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INAUGURATION 
 
 OF 
 
 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 
 
 SAINT LOUIS, MISSOURI 
 
 APRIL 23, 1857. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY. 
 
 ST. LOUIS: JOHN HALSALL AND COMPANY. 
 1857. 
 

 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, by 
 
 LITTLE, BROWN AND COMPANY, 
 in the Clerk s Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 
 
 E, CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 I UINTED BY II. O. HOUGIITON AND COMPANY. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 EXERCISES IN THE MORNING AT ACADEMIC HALL. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS BY REV. DR. ELIOT, PRESIDENT OF 
 THE CORPORATION 7 
 
 ADDRESS BY J. D. Low, A. M., PRINCIPAL OF THE ACADEMIC 
 DEPARTMENT 9 
 
 ADDRESS OF THE HON. JOHN How, LATE MAYOR OF ST. Louis, 
 AND PRESIDENT OF THE O FALLON POLYTECHNIC INSTI 
 TUTE 19 
 
 ADDRESS OF HON. SAMUEL TREAT, JUDGE OF THE UNITED 
 STATES COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MISSOURI 25 
 
 ADDRESS OF THE REV. DR. POST, PROFESSOR OF ANCIENT AND 
 MODERN HISTORY 37 
 
 EXERCISES IN THE AFTERNOON IN THE HALL OF THE MERCAN 
 TILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. 
 
 REMARKS OF REV. DR. ELIOT, UPON INTRODUCING MR. EV 
 ERETT 45 
 
 MR. EVERETT S INAUGURAL ADDRESS ON ACADEMICAL EDU 
 CATION 51 
 
 997J26 7 
 
EXERCISES 
 
 ACADEMIC HALL. 
 
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 
 
 BY REV. DR. ELIOT, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE CORPORATIpX, 
 
 FELLOW CITIZENS : With a degree of pleasure which 
 I cannot adequately express, and with feelings of profound 
 gratitude to Him without whose Messing none can thrive, 
 I welcome you here this day, to take part in the Inau 
 gural Exercises of Washington University. The work 
 is indeed only begun, but the few steps of assured pro 
 gress already taken justify us in large hopes for the future. 
 Institution-building is and must be a slow work, and if at 
 the end of twenty years we shall have succeeded in the 
 full accomplishment of our plans, it will be a remarkable 
 rapidity of growth. 
 
 The Act of Incorporation of this Institution, known at 
 first as Eliot Seminary, was approved February 22, 1853. 
 Its passage was obtained by the exertions of Hon. Way- 
 man Crow, at that time Senator from this district, to 
 whose feelings of personal friendship the name first 
 selected must be attributed. As he was the sole origi 
 nator of the design, and himself prepared the charter, the 
 
existence of the University is primarily due to him. No 
 action under the charter was taken until February 22, 
 1854, at which time a full meeting of the corporators was 
 held and the constitutional organization of the institution 
 completed under the name of Washington Institute, after 
 wards changed to WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, as now 
 held. The incorporated name was also changed at the 
 earliest day practicable, so that this is now both our legal 
 and recognized title. 
 
 The charter under which we act is unexceptionable, 
 broad ! and : comprehensive, containing no limitation nor 
 condition, except one introduced by our own request, as 
 an amendment to the original act, namely, the prohibition 
 of all sectarian and party tests and uses, in all departments 
 of the institution, forever.* 
 
 The time has now arrived when we may, as we think, 
 without arrogance, claim the right of being inaugurated, 
 to take a humble place, which we hope may become, in the 
 course of years, an exalted place, among the Educational 
 Institutions of the land. The sacred words of Scripture, 
 which is the great underlying charter of education and 
 civilization, of moral and intellectual growth and freedom, 
 now forcibly suggest themselves to our minds : " Except 
 the Lord build the house, they labor in vain who build it; 
 except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh in 
 vain." 
 
 The prayer of inauguration and dedication was then 
 offered by Rev. TRUMAN M. POST, D. D. 
 
 * See Appendix, A. 
 
