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THE 
 
 ADVANTAGES AND THE DANGERS 
 
 OF THE 
 
 AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 
 
 DELIVERED ON THE DAY PRECEDING 
 
 THE ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT 
 
 OF 
 
 mnitin (tnlle^t, 
 
 JULY 26, 1836. 
 
 BY GULIAN C. VERPLANCK, 
 
 One of the Regents of the University of the State of New-York. 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 WILEY AND LONG, 161 BROADWAY, 
 
 1836. 
 
 V^V-ASlAV 1«- 
 

 NEW-YORK : 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM OSBORN, 
 
 88 William-street. 
 
 L ^:bl'] 
 
 0^ 
 
THE 
 
 ADVANTAGES AND THE DANGERS 
 
 AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive 
 in 2011 with funding from 
 Tine Library of Congress 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/advantagesdanger01verp 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 The actual state and the probable future prospects 
 of our country, resemble those of no other land, and 
 are without a parallel in past history. Our immense 
 extent of fertile territory opening an inexhaustible 
 field for successful enterprise, thus assuring to indus- 
 try a certain reward for its labors, and preserving the 
 land, for centuries to come, from the manifold evils of 
 an overcrowded, and consequently degraded popula- 
 tion — our magnificent system of federated republics, 
 carrying out and applying the principles of represen- 
 tative democracy to an extent never hoped or ima- 
 gined in the boldest theories of the old speculative 
 republican philosophers, the Harringtons, Sydneys 
 and Lockes of former times — the re-action of our po- 
 litical system upon our social and domestic concerns, 
 bringing the influence of popular feeling and public 
 opinion to bear upon all the affairs of life in a degree 
 hitherto wholly unprecedented — the unconstrained 
 
b THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 range of freedom of opinion, of speech, and of the 
 press, and the habitual and daring exercise of that 
 Hberty upon the highest subjects — the absence of all 
 serious inequality of fortune and rank in the condi- 
 tion of our citizens — our divisions into innumerable 
 religious sects, and the consequent co-existence, never 
 before regarded as possible, of intense religious zeal, 
 with a great degree of toleration in feeling and per- 
 fect equality of rights — our intimate connexion with 
 that elder world beyond the Atlantic, communicating 
 to us, through the press and emigration, much of good 
 and much of evil not our own, high science, refined 
 art, and the best knowledge of old experience, as 
 well as prejudices and luxuries, vices and crimes, 
 such as could not have been expected to spring up in 
 our soil for ages — all these, combined with nume- 
 rous other peculiarities in the institutions and in the 
 moral, civil and social condition of the American peo- 
 ple, have given to our society, through all its rela- 
 tions, a character exclusively its own, peculiar and 
 unexampled. 
 
 Circumstances and causes such as these, wide, 
 general and incessantly operative, thus pervading the 
 whole mass of the community, cannot fail, in some 
 way or other, to reach and powerfully affect every in- 
 dividual. Any American citizen who will look about 
 him with an attentive eye, and then turn his con- 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 
 
 templation inward upon himself, and examine his 
 own breast and his own hfe, will readily perceive how 
 sovereignly some or other of these external causes 
 control his fortunes, direct his destinies, and mould 
 his habits and his conduct, swaying or guiding his 
 tastes, his reason, his feelings, or his affections. But 
 if these can thus reach the humblest citizen, how 
 much more decided must be their effect upon the man 
 of native talent and improved intellect ! As his mind 
 expands itself more largely on the surface of society, 
 as it enters with a bolder ambition or a keener 
 relish into the concerns of men, the pursuits of 
 fame, of power, or of knowledge, just so in propor- 
 tion must he sympathize more readily with the sur- 
 rounding world, and in acting upon many, must feel 
 more sensibly the reciprocal action of the greater 
 mass upon himself. Hence, all that is singular and 
 peculiar in our country, her people or her institu- 
 tions, will be in some sort imaged in his mind, and 
 will operate upon his mental constitution as silently 
 but as certainly as his physical frame is affected by 
 the food that sustains him, or the air that he breathes. 
 It is, therefore, gentlemen, that I have thought 
 that I could not more usefully discharge the duty as- 
 signed to me by your kind partiality, or select a theme 
 more appropriate to the annual academic celebration 
 of a college, which already boasting among its 
 
8 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 alumni so large a proportion of the active talent of 
 our state, continues annually to swell that number by 
 a numerous body of our most promising youth, than 
 to call your attention to the consideration of the bless- 
 ings and advantages resulting from the political 
 and social condition of our republic, to the Ameri- 
 can scholar — not merely in common to him with the 
 rest of his fellow-citizens, but to him especially and 
 above others, as an educated and intellectual man. 
 
 These are blessings and advantages, in them- 
 selves peculiar, unrivalled, inestimable ; still, like 
 all other temporal goods, they are not unmixed with 
 evil, not unaccompanied by dangers, always liable 
 to abuse. Like, too, to the other gifts of the Most 
 High, intrusted to man for the use of his fellow men, 
 they impose upon their possessor weighty, solemn 
 and holy duties. 
 
 It is then of these blessings and advantages of the 
 American scholar, their accompanying dangers and 
 their attendant duties, that I now purpose to speak 
 to you. 
 
 The subject ought certainly to interest those 
 whom I am called to address, for it is of themselves 
 that I must speak. From the lips of wisdom and 
 genius, the theme could not fail to be fruitful of 
 the deepest and most precious instruction. For 
 myself, and the very imperfect views I am about to 
 
i:*HE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 
 
 lay before you, I can claim no other weight or autho- 
 rity, than what may arise from the fact, that these 
 are neither the vague speculations of a politi- 
 cal theorist, nor the rant of patriotic declamation. 
 They are sober and deliberate opinions, the results 
 of much opportunity of observation, and that by no 
 means careless or hasty, and formed by one not in- 
 different to the imperfections of our political or social 
 system, or unwilling to confess them — not blind to 
 the faults and errors of his country or his countrymen, 
 but who has yet never wavered or faltered in his 
 veneration for the sacred cause of republican liberty, 
 or in his confidence of the ultimate and certain ten- 
 dency of our free institutions to promote truth and 
 justice, to diffuse happiness and virtue. 
 
 First of all then — We all know and feel that every 
 thing in the condition and prospects of our country 
 tends to excite and maintain a bold and stirring acti- 
 vity of thought and action throughout the whole 
 community. Nothing is allowed to remain stagnant 
 or dormant. Every mind is compelled, sometimes 
 in despite of its own inclinations, to partake of the 
 buoyant spirit, the restless mobility, the irrepressible 
 energy of youth and hope. 
 
 In most other lands society moves with steady 
 regularity, in one slow, sure and accustomed round. 
 Each ascending step in the scale of wealth and dis- 
 
10 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 tinction is completely filled up, and the vast majority, 
 doomed to hereditary ignorance and privation, must 
 be content to pass their whole lives where birth or 
 accident has first placed them. Feeling no stimulus 
 to exertion, besides that of daily want, their desires and 
 their hopes conform themselves to the narrow scale 
 of their regular toils and their humble enjoyments. 
 But with us, commerce, arts, agriculture, enterprise, 
 adventure, ambition, are crowding and hurrying 
 every man forward. Our past is but brief. We can 
 scarcely be said to have a present — certainly we 
 have none for mere indolent enjoyment. We are all 
 pressing and hastening forward to some better future. 
 No single mind can well resist the general impulse. 
 The momentum of the whole mass of society, com- 
 posed of myriads of living forces, is upon each indi- 
 vidual, and he flies forward with accelerated velo- 
 city, without any other power over his own motion 
 than that of the direction of its course. The univer- 
 sal ardor is contagious, and we all rush into the 
 throng of life, and are swept along by its broad, re- 
 sistless current. 
 
 Least of all can the mind, formed to liberal stu- 
 dies, habituated from early youth to the employment 
 of its most vigorous faculties, resist the wide spread 
 sympathy. " The clear spirit," to use Milton's 
 phrase, " nursed up with brighter influences and with 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR, 11 
 
 a soul enlarged to the dimensions of spacious and 
 high knowledge," sees in every direction careers of 
 honor, or of usefulness open to its exertions, and 
 tasking its noblest powers. For with us talent can- 
 not well slumber ; knowledge may always find some 
 fit application. 
 
