 their birth in the same times which produced the stormy charac- 
 ter of Oliver Cromwejl; and the harsh, passionate voice of the 
 one comes softened to our ears by the lofty melody of the other. 
 Amid the fierce passions and new found energies of revolution- 
 ary France, Mirabeau and Robespierre announced together the 
 rising fortunes of the '■'■ man of destiny." And after convulsions, 
 such as the earth has rarely seen. Napoleon comes upon the stage 
 prepared for him, and writes his name in iron characters, not only 
 upon the history of Europe, but upon the very forehead of the 
 world. The experience of modern times is confirmed upon this 
 subject by all the lessons of antiquity. The home of freedom 
 was every where the dwelling place of letters, and we read the ex- 
 amples of successful genius, not among the subjects of despotic 
 Babylon, but among the democracy of Athens. There was no 
 literary fame, even in Greece, until the era opened of her repub- 
 lican principles; but Mew she became the matchless land of civili- 
 zation and refinement. 
 
 " Where science struck the thrones of earth and heaven, 
 Which shook but fell not ; and the harmonious mind 
 Poured itself forth in all prophetic song, 
 And music lifted up the listening spirit. 
 Until it walked, exempt from mortal care, 
 Godlike, o'er the clear billows of sweet sound, 
 
17 
 
 And human hands first mimicked, and then mocked 
 With moulded limbs, more lovely than its own, 
 The human form, till marble grew divine." 
 
 And tlie literature of Greece rriust prove forever the kindling in- 
 fluences of Grecian liberty. 
 
 But as no people can continue indefinitely in a state of revolu- 
 tion, these excitations of the popular mind in other ages and other 
 countries, always producing the same noble fruits, have, after a 
 brief and brilliant reign, been as invariably followed by the paral- 
 izing torpor of despotism. It was reserved for our happy coun- 
 try to devise a system, our own incomparable federative system, 
 which, with the liberalizing influences of the Christian religion in 
 freedom and in purity, is constantly instructing and stimulating 
 the popular mind, and developing all the energies of our nature. 
 It is a problem successfully worked out, which justly commands 
 the admiration of the world, equally auspicious to literature and to 
 liberty, anci promises blessings to mankind, which the human im- 
 agination can hardly conceive. "At this moment, the disastrous 
 and ominous condition of Europe, which men of philosophical en- 
 quiry and reflection begin to ascribe to inveterate, radical, and per- 
 manent evils of political and social systems, but renders more vivid 
 and dazzling the bright aspects of our manifold prosperity." But 
 this is not the occasion to pursue this train of thought. 
 
 Devoted in patriotism, and ever ready to act on the noble prin- 
 ciple — salus Reipublicffi suvrema lex—owx countrymen have yet 
 neglected nothing which was calculated to adorn domestic life and 
 promote individual happiness. Female education has, therefore, 
 always been a subject of primary attention. 
 
 Elevated to her appropriate position in society; adorned, refined, 
 and accomplished by careful instruction, the American uwman is 
 the happy companion of the Jfiicrican J'ree/nan; gladdening his 
 heart bv her smile of confidence and love, and cheerino him in 
 
18 
 
 lu5 gical career of jniblic duty, by her voice of counsel and appro- 
 balion. 
 
 Glorious as our insiiUitions are, their fruit would have turned to 
 ashes, without the lovely association of the softer sex, fitted by 
 education to be the friend, the joy, the pride of American patriots. 
 
 If our country, frotn the very natiue of its Government, demands 
 much of its citizens, let us remember that it makes them capable 
 of dowg much; find that, by giving to them the stimulus and 
 nurture of fiee institutions, it places within the reach, even of the 
 most humble, the highest attainments of learning and the noblest 
 achievements of mind. 
 