ADDRESS OF J. D. LOW, A. M. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 Bv J. D. LOW, A.M. 
 
 PRINCIPAL OF THE ACADEMIC DEPARTMENT. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT : The occasion which we this day 
 celebrate the inauguration of Washington University, 
 affords a befitting opportunity for those, to whose care you 
 have committed the academic department, to give a brief 
 explanation of the course of instruction which you have 
 adopted, and which it has been our duty to put in practical 
 operation. 
 
 In assuming the charge of an infant institution, whose 
 future looks far down the vista of years, if we do not fully 
 appreciate all the obligations and relations which this 
 charge involves, yet permit me to assure you, in behalf 
 of my associates, that we are deeply conscious that you 
 have entrusted to us interests far more precious to you 
 than silver or gold, yea, than all the " wealth of Ormus 
 or of Ind." 
 
 I trust you will not understand me as assuming any 
 great degree of merit in the humble sphere in which we 
 labor, if I further state that we are almost painfully sensi- 
 
ble that obligations are resting upon us, from which the 
 boldest might shrink without the charge of cowardice ; 
 obligations, the performance or non-performance of which 
 will find a culminating point, not in an hour, or in a day, 
 but in the centuries beyond. 
 
 In establishing a course of instruction, it has been our 
 aim, as far as possible, to combine practical and theoretical 
 knowledge. We are aware, that in this practical, money- 
 making age, many are solicitous for what is called a prac 
 tical education ; by which is meant, if we rightly under 
 stand the term, (of which we are not sure,) an education 
 designed to fit us for the specific duties and callings of life. 
 
 We believe we fully appreciate the importance of prac 
 tical knowledge ; and it will be found that ample provision 
 has been made in the different departments of the Univer 
 sity, to satisfy every demand of the age ; but we are well 
 persuaded that education, to be thoroughly practical, must 
 be founded upon an accurate knowledge of elements and 
 principles. 
 
 With this in view, the first part of our course is neces 
 sary elementary designed to be systematic, thorough, 
 logical. The full Academic course embraces a period of 
 eight years. Commencing with the child at the age of 
 ten, it carries him through a series of years the most 
 critical in human existence. During the first three years, 
 the instruction will be confined to the simplest elements 
 or rudiments of knowledge. 
 
 We are sure that we cannot assume an undue impor 
 tance for this period of education. The soil of the youth 
 ful mind must be prepared and the seed sown with great 
 care, if we hope to witness in after years a rich and gen- 
 
IS 
 
 crous fruitage. Success in the more advanced part of the 
 course, will depend, in a great degree, upon the proper 
 direction given to the youthful mind, as it enters upon the 
 threshold of learning. Great care will therefore be taken, 
 that the mind shall be kept active and expanding, ever 
 opening to the reception of such elementary truths as will 
 give vigor, without overburdening. 
 
 At the commencement of the course, the study of the 
 German language will be entered upon ; and after a suit 
 able interval, the French language. We believe that these 
 languages may be learned at a very early age. As soon 
 as children begin to talk, they commence the acquisition 
 of language. It is not necessary that it should be a 
 grammatical exercise, they may learn conversationally. 
 This is our method at the outset; and when the mind 
 is more mature, the grammatical structure may be 
 taught. 
 
 The study of these important languages will be con 
 tinued till the whole range of literature which they contain 
 shall be open to the student. 
 
 The study of the English language will receive special 
 attention. In the words of Fowler, " our language, as the 
 depository of the wisdom and experience of past genera 
 tions, we have received by inheritance, to be transmitted 
 to the ages to come ; certainly enlarged, and, if possible, 
 improved. A man should venerate his native language as 
 the first of his benefactors ; as the awakener and stirrer of 
 his spiritual thoughts, the form and mould and rule of his 
 spiritual being ; as the great bond and medium of inter 
 course between his fellows ; as the mirror in which he sees 
 his own nature, and without which he cannot commune 
 
14 
 
 even with himself; as the image by which the wisdom of 
 God has chosen to reveal himself to him." 
 
