UV^" ^*w/~^A^-. V,;^~^^^* ww^K>'S:i i:.^,.^^^mimik CC/^-'0'^vi.^/,,~Vv^>^7^«^M* S!l!!S«(**s** WWWW^i^g^^^^^^,^ r^^lwss^w"^^-^ -w" ^m^w £j^^^m^m^(^^ I y^,jyK- vSiife ^,^^VVW\^ ^^^^^^^^^«Qi.MyS^^-wy^^^^^VwWW, LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, # ^ ^^..'.L.'B.AV I I UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. ^ 't^SMi&^i;ibIS^^5 W^^ '\^vwgwV^ .^, C ,1 ,, r V V -., ,^; ,^, ■.^; W. V :;:-t;-^^e;'"-'^ P^5N^lOVv^*J^^^N^^w^-M^S%^6* vMJffljm'f ^'WWWWwwg ^W^^^^^^^^'o' '/i'Vw^^W^^' JJ^^U ^^Wwv^ ^^w wWg'«^V'w'^^' 'WW^^^^^i^llll^^^'^^e^^g j^w^gyywyy^yj^^^^ .VWVW^, vyw^^»^ WWwwwww^w^^:^o^^:-^s ,>jv^yvuvuv: ^ywijai'^ ti^^jm&m^ jWMjWUuUUJ! Int cation anlr ^x oqx tss. AN ADDRESS DEI-IVEH3D BEFORE THE PEANKLIN AND WASHINGTON M-' %A LITERARY SOCIETIES , O P AT EASTON, PA. Sit tj^r Annual Commencement, SEPTEMBER H, 1847. ' BY THE KEV. JOHN M. KREBS, D. D. m. ■ S-EASTON, PA. PUBLISHED FOR THE COLLEGE 1847. i;i'''fv^■A£Vi^\v£^ v*'- ^ 47 JOHN WESTALL AND CO., PRINTERS, U SPRUCE STREET, NEW-YOBK- Lafayette College, Sept. 15th, 1847. Mev. J. M. Krebs, D.D.,— Dear Sir, — In behalf of the Societies which we respectively represent, we tender you our sincere thanks for your very able and highly interesting Address, delivered last evening, and would respectfully solicit a copy of the same for publication. Henry E. Spayd, j R. B. FoRESMAN, > Committee of W. L. Society. H. M. HoYT, J Robert M. Wallace, ^ Wm. C. Somerville, > Committee of F. L. Society. A. Whiton, 5 Easton, Sept. lirtfi, 1847. Gentlemen, — The Address, delivered last evening, before your Socie- ties, having been prepared at their request, is herewith transmitted to you, to be disposed of according to your communication of this morning. Eespectfully yours, John M. Krebs, Messrs. Henky E. Spayd, ^c, Committee, EDUCATION AND PEOGRESS Gentlemen op the Frankmn a?:d Washington Literary Societies OF Lafayette College. These titles are happily associated. When, perhaps too recently for the just demands of this oc- casion, I received your request to address you, I nevertheless felt myself persuaded, by the combination of these revered names Avith each other, and with these academic studies and recreations with which they are so significantly blended. I found, in the association, something suggestive, both as to the themes appropriate to this liteiary festival, and as to the topics and methods suited to their illustration. Washington ! Franklin ! Lafayette ! names which the world delights to honor ! — names interwoven wuth the greatest era of modern history ; wnth events that belong to all time, and preg- nant wnth the destinies of the human race ! — names that are representative of the great principles of social privilege and duty, of salutary progress, and true prosperity ! — names canon- ized in the calendars of patriotism and philanthropy, and em- blazoned in the archives of public and private virtue ! — names not all unknown to philosophy ; famed for wisdom and saga- ciousness ; patronal of science, industry and art ! W'ith these names you would adorn the grove of Academus and fair Lyceiun's walk, as indices of the principles that should be cherished and the characters that should be formed, by the sons and lovers of learning, and as tokens of a covenant with EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. your country and your kind, that, prominent amid the aims of llTO iT-mi iitjII life, you will the people's rights maintain, Unaw'd by influence and unbrib'd by gain ;" that from you, also, " Shall patriot truth her noblest precepts draw, Pledged to religion, liberty and law." We hail the omen, — we accept the suggestion which it yields. And we would follow this guidance, in making some remarks on THE RELATION OF EDUCATED AMERICANS TO THEIR COUNTRYMEN AND TO MANKIND, — Considered with reference to the progressive character of the present age, the iri/luence of educated men, and the principles by which they should be guided, in the ex- ertion of that influence. And it is my trust, gentlemen, that in approaching these high themes, I shall neither be expected nor tempted to speak of them, in any other spirit than becomes a Christian patriot and a Christian minister. It is manifest to every observing mind that the age in which we live is characterised by a restless avidity of change. It is not necessary to assert that, in this particular, our age is alto- gether different from all that have preceded it. Nor, indeed, is such the fact. For remarkable as are the uneasiness of men, and the heaving and swelling of the great bosom of society, such also has been the characteristic of former times ; individ- uals and communities alike partaking, more or less, of the de- sire to alter existing arrangements, in the hope — sometimes well-founded, but alas ! as often vain — of producing a state of things which shall at least be novel, and perhaps advantageous. It is indeed a result of that great law of progress which is impressed upon society, and under the influence of which, it must be admitted that the condition of man has been meliora- ted, and the happiness of nations greatly promoted. And, as far as that law is in operation, — even where it is perverted and misapplied, so as to threaten a mere exchange of evils, or even the substitution of a worse condition than that which seems op- EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. 7 pressive, and therefore is attempted to be thrown off — there is a propriety in rebuking our fear, and in encouraging our hope, and in directing to ourselves the injunction of him, who demon- strated that there is nothing new under the sun, " Say not thou, what is the cause that the former days were better than these ? for thou dost not inquire wisely concerning this." But in whatsoever manner former times present examples of evils, and are marked with the ruthless spirst of change — where old foundations were broken up, and the hearts of the sober and the pious too, oft failed for fear of a process that seemed to lead to universal degeneracy, while, after all, the result was nothing but the reproduction of the image of some more an- cient day, — still it can never be the less an occasion of deep solicitude to us, to mark the phases which the spirit of change assumes among ourselves ; nor the less a duty to consider our own responsibilities in the view of it, and to be upon our guard, so as to contribute, as far as in us lies, to the shape, di- rection and influences which may be impressed upon it for good, and to v;ard off the evils which we may justly apprehend, should its energies be mis-directed and uncontrolled. While the actual progress which society has made, and the real meli- oration of man's lot in the earth, (notwithstanding every threatening danger of the past, and the liability to error in every thing which men manage,) and especially our dependence and grounds of confidence in Him, who stilleth all the tumults of the people, give us encouragement to hope and trust that " that Providence which is abroad upon the universe and pre- sides in high authority over the destinies of all worlds," will, at all times, establish a proper limit to the waves even of the angry sea, and will still continue for our safety, to say, " Thus far shalt thou go and no farther." Wherever we turn our eyes, we find the spirit of change at ■work, and man is everywhere 'moved by the impulses of its resistless energy. Vicissitude marks peculiarly the history of the world, in that period which measures our own history as an independent nation. The old and settled order of things, — the deep foundations which successive centuries laid, and the 8 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. progress of other centuries seemed only to enlarge and strengthen, are undermined and breaking up. The advance- ment of science is changing the whole aspect of human society ; new ideas are awakening in the bosom of them that have hitherto but vegetated in patient and incurious stolidity ; the spirit of liberty is rousing anew from her lethargy ; and the political 'movements of governments and of the people under them, are contributing their part toward an entire I'evolution of the state and