 Tiie value of this nurture and of this stimulus is best attested by 
 the great results which they ha^ve already accomplished; and thus 
 measured by the standard of results, our whole Republic is but a 
 monument to their praise. Under their influence, constantly cher- 
 ished and constantly in turn exerted, it has not only maintained 
 successfidly its freedom and its power, but it has pursued a career 
 of progress and improvement, which is without a parallel in the 
 history of the world. Fifty-eight years ago it elected its first Pres- 
 ident. It then embraced a population of little more than three 
 millions, occupying tliirleen States, on the Atlantic coast, and cov- 
 ering an area of less than five hundred thousand square miles. 
 Its population has now swelled to more than twenty millions, and 
 it has added nearly a million of sc^uare miles to its represented ter- 
 ritory. It has more than doubled the number of States, and new 
 sovereignties still form themselves in the wilderness to claim its 
 confederate honors. With this astonishing increase of its numbers 
 and of its peopled and cultivated territory, has grown up, also in a 
 ratio equally rapid, every important interest which can possibly add 
 cither to national wealth or national glory. In agriculture, it has 
 invented new implements of industry, and applied them to fresh 
 fields of foil: and from the ricii abundance of its gathered harvests, 
 
(I not only till." ciuli avenue of want at home, but fi eight? its store 
 ships with a people's tribute to ihe famine-stricken chikhcn of king- 
 doms abroad. In commerce, it wliitens the very ocean witli ita 
 enterprise, and exchanges products with every climate imder the 
 sun; while in the rapid advancement of its manufactures, it bids 
 fair, at no distant day, to rival even the skill of English industry, 
 and to transfer to this side of the Atlantic the '' workshop of the 
 world." 
 
 Pursuing with boundless, because unfettered , zeal each opening 
 of fore ig-7i II a.ffic,k at the same time unites its own territory by con- 
 stantly extending and improving its means of internal intercourse 
 and trade. The remotest inhabitant of the confederacy is not beyond 
 the reach of its post office, and its civilization travels not only with 
 the marvellous power of wind and .-teani; but with the speed of elec- 
 tricity, subdued by the art of man, along the lines of its Magnetic 
 Telegraph. ' ' 
 
 Scarcely more than twenty years ago, it wtis without a single mile 
 of railroad; in 1836, its iron engines traversed a completed track of 
 sixteen hundred miles, and it has now more miles of railroad than, 
 in the time of Washington, it had of post routes. In proportion 
 to its population, it has more than tb.ree times as many canals as 
 England, and more than four times as many as France; and the 
 canal connecting the Hudson with the Lakes, is the longest of these 
 artificial rivers which has been constructed in the world. 
 
 In the year ISOT, Robert Fulton attracted ridicule by building 
 its first steamboat, and ten years after, it had no regular line of 
 steamboats in all its western waters. They now crowd in hun- 
 dreds upon its ocean rivers and its inland seas, gathering the rich 
 products of the most remote and land-locked regions of our country, 
 and pouring them into the lap of commerce; they defy every form 
 of danger upon its Atlantic coast; they keep company with its na- 
 vy against the northers of the Gulf of Mexico; and, under the fos- 
 
20 
 
 leiing careof Congress, they will soon cross the Ocean with its mails, 
 and minister to the wants of our ships of war, and protect our 
 merchant marine in every quarter of the globe. A single one of 
 its Western Slates possesses more steamboats than the whole king- 
 dom of France, and there are said to be as many steamers on Lake 
 Erie as in the Mediterranean sea. 
 
 Its increasing means of communication thus keep pace with its 
 extending settlements, and its whole Union is bound together in 
 the strong embraces of mutual intercourse, mutual knowledge, and 
 mutual interest. In this way it administers with facility one Gov- 
 ernment for twenty-eight sovereignties, and from a single central 
 heart dift'uses the healthy life-blood of law and justice through all 
 portions of the body politic. Yet, with us, Paris is not France, 
 and that heart would soon become corrupt, and the stream of sani- 
 tary circulation torpid, but for the purifying application of the 
 Federative principle, and the chastening and correcting influences 
 of the subdivisions of power amongst tlie States and the people, to 
 whom so large a share in the duty of self-government is wisely 
 confided. 
 