 With some such view of its intrinsic merits, we propose 
 to enter upon the study of our noble Anglo-Saxon tongue, 
 and pursue it in some form, throughout the course. 
 
 As an auxiliary to the study of our own language, the 
 ancient languages will hold no unimportant place. Latin 
 will be commenced in the fourth, and Greek in the fifth 
 year, and continued through the remaining part of the 
 course. In teaching them, the system of double transla 
 tion will be constantly brought into requisition. I do not 
 propose, nor indeed is it suited at this time and place, to 
 engage in the discussion of the mooted question as to the 
 utility of the study of the classics. It may be sufficient to 
 observe, that setting aside the great and positive assistance 
 that would be secured in obtaining a critical knowledge of 
 our language, we do not feel that we can afford to lose the 
 mental discipline which this study assuredly imparts to 
 the student. Our course in these languages will be found 
 sufficiently extensive for the practical purposes of life or 
 as preparatory for the University. 
 
 The study of history will extend through three years of 
 the course. In this department the aim will not be so 
 much to gain a knowledge of isolated facts, though this is 
 not without importance, as to stimulate the pupil to reflec 
 tion, reading, and inquiry. The possession of a knowledge 
 of the past, with all its great revolutions, social, political, 
 and moral, to every one who aspires to be considered well 
 informed, is so apparent that I need not dwell on this 
 topic. 
 
 Considering the intimate connection of the mathematics 
 
15 
 
 with the mechanic arts, and the physical sciences, they 
 must always hold an important place, if not the most 
 important, in every course of instruction. As a means of 
 mental discipline, no doubt they have been greatly over 
 rated, but as the handmaid of the arts and sciences, as an 
 auxiliary in aiding us to penetrate the arcana of nature, 
 they have no rival, and demand our first consideration. 
 Commencing with arithmetic and extending through the 
 various branches of mathematics, our Academic course 
 ends with the calculus. The instruction in this depart 
 ment will be rigidly exact and thorough. In the demon 
 stration of principles, the pupil will be taught self- 
 reliance, to depend upon himself and not upon the teacher. 
 While we shall aim to make thorough mathematicians, 
 we do not desire them to be exclusively such, so that they 
 can perceive no beauty and appreciate no excellence in 
 any thing, unless it contains an angle or a demonstration. 
 The exclamation of the mathematician, who arose from 
 the reading of the sublime Milton, with What does it 
 prove I we hope may find no response in the hearts 
 of those who go forth from these walls. The man in 
 whose breast no nobler emotion, no loftier patriotism 
 arises, from the words that breathe, and thoughts that 
 burn, of the noble band of orators and poets, of this 
 and other lands, living and dead, whose genius has 
 added lustre to the human race, is not, in the true sense 
 of the term, educated. 
 
 I have alluded briefly, I fear far too briefly, to some 
 of the prominent features of our course of instruction. 
 I may not omit to mention mental and moral science, 
 political economy, and other kindred branches as forming 
 
16 
 
 a part of our scheme, but time forbids that I should dwell 
 upon them ; nor, indeed, is it necessary, as they are 
 related in no remote degree to topics to which I have 
 already alluded. 
 
 The Academical course is elementary and preparatory. 
 We claim for it no more ; but such as it is, we hope it 
 may open to inquiring minds the vast fields of knowledge 
 which lie beyond. We trust it may prepare the student 
 to enter with honor some other department of the Univer 
 sity, and pursue more extensively some branches of study 
 of which he may have had a foretaste, or to undertake the 
 exploration of new and untried paths. 
 
 I will add a few words as to classification, methods of 
 instruction, and government. 
 
 To each teacher is assigned a particular department of 
 instruction. In this division of labor, regard has been 
 paid to the peculiar qualifications of the teacher ; and his 
 tastes have been consulted. The attention of the teacher 
 is thus directed to a few branches of study in which, by 
 specific preparation, he may become eminently qualified to 
 impart instruction. 
 