 Travel elsewhere, and where is it that you may not 
 find talent chilled and withered by penury, or pro- 
 found learning wasted on the drudgery of elementa- 
 ry instruction, or else " lost in a convent's solitary 
 gloom 1" With us this need never be. In fact, it 
 is seldom long so, unless from the positive fault of 
 the possessor. Excepting those melancholy cases, 
 where some unavoidable calamity has weighed 
 down the spirits and extinguished joy and hope for 
 ever, knowledge and ability cannot well run here to 
 waste without their voluntary degradation by gross 
 vice or the maddest imprudence. But I do not 
 now speak of the varied opportunities for the suc- 
 cessful exertion of matured, cultivated talent, or the 
 substantial rewards that its exercise may win, so 
 much as of the still greater advantage which that 
 talent may derive to itself from the prevailing 
 activity and energy that animate the whole commu- 
 nity. Under that strong and contagious stimulus' 
 the faculties are awakened, the capacity enlarged? 
 the genius roused, excited, inspired. The mind is 
 
12 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 not suffered to brood undisturbed over its own little 
 stock of favorite thoughts, treading the same un- 
 ceasing round of habitual associations, until it be^ 
 comes quite incapable of fixing its attention upon 
 any new object, and its whole existence is but a 
 dull, drowsy dream. On the contrary, it is forced to 
 sympathize with the living world around, to enter 
 into the concerns of others and of the public, and 
 to partake, more or less, of the cares and the hopes 
 of men. Thus every hour it imbibes, unconsciously, 
 new and strange knowledge, quite out of the sphere 
 of its own personal experience. Thus it receives, 
 and in its turn spontaneously communicates that 
 bright electric current that darts its rapid course 
 throughout our whole body politic, removing every 
 sluggish obstruction, and bracing every languid 
 muscle to vigorous toil. As compared with the 
 more torpid state of society exhibited elsewhere, to 
 live in one such as this, is like emerging from the 
 fogs of the lowland fens heavy with chilling pes^ 
 tilence, 
 
 '* -the dull pacific air 
 
 Where mountain zephyr never blew, 
 The marshy level dank and bare, 
 That Pan, that Ceres never knew — " 
 
 and ascending to inhale the exhilarating mountain 
 atmosphere, where the breeze is keen and pure, and 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 13 
 
 the springs gush bright from their native rock, be- 
 stowing on the children of the hills the bounding 
 step, the strong arm, the far seeing eye, and the 
 Stout heart. It is much then to breathe such a 
 mental air from earliest youth. It is much to be edu- 
 cated and formed under such potent and perpetual 
 stimulants to intellectual development. But for a 
 mind thus formed and framed for vigorous and 
 effective action, it is not less necessary that fitting 
 occupations may be found for its nobler qualities 
 and powers. This is much for worldly success. It 
 is every thing for honor, for conscience, for content, 
 for beneficence. Let genius, however brilliant, how- 
 ever gifted with rare, or copious, or varied acquire- 
 ments, be but doomed to labor for selfish objects, for 
 personal necessities and sensual gratifications, and for 
 those only — and its aspirations too will become low, 
 its desires sordid, and its powers (adroit, doubtless, 
 and very effective as to their accustomed occupa- 
 tions) will dwindle and become enfeebled, until they 
 are quite incapable of any generous and magnani- 
 mous undertaking. 
 
 But with us the man of intellectual endowment is 
 not so " cabined, cribbed, bound in" to his own 
 puny cares. Far othei^wise ; his generous ambition, 
 his large philanthrophy, his zeal for the service of his 
 God or his country, may spread themselves abroad 
 
14 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OP 
 
 " as wide and general as the casing air," without 
 finding any check or barrier to their farthest range. 
 In the eternal order of Providence, minds act and 
 re-act, and become the transcripts and reflections of 
 each other, thus multiplying and perpetuating the evils 
 or the excellence of our short being upon this globe. 
 It is not the exclusive prerogative of the great, the 
 eloquent, the chosen sons of genius or of power, 
 who can speak trumpet-tongued to millions of their 
 fellow creatures from the high summits of fame or 
 authority, thus to be able to extend themselves in the 
 production of good or evil far around and forward. 
 We are all of us, in some sort, as waves in the 
 shoreless ocean of human existence. Our own 
 petty agitations soon die away, but they can extend 
 themselves far onward and onward, and there are 
 oftentimes circumstances which may cause those 
 billows to swell as they roll forward, until they rise 
 into a majestic vastness which it could scarce seem 
 possible that our puny efforts could have ever set in 
 motion. Such favoring circumstances, in other na- 
 tions comparatively rare, are here the common bless- 
 ings of our land. We have a population doubling 
 and re-doubling with a steady velocity so unexam- 
 pled in former history, as to have utterly confounded 
 the speculations of all older political philosophy. 
 We have a temtory, which rapidly as that popula- 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 15 
 
 tion subdues the forest and covers the desert, has 
 still ample room for coming generations. These 
 things alone are enormous elements in the mighty 
 process of social melioration. Whatever is effected 
 in removing any of the evils that afflict those about 
 us, must, ere long, reach far beyond us and beyond 
 them, to other and more numerous generations, to 
 distant fields, as yet silent and desolate, but destined 
 soon to svi^arm with a busy multitude. The charac- 
 ter, knowledge and happiness of that future and dis- 
 tant multitude, are now in our hands. They are to 
 be moulded by our beneficent labors, our example, 
 our studies, our philanthropic enterprise. Thus the 
 " spirit of our deeds," long after those deeds have 
 passed away, will continue to walk the earth, from 
 one ocean-beat shore of our continent to the other, 
 scattering blessings or curses upon after- times. 
 
 Consider too the general elementary instruction 
 of this nation — too slight, meagre and superficial in- 
 deed to content the patriot as an ultimate end where- 
 with to rest satisfied, but admirable as the means of 
 spreading information and pouring a bright flood of 
 light and truth over our whole continent. Books, 
 newspapers, periodicals, are scattered profusely 
 through the land, and present to a large proportion 
 of our population their favorite and most unfailing 
 relaxation from business and toil. Our people are 
 
16 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 daily, hourly habituated to discussions of the most 
 interesting nature, sometimes upon the most ab- 
 struse, frequently upon the most important sub- 
 jects of human interest. All our experience, our 
 modes of business and ways of life, have a strong 
 tendency to teach us to regard science, not as a 
 thing mysterious and solitary, never to be mixed with 
 common life and its ordinary thoughts and concerns^ 
 but as an exalted and munificent benefactor, con- 
 stantly and profusely contributing to our welfare and 
 happiness. Hence it requires nothing but the 
 steady and well-directed efforts of enlightened and 
 liberal minds to make a very large part, and that in 
 many respects too, the best part of science, familiar 
 and popular to a degree which the recluse scholar of 
 former days could never imagine. Much indeed of 
 the best science can only be useful, in any high 
 degree, by becoming thus familiar and popular ; for 
 miless it be so, it must remain a barren theory, dry 
 and useless. 
 
 This is eminently and self-evidently true in all 
 political and economical science. It is equally so 
 of all ethical truth : and as it is the beautiful charac- 
 teristic of the loftiest and most perfect science, most 
 rapidly to simplify and generalize its knowledge as 
 it increases its stores, it is not easy to conjecture any 
 assignable limit beyond which the grand conclusions- 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 17 
 
 (at least) of sound scientific investigation, and 
 the results of learned labor, may not be laid open to 
 the liberal curiosity of the humblest artisan. In the 
 same or some similar way, the choicest refinements 
 of classical taste, and the congenial study of the 
 remains of ancient genius, which beautify and enrich 
 the scholar's mind, may be made through him to 
 enlarge, to elevate, and ennoble the general mind of 
 his country. 
 
 But these are not the only facilities we enjoy for 
 making the acquisitions of learning profitable to all, 
 and for bringing intellectual force to bear upon its 
 appropriate objects. The quick and keen sense of 
 self-interest, that gives such sagacity and energy to 
 the business operations of this country, is equally 
 propitious to the success of every art, every discovery, 
 invention, undertaking, and science, that involves in 
 it any amount of practical improvement or power. 
 Hence, whatever of theoretical science, inventive 
 skill, ingenious speculation, or reasoning eloquence, 
 can be made to tell upon any of the multitudinous 
 affairs making up the business of life, or to minister 
 in any' way to the increased power or enjoyment of 
 man, will soon find ready attention for their claims. 
 Here no prejudices in favor of time-honored usages 
 are strong enough long to resist the advance of scien- 
 tific improvement or wise innovation. Society is not 
 
J8 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 divided into castes, each one of them watching with 
 jealous vigilance against anj encroachment of their 
 several exclusive walks by any rude intruder from 
 another class, themselves clinging to the settled 
 usages and old forms of their own clan, with the 
 steady pertinacity of men whose unexamined preju- 
 dices are interwoven with their earliest habits and 
 their most valuable personal interests. If Science, 
 descending from her starry throne in the heavens, 
 light the student to any discovery or invention in 
 any manner applicable to the wants of his fellow 
 creatures — if Genius prompts the lofty thought — 
 if love of God or of man inspire the generous design, 
 no matter how the novelty may astonish for the 
 moment, no matter what prejudices may be shocked, 
 no matter what interests may be alarmed and band 
 themselves against the innovator, let him go on un- 
 dismayed. He advances to certain victory. 
 