 The same influences, too, which have thus developed, with 
 almost startling rapidity, the various sources of its physical pow- 
 er, have adorned it at the same time with cheering monuments of 
 iis active benevolence, its scientific ingenuity, and its improving 
 taste. Its charities partake, at once, of the vigor of its enterprise 
 and the abundance of its means, and no worthy object ever yet 
 appealed to it vain. Shrewd and unyielding as it doubtless is 
 in the concerns of trade, it is characterized by the warmest sym- 
 pathy for human suffering, and the most generous disposition to 
 give it adequate relief. Its capacious heart, sharing something of 
 its broad nationality, has gathered around it none of the iron of 
 avarice or the numbness of exhausted feeling, but never fails to re- 
 spond with warmth and feeling to the voice of misfortune, no 
 
21 
 
 raatter from what clime it comes, or what disaster may have pro- 
 duced it. In our own country it attests the magnitude of its bene- 
 ficence by its charitable institutions, which attract respect, not only 
 on account of the purposes to which they are devoted, but from 
 their elegant construction and convenient arrangements. Its care 
 of its poor has been censured by foreign writers as so extravagant 
 as to invite pauperism ; and with equal bounty it embraces in its 
 ministrations the aged and the sick, the deaf and the dumb, the 
 blind and the lunatic. These institutions, so numerous and so 
 well adapted to their ends, excite our admiration, not so much at 
 their number, as that in so new a country time has been found 
 to establish them. Firm in the maintenance of law, its system of 
 punishments is characterized by christian benevolence, and the 
 pecuniary fines imposed on numerous classes of crimes are devoted 
 to the promotion of education — beautifully taxing vice to support 
 virtue. 
 
 If America has not yet equalled older nations by her advances 
 in literature and art, she has at least laid a firm foundation for them; 
 and bright examples of generous attainment and lofty intellect are 
 not even now wanting among her cultivated citizens. Her states- 
 manship has been proved in the strictest school of diplomacy; and 
 her public speaking, in true eloquence, will not suffer from com- 
 parison with that of any other country. In history, in painting, 
 and in sculpture, in poetry, in the eloquence of the pulpit, in the 
 severe reasoning of the bench, and in the imposing diction of Sen- 
 atorial elocution, our country has produced successful competitors 
 for a companionship with the most gifted sons of genius in other 
 regions of the world. 
 
 But, whatever may be thought of its literature and its taste, its 
 contributions to science and to mechanics can never be regarded as 
 deficient, either in number or in value. Its discoveries in electri- 
 city, in galvanism, and in the application of steam, are as brilliant 
 
22 
 
 in theoiy as they are useful in results, and thousands of models in 
 our Patent office bear witness that the genius which invented the 
 cotton gin, and new moulded the cominerce of the world, is still rife 
 among the countrymen of Eli Wiiitney. In mathematics, in min- 
 eralogy, in geology, and in chemistry, the profound researches of 
 our countrymen have added to the national character, and increased 
 the means of social happiness. 
 
 Trammelled by no fetters of ignorance or superstition , the Amer- 
 ican child of genius '^comes forth with freedom into the glowing 
 sunlight of philosophy, as the servant and interpreter of nature; he 
 looks abroad into the rich and magnificent universe, calls the de- 
 lightful scenery all his own — the mountains, the valleys, the ocean , 
 the rivers, and the sky; through these wide bounds he is free at will 
 to choose — 
 
 ' ' Whate'er bright spoils the florid earth contains, 
 . ; ' Whate'er the water or the ambient air. 
 
 All present him with perfect instances of the consummate wisdom of 
 the Almighty God, who created a world so fraught with beauty; 
 and by their examination he gains materials, which not only en- 
 lighten and adorn, but exalt and purify his mind, leaching him to 
 appreciate the miraculous workings of an omnipotent and eternal 
 Power." 
 