 Again, for each teacher the number of pupils is limited 
 to twenty-five ; a number sufficiently small to admit of 
 that individual attention and special instruction which the 
 peculiar temperament or mental condition of the pupil so 
 often imperatively demands, thus combining in a large 
 degree the advantages of private and public instruction. 
 Another obvious advantage is, that the teacher is able to 
 examine each pupil minutely upon the lesson assigned, 
 and thus know with a great degree of accuracy the exact 
 progress he is making* The pupil thus coming in con- 
 
17 
 
 tact daily with the teacher, will receive at every stage of 
 his- progress his attention and co-operation. It will be 
 perceived, from what I have said, that thoroughness is 
 especially aimed at. We desire, not so much that the 
 pupil shall master the book, as the subject ; not so much 
 to learn many things, as to learn much. 
 
 We desire, in a very particular manner, to guard 
 parents against false impressions in regard to the progress 
 of their children. Real and apparent progress are not 
 identical. The studying of so many books, or so many 
 pages in a book, is no test of real progress. The pupil 
 may be making, apparently, rapid progress, while he is 
 absolutely acquiring habits of thought and study which 
 will unfit him for any eminent place among his fellows ; 
 or his progress may be, apparently, slow, while at the 
 same time he is steadily but surely gathering around him 
 the armory which will enable him to meet, if not without 
 difficulty, yet with resolute courage, every obstacle that 
 may oppose his success. 
 
 It is the duty as well as the privilege of every parent 
 to carefully scrutinize and know what his child is doing. 
 In order to throw around the pupil every possible safe 
 guard to establish a medium of communication between 
 teacher and parent, and to elicit the prompt and active co 
 operation of the parent with the teacher, a system of 
 monthly reports has been adopted. We invite your care 
 ful attention to these reports. You will find them to be 
 exact transcripts of the teachers opinion of your child. 
 You may learn from these reports whether he is regular 
 and punctual in his attendance upon the duties of the 
 school, of his deportment, and of his rank and standing in 
 
18 
 
 his class. If your son is improving his opportunities, the 
 report will be to you a messenger of peace ; but if, on the 
 other hand, he is wasting his time, the report will be to 
 you a notice of warning. Take heed to it, and let no 
 time be lost in consulting with the teacher. By so doing, 
 you may save yourself from a greater grief. In sending 
 you these reports, we transfer to you a part of the respon 
 sibility which bears heavily upon us every day. You 
 cannot avoid it. You may shrink from it, but you must, 
 nevertheless, meet it. If the voice of warning shall ring 
 about your ears monthly, and you listen not to it, upon 
 you will rest the responsibility ; no hoarse and angry note 
 of accusation will disturb the teacher s conscience. 
 
 I have as yet said nothing of the moral influence of the 
 school. I speak of it last, though in itself of the most 
 vital importance. We this day invoke, with no sectarian 
 feeling, but in a Catholic spirit, the sanctions of religion 
 in the inauguration of our enterprise. In this most 
 public and solemn manner, we acknowledge the founda 
 tion upon which we rest. 
 
 I believe that our own WEBSTER has said that Chris 
 tianity is a part of the law of the land. 
 
 Indeed, so interwoven is Christianity with our whole 
 social fabric, so intimately connected with our civilization, 
 that we cannot sever it from our enterprise, which has 
 for its object social progress, without inflicting vital injury 
 upon it. The gift of a copy of the Holy Scriptures, by 
 the pupils, to Washington University, meets with the 
 hearty response : " We accept and reverently acknowledge 
 daily its divine teachings." 
 
ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN HOW. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 MR. PRESIDENT AND FELLOW CITIZENS : Acting on 
 the suggestion made, that a few words from me, as Pres 
 ident of the O Fallon Polytechnic Institute, a depart 
 ment of the University inaugurated here to-day, explain 
 ing our objects, and the views we entertain in seeking 
 to work under the charter of Washington University, 
 I shall briefly offer such an explanation. 
 