 But it has often been objected that this all-absorb- 
 ing gravitation towards the useful, the active, and the 
 practical, in our country, propels every student from 
 his most favorite studies into the struggles, the com- 
 petition, and tumult of life, and is thus fatal at once 
 to all recondite and curious learning, to deep attain- 
 ment in pure science or polished excellence in 
 elegant art and literature. There is certainly some 
 portion of truth in this objection, and yet but a por- 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 19 
 
 tion only. Where the demands for competent 
 abihty are so pressing, and the temptations to em- 
 ploy that ability in such occupations as bring with 
 them instant rewards are so great, it is quite certain 
 that but few will be found inclined to spend their 
 lives in studies which have no interest for others, 
 and no perceptible bearing on private or public 
 good. When, however, we consider the wonderful 
 connexion and inter -dependance of all knowledge, 
 made more and more manifest by every day's advance 
 in science, so as almost to prove by an accumulation 
 of particular examples the sublime hypothesis of the 
 old philosophy, "that by circuit of deduction, all truth 
 out of any truth may be concluded ;" when we 
 reflect how singularly adapted the various parts of 
 knowledge are to the individual tastes and character 
 of different men, so as to seize and draw them as 
 with an irresistible mental magnetism to their several 
 studies, we cannot, I think, doubt that all that is most 
 valuable in science or literature, will find votaries 
 among us, who, not content to make such studies the 
 amusements of their leisure or to devote a life of 
 monastic gloom to their solitary worship, will make 
 or find for them a fit application. The experience of 
 scientific investigation has shown that such applica- 
 tion of the test of reality and experiment to theoretic 
 truth, has not only often thrown a clearer light on that 
 
4^ THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OP 
 
 theory, at once limiting its generalities and confirm- 
 ing its evidence, but has also evolved new com- 
 binations, suggested new inferences, and mani- 
 fested higher laws. Art more than repays its 
 obligations to science. The large processes of 
 manufactures have proved the best school of che- 
 mical discovery. Natural knowledge has contri- 
 buted largely to medical skill, and it has in turn 
 received its most precious accessions from the obser- 
 vation of the physician. The abstrnsest speculations 
 of the metaphysician, have found their place in those 
 controversies of theologians that rend the religious 
 world, as well as in questions of political discussion, 
 of legislation, and of jurisprudence. Thus contem- 
 plations, apparently the most shadowy, have often 
 operated with the greatest efficiency upon the most 
 engrossing concerns of daily life. 
 
 Nevertheless, it may well be that there are some 
 meditations so subtile and unreal, some branches 
 of learning so remote from use, some laborious arts 
 of refinement requiring for their successful cultiva- 
 tion such silent abstraction and unremitting, undi- 
 vided labor for years, that they can find no room amid 
 the strife and bustle, the fumurn, strepitumque, — the 
 rail-road noise and rapidity of this work-day world of 
 America. Be it so. We would not willingly lose 
 them. For nothing that has filled the thoughts of 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 21 
 
 the good and wise, or weaned men from sensual 
 pleasure by the better attractions of art, taste or 
 learning, can be without value and dignity. But 
 if we must lose them, let us be content, and the 
 more so, because their deprivation, if such be of 
 necessity the case, is more than compensated by 
 countervailing benefits resulting from the same 
 causes. Such acquirements or accomplishments 
 cannot flourish here, because they require the devo- 
 tion of the whole man to their service, whilst the 
 American man of letters is incessantly called o£F 
 from any single inquiry, and allured or compelled 
 to try his ability in every variety of human occu- 
 pation. 
 
 Though he may be laboriously devoted to the 
 duties of a particular calling, or, on the other hand, 
 exempted from the pressure of regular professional 
 labor, no man of informed mind can with us exclude 
 the surrounding world. The Quidquid agunt 
 homines, familiarity with men and their business is 
 forced upon him, and it is a rare thing indeed if he 
 can remain a cool looker-on. Tt may be patriotism, 
 it may be humanity, that animates him — it may be 
 personal pride, or political zeal, or ambition, or per- 
 haps merely the mysterious sympathy of universal 
 example ; but whatever may be the special motive in 
 the individual, no scholar, no professional student 
 
22 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OP 
 
 or practitioner can well remain the mere man of 
 books. If in tiiis acquaintance with many other 
 matters, something is lost as to particular skill and 
 minute accuracy of knowledge, assuredly much more 
 is gained in the healthful development of the facul- 
 ties, the enlargement of the understanding, the more 
 equable poise of the judgment, and the richness, 
 variety, and originality of the materials for reflection, 
 combination, or invention thus stored in the memory. 
 If a;wed by that veneration the scholar naturally 
 feels for those who consecrate their days and nights 
 to learning, alternating only between books and the 
 pen, you hesitate to allow the superiority conferred 
 by this variety and versatility over the man of one 
 solitary study, let me appeal to the unvarying testi- 
 mony of literary history for the proof. The great 
 men of antiquity, the models of eloquence, the 
 fathers of poetry, the teachers of ethical wisdom, 
 the founders of that ancient jurisprudence, that still 
 rules the greater part of the civilized world, were 
 none of them sohtary scholars ; none of them were 
 contented with the " half wisdom of books" alone. 
 They performed well all the duties of war and 
 peace ; and their immortal works, beautiful in the 
 severe simplicity of truth and nature, still remain 
 " eternal monuments" — as Thucydides, in the 
 calm consciousness of genius, has said of his own 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 23 
 
 majestic history — eternal momiments for the good 
 of after ages, of things which they had themselves 
 seen and done. There was scarce one of them 
 who could not, like Cicero, look back, with proud 
 satisfaction, to his labors in the forum, the senate, 
 and the field, disastrous ofttimes, but full of glory — 
 " sum mi labor es nostri, magna compensati gloria, 
 mitigantui'^ and then turn to those studies which 
 were the grace and crown of their prosperity, and 
 the sure consolation of their misfortunes, " non 
 modo sedatis molestiis jucunda, sed etiam hcerentibus 
 salutariaT 
 
 The self-same lesson is taught in the history of the 
 philosophy and literature of our own mother tongue. 
 Whose are the venerated and enduring names — 
 whose the volumes that we turn to, with reverent 
 affection, as the oracles of just thought, or the ever 
 fresh springing fountains of delight \ Who were 
 they from Bacon to our own Frankhn — from Spenser 
 and Shakspeare to Walter Scott, but men of those 
 mixed pursuits, that multifarious instruction, that 
 familiar intercourse with actual life, which narrow- 
 minded learning would brand as the bane of philo- 
 sophy, the destruction of letters. Compare their 
 works with those of men devoted to literature alone, 
 
 • De Oratore, Lib. II. 
 
2*4 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 and who looked at nothing beyond its precincts — the 
 plodding compiler, the laborious collector of scien- 
 tific trifles, valuable only as materials for some wiser 
 mind to use, the herd of dealers in light literature, 
 either the servile imitators of past excellence, or the 
 echoes of the follies of their day, or baser yet, the 
 pandars to its vices. How short and fleeting has been 
 their popularity ! Here and there one among the num- 
 ber has deserved the gratitude of posterity by moral 
 worth and well directed labor. His works keep an 
 honored place in our libraries, but they rarely exer- 
 cise a living sway over the opinions and tastes of 
 nations. 
 
 A mortal born he meets the general doom, 
 But leaves, like Egypt's kings, a lasting tomb. 
 
 Such is also the experience of the arts of taste and 
 design. The father of the Italian arts, Leonardo 
 da Vinci, was a scholar, a politician, a poet, a 
 musician. Michael Angelo, the sublime and the 
 holy, was still more universal. Sculptor, painter, 
 poet, architect, engineer — we find him now painting 
 his grand frescos, now modelling his gigantic statues, 
 now heaving the dome of St. Peter's into the air, 
 and now fortifying his loved Florence, the city of 
 his aflections, with a humble diligence, and a pa- 
 triot's zeal. There are no such artists now in Italy. 
 The painters and sculptors with which it swarms, 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 25 
 
 are devoted to painting and sculpture exclusively; 
 but how do they compare as artists with their great 
 predecessors l Could any authority whatever add 
 weight to the facts I have just referred to, such 
 would be found in the opinion of Milton himself. 
 In a well known passage of one of those fervid 
 and brilliant prose tracts of his youth, which (to use 
 the noble metaphor of an eloquent critic) announced 
 the Paradise Lost as plainly as ever the bright purple 
 clouds in the east announced the rising of the sun ; 
 Milton, with a sublime and determined confidence in 
 his own genius, covenanted — for that is his remarka- 
 ble expression — in some few years thereafter, to 
 produce " a work not to be raised from the heats of 
 youth or the vapors of wine, like that which flows 
 at will from the pen of some vulgar amorist, nor by 
 invocation of Memory and her syren sisters, but by 
 devout prayer to that Eternal Spirit which can enrich 
 with all utterance and knowledge, and send out his 
 seraphim with the hallowed fire of his altar to touch 
 and purify the lips of whom he pleases." " To this," 
 he subjoins in a lower strain of eloquence, but with 
 the same decision of tone — " to this must be added 
 industrious and select readings, steady observation, 
 and an insight into all seemly and generous arts and 
 affairs." Had Milton confined himself to the studies 
 
 of his library, or the halls of his university — had he not 
 
 4 
 
26 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 thrown himself into the hottest conflicts of the day — 
 had he not stood forth the terrible champion of free- 
 dom of opinion and of republican liberty, raising on 
 high his spirit-stirring voice in their defence in 
 worst extremes, and " on the perilous verge of battle 
 where it raged ;" had he not participated in counsel, 
 in act, and in suffering with England's boldest spirits- — 
 had he not thus felt in himself, and seen in others, the 
 " might of the unconquerable will," the unshaken, 
 unseduced, unterrified constancy of faithful zeal and 
 love, he would not have gained that insight into 
 seemly and generous arts and affairs, that intimate 
 acquaintance with the nobler parts of human nature 
 that made him the greatest of poets. Had Milton 
 lived always a recluse student, his learned fancy 
 would undoubtedly have enriched his country's litera- 
 ture with Lycidas and Comus, but the world would 
 have wanted the Paradise Lost. 
 