aspect of the whole world. The American revolution exhibited the spectacle of a young and enterprising nation, rising up, Jike a youthful giant to burst his bonds, and to throw off the chains of foreign oppres- sion, and astonishing the nations of the old Vv^orld by claiming, and taking, and maintaining, rank among them. It commenced its career, by establishing new institutions of government, wherein the necessity of thrones was denied, and no place was provided for hereditary kings, — but wherein it was assumed and settled, that the rights and happiness of the people are to be first considered, in the establishment of governments, the adoption of constitutions, the enactments of law, and the erec- tion of judicial tribunals. And this great fact, that govern- ment is not a tool, put by divine right into the hands of despots, but a presiding agency for the Commonwealth, ordained by Heaven to be a " terror to evil-doers and a praise to them that do well," w^as learned from that great charter of human liberty, the Book of God, — whose authority, and truth, and power, were so essentially conspicuous in the days that tried men's souls, and guided them in laying the foundations of an empire of freemen. The working of the system thus set up, has demonstrated it to be, on the whole, good and safe for us. Under these institutions, efficient, honored and happy, our fathers and ourselves, have lived in all good prosperity ; and "having obtained help from God, we continue even until now." But the influence of this spectacle went forth upon the world, " At the altar of American liberty, France lighted her torch of wild enthusiasm." But, goaded with the accumulated oppres- sions of ancient despotism, the progress of her revolution be- EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. 9 came a frenzy, signalised by excesses which must be deplored by every lover of humanity. In the attempt to plant the tree of liberty in that vicious soil, men resorted to the " tremendous tillage, which begun by clearing with the conflagration, and ploughing with the earthquake," and irrigating with human blood. Unhappily for France, she had " hardly broken the chains of slavery, — and thought to enjoy the benefits of liberty, without fulfilling its conditions. She had more enthusiasm than virtue, or perseverance. She lacked religious sentiments to temper her fervid opinions, and set bounds to her revolution- ary acts." And yet the very violence of the effort had its place, in ultimately extending the principles of freedom ; in laying their foundations in other lands ; and in disseminating those princi- ples whose operation has been to shake the nations of Europe to their centre, to unsettle the prerogatives of monarchs, and to teach kings the obligations of justice and patriotism. The day has gone by, when a crowned head could utter from the guard- ed recesses of Versailles, the arrogant boast, " I am the state." The gloomy repose of the Escurial has been disturbed with the shock which, not all in vain, has been emitted from the throes and convulsions of the Spanish people blindly struggling to be free. Prussia, in the person of her paternal sovereign, makes enlarged concessions to the enlightened demands of her children. And a new Pope, yielding to the spirit of the age, leads the way to the disparagement of his predecessor's infallibility, at least as a ruler, by simultaneously allowing the introduction, into the states of the Church, of rail- ways, so long dreaded as the chan- nels of heresy and rebellion, and by issuing from the Vatican such an unwonted boon, as the program of a Constitution and a Parliament, — for a people hitherto bound hand and foot under the double chain of temporal and'spiritual despotism, united in the person of the Vicar of Christ, and well nigh crushed under the weight of his triple crown. While, at the same time, borne on the winds of Heaven, the seeds of mighty change have been carried to the shores of the Bosphorus, and sown in remote Asia and Egypt, making their power felt, and producing fruit, in the adoption of new arts, and even of some harbingers of civil and 10 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. religious freedom, among the governments and among the people, who have long slumbered and slept, under the lethargic changelessness and customary bondage of oriental climes. And this result is inevitable in an age distinguished for the trophies of art, and the discoveries of science ; — when the press, that mighty Orator, is speaking in every secluded valley and on the far mountain-top, and myriads upon myriads every day listen to its voice ; — when steam is constantly multiplying the comforts of life, introducing what were once the exclusive luxuries of princes, amidst the commonest necessaries of the artisan's and laborer's daily existence, and throwing bridges across the vast ocean to bring the nations into closer brother- hood ; — when the traveller from western climes disdains the time-honored inconveniences of oriental locomotion, and casts up the dust upon the Red Sea Coast, with the wheels of his stage-coach, that phes whirling along before the startled vision of the Arab of the Desert ; or teaches the distant Hindoo to abandon his sluggish bark to the Ganges, and cast away his palanquin, that, over his arid plains, and penetrating to the very fastnesses of his Himmaleh, he may " fly on iron-track with wings of fire ;" — when man has even caught the subtle lightning, that in a moment flasheth from one part of the heaven to the other, confined its track to the tiny thread, with which he has girdled the earth, and, realising the fable of old romance, has made it the instant and faithful messenger of his thoughts, regardless alike of space and time ; — and when, avaihng itself of all these agencies, and turning them into means of better blessing, the glorious gospel, that has descended from the skies, goes forth in its beauty, its brightness, and its power, to pro- claim the acceptable year of the Lord, — announcing to the bruised and captive nations, the Anointed Deliverer, the healer of the broken-hearted, and imparting to the wretched bondman of sin, the glorious liberty of the children of God. And this is the condition of things in all the world, — such is the spirit of the present age. It is a spirit, whose influence upon the whole is doubtless beneficial ; and the ultimate result of the whole is to overturn, and overturn, and overturn, until He EDUCATIOA AND PROGRESS. 11 shall come, whose right it is to reign, and all the kingdoms of the world shall be brought under the safe and sanctified domin- ion of the Prince of Peace. But while such is the fact, it is not every change that takes place, or is projected, that is to be acknowledged as true progress. Not every demand that may be made from every quarter, is to be venerated and obeyed, as essential to the advancement, safety, honor, stability and comfort of society. The wildest vagaries of political schemers, the dreams of vis- ionary enthusiasts, the intriguing plots of demagogues, the clamours of infidel selfishness, may be urged upon us for our acceptance, under the pretence of improving our condition. These are foisted upon society, from time to time, as if from the inventive malignity of the great adversary, that he may bring into disrepute the sublime cause of man's advancement, or pervert and hinder his progress toward good, under the superintending protection and aid of the God of Heaven. But even these are often overruled for good ; and when at the worst, the heathen rage and the people imagine a vain thing, and change is heralded by the spirit of this watchword of rebellion against the great governor of the world, " Let us break His bands asunder, and cast His cords from us," — " He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh, the Lord shall hold them in deri- sion :" — "Even the wrath of man shall praise Him, and the remainder of wrath, shall he restrain." It is ever to be borne in mind, both for our guidance and hope, when we would hail the progress of change, or when we dread its excesses, that our help and governor is on high. We are dependent every way on the