 It had been for some years the wish of those con 
 nected with the industrial pursuits in this city to estab 
 lish here an institute that would advance the interest of 
 those connected with them. In seeking this object, their 
 attention was attracted to the different institutions which 
 were working for the same object in our country. With 
 a few exceptions we found that the progress they had 
 made, had not been what, in our opinion, it should have 
 been. Our inquiries as to the cause of so little suc 
 cess, (not to say failure,) seemed to show, that the fault 
 has been not in aiming at too much, but in aiming 
 at too little. Content with establishing libraries, read 
 ing rooms, and the annual exhibition of manufactures, 
 they rested from their labors ; and arguing for the most 
 part that in stopping here, they had gone as far as the 
 mercantile classes had thought proper to go, forgetting 
 
the fact that for the most part our mercantile commun 
 ity had the advantages of better school education. 
 
 For, whatever is said of labor being honorable, most 
 honorable, which certainly I shall not contradict, I err 
 not in saying to you, that it seems to be the great de 
 sire of those who are educated, while they seek honor 
 able pursuits, to escape from physical labor, however 
 honorable it may be. 
 
 Our desire is to establish here in St. Louis an institu 
 tion that shall have all the advantages of the mechanics 
 institutes of our country, with those of the polytechnic in 
 stitutes of Berlin, Vienna, and other cities of Europe ; 
 to have a building where, besides the library, and read 
 ing-rooms usually found in the mechanics institutes, 
 will be found a place for the model of the inventor, 
 with the engine to work it, and for a school of design. 
 The professors of the various branches of science treat 
 of the mechanic arts, and there are few of these arts 
 which do not need, for their successful prosecution, a 
 scientific education. Aware of the magnitude of our 
 undertaking, we have therefore eagerly embraced the 
 opportunity offered us here, by the opening of this UNI 
 VERSITY, and have sought permission to work under its 
 charter, believing that it presents to us the means for 
 obtaining our object. Its professors will be ours, and 
 by combining our energies, we shall be better able to 
 remunerate them, and by so doing obtain a greater 
 amount of talent. 
 
 The managers of the O Fallon Polytechnic Institute 
 believing that to be successful, they must commence 
 with the young, have established evening schools, for 
 
the education of those who cannot have the opportunity 
 of attending our free day-schools. The success that has 
 attended them has been great indeed, having received, in 
 the last three winters, near fourteen hundred scholars, 
 whose ages average eighteen years. We also own in the 
 University nine scholarships, seven of which are repre 
 sented here. Our hall is not yet built, but we are full of 
 hope, and there are those connected with its manage 
 ment who are not generally content with any thing 
 short of complete success. 
 
 We have named our institute, for the purpose of 
 identifying it with our city, after one, who, being a 
 citizen of St. Louis, is not named last, in speaking of 
 its advantages, and to whom she owes much of her 
 prosperity. In the formation of our directory, we have 
 not confined ourselves to those connected with manu 
 facturing pursuits ; we have called to our aid gentlemen 
 connected with the different professions, as our co-labor 
 ers in this work, and as I trust one of those directors 
 will follow me, I may well leave it to him to smooth 
 off my sentences, and to fill any voids in my explana 
 tion of our design. 
 
 A few words in explanation of the advantages pos 
 sessed in conjoining the different interests, if there are 
 different interests, in its management. And here I will 
 give the language of President Donaldson, the first 
 President of the Philadelphia Franklin Institute a man 
 whose name should be spoken on all occasions of this 
 kind for not content with building up the Institution 
 in his own city to a position second to none in this 
 country, he has been always ready and anxious to aid 
 
in establishing others: "I ascribe our great success to 
 the bringing to the side of the manufacturer and 
 mechanic his professional brother." Said he to me, 
 " Come to-night to our conversational meeting, and I 
 will prove this to you better than by words." At that 
 meeting, among manufacturers, were Sarchet the iron 
 worker, Pat Lyon the fire-engine maker, Norris the 
 locomotive builder, and among the professional men 
 were Hare, Peat, Bache. and Brown. Models were 
 exhibited and comment invited and freely offered. A 
 blacksmith spoke of the difficulty of working his iron, 
 and a suggestion was made to him of the cause, and 
 a preventive thought of ; a dyer, of the difficulty of 
 combining certain colors, and a chemist, Prof. Hare, 
 I think, explained to him the cause. 
 