 But the American literary man has yet other rea- 
 sons to be grateful for having been born in this age 
 and country ; and they are reasons such as a mind 
 cast in the grand antique mould of Milton's, would 
 prize as most worthy of fervent thanksgiving. Every 
 thing here is propitious to honest independence of 
 thought. Such an independence is the presiding 
 genius of all our institutions ; it is the vital spirit 
 that gives life to the whole. Without this, our con- 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 27 
 
 stitutions and laws, our external forms of equality, 
 our elections, our representation, our boasted liberty 
 of speech and of conscience, are but poor and beg- 
 garly elements, shadows without substance, dead 
 and worthless carcasses, from which the living soul, 
 the grace, the glory, the strength, have for ever fled. 
 It is not the parchment record of our constitutions, 
 the bills of right, the trial by jury, the elective fran- 
 chise, nor all the securities provided by the jealous 
 wisdom of our fathers for the unrestrained exercise 
 of liberty, that can call back this living spirit when 
 once it has fled — no, nor the unrestrained press scat- 
 tering its millions of daily sheets over the land, nor 
 the representative halls echoing with their never- 
 ending discussions. These cannot repair its loss, 
 but they are all admirable agents in its production 
 and preservation ; and there are besides other circum- 
 stances in our condition not less favorable to this tem- 
 per, than our political institutions. The numberless 
 shades of opinions upon the doctrines of revelation, 
 as well as upon other momentous concerns and du- 
 ties, coming to us from the various stocks whence we 
 descend, or the different influences under which our 
 citizens grow up, with all the creeds, all the preju- 
 dices, and all the knowledge of the old world pour- 
 ing in upon them, though involving or producing 
 dangerous errors, have yet a healthful efficacy in 
 
28 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 habituating men to the free use of their judgment, 
 and the manly, direct avowal of their thoughts. 
 Here there is no apparently general agreement 
 of society to awe the mind from investigation of 
 what claims to be certain and established truth. 
 And when examination on any subject brings con- 
 viction, the inquirer is seldom compelled to meet 
 that hardest trial of human fortitude, the renuncia- 
 tion of old associations and long cherished doctrines 
 in the face of universal scorn and indignation, and 
 without the solace of human sympathy. More 
 than this : — that restlessness of enterprise, which 
 alike nerves the frontier settler to the toils and ad- 
 ventures of the wilderness, and kindles the young 
 dreams of the political aspirant, which whitens the 
 ocean with our canvass, drives the rail-road through 
 the desert, and startles the moose at his watering- 
 place, or scares the eagle from his high solitary 
 perch with the sudden beat of the steam-boat's 
 wheels — :that one and the same ardent, restless spirit 
 ruling our whole people, can have little commu- 
 nion with that abject prostration of intellect, that 
 makes man crouch before his fellow, submitting his 
 reason and his conscience to another's will. It is 
 thus that the adventurous ardor, so efficient in ex- 
 ternal and material matters, naturally extends its 
 energies to the moral and intellectual. Here 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 29 
 
 are at once provided facilities for the propagation of 
 truth, and securities for some portion, at least, of 
 respect for conscientious error. 
 
 It is not easy to realize the full value of the bless- 
 ings made familiar to us by daily enjoyment, without 
 some experience of their opposite evils. It is our 
 happy fate to know nothing personally of the severer 
 tyranny of power over the conscience. History can 
 alone teach us what this is, and how to estimate 
 duly our political advantages in this respect. What 
 then is the history of human opinions but a long 
 record of martyrdom for truth, for religion, for pri- 
 vate conscience, for public liberty 1 Every monu- 
 ment of antiquity in the old world, like that one of 
 " London's lasting shame," 
 
 The Traitor's Gate, miscalled, through which of yore 
 \^\A^'^ Past Raleigh, Cranmer, Russel, Sydney, More, — * 
 
 every vestige of the past recalls some remembrance 
 of the " lifted axe, the agonizing wheel," the scaffold, 
 the stake, and the fagot, on which the patriot poured 
 out his life's blood, and where the martyr breathed 
 forth in torture his last prayer of triumphant for- 
 giving faith. But, traveller, stop not there to mourn. 
 
 * These lines are quoted from memory, I believe from Rogers, and slightly 
 varied. > 
 
30 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 Rejoice rather — for these are the moimments of the 
 victories of truth — of the triumph of the self-sustain- 
 ing, immortal mind, over the impotence of transient 
 power. The martyrs have conquered. Their sen- 
 tence is reversed. Their tyrants have passed away 
 with names blackened and branded by universal scorn. 
 The cause for which they died has now mounted the 
 seat of worldly empire, or else is enthroned still 
 more regally in the hearts of millions. Mourn not 
 for the martyrs. Mourn rather for truth suppressed 
 by fear, for genius shrinking from the torture or the 
 dungeon ; or, more melancholy still, deeming ease 
 and wealth cheaply bought by the sacrifice of honor, 
 of conscience, of faith, and of truth. Mourn for 
 Galileo and Beranger, and a crowd of others as 
 wise, and as good, and as weak as they were. Pity, 
 but despise them not. Look to your own age, and 
 then compare it with theirs. Look to your own 
 country and her laws, and then look to theirs. Be 
 thankful for your happier lot, yet fear — lest you 
 yourselves should some time yield up your integrity 
 under trials that, weighed with theirs, are as light 
 as air. 
 
 Well has a philosophical poet* of our own age 
 enforced the deep moral to be drawn from such 
 examples. 
 
 * Coleridge, 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 31 
 
 " Ye who secure midst trophies not your own, 
 Judge him who won them, when he stood alone, 
 And proudly talk of ' Galileo' s fall.^ 
 Oh, first the age and then the man compare, 
 That age how dark, congenial minds how rare \ 
 No host of friends, with kindred zeal did burn, 
 No throbbing hearts awaited his return. 
 Prostrate alike, when prince and peasant fell, 
 He only, disenchanted from the spell. 
 Like the weak worm that gems the starless night, 
 Moved in the scanty circlet of his light. 
 And was it strange that he withdrew the ray 
 That did but guide the night birds to their prey 1" 
 
 But whilst there are great pohtical and public causes 
 to shield the American mind from exposure to the 
 stern tyranny of power, there are others less conspi- 
 cuous and prominent, equally protecting it from more 
 degrading tendencies. I do not count as the least 
 among these the absence of marked difference of 
 hereditary or permanent rank. It is impossible for 
 any one, who has not personally witnessed it, to 
 comprehend the strange reverence to worse and infe- 
 rior men than themselves, the submisson of the un- 
 derstanding to the vices and caprices of those they 
 deem the higher orders, which beginning with early 
 youth, and confirmed by education, clings throughout 
 life to thousands of the well-instnicted and the good. 
 I well remember the astonishment expressed to me, 
 some years ago, by several learned and respectable 
 ministers of the gospel in Great Britain, at the ease 
 
32 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 with which an eloquent divine of our country (the 
 late Dr. Mason) conversed and argued with, and 
 even contradicted, a royal duke who had honored 
 an anniversary charity festival with his presence. 
 They accounted for this phenomenon not by ascribing 
 it to its right cause, the temper and education of his 
 country, but by attributing it to his presumed habits 
 of familiar association with the political dignitaries of 
 his own land. This feeling struck me as the more 
 remarkable, because these worthy men (several of 
 whom enjoy an honorable distinction in the religious 
 literary world) were themselves dissenters from the 
 national established church, and almost republican 
 opposers of the then administration of the state. It 
 requires a very strong effort of mind, and often too 
 as great an excitement of feeling, to throw of this 
 prejudice ; and when it is thus thrown off, the danger 
 is that it either runs into wild insubordination of just 
 authority, or else lasts but for a time, till the fervor 
 of youthful zeal is over, and the suggestions of inte- 
 rested prudence concur with early opinions; and 
 
 then the half obliterated impressions of youth re- 
 appear. 
 