 But confederate America, after all, is not yet a century old; and 
 it is unjust, therefore, to measure her attainments by the ripened 
 knowledge which with other nations has been the accumulation of 
 centuries. The first condition of progress in every department of 
 learning is to appreciate its value, and this condition, at least, she 
 has generously fulfilled. There is no object of mental improve- 
 ment at all worthy of human pursuit, upon which, in some form 
 or other, she has not set the seal of her approval; and her elevation, 
 it should be remembered, is not shown by the bright achievements 
 of an isolated class, but by the liberal culture of a whole people. 
 
23 
 
 Without any deductions for her deficiencies, she has done enough 
 aheady to fix the gratitude of her citizens, and to challenge the 
 admiration of the world. And yet, she is hut in the morning of 
 her existence; and brilliant as now is her star, it has only entered 
 upon the radiant career which it is destined under Providence yet 
 to accomplish. Her population, her wealth, her intellect, and her 
 power, are all of them in the germ only of their first development, 
 and are pressing forward to an expansion, whose majestic grandeur 
 it is difficult for the mind to realize. When we consider her 
 sparseness of population, her vacant territory, her favored position, 
 her unrivalled Government, and remember the momentum which 
 she has received from the past, and the increased energy which 
 she must acquire from every succeeding step of her onward march, 
 we are ready to believe nothing impossible in her future greatness. 
 
 It would be vain to expect that die work of mere human hands, 
 requiring the agency of human means, should attain successful 
 results, without sometimes exhibiting the imperfections of its au- 
 thors, and the infirmities of their nature. 
 
 In the progress of our experiment of self-government, we have 
 encountered dangers which appeared to threaten failure, and which 
 were exultingly hailed by the enemies of freedom as the sure 
 sign that our Federal Union, the prolific source of all our bless- 
 ings, would prove but a " rope of sand." Through these dan- 
 gers we have successfully passed. Others must await us. 
 
 We know 
 
 "There is a divinity which shapes our ends, 
 Rough hew them as we may," 
 
 and we will not despair of the Republic; always remembering 
 that, if in the collisions of interest, the wickedness of fanaticism, 
 or the frenzy of party, we recur to those feelings of fraternal af- 
 fection, forbearance, and conciliation, and to those great principles 
 
24 
 
 of justice and respect for the rights of all, which animated our fa- 
 thers, we will not fail to secure the perpetuity of our institutions. 
 The magnitude of our country's destiny must depend, howev- 
 er, under Providence, upon the virtue and intelligence of her in- 
 dividual citizens; and to all of us, therefore, she addresses the so- 
 lemn appeal of patriotism and humanity. While, therefore, we 
 endeavor to appreciate as it deserves our glorious heritage of liber- 
 ty and happiness, let us also appreciate the vast responsibility by 
 which it is accompanied ! Living under the only free government 
 on earth, upon us are concentrated the dearest political hopes of man. 
 Wherever glitters the crown of despotism, or faintly throbs the 
 heart of freedom — wherever toil goes unrewarded, or human right 
 is crushed beneath oppression — from patriots of all climes, and the 
 oppressed of every land — come blended to our ears, voices alike 
 of warning and entreaty; all invoking us to be faithful to our holy 
 trust, and to preserve it sacredly for the civil redemption of the 
 world. The voices of the past come mingled with the voices of 
 the present, and amid the graves of fallen empires, and the splen- 
 did ruins of departed greatness, we gather anew die solemn lesson 
 of individual duty. Let us receive it with submission, and rev- 
 erence, and awe; and let it increase the warmth of our patriotism, 
 the earnestness of our virtue, and the devotedness of our toil. If 
 we would discharge aright the duty which we owe to our country 
 and to mankind, let us begin by discharging aright the duty which 
 we owe ourselves. 
 
 " This above all, to thine own self be true; 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man."