 Acting in this way, we formed our directory, and 
 with us it has worked well, and we expect to show 
 those who may attend the commencements of this 
 University some ten or twenty years hence, some of 
 these lads before me, that will be a good commentary 
 on the words I have spoken to you now. 
 
ADDRESS OF HON. SAMUEL TREAT. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 WITH a mind for weeks pre-occupied with other 
 themes, I entered this hall a few moments ago, not ex 
 pecting to take an active part in these exercises, but 
 merely to listen to the anticipated addresses of others. 
 Summoned thus unexpectedly, to speak in this presence, 
 I am overwhelmed with so tumultuous a crowd of 
 thoughts seeking utterance, that the difficulty is, not what 
 shall I find to say, hut what, with due regard to brevity, 
 can I best leave unsaid. 
 
 The important point in our undertaking has now been 
 reached when this young University is formally to take 
 its place among the educational institutions of the age. 
 At such a moment, without wandering in pleasing antici 
 pations through the opening future, or pausing upon the 
 imposing realities of the present, my mind reverts, in 
 voluntarily, to that " day of small beginnings," when, 
 pursuant to the notice that they had been named by 
 statute as corporators for the purpose, a few gentlemen 
 attended a preliminary meeting in the parlor of one of 
 our most honored citizens, to consider the propriety of a 
 formal organization of the designated Board, so that, if 
 afterwards it should seem advisable to move forward 
 towards the founding of a Seminary of Learning, under 
 
28 
 
 the advantageous charter granted, its privileges might 
 not be lost to the public. 
 
 With what distinctness, at this moment, the consulta 
 tions of that hour well up in the memory ! the free 
 interchange of views concerning the educational wants of 
 the West and of the age, the proper mode of giving 
 force and living energy to the practical thoughts enter 
 tained, the policy or impolicy of an early effort, 
 whence would come the necessary funds to place such an 
 enterprise beyond the reach of failure, the impropriety 
 of any movement whose feeble and struggling steps 
 might thereafter dishearten others, the real character 
 and scope of our colleges and universities, and their 
 adaptation to the great work of a true American civili 
 zation, the vast material resources of this Valley, with 
 the varied and fast multiplying pursuits springing thus 
 early into full and teeming activity, the heterogeneous 
 population, with all its diversified and seemingly con 
 flicting habits and casts of thought, out of which is to 
 come an unknown homogeneousness of life and society, 
 leading to and defining a moral and mental order, the 
 like of which, perhaps, has never yet been, the present 
 transition and plastic period, in which the formative 
 process must go on, whether for good or ill, to be deter 
 mined by the influences to which this age is to be sub 
 jected, the never-waiting and ceaselessly surging, buoy 
 ant, reckless, indifferent spirit animating every phase of 
 western life and passion, a seething caldron into which 
 so many ingredients have been thrown, and into which 
 each day dashes many still more incongruous, and the 
 consequent necessity of some directing and re-creative 
 
power to preside over and give shape, beneficent vitality 
 and healthfulness to the resulting compound; the ill- 
 guided efforts of uneducated labor in factories, workshops, 
 mines, and counting-rooms, also in our vast forests, on 
 our inexhaustible prairies, along our mighty rivers, and 
 over iron pathways of traffic and travel, with all the 
 attendant waste of capital, toil, and living energies ! the 
 stern and unbending realities of the moral and physical 
 condition of the Great West, the importunate demand 
 that no time should be lost in applying the right plastic 
 agencies, the illimitable and never-ceasing destinies that 
 must hang upon the peculiar civilization which should, 
 perchance, take permanent root in " this, the richest 
 valley the sun in all his course looks down upon," all 
 of these overpowering thoughts came into review, accom 
 panied with prudential considerations