 Now the obvious tendency of all this is to bow 
 down the intellect before authority, making the 
 soul crouch and crawl before place, rank and dig- 
 nity. I say that such is its tendency — for I should 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 33 
 
 do foul wrong and insult to the deep serious thought 
 of England and her native sturdy manliness, as well 
 as to the enthusiastic intellectual daring of the con- 
 tinental scholars, were I to say that such were the 
 constant and necessary consequences of any exter- 
 nal and artificial condition of social order whatso- 
 ever — still less so of a mixed government like theirs. 
 It is, however, an influence deeply deleterious to the 
 right feeling of mental independence, and it is there- 
 fore happy that it in no degree threatens us. But 
 in other lands, pecuniary dependance is too often 
 connected with this reverence for rank, so that 
 they produce together the most complete vassalage. 
 The market for intellectual labor is overstocked. 
 Nature's rich banquet is crowded with titled and 
 hereditary guests, " the table is full." To emerge 
 from the crowd of menials, and obtain some share 
 of the feast, the unbidden scholar must attach him- 
 self to the train of a patron, and feed on the alms 
 his niggard bounty may bestow. Such has been 
 the degrading history of literary men, poets, au- 
 thors, and, I blush to add, philosophers, through- 
 out the world, for many centuries. And if in our 
 own times the literature of France and of England 
 have, in a good degree, freed themselves from that 
 ignoble thraldom, this is mainly to be attributed to 
 the growth of principles similar to our own, to the 
 
34 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGLERS OF 
 
 diffusion of knowledge amongst the people, to the 
 rapid increase of commercial and manufacturing 
 riches, all combining to build up the sovereignty of 
 public opinion, and to make the patronage of aristo- 
 cratic wealth more and more insignificant in compa- 
 rison with the unpretending munificence of an edu- 
 cated people. Yet the causes which originally led 
 to this degradation of the literary character remain, 
 and much of the best talent of Europe still wears 
 (as nearly the whole of it did for centuries) the 
 galling though gilded chain of patronage. 
 
 Yet think what ills the scholar's life assaiJ, 
 Toil, envy, want, the patron and the gaol, — 
 
 said the indignant Johnson, filled as he was with 
 habitual reverence for rank, yet resenting, with manly 
 contempt, the wrongs of genius and the disgrace of 
 letters. 
 
 At a later period of his life, the same veteran au- 
 thor recorded in his great English Dictionary the bit- 
 ter result of his long and sad experience and that of 
 his literary associates, by sarcastically defining \hepa- 
 tron as being " commonly a wretch, who protects with 
 insolence and is paid by flattery." The same sad 
 story is told more in detail in the precarious depend- 
 ant lives of the wits and poets of London and Paris 
 during the reigns of Louis XIV., Charles IL, and the 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 35 
 
 first and second Georges. It is written at large in 
 their shameless flatteries, addressed to venal states- 
 men and ribbald courtiers, embodied in servile dedica- 
 tions, or embalmed in works where taste and fancy 
 struggle in vain to rise under the load of baseness and 
 pollution imposed upon the unhappy literary slave by 
 his equally unhappy patron. The facility with which 
 a sure and comfortable subsistence may be obtained 
 in this country, and the certainty with which educa- 
 ted talent, directed by ordinary discretion and indus- 
 try, may obtain to a decent competency, are such as 
 to exclude all temptation, much more all necessity, 
 to follow in this respect the humiliating example of 
 European learning. To such evils "the lack of 
 means need never drive us." If dazzled by the false 
 glitter of office, if bribed by the doles of political 
 patronage, or by such paltry boons as private inte- 
 rest can bestow, the American scholar is ever 
 weak enough to sell his conscience, or bow down 
 his independence before a master, he falls a volun- 
 tary victim. The sin is his own — his own be 
 the shame. Let him not seek to divide it with his 
 country. Is it not then a glorious privilege to be 
 wholly free from the necessity of such dependence, 
 never to be forced by the tyrannous compulsion of 
 need to man- worship, the meanest of all idolatries'? 
 Far nobler, far happier, than kings can make him, is 
 
36 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 the lot of him who dedicates his Hfe and his intellect 
 to instruct and delight the people — who looks to 
 them not for alms or bounty, but for a just compen^- 
 sation in honor and in profit, for the pleasure or the 
 instruction he affords them- — who seeks to serve them 
 as a friend, not to fawn on them as a flatterer — to 
 please them or to teach them, yet as having a 
 higher master and knowing the solemn responsibility 
 of one who acts upon the happiness or the morals 
 of many. Happy he who, in the discharge of such 
 duties, leads none into dangerous error, lulls none 
 into careless or contemptuous negligence of right, 
 nor ever sullies the whiteness of an innocent mind. 
 Happier — still happier, he who has scattered abroad 
 into many hearts those moral seeds whence benevo^ 
 lent and heroic actions spring up, who has " given 
 ardor to virtue and confidence to truth," or, in more 
 sacred language, " has turned many unto righteous- 
 ness." Such genius, fired from heaven's own light, 
 will continue to the end of time to burn and spread, 
 kindling congenial flames far and wide, until they 
 lift up their broad united blaze on high, enlightening, 
 cheering, and gladdening the nations of the earth. 
 
 Nevertheless, sad experience has sometimes 
 proved that he who draws his subsistence or his 
 fame from the taste of a corrupted people, may 
 debase and dishonor himself in ministering to the cor- 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 37 
 
 rupted tastes of the million, as well as he who 
 pandars to that of the corrupt aristocratic few. 
 
 " The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give, 
 For they who live to please, must please to live ;" 
 
 And what is true of the drama, holds equally good 
 of all the literature and the arts that minister to 
 pleasure and entertainment. Yet the lure to evil 
 from serving the many is far less than from serving 
 the few. To one entire half of the great domain of 
 mind it reaches not at all. The cultivator of ^J^ 
 mathematical and physical science, more fortunate in 
 this than the man of letters, is wholly beyond such 
 danger. All of his labors, in order to bring honor 
 or advantage to himself, must be felt in the increased 
 comforts of thousands, or the augmented power of 
 his species. What a magnificent accompaniment 
 is this thought to the other worldly rewards of his 
 successful toils ! What a moral dignity does it give 
 to the exploits of art and science, in themselves the 
 most purely physical and mechanical ! 
 
 But the man who aspires to guide or to please the 
 minds of others by eloquence or literature, will soon 
 find that, in proportion as he addresses himself to 
 enduring public interests or universal natural feel- 
 ings in preference to those which are local or per- 
 sonal, artificial or temporary, so his own genius will 
 
38 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 be elevated, and the ethical character of his 
 thoughts and works ennobled and purified. For 
 in order to advance those large public interests, he 
 must look to the grand laws, political or moral, that 
 govern human happiness. In order to touch the 
 universal natural sensibilities, he must stir up the 
 generous sympathies, that in individuals are entan- 
 gled or choked with their peculiar vices, but still 
 are common to human nature. He must rouse up 
 the virtues that sleep in most hearts, but are dead in 
 none. So only can he gain and keep a firm hold 
 upon the public mind. Now in the very effort of so 
 doing, his own littleness is insensibly lost in the 
 greatness of a common humanity. He tasks himself 
 to high purposes, and in that exertion brings forth 
 powers he dreamt not of in himself. The author 
 rises above the man. He becomes unto himself, 
 his own " exceeding great reward." 
 
 I was much struck, years ago, with an admirable 
 application made by a veteran statesman of this 
 general truth to a sound doctrine of political ethics. 
 It is contained in that beautiful historical fragment 
 left by the late Charles Fox— a work that, I know 
 not why, has never obtained that reputation of which 
 it seems to me to be eminently worthy. Whilst it 
 vies in sober dignity with the best remains of clas- 
 sical antiquity, it breathes throughout every page 
 
THE AMERICAN ^CHOLAK, 39 
 
 the same generous and manly benevolence that 
 (whatever might have been his pubhc or his private 
 faults) marked the whole character of that frank 
 and kind-hearted statesman. In relating the secret 
 negotiation of James II. with the French court, by 
 which the English king was to be furnished by Louis 
 XIV. with pecuniary aid for the enslaving of his 
 people, one of the very meanest and most criminal 
 transactions recorded by modern history, the histo- 
 rian stops to wonder and regret, that in company with 
 several far inferior men, no unfit agents for such a 
 business, are found named the able and eminent 
 Lord Godolphin, and Lord Churchill, afterwards 
 better known as the celebrated Duke of Marlbo- 
 rough. " It is with difficulty," says he, "that the reader 
 can persuade himself that the Godolphin and Chur- 
 chill here named are the same persons who were after- 
 wards, one in the cabinet and one in the field, the 
 great conductors of the war of the succession. How 
 little do they appear in one instance ! how great 
 in the other ! And the investigation of the cause to 
 which this excessive difference is owing, will produce 
 a most useful lesson. In the one case they were the 
 tools of a king plotting against his people ; in the 
 other, the ministers of a free government acting upon 
 enlarged principles, and with energies which no state 
 that is not in some degree republican, can supply. 
 
40 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 How forcibly must the contemplation of these men, 
 in such opposite situations, teach persons engaged 
 in political life, that a free and popular government 
 is desirable, not only for the pubhc good, but for their 
 own greatness and consideration, for every object of 
 generous ambition." 
 