will of God; and ours must be the great care, in contributing to the advancement of society, in consulting for the liberty and happiness of men, ourselves or others, and in labouring for the prosperity of onr country, that no grand foundation principle which God has established, which has given strength, beauty and efficiency to the forms of law and polity, be overlooked, or set at naught, or violently overturned. In the view of this duty, and with 12 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. wise jealousy of rash and inconsiderate change, the Christian and patriot heart inquires, " If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do !" If the true and stable principles of government be disregarded ; — if rulers become ambitious, unjust and oppressive ; — if the laws are founded on selfishness, and are moulded by temporary expediency ; — if the tribunals become forgetful that they are exponents of high precepts of truth and equity which belong to the harmonies of the universe and have their origin and seat in the bosom of God ; — if the insane demands of a misguided populace prevail to the over- throw of the well-settled principles of law and order, which have been divinely sanctioned ; — or if popular ebullition usurp the place of lawful authority, and fulmine its will as equal or paramount to the will of the state, or even of Him who " or- dained the powers that be," — then are there elements of anarchy, oppression, and despotism at work, — whether wielded by one tyrant or a million — which will undermine all the peace, the rights and the safety of all the friends of law and order ; their efforts for the pubhc good will be paralysed ; and, sooner or later, not only will they be exterminated, but the land itself, the precious and the vile together, will be involved in univer- sal wretchedness, and overthrown by the just vengeance of Him who sitteth in the heavens, and shall speak to them in His wrath, and vex them in His hot displeasure. The happiness and prosperity of a community are intimately connected with its sense and manifestation of dependence on God. By him, kings reign, and princes decree justice. His favor is on the families that call upon his name ; but the nation and kingdom that Avill not serve him, He has decreed shall utterly perish. As a people we have signally enjoyed His protection. When He cast out the heathen before the original planters, defen- ded them against the savage, increased their strength, preserved them from being swallowed up by their enemies, and finally made them a nation, — in despite of the obstacles which beset their infancy and weakness, the tremendous difficulties under which their independence was vindicated, and the threatening EDUCATION AND PKOGRESS. 13 (dangers of anarchy and dissolution which preceded the estab- lishment of their constitution and government, — there is evi- dently to be seen the hand of God. And this hand was seen ; the dependence of the people on Him was recognized and acknowledged. For, as in all those early attempts to colonize the land which were begun for mere purposes of commerce and gain, without reference to religious considerations, disaster, disappointment, death and extermina- tion, were remarkably the result, so the successful enterprises were those precisely which begun and were continued in open reliance on the Almighty arm, and under the avowed influence of the principles of the Bible, and for the sake of conscience and the truth. The men who engaged in these enterprises were urged by the spirit of religious liberty ; they came for the purpose of seeking an asylum for the pure worship of God, when this freedom was denied them in their native land. And although they smarted under the oppressions of ecclesiastical tyranny and arbitrary bigotry, they could well separate these abuses, from the obligation and the privilege of acknowledging and serving the God of Heaven, according to the principles which they had derived from his word. They felt that the foundations of their infant empire could be laid with safety and hope, only as they were cemented by the influence of religion, and sustain- ed by the institutions of the Bible. We may see this fact, in all their religious institutions, in their sanctuaries, ministers and Bibles, their prayers, and public fasts and thanksgivings as commonwealths, their family government, their schools and rising colleges, their offices, tribunals and laws, and in all their constitutions, and all their public acts. And it is to this fact we are indebted for those strong Christian and protestant peculi- arities which hav€ been impressed upon the public conscience, and find a place in all the laws and constitutions of our land. in perfect consistency with the widest latitude of religious freedom. If in this last respect they were not at once inspired with the full conception of the wider ideas that have since pre- Tailed, let it still be remembered that these ideas were more 14 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. than shadowed forth in them, and had then their first and largest development in all the world, and that moreover, liberty is not licentiousness, and every community possesses the inherent right of providing for its own internal peace and order. The full toleration of all religious sentiments has been of slow growth hi our world ; and its comprehensive meaning and practical re- cognition have not, perhaps, been yet attained, even by those who most love to asperse the alleged shortcomings of our founders. I remember well, that until a very few years ago, Jews were ineligible to public office in my honored and be- loved native State of Maryland. I well remember the fierce- ness of the contest which preceded their enfranchisement. Yet that illiberal disfranchisement was a part of the original char- ter of the State, and, for a long time, was not deemed out of place. And although it has been boasted by and on behalf of the Catholic proprietary and his followers that they were sig- nally the leaders, in the extension of toleration, even of those by whom they were themselves proscribed, yet, let this be observed, that, as far as the toleration of Protestants was con- cerned, it could not have been prevented under a charter granted by the king of Protestant Engl and . But, to return from this brief digression. While a sense of obligation to God, is still extensively a feature of the public mind, it does not exist without considerable drawback and de- facement. The very freedom of our religious institutions, the appropriate separation of Church and State, the constitutional exemption of the government from all interference with our ecclesiastical organizations, and the very jealousy with which these principles are insisted upon by all classes and sects of our people, produce a tendency to forget our dependence on God as a people, and our obligation to his laws, to abstract their duties and destinies as such, from every thing which is not mere- ly temporal, expedient and popular, in contradistinction from those things which are spiritual in their nature, and belong to the thought and essence of our subordination to God. In the practical working of our system, the opinion is sometimes avowed, and oftener implied, that as a state, or nation, we have EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. 