 Every good citizen of our republic will readily 
 acquiesce in the soundness of this political conclu- 
 sion of the English statesman. But I do not hesi- 
 tate to give the doctrine a much wider application, 
 and to say that a state of society, free and popular, 
 is eminently conducive to exalted principles of 
 thought and action, and the best energies of intel- 
 lectual men in every liberal and generous pursuit, 
 and is therefore desirable to them, not only for the 
 public welfare, "but for their own greatness and 
 consideration, for every object of generous ambi- 
 tion." In such a state. Poetry and Painting may 
 perhaps look around in vain for Macenases. They 
 need not despair if they find them not in individu- 
 als^ — for they will find them in the multitude. 
 
 "Unbroken spirits cheer ! still, still remains, 
 The eternal patron Liberty, whose flame, 
 While she protects, inspires the noblest strains ; 
 The best and sweetest far are toil-created gains." 
 
 So many historical and biographical illustrations in 
 the belles lettres^ in jurisprudence, in the arts of 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 41 
 
 taste and design, in the numberless applications of 
 science, all strongly corroborating the views I have 
 just stated, are crowding upon my memory, that 
 were I to recapitulate them in detail, I should weary 
 your patience with a string of names and incidents 
 already familiar to every reading man ; whilst I should 
 be compelled to leave the remaining parts of my sub- 
 ject wholly untouched. To them I must hurry, and 
 I can speak of them but briefly. 
 
 It is of the intellectual dangers, growing out of 
 circumstances otherwise thus fruitful in blessings, 
 that I purposed also to speak. The dangers of 
 prosperity, more insidious than those of adversity, 
 are often more fatal, and these are of that class. 
 
 One of the most obvious of them, is the danger 
 of falhng into a conceited, smattering superficiality 
 in consequence of that very universality of occupa- 
 tion and inquiry which seems, in other respects, so 
 propitious to the formation of a sound, comprehen- 
 sive understanding, so useful to the man of books, 
 so graceful to the man of business. Such superfi- 
 ciality is undeniably one of the besetting sins of our 
 reading men. It shows itself in the capacity of 
 talking fluently upon all things, and of doing every 
 thing ; and in the habit of talking inaccurately upon t 
 all things, and of doing every thing badly. It O 
 nourishes and sustains itself upon compends, abridg- 
 
42 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 ments, extracts, and all the other convenient subsidia 
 of improved education ; excellent things in their way, 
 but like other great improvements of our day, wheel- 
 ing you to the object of your journey, without per- 
 mitting you to know much of the country you pass 
 through. You may trace it by the small pedantry 
 that commonly accompanies half knowledge. You 
 may track it in legislative speeches and reports, in 
 public documents and legal arguments, and even in 
 judicial opinions, where facts, and numbers, and 
 grave statements of argument and collations of 
 authorities are all that is wanted ; but where their 
 „place is filled by puerile rhetoric, by common-place 
 instances of Greek and Roman history, or by mouldy 
 scraps of thumb -worn school-boy Latin — shabby 
 finery at the best, and all of it out of place. Yet 
 the temptation to the commission of such folly is not 
 great, and the remedy is easy. No man can hope 
 to know every thing within the knowledge of his 
 whole race. Let him then study with diligent accu- 
 racy that single branch of knowledge which it happens 
 to be most his duty to know well, and he will have 
 time and opportunity left to leam much more. Let 
 him keep his curiosity awake, and his affections alive 
 to whatever concerns the welfare of his neighbor, 
 his country, or his kind. He cannot then fail to 
 learn much, and he will know how to use all he learns 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 43 
 
 well. His understanding will be tempered by use 
 to that right medium that best brings the scattered 
 and broken rays of light from all quarters, to con- 
 verge upon any object on which the mind is called 
 to fix its attention. 
 
 This impatience of continuous systematic labor, 
 and the hope of reaching by some new and short 
 road those objects of human desire which the 
 Creator has not less beneficently than wisely de- 
 creed, should be gained only by the sweat of the 
 brow or the toil of the mind — 
 
 ■ Pater ipse coleiidi 
 
 Haud facilem esse viam Toluit, — 
 
 this same impatience of slow study that engenders 
 the parading superficiality which I have just describ- 
 ed, is often seen to produce still more serious effects 
 upon the character and the whole course of life. 
 Such effects are peculiarly apparent at the present 
 time in our own country. 
 
 In the wonderful and accelerated progress of this 
 nation to wealth and greatness, the public mind is con- 
 tinually surprised by the sudden apparition of enor- 
 mous riches gained as it were in a moment, some- 
 times seemingly by accident, sometimes the hasty fruit 
 of a quick-eyed and bold sagacity. Then again in our 
 political contentions, the unexpected mutation of po- 
 pular favor frequently raises an individual at once to 
 
44 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OP 
 
 eminence from some humble professional walk, where 
 he leaves his former superiors to toil on far beneath 
 him. Under the strong excitements of such exam- 
 ples, it is but natural that the ardent youth of ac- 
 quirement and ability should be often tempted to 
 look with disgust upon the slow returns of regular 
 labor, whether in study or in business. He closes 
 his books, or he flies from his office or counting-room, 
 and rushes to the field of gambling speculation, or it 
 may be of equally gambling politics, trusting to 
 become immediately rich or great, by the favor of 
 fortune, as others have become before him. 
 
 Unquestionably in such a republic as ours, the 
 rewards of public favor are legitimate objects of 
 honorable ambition. So too in a country where 
 population and capital are so rapidly augmenting, to 
 neglect the means of securing to ourselves some 
 share of that general prosperity, which long-sighted 
 sagacity assures us must be the natural effect of 
 causes already in action, would be to reject the 
 goods which Providence tenders to our acceptance. 
 But the great danger in this country, and especially 
 at the present time, and peculiarly to the well-educa- 
 ted young man, is that he is most strongly tempted to 
 stake at once his whole chance of success and of hap- 
 piness upon such uncertain contingencies and upon 
 them alone ; turning with scorn from the sober 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 45 
 
 certainties of life, as being worthy the attention of 
 none but dull, plodding spirits. 
 
 Now viewing this subject as a mere question of 
 prudent calculation, we are met with the striking 
 and certain fact, that the whole aggregate profits of 
 mere speculative gain among us (throwing aside all 
 account of the perhaps equal losses) are utterly insig- 
 nificant in comparison with those of regular com- 
 merce, or well directed industry in other pursuits. 
 In the same way, and for precisely the same reasons, 
 the highest honors and rewards of the mere political 
 adventurer are just as paltry, when placed by the 
 side of those of Marshall, and Wirt, and Dwight, 
 of Wistar, or of White, and, I might add, many 
 living names scarcely less honored than those of the 
 venerated dead — whose long, steady, successful 
 course of professional or of learned labor, was 
 crowned by the universal and affectionate veneration 
 of their countrymen. But if turning our view from 
 external circumstances of wealth or of respect, we 
 look to the influence of such a temper upon charac- 
 ter and happiness, the contrast is still more striking. 
 On the one side are domestic quiet, calm content, ^4\.^ 
 cheerful industry, well employed days and peaceful ^ l-'ic^ 
 nights, and above all, a steady reliance on your own i^^JCt 
 exertions — under the care of Heaven, the true secu- j * ' ^ 
 rity of independence and the best guarantee of vir-\ 
 
46 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OP 
 
 tue. Yet all this our youth are seen throwing aside 
 to take in exchange the feversh excitement of 
 the gambler, now elated into wild exultation, now 
 harassed by doubt and fears, now weighed down by 
 mortification, disappointment, and sorrow of heart — 
 ay, and to take the gambler's hazardous, precarious 
 fortunes too, his frequent, sudden and dreadful fluctu- 
 ations from wealth to poverty, from power and splen- 
 dor to beggary, a state of mind and of fortune leaving 
 no room for domestic happiness, little for personal 
 independence, hardly any for steady, straight-forward 
 honesty. Nor let the young man flatter himself 
 with the false hope, that all this is but for a time, and 
 that when his fortunes are made, he will rest in 
 ( safety. If he starts into life, risking every thing 
 I upon hazards like these, he is a doomed man. He 
 ^must go on to the end of life as he begun. His 
 early habits are incongruous with the calm, unex- 
 citing details of ordinary life, and render his mind 
 eventually incompetent for the ordinary duties of 
 society. 
 
 Against this danger there is but one sure safe- 
 guard of intellectual discipline. Religious and 
 moral duty may indicate others. I am far from 
 advising a timid abstinence from any creditable 
 or honest undertaking that may offer strong in- 
 ducements to enter upon it. Such advice would be 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 47 
 
 idle and ineffectual, if it were in other respects wise, 
 and it is not wise in the times and country in which 
 we live. The intellectual safe-guard I would re- 
 commend is simply this : — to form your permanent 
 habits and tastes to some study, some business, 
 some profession, of common and constant utility : 
 to become masters of this, familiar with it, fond of 
 it. If afterwards more exciting avocations call you 
 off for a time, to this you may always look as the 
 agreeable and respectable employment of your pros- 
 perous leisure, and upon this you may fall back in 
 adversity, with the certainty of finding a sure pro- 
 tection for your honor, your independence, and your 
 virtue. 
 
 There is another fault with which our country has 
 been sometimes reproached, and this reproach, to 
 which I have already alluded, much exaggerated as 
 it is, is not without some foundation in reality. This 
 degree of reality is again another of the evils that 
 may befal the American scholar, and against which 
 it most behooves him to guard. It has been said by 
 shrewd though unfriendly observers, that in America 
 the practical and the profitable swallow up every 
 other thought. There, say they, fancy withers, art 
 languishes, taste expires ; there the mind looks only 
 to the material and the mechanical, and loses its 
 capacity for the ideal and the abstract ; the sensuous 
 
49 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 understanding is vigorous, the pure reason is torpid 
 and blind. It might seem that there v^ere very Httle 
 reason to complain of our lot, if our nation effects 
 every thing it attempts in the useful and practical ; 
 and that the ideal and the abstract might will be left 
 to others who have less of solid and material con- 
 solation. Yet I think not exactly so ; and, first 
 wholly protesting against the sweeping broadness 
 of the charge — am willing to confess, that the 
 American mind is peculiarly exposed to suffer in 
 this very way. The demands upon talent for active 
 service are so numerous and imperative, the compen- 
 sation and rewards for such service are so imme- 
 diate and tempting, that the educated man is induced 
 naturally to value the worth of knowledge by its 
 direct utility. This is not amiss in itself, if it stop 
 there, but he is often led on to take another step, 
 and measure the degree of that utility by its value 
 to his own interests — thus paring down utility to 
 mere selfishness, and that too most commonly the 
 selfishness of the coarsest and meanest material 
 interests. To this, there are, it must be confessed, 
 stronger temptations here than in other countries. 
 On the other hand, there are here also stronger in- 
 ducements to a more liberal habit of thought and a 
 more generous course of action. If the facihties of 
 advancing our personal interests are here numerous 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 49 
 
 and absorbing, so again those interests will here be 
 found to be peculiarly bound up and interwoven 
 with those of our country and our neighbor. The 
 prosperity of each man depends upon the prosperity 
 of all. Every active citizen feels that he partakes 
 largely of the practical and real, as well as of the 
 theoretical sovereignty, and may make his own cha- 
 racter and influence felt far and near. For the same 
 reason, in all the operations of private enterprise, 
 and in our public concerns, as the laws and principles 
 regulating their action are evolved and manifested, 
 even enlightened self-interest is constantly called to 
 look to something loftier and more lasting than its 
 own direct and immediate objects. Thus whilst the 
 intelligent American citizen is surrounded by the 
 strongest temptations to devote himself solely to 
 selfish pursuits, he is at the same time every where 
 invited to conform his own spirit to that of our 
 liberal institutions, and instructed to uplift his mind 
 to the consideration of large principles, and to re- 
 gard himself as being but a small part of the vast 
 whole which claims his best afi^ections. 
 
 With such a choice before him, pitiable indeed is 
 the lot of him who turns from the nobler and 
 manlier side, to think, to live, and to drudge for him- 
 self alone. He cuts himself off from the best de- 
 lights of the heart — its endearing charities and its 
 
 7 
 
50 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 elevating sympathies. He paralyzes his own intel- 
 lect by suffering it to become half dead through in- 
 action, and that in its nobler parts. The mighty 
 ladder of thought and reason, reaching from the visi- 
 ble to the invisible — from the crude knowledge 
 gained through the senses to the sublimest infer- 
 ences of the pure reason — from the earth to the very 
 footstool of God's own throne — is before him and 
 invites his ascent. But he bends his eyes obsti- 
 nately downwards upon the glittering ores at his 
 feet, until he loses the wish or the hope for any thing 
 better. 
 
 This, however, is but an extreme case, to be 
 pointed out as a beacon to mark the covert peril. 
 That such grovelling materiality, such mean selfish- 
 ness, is not the necessary, nor the constant, no, nor 
 the frequent result of our ardent industry in the 
 affairs of life, let the discoveries of Franklin, and 
 the magnificent far-drawn speculations of Edwards — 
 let the grand philosophy, and the poetic thought, 
 flashing quick and thick through the cloudy atmos- 
 phere of political discussion in our senate-house — 
 let the open-handed charity, the more than princely 
 munificence, the untiring personal labors of bene- 
 volence, exhibited by our most devoted and success- 
 ful men of business, bear splendid testimony. 
 
 There is yet a danger of quite another sort, that 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 51 
 
 with us sometimes besets and misleads the hterary 
 man. FamiHarized from youth with the glories and 
 beauties of European literature, his ambition is early 
 fired to imitate or to rival its excellence. He forms 
 to himself grand plans of intellectual exploits, all of 
 them probably incongruous with the state and taste 
 of his country, and most of them doubtless beyond 
 his own ability. The embryo author projects epic 
 poems, and in the mean while executes sonnets in 
 quantities ; the artist feeds his imagination with ideal 
 historical compositions on the scale and above the ex- 
 cellence of those of Raphael ; the young orator 
 dreams of rivalling the younger Pitt, and of ruling 
 the nation by his eloquence, at the age of four-and- 
 twenty. These enthusiasts enter the living world, 
 and soon find that their expectations are but a 
 dream. They discover either that the world rates 
 their talent very differently from their own estimate 
 of it, or else that the state of society about 
 them is wholly adverse to its exercise in the 
 direction or on the scale their ambitious fancy had 
 anticipated. The coarse matter-of-fact character of 
 our world begins to disgust them. They see duller 
 school-fellows outstrip them in worldly success. 
 They see the honors and profits of public office 
 bestowed upon some whom they know to be un- 
 worthy. The profits of trade and speculation 
 are gathered before their eyes by the unlettered. 
 
52 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OP 
 
 Disappointed and disgusted, they are now tempted 
 to ascribe their disappointment to the repubhcan in- 
 stitutions of their country ; not reflecting that it is im- 
 possible to enjoy all kinds of good at the same time ; 
 that whatever is administered by men must be sub- 
 ject to abuse ; and that to be happy and success^ 
 ful, every man must some how or other conform him- 
 self to the sphere where Providence has placed him. 
 If the scholar gives way to this temptation, he 
 becomes a discordant, jarring thing in society, har- 
 monizing with nothing near or around him. He 
 dwells with a sort of complacent disgust upon 
 every imperfection of our social state. He gradu- 
 ally becomes a rebel in heart to our glorious institur 
 tions. His affections and secret allegiance transfer 
 themselves to some other form of government and 
 state of society, such as he dreams to have formed 
 the illustrious men and admirable things of his 
 favorite studies — forms of government or states of 
 society, such as he knows only by their accidental 
 advantages without a glimpse of their real and terri- 
 ble evils. 
 
 When this mental disease, for so it may be called 
 without a metaphor, seizes irrecoverably upon the 
 thoughts of the retiring, the sensitive, and timid 
 lover of books and meditation, his capacity for useful 
 exertion is ended : he is thenceforward doomed to lead 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 53 
 
 a life of fretful restlessness alternated with queru- 
 lous dejection. On the other hand, should he be 
 naturally a man of firmer temperament and sounder 
 discretion, time and experience will sober down 
 his fancies, and make him join in the labors of life 
 with cool submission. Still he is in danger of being 
 a soured and discontented man, occasionally com- 
 pelled to feign what he does not feel, and always 
 unsustained by that glad confidence, that eager zeal 
 and gay hope, which ever cheer him who loves and 
 honors his country, feels her manifold blessings, and 
 is grateful for all of them. 
 
 As various bodily diseases are observed to be spe- 
 icially incident to their several particular arts, trades, 
 and professions, so the malady I have just described 
 seems in this country to be that to which men of 
 purely literary cultivation are specially predisposed. 
 The men of daily toil seem happily to live quite 
 below the level of its agency, those of abstract in- 
 quiry, of mathematical study, physical observation 
 and high science, as much above it. 
 
 The early history of American literature affords a 
 distinguished example of this influence upon a most 
 elegant, accomplished and brilliant mind. So 
 modern are our American antiquities, that much of 
 this early history is within the memory of men not 
 beyond the middle of life, and such it happens to be 
 
54 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 in this instance. It is that of one once called the 
 American Addison, and still justly regarded as a 
 father of our native literature, the late Joseph Dennie. 
 Nature had endowed him with the quickest taste 
 for beauty, the keenest sensibility for all intel- 
 lectual excellence. A scholar from his cradle, he 
 became very soon, by practice, " a ripe and good 
 one." His ready memory was stored to a degree 
 unequalled by any one on this side the Atlantic, and 
 surpassed by none on the other, except his contem- 
 porary, the celebrated Porson. It was filled, crowded, 
 bursting with the choicest beauties of thought, the 
 rarest gems of expression that refined taste could se- 
 lect from the most extensive range of reading. He 
 united to this reading much originality of thought, a 
 gay and sportive fancy, and an unsurpassed power of 
 brilliant expression. He was a genuine enthusiast in 
 his love of literature, and he made it the pleasure and 
 the business of his life to propagate the same taste 
 among his countrymen. In this he achieved much, 
 but he would have accomplished very far more, had he 
 not yielded to a strange, unwise and unhappy morbid 
 dislike for the institutions and social order of his own 
 country. This discolored his views and distorted 
 his judgment. It enabled inferior, every-day men, to 
 vex and thwart him in his best and most favorite de- 
 signs. It abridged the influence of his opinions and 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 55 
 
 of his taste, and broke down the authority of his 
 criticism and his example. Worst of all, it iden- 
 tified in the minds of the unlettered, the cause 
 of elegant literature with that of attachment to 
 foreign principles and establishments, and contempt 
 for our own. Honest men reasoned, and correctly 
 too, though from false premises, that if literature 
 could be gained only at the expense of patriotic feel- 
 ing, it is best that we should go without it. It lessen- 
 ed too the merit and value of his writings as literary 
 compositions ; for it tended to strip them of the ori- 
 ginal American air they would otherwise have had, 
 and to give them the common cast of mere English 
 literature. Hence, instead of ranking with those of 
 Irving, at the head of our literature, both in time and 
 in merit, his works are already passing into oblivion. 
 The same perverse prejudice had also, I fear, an un- 
 happy effect upon the regular activity of his intellect 
 and the course of his life. Peace to his spirit, and 
 gratitude for his services to our commonwealth of 
 letters at a time when most it wanted aid. But let 
 the student take warning from his great and single 
 error. 
 