15 nothing" whatever to do with rehgion,in any shape or form,be- yond the bare protection of all persons in the free exercise of that form of religion which they may prefer. Now this is perfectly true in a certain sense. That is to say, — and it is our safety that it is so, — the State may not estab- lish and endow any sectarian form of religion whatever, nor prohibit the free exercise of any, nor disfranchise any man on the account of his religious opinions. But because this is so, is the State at liberty to disregard the great principles and uni- versal precepts of the Bible, — or is the nation exempted from all allegiance to God "? Men may assert that, as Commonwealths, they have nothing to do with religion ; they may strive to separate government from its influence, and to set up human wisdom and human will, and their own notions of prosperity and duty, against the clear methods and laws of God, to regard all religions, and all irre- ligion with equal indifference, to discard the Bible from their legislation, and to train the rising youth apart from its instruc- tion and commandment. But God permits not the severance. He will rebuke or pimish it. You may cast him off: but he will not be thus cast off with impunity. Wo unto the nations, when God shall abandon them ! The constitutions under which we live, have well defined the boundaries which separate Church and State ; but they have not severed religion and the State, while they have, with equal felicity, defined the exact relations of the one to the other, and not disjoining, but embracing them both, have established such a connection as, I pray, may forever continue. In the model and basis of tha laws ; in the forms of administering justice ; in the use of the oath ; in the recognition of the Lord's day — that fundamental and peculiar mark of the Christian religion; in the well-settled decisions of the judicial tribu- nals ; in the adoption of the common law ; and in the con- stitutions of the United States, and of this Commonwealth and of other States, Christianity, or the religion of the Bible, is prominently recognized as a component element of our 16 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. civil institutions^ as part and parcel of the law of the land. The State has gone to this length of so establishing and re- cognizing Christianity that, while it tolerates Jew, Turk, Cath- olic and Infidel, and disfranchises none of them, it never in- tended, by this free and universal toleration, to concede any great fundamental principle of the Divine law, or true social order, to the demands of either. And until the whole Constitu- tion is changed, our courts reorganized, and their decisiohs nulli- fied by a complete revolution of all our principles of government, yea, until our whole people are thoroughly degenerated, this Christianity is in force ; and every claim, pretence and de- mand, that goes to the abrogation of an iota of it, or would strip it of its paramount authority, in our legislation, is a treasonable assault upon the great foundations upon which all our municipal statujtes, as well as the true rights, liberties and happiness of the people repose. And, if it is objected that this fact is a hardship upon those who, on pretence of the rights of conscience, would pervert our institutions, patronize indifferent ism, irreligion, and infi- delity, and to abrogate Divine laws, we can see, at once, its absurdity and unrighteousness, by considering what would be the result, if the same demand and the same pretence were urged by a community of Mahommedans who might settle among us,^ — for the country is open to all, — and who should urge, e. g., that the reading of the Bible in the public schools is an infringement of the rights of conscience, because .it disagrees with the Koran 's or, if they should insist that the practice of polygamy ought not to be punished, because their prophet had sanctioned it 1 Would our municipal laws yield before such a pressure from without, or from within ? Would we so mis-inter- pret and distort our principles respecting freedom of conscience? Would the state deem itself bound to sacrifice to every shade of opinion, and concede every thing to every body ? — to abdi- cate its high prerogatives as in some sort a Teacher, and to be- come a mere reflection of all the conflicting prejudices and EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. 17 vagaries of its subjects — as some would have the pulpit and the press to be — mere echoes to every wind of doctrine ? and, losing its office as a guiding intelligence, to subside into a sort of enthroned — " Monstrum horrendum, injvrme, ingens, cui lianen ademp' turn," — and numen ademptum, too 1 But, we have not so learned liberty ; the legislator thinks it not unmeet to restrain that latitudinarian conscience which falsehood and infidelity have formed, by sanctioning the law of Christ that marriage is to be between one man and one woman only, and by sending the man who violates it, to the state prison. Beside the appropriate sense of dependence on God, I may, not unsuitably, advert to the office and authority of human government, and the obligation of law, as prescribed means for the attainment and security of human happiness, in con- trast with some ideas which seem to conflict with just views of these high interests and agencies. The object of government is the benefit of the whole com- munity J and government itself is a Divine institution, without which no community can exist. Nor is there safety in any idea, that the authority of government and the obligation of law depend on the mere will of accidental majorities, or the provisions of some imaginary social compact. It seems to me, that there could be no stability, no security in such a state. The waves of the sea are not more capricious and dangerous, than would be the ebullition of the popular will, or the deter- mination of a majority accidentally collected and clothed with the power, which, in its exercise at the caprice of the moment, would proceed on the principle that might makes right, — a principle as odious when it is proclaimed to enforce the dicta- tion of the populace, as it is seen to be and hated in the decrees of a despot. But, if government be of God, and they that bear the power, no matter under what names, or with what forms inducted, are His ministers attending continually to this very thing, — they must be just, ruling in the fear of God. Their function must be invested with sacredness in the public 2 18 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. view, not only as it is animated with authority from Him, but as that authority becomes conspicuous in the justice of the laws which it enacts, and thus contributes to impress the pub- lic conscience with a sense of its majesty, — an idea which is at the basis of all peaceful obedience. It is not intended to assert that no changes are ever to be made in particular municipal statutes, or even in the fundamental and organic forms of law. Its great principles are eternal, — while human legislation may have misinterpreted and misapplied them. Our nation stands "upon the assertion that, when any government becomes des- tructive of the great ends of its institution, it is the right and duty of the people to abolish it, and introduce the appropriate substitute. But what is intended is, that, in the whole process of establishing, modelling and modifying, the efficacy and the value of all that is done, not only depend upon its being sol- emnly, deliberately, and constitutionally accomplished, but grow essentially out of the principle, that, back of all human authority, in the premises, is to be discerned and invoked the awful form, the directing intelligence, the controlling majesty and supreme authority of Divine law. Under this principle, law will take its salutary shapes, and enforce its obligations, not because they are expedient, but because they are right. Its precepts will bind the conscience, because they are just ; its penalties will be enforced, because they are deserved. And the rule and standard by which these are formed, may be known to be equitable, from the fact that it lias been set up by the Judge of all the earth. In the evolution of this process, it is supposed that the legislator shall look for his precedents to the immutable and universal principles of the Divine law. His business is to develop and carry out these principles. In their application, and sometimes in the very copy of the precept, as it is recorded in the book of God, he' is to provide for the maintenance of impartial justice, between man and man ; for the defence and protection of the innocent and helpless; for the aid of the suffering and destitute ; and for the punish- ment of the criminal. And in ascertaining what is just, and right, and what is merciful or criminal, and what award the EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. 19 law should give, — he consults not the ever-varying and selfish notions of men, but — I repeat it — the grand, safe and control- ling principles of the revealed will of God. And, although we may lament, that because of the imperfection of men, there is a falling short of the perfect realization of this beautiful and sublime theory, in all, even our best legislation, yet we have but to compare the laws which have grown up under the light of our Bible Christianity, with those of other people, to see at once, the immeasurable superiority of all our municipal regu- lations for the enforcement of judgment and mercy. Connected with the character of the laws, is the method of their administration. This, of course, under the theory of which I have spoken, would be prompt, fair, and effective. The executive power would understand his strength, and feel his ob- ligations, and would find an aid to his administration, both in the sanctions of his personal character, and in the cheerful sup- port and happy obedience of the people, recognizing the au- thority from which law emanated, and rallying by the side of him in whom they saw God's minister, a terror on/y, but always, to the evil doer, and a praise of them that do well. Under such a sway, the people would lead a quiet and peaceable life, in godliness and honesty. Tone would be given to the public morals ; and the constant action and reaction of a government and people, so closely related and identified, — and of the mu- tual influences so necessary especially in a republic like ours, — would tend to the purity of law and to the equity and^ happi- ness of those upon whom it is enjoined. Hence the importance of imbuing our whole people with the idea of the^supremacy over us of God's laws, and with a pervading reverence for them because they are His. And when a government and peo- ple love these principles and co-operate to give them influence, they are established on firm foundations — upon a basis impreg- nable, immoveable, and imperishable. But it is nevertheless to be observed, that by the very side of the marks and monuments, the limits and safeguards which are set up in the bosom of our institutions — conservative both of the freedom of conscience and the rights of God, — there seems to be growing up a disposition, partially fostered, — not as we 20 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. have seen, by the legitimate design and operation, but by the perversion of true religious liberty, — and cherished by the rest- less radicalism of the age, to assert and establish independence even of the throne of God. This feeling is at the basis of all those arguments by which infractions of specific divine laws are sustained or advocated. If, for example, it is desired to abrogate or render inoperative, the laws respecting the sacredness of the Sabbath, — or if, in order to accommodate the gentle squeamishness of those senti- mental gentlemen who think it cruel to hang men for murder, it is proposed to abrogate all capital punishment," — it is thought sufficient to disparage the Sabbath as a Jewish institution, and to assert that capital punishment is a mere relic of a barbarous age ; — forgetful that both these institutions, like others that are depreciated by the counterfeit genius of modern civilization, were incorporated into a code, made not for Jews but for man, — by the authority of God, — and at an era and among a people, whose elevated civilization is illustrated in the earliest authentic history, and the most intelligible ethnological monuments of any of the nations of the earth ; and whose advancement, not only long preceded the boasted eras of classical renown, but may vie with these, in arts and learning, in poetry, in refine- ment, in political sagacity, in domestic manners, and in social laws. We are told that too great a strictness in holding to the au- thority of the Bible, in matteis of national and municipal legis- lation, is inconsistent with the genius of our popular institutions, and that it is time to discard statutes and notions which are up- held only by a few old-fashioned, narrow-minded people, who have an awkward habit of reading the Bible in its plain mean- ing, and of insisting that its precepts are to be obeyed by Chris- tian nations and republican states, as well as by individuals. Not a few have found a charm to conjure with, in the newly in- vented phrases, "our mission," "our destiny," and the high prerogatives of "the Anglo-Saxon race," — terms of talismanic potency to change the moral character even of rapacity and -fraud; and all the delicate questions and dubious moralities that interpose between the tremendous alternatives of peace and EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. 21 war, are adjusted by the logic of an appeal to " national ho- nor," and " necessity, the tyrant's plea 3" and even the trou- blesome responsibilities that embarrass our meditations of foreign conquest, or, like intrusive spectres, disturb our visions of " re- velry in the halls of the Montezumas," are all relieved as with the power of enchantment, by the simple utterance of such dainty figures of speech, as " conquering a peace," and " extend- ing the area of freedom." There are again, profound illuminati, both of foreign and do- mestic growth, who meet in " World's Conventions," and grave- ly resolve that the whole organization of society is fundamen- tally wrong, and needs to be re-cast and moulded anew by these plastic schemers, on the philanthropic principle of giving every thing to every body; converting land and marriage, and domes- tic happiness — that only bliss of Paradise which has survived the fall — and I know not but talent and skill, and such like odi- ous monopolies, into the common capital of a vast joint-stock company, and bringing in the Millennium, by devices as nota- ble and ingenious as the famous project of the philosophers of Laputa, to extract sunbeams from cucumbers. In this program of reform, the " Spirit of the Age " and the " light of the 19th century," are set up and invoked as the presiding deities, in moulding the institutions and principles of public and private life ; and these are to be the guides and standards in the enact- ment and administration of laws, if indeed any laws are to be tolerated ; — and especially all such statutes as are made for the •punishment of the lawless and disobedient, of murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, and any other thing that is contrary to sound doctrine — seeing that they are very inconve- nient and oppressive to the votaries of the largest liberty, — must give way, because it is un-republican to impose even divine pre- cepts upon a free people. And of little more respectability is the popular clamor, that the voice of the people is the voice of God ; so that whatever a multitude, or a majority may decree at any time, is to be taken as the will of Heaven, more clearly and authoritatively expressed than in the plain and solemn re- velation of His word. And amid the various phases of mere 22 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS, party politics, wherein great principles are degraded into the mere foot-balls of contending factions, all distinctions of right and wrong are confounded, and the very moral sense of men becomes deadened, while the proprieties of social life are out- raged, not only does it happen that those, who ought to be leaders and teachers of all that is great and patriotic, become mere demagogues and deceivers, inculcating the most corrupt- ing sophistries, but that, in turn, they become themselves the veriest slaves, lost to all integrity, firmness, and independence. The people cannot always be kept in the position of hewers of wood and drawers of w^ater ; they will sometimes think and re- solve for themselves; and then, when it is found that their pre- judices will not yield, it would be amusing, if it were not so pitiful, to see with what facility, those who court the popular favor can succumb to the necessities of their dependence, and how sub- servient they become to the wisdom which is enshrined in the bosoms of sovereign electors, and which can utter its oracles so potently through the lips of the ballot-box. I am far from asserting that the people are never right ; I am only speaking of them as the holders of power. To these are accommodated the elastic principles which, like lucifer matches, are warranted to keep in all climates, or like modern almanacs, which are calculated for every meridian. The changing colors of the cameleon are not more rapid and fitful than the hues, however opposite, which differing latitudes elicit ; and it is equally con- venient to swear that that measure is white to-day, which, only yesterday, they asseverated was black. Does even a measure in itself right, and known to be so, elicit the opposition of a considerable portion of the community, either from ignorance or misrepresentation — or, on the other hand, is some measure, which is wrong and hurtful, for the moment, a favorite with the electors, then, how quick to acquiesce, or seem to ac- quiesce ; and if the ends of personal or party ambition demand, even the clear, well established principles of law and constitu- tion are overleaped, thrown down, or undermined ; when the duty of a true statesman, instead of pandering to selfishness, and trimming to suit the popular breeze, blow shiftingly as it EDUCATION A^ro PROGRESS. 23 will, is to throw himself Upon his principles, to use his advan- tages of clearer insight, for enlightening and guiding the popular mind to that which is right ; and that, whether he sink or swim ; yea, if needs be, to stand alone, and fail, and suffer and die, with a brave and true heart, rather than involve the liberty and prosperity of his country, by playing the fawning sycophant, and flattering the people to their destruction : — Justum et tenacem propositi virum. Not! civium ardor prava jubentium, Non vultus instantis tyranni, Mente quatit solida. Herein are some of the controversies and contests in which our prosperity and adversity are involved — some of the phases in which the spirit of progress appears, or, speaking more accurately, the spirit of " change, perplexing nations." We have the clearest right, and it is our duty too, claiming to be whole and sound-hearted freemen and patriots, as the descend- ants of the men who won our inheritance at the point of the sword, and died, bathed in their own blood, that they might bequeath to us this goodly land, and who established these governments for the good of the peaceful, the virtuous, the oppressed, the industrious, and, of the pious too, to ponder well the question. What shall the end of these things be 1 And how may we so act our part, that we may help, and not hinder, the true design of these great institutions, — that we may serve our generation by the will of God. Ours is a popular government. You and I too, are a part of the people. We have an interest in the institutions and in the laws, which gives it to us as a prerogative, to see that they are not perverted ; and in those that rule over us, to see that they be patriots, honest, capable, disdaining bribes and fearing God. And we have an interest in om' freedom and religion, our personal rights, and our children's inheritance, to see that none of these become the sport of change and confusion, nor subject to the mere mercy of the passing whim, whether of infidel phi- losophers and " Theophilanthropists," of visionary sentimental- ists and sympathizers with crime, of ambitious demagogues and 24 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. arrogant propagandists with great swelling words of vanity, promising liberty and spreading their own corruption — or, of any of the multitudinous host of quack reformers, that stand ready, each to administer some newly invented panacea for social diseases, as if, according to the spirit of that biting jibe,— Our constituiio7is " were intended For nothing else but to be mended." I have spoken somewhat freely. But I have not spoken as if I believed our foundations were crumbling ; for I have hope in God, and under Him, in such as you, for the generations to come. You, gentlemen, are in training to enter into public life in the midst of these agitations. You are, at once, to feel their influence, and to exert an influence in shaping and directing Ihem. Even the class to w^hich you belong, and the educa- tional systems and institutions, under which you are trained, have not been left to the stagnation of undisturbed repose. While our own age and country have made important progress toward just ideas of the necessity, and of the duty of the State to establish a system of universal education, there seems to be on the part of some of its advocates, a disposition to view the higher institutions of learning with jealousy, and to object to their enjoyment of State patronage, as inconsistent with the powers of the government, and as monopolies, the benefits of "which are confined to the rich and the few, and therefore ought to be supported entirely by the voluntary benefactions of private munificence. It is perfectly true that the most essential aid has teen received for these institutions of our land, from private sources, with comparatively little assistance from the public purse ; and that the great transatlantic universities, were also founded and largely endowed by the private gifts of royal and other patrons. And precisely here is a noble field for the exer- cise of a patriotic and enlightened munificence, by those per- sons among us, to whom Providence has given great wealth j whose large and adequate benefactions may become at once EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. 25 effective in laying broad and deep the permanent foundations of the higher education. What can such men do better with their superabundant stores than to employ them in such munificence as this ? How far nobler to connect their names with the endowment of a pro- fessor's chair, a library, or a College Hall, than to be content with the paltry distinction of a splendid palace in Union Square or Chestnut street, and a dashing equipage at Saratoga, or to heap up an excessive fortune to be dissipated by spendthrift heirs ! Wealth is a magnificent prerogative to those who know how to use it ; to those who know no other use for it than to minister to selfishness and vanity, it is, what the wise man says of a fair woman without discretion, a "jewel of gold in a swine's snout." All honor to the men who in earlier days, in our own country, have laid such foundations of useful- ness, in consecrating even slender means to the cause of learn- ing. All honor to the men of our own times, worthy of the title of merchant princes, whose names are bound up with the history of the chairs, and libraries, and halls they have endowed. Would, too, that there were among us more of the spirit that can imitate, as well as admire, the beneficence of living names, the modesty of whose owners I may not shock by uttering them. Then would not so many of our colleges and semina- ries still be left to languish. Then would your own institution be set indeed upon a hill, strong and stable as that which bears up its foundations, and diffuse far and wide, an hundred-fold such healthful influences as would be cheaply purchased with the abstraction of a few useless thousands from the overflowing coffers of even a very few men. Nevertheless there seems to be a peculiar reason, in a coun- try so characterised by popular institutions, where the State is eminently organized as a commonwealth, that the institutions of learning should neither be thrown upon the chances of occasion- al patronage, however princely it may be, nor left to struggle, in precarious dependence, upon the inadequate support of more general contributions ; but should be fostered, to the fullest ex- tent needful for their eflSciency, by legislative and public boun- 26 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS, ty. Why should they not become the public care ? If it be admitted that popular education is the appropriate care of the State, why not also, a suitable provision for the higher learning ? Is its cost an objection ? What is its cost in comparison with the expense of war, the losses of misgovernment, and pecula- tion, and prodigal waste of public treasure, which, however no- torious, excite so little real emotion in the breasts of " econo- mists and calculators ?" — and what, in comparison with the pre- ventive influences, economical and prudent outlays, and effective applications of means, in all those departments of the public service, which require the presence of science and skill, to- gether with all the benefits diffused throughout a community, leavened with the guiding and instructive influences of its more intelligent members ? What, — I revert to the example now solely for illustration, — what has been the expense to the na- tion, of the Military Academy, whose importance has been re- cognized by the government from its foundation, — in compari- son with the character and skill of the officers it has educated, the discipline and efficiency of our armies, and the advantages that have resulted, not only for the exigences of war, but for the advancement of science and the arts, and their application to works of internal improvement, and other benefits which have been carried directly or indirectly, by the scholars it has sent forth, into all the peaceful walks of life. Is the objection pressed, that these institutions are established for a favored few, and therefore have no claim on the republic 1 . Have the public no interest in pursuits, prosecuted with the assistance of all needful facilities, for the advancement of science and its appli- cation to the arts, and comforts, and improvements of social life ? And where are these so likely to be secured as in institutions, and imder circumstances, that stimulate investigation and disco- very — with all the requisite devotion, leisure and capacities, which are supposed to characterfse academical and University Education ? While, in the effort for popularising and diffusing knowledge by means of common schools, we may distribute a a small portion to all, there may be a process of dilution and attenuation, like that of beating gold, but there must also be EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. 2? more solid utensils and circulating coin ; and neither gold leaf, nor gold coin are to be obtained without the agency of some, whose business it is to work the mines, and smelt the ore, and prepare the precious metal for the necessities of common life. I do not say that knowledge and invention are exclusively the product of institutions expressly devoted to the purpose. There have been self-made men, like our own Franklin, self-educated scholars, inventors and discoverers, who have not enjoyed these facilities ; men worthy of all praise for the perseverance with which they have pursued knowledge under difficulties : but, in- stead of forming a general rule, these are but the exceptions that prove an opposite system. • "What would many such have been, but for the stimulus and preparation derived from those who went before them, and on whose labors they only entered 1 even if they were as ingenious as Ferguson, whose original and independent discoveries were, previous to his inquiries, which he prosecuted in the fields by star-light, or with the simple ap- paratus he had invented and set up in the attic of his father's barn,— already better known by the learned and the world. What if, by the light of the embers upon a cottage-hearth, or of a burning pine-knot, the humble scholar devoured books, filching time from needful sleep, — who wrote these books, and recorded in them, the achievements of philosophy 1 Or what, if like Jean Paul Richter when his poverty and modesty com- bined to deprive him of the privileges of access to the teachers of the University, even after he had resorted to it, the ardent thirst of knowledge slaked itself and found consola- tion still in books ; where were the fountains from whence these streams flowed to him, and who were they that un- sealed and opened them, and set them flowing 1 It does not invariably need, that, in order to gain the benefits of an University education the student should be matriculated among its sons. There are private channels, through which the healing waters may be drawn off, but there must be a fountain head and a reservoir somewhere. What, too, might not such students have become, if, instead of being oppressed with difficulties, they had pursued knowledge with the assistance of all appropriate means and appliances ? Who have more 28 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. lamented their own deficiencies, or shown more generous zeal in behalf of institutions for supplying to other learn- ers the facilities, the books, the apparatus, the teachers, the lei- sure, they themselves had lacked ? And what can more ad- vance science, and contribute to universal education, than the establishment of institutions, which not only concentrate and combine the various knowledges of the past, however or by whom acquired, but add to these stores by new discovery and by urging it forward, while these increasing and inexhaustible riches are distributed abroad throughout the land by every scho- lar whom they educate ; like reservoirs which not only collect the waters flowing through ancient channels, but continually enlarge their resources by opening new fountains and building new aqueducts, and both refresh those who come to draw thence for their own thirst, and disperse their healthful streams abroad by means of every one who has filled his urn from their unsealed fulness — the overflowings of their limpid treasuries. Let it not be thought that these institutions are but the cloistered abodes of monkish exclusives and learned drones, ignorant of practi- cal life, and without sympathy with its duties and its wants, — mere dreamy visionaries, — purblind and spectacle-bestrid, — fit subjects for the jealousy of the sons of toil, or for the sneers of witlings, political and civil, or rather uncivil, — as walking Cy- clopaedias of useless lore, and foolish builders of " light-houses in the sky." The great Universities of the world have drawn around them the men of philosophic toil and patient investiga- tion, alike receiving their contributions, and developing their power, while training them to enlighten, to bless and to delight mankind. In them and in kindred institutions, were fostered the geniuses which belong to no class, no country, and no age; the Bacons who taught men to think, and delivered them from the bondage of blind authority, and from the erratic and incon- clusive reasonings of theory and speculation ; the Lockes, who revealed the " secret wonders of the working mind;" the New- tons, who weighed the stars in balances, and gave the world a practically beneficial astrology, instead of the horoscopes and nativities of star-gazers and prognosticators ; the Miltons, whose EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. 29 sublime muse " awoke to ecstacy, the living lyre," and charmed and purified the heart with poesy and song. These, and such as these, the great lights of the world, shone not for themselves ; their labors ended not upon themselves ; being dead, they still live, in the memories of grateful hearts, in the benefits they have conferred upon their race. They opened fields of knowledge, wherein the common mind may freely ex- patiate. Through them, Astronomy illumes the midnight pathway of the mariner upon the deep ; the discipline and analysis of the pure mathematics furnish formulas for the me- chanic, abridging his labor and giving to his materials their greatest eflficiency ; Chemistry unlocks its treasures for the ar- tisan and the agriculturist ; History instructs with its intelligi- ble " examples ;" and Law learns the true principles of equity and vindicates its supremacy, in the justice and simplicity of its precepts. The ship-yard and the work-shop, the counting- house and the exchange, the field, the forest and the mine, the palace and the cottage, the halls of legislation, and the se- cluded dwelling, and the very clink of the hammer, the plow- man's whistle, and the cheerful milk-maid's song, and all that comes home to men's business and bosoms, are instinct with the influences which emanate from these sources, and blessed with the comforts and the refinements with which their streams are freighted ? And can we, can our country afford to lose from our galaxy, these stars, which if they rose in other hemispheres, shone upon our fathers, and still shine on us 1 — or can we afford to part with the names and labors of those w'ho under the same systems, grew up upon our own soil — men with whom Wisdom and Prudence dwelt, and the knowledge of witty inventions '? And shall we discard the nurseries of such minds as useless, if notperniciou sneglect, and hate, and vilify them, as the nur- series of indolence, the repositories of learned lumber, and their pupils as the minions of an unequal favoritism ? Allow me to use a homely, but forcible illustration : " Of what use," said a worthy farmer, to a pale young student, who was sojourning with him, " of what use is it for you to sit day after day, por- ing over books t My son goes out into the field, and improves 30 EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. his health, while he labors for his own support, and produces food for others." " What plow does your son use ?" was the only answer. The farmer described the implement, and added in commendation of it, that it was of three-fold value, com- pared with the old-fashioned utensils with which he had former- ly wrought. His youthful guest in the meanwhile, had turned over the leaves of a book of drawings, and at length, with a quiet smile, pointing to one of them, inquired if the favorite plow were any thing like that ? " The very model," was the astonished reply. " I think it possible then," said the youth modestly, " that I may have been of some use to my fellow- men, for I am the inventor of that plow." Permanently endowed institutions of learning may be consi- dered in another aspect. I revert to the objection that their benefits are provided only for the rich, — and that such only, or such as may be patronised by them, can have access to these privileges. Hence too it is said, that their support should be derived only from the voluntary contributions of men of wealth, and from those whom they educate. I am free to say that this objection springs from the narrowest possible view, and the po- licy it suggests is not only short-sighted, but would convert these fountains for the general welfare into the most odious mo- nopolies indeed. What would it be but to confine the higher education to the most favored class, and to exclude with the force of an iron necessity, every youth, no matter how promis- ing, whose means are small, and leave him to struggle in hope- less poverty, or to abandon all hope of attaining the goal of a generous ambition ? Genius and talent are not the exclusive prerogatives of rank and wealth ; nature will, sometimes, on soils that can produce nothing else, breed such men, as never grew in hothouses, nor in her tropical climes. In the humblest employments, and in the abodes of the poor, are minds whose powers cannot all be conceal- ed. They belong to their country and their race ; and it is surely true policy to evoke them from their obscurity, and to assist their enterprise, and fit them for the appropriate exercise of their high endowments. If it be impracticable to do this in every case, it is EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. 31 nevertheless no part of true wisdom so to hedge up their way, that few or none shall emerge into the light, and to abandon them to darkness and neglect. Neither is it necessary to make such ample provision that all who aspire to a liberal education shall be transferred from poverty to halls and foundations, which shall pamper indolence and corrupt their self-reliance. Yet for all this, may there not be made such public provision, as, ensuring to teachers their support, and to colleges their needful literary and philosophical apparatus, shall at once reduce the personal expense of education, and secure the highest ability for instruction ? Thus, encouraging the youth of humble means, affording him free access to the fountains of knowledge ; while his personal support may be derived, at least in part, either from labor in the intervals of study, or from the aid of friends, and may be economically regulated in the preservation or formation of frugal habits, and the appropriate husbandry of his private resources. Open the doors of our universities for the admission of such ; remove the restrictions, the spirit of which was once ingeniously read by an indignant Sizar in the motto of a transatlantic University, " JVm Dominiis frustra^^ which he aptly rendered, "Unless you are lords, you need not come hither ;" invite the approach of the learner, in whom a slender purse cannot repress the thirst of knowledge; — let the State do this, — remembering that she has need of her sons, in the walks of learning, as well as in the camp and the battle-field ; and she is training them up for her servicejand honor, and is conferring a boon upon the Commonwealth. Does she jealously proscribe an aristocracy of birth and wealth, — then let her find its antidote in developing the nobler in- fluences of the minds which dwell among the poorest of her children. Educate one such in a town or neighborhood, and who can calculate the result upon the intellectual, moral and physical condition of the whole community. It was under this liberal and enlightened system, that the son of a small farmer, named Adams, in the desolate moorlands of Cornwall, whose native bent predicted that he had no voca- tion for raising fat oxen and prize pigs, was fitted for the Uni- 32 EDL'CATIOxN AND PROGRESS. versity, became a member of St. John's College, Cambridge, finished his undergraduate course, as Senior Wrangler, is now a mathematical tutor in the same College, but| better known as not unjustly disputing with La Verrier, the honor of discover- ing the planet Neptune. It was this system, which took a studious country lad from a village grocery, made him the great light of his time, and appeals for its just appreciation, to the impression he left upon his age, and to the eulogies and tears which the Patriotism and Learning, the Liberty and Religion, both of Scotland and of the world, are shedding upon the recent grave of Thomas Chalmers. It is just such a system, that our Colleges are endeavoring to build up ; which, in the face of privation, opposition, and contemptuous neglect, they have, with generous ardor and undiminished fortitude, in some degree, built up ; and their claim upon popular sympathy, and the public countenance and aid, is founded upon the indubitable fact, that the vast majority of the men they have educated, are from the humbler walks of life, and that they do throw open their gates so widely that no young man of suitable capacity and energy has ever been excluded, or needs to turn away. And not one of these liveth unto himself. As well might the attempt be made to confine the rays of the glorious sun, so that, instead of shining for all, he might delight himself in his own splendor, as to restrain the influence, and circumscribe within their own persons, the'knowledge which the educated acquire. If inclination do not lead, necessity will demand, of them, to disperse abroad. In the various learned professions — as legis- lators and judges — as teachers of youth, of a different type from the Ichabod Cranes, of a former day — as private gentlemen — yea, as farmers, merchants and artisans, they are scattered throughout the community, and diffuse to all around them, if not the precise stores with which they were imbued, the prac- tical benefits and wholesome example of the skill and power which educated men bring to the service of their generation. And it is utterly vain to excite jealousy against such a class, and to attempt to ostracise the influence they are fitted to exert. Mind will govern. It may indeed be undisciplined, unsancti- EDUCATION AND PROGRESS. 33 fied ; and its mighty powers, perverted, may be exercised only to misguide and to destroy. But this only suggests the more forceful argument, for such adequate provision by the commu- nity, as may ensure and induce upon these governing minds the salutary results of sound education — the discipline that liberal- ises, refines and sanctifies ; and that hackneyed maxim has not yet lost its truthfulness : — " Ingenuas cli