 I w^ould not now have called forth his frailties from 
 the tomb, did I not consider them as affording a 
 most salutary and impressive lesson to the youthful 
 enthusiast. More especially on a literary occasion 
 
56 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OP 
 
 like this, I could not have brought myself to speak 
 thus pubhcly of the weakness of one whom I 
 esteemed and honored, did I not firmly believe that 
 it was for a purpose which his own gentle spirit, 
 could he know of it, would approve, and could I 
 not, at the same time, pay a cordial, heart-felt tri- 
 bute to his many amiable and generous qualities, 
 his worth, his accomplishment, and his genius. 
 
 It is the happy privilege of Americans to be free 
 from the necessity of miserable dependance upon 
 the caprice of other men for their daily subsistence 
 or enjoyments. An honorable pride of character is' 
 native to our soil. Our reason and our conscience 
 are our own. No man need to seek for himself sL 
 master, no man need to fawn upon a patron. Yet 
 another danger, similar in effect to that from which 
 we are thus exempt, yet quite opposite in its cause, 
 threatens our mental liberty. It is that of slavery, 
 not to one but to many, not to a patron but to a party. 
 In our popular form of government, the existence of 
 organized parties for the promotion of any system 
 of policy, for the success of any principles of admi- 
 nistration on which opinions are divided, and even 
 for local objects and questions that must be decided 
 ultimately by the ballot-boxes and legislative action, 
 seems to be unavoidable, and when confined to their 
 legitimate sphere, not only harmless but salutary. 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 57 
 
 They keep up a more constant and exciting interest 
 in public affairs through the whole community. 
 They lead to a more vigilant watchfulness of those 
 intrusted with power. They give greater stability 
 and regularity to the action of government, and pre- 
 serve it from becoming the sport of accident and 
 caprice. But no dispassionate man, who examines 
 the character of all our political parties for the last 
 few years, can fail to perceive that there is some- 
 thing in their organization threatening to defeat the 
 primary object of their own formation, and injurious 
 to personal honor and independence. 
 
 The rule of a majority of the people is the fun- 
 damental law of our institutions, and thet tvill of the 
 people has a right to be expressed on every question. 
 But the modern doctrine loses sight of the people 
 as a whole, and substitutes for loyalty to the people, 
 fealty to party. It teaches the true liege-men of fac- 
 tion to move together with the discipline and blind 
 obedience of a regular army, and to regard those 
 who do not act with them, not as republican fellow- 
 citizens who differ from them in opinion on some 
 secondary though important points, but as aliens and 
 enemies, persons not entitled to any weight in the 
 nation, whose approval of the course of one of our 
 friends is a good ground of suspecting his fidelity, 
 and to act with whom, though on an insulated ques- 
 
58 THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OF 
 
 tion and for obvious public good, is treason and de- 
 sertion. We must add to this, that by the decision 
 of party, is meant that of a bare majority of the 
 party only, or more commonly that of its prominent 
 leaders, assisted by a few active professional partisan 
 politicians. Thus the preferences of the rest, cor- 
 responding perhaps with a very large majority of the 
 whole people numerically, are swallowed up in party 
 allegiance. The result of all this is, that in a land 
 of professed equal rights, one large portion of the 
 citizens is politically disfranchised, until they can by 
 the same discipline acquire power, and then disfran- 
 chise their opponents. Under a constitution pro- 
 fessing the will of the majority to be the supreme 
 law, the most vital questions are settled by an active 
 bold minority. Connected with all this, and as 
 a most essential ingredient in the system, a bitter 
 spirit of intolerance is nursed up, unjust to the mo- 
 tives of adversaries, degrading to public men, and 
 engendering narrow jealousies among the people. 
 The public man is taught in his official character to 
 look not to the welfare or the judgment of the peo- 
 ple as a whole, but (what should be wholly subordi- 
 nate) to the success and approbation of his party. 
 Thus, means usurp the place of ends. The first 
 who suffer the just punishment of this moral treason, 
 for such it is, against repubUcan principles, are the 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. 59 
 
 successful leaders themselves. They deprive them- 
 selves at once of the honest enthusiasm, the cheerful 
 confidence that ever accompany the zealous support 
 of principles. They become the timid, temporizing 
 slaves of expediency, looking at every step, not to its 
 justice or wisdom, but to its probable popularity. 
 Their own policy prevents them from relying for re- 
 spect and support upon the broad judgment of all 
 honest and enlightened men, and when age or ad- 
 versity arrives, when " interest calls off all her sneak- 
 ing train," they are left helpless and contemptible. 
 Such being the pitiable condition of the Magnates of 
 faction, what must be that of him who follows at 
 their heels as a hireling — above all, of the educated 
 and literary hireling 1 He has sold his manhood 
 for a little pelf ; he must revile, and he must glorify ; 
 he must shout huzzas, or whisper calumnies, just as 
 he is bidden. His time is not his own. His thoughts 
 are not his own. His soul is not his own. 
 
 Strange thing it is, but true, that in this our re- 
 public, the land of abundance, the native soil of in- 
 dependence, there may be found some Americans 
 of talent and information as abject in the submis- 
 sion of their understanding and will to the dictation 
 of another, as was ever the most awe-struck cour- 
 tier of Louis XIV. or the Czar, and who can fawn 
 
&0^' THE ADVANTAGES AND DANGERS OP 
 
 upon the dispensers of office with a cringing ser- 
 vihty that would have mantled with shame the cheek 
 of the worst hireling of Walpole, -or th6 most profli- 
 gate parasite of Dub'ois, the scandal of the church, 
 or of Jefferies, the reproach of the law. 
 
 I have before said that I looked with undoubting 
 confidence to the ultimate tendency of our free 
 institutions, to elevate and purify the general mind. 
 Nor do these things shake me in that conviction. 
 They are but for a time. These dark clouds will 
 pass away. They cannot quench the glorious sun 
 of our republic. To-morrow- 
 To-morrow, he repairs his golden beams, 
 And floods the nation with redoubled ray. 
 
 But their time is now. The evils are present. They 
 are confined to no individuals, to no one party or 
 faction. I have even feared that this spirit of in- 
 tolerance and dictation was extending itself from the 
 political into the social and the religious world. 
 Even before the altars of the Most High, strange 
 and unhallowed fires have been lighted up in the 
 priest's censers. It is for our generous, educated, 
 high-minded youth to stay this plague. Let them 
 not think to keep themselves pure, by holding them- 
 selves aloof from action. Let them take their stand 
 
THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR. dl 
 
 manfully as their own best judgment may dictate, 
 in the pohtical and religious divisions of our people ; 
 but let them feel for those who honestly differ from 
 them as for erring brethren. Be your zeal as fer- 
 vent as it may, still temper it with a kind-hearted 
 tolerance for the sincere and the honest. Reserve 
 your warmest indignation for the narrow and bitter 
 Pharisee, whether for you or against you, for the hypo- 
 crite, the impostor, and the persecutor. Above all, 
 reverence yourself, your country, and the principles 
 for which you contend. Never sacrifice your own 
 honor, and still less, the cause of religion or freedom, 
 to the subsidiary means designed to promote them, or 
 the external forms in which they may be invested. 
 
 Go forth then, gentlemen, to your exalted duties. 
 Go — sustain and elevate the high privileges of the 
 American scholar. Shrink not from the dangers, 
 yield not to the temptations that await you. 
 
 The father of epic poetry, when Diomed rushes to 
 the field, describes the goddess of wisdom as nerving 
 her champion's arm with strength, filling his breast 
 with courage, and circling his shield and spear and 
 helmed head, with her own living fires. Even so — 
 the Minerva of your distinguished college has armed 
 you in the bright panoply of science, and fired your 
 souls with a holier inspiration, than pagan antiquity 
 could feign, Profane not those high gifts, disappoint 
 
62 THE ADVATAGES AND DANGERS OP, ETC. 
 
 not the just expectations of the friends of learn- 
 ing and liberty. Be true to yourselves and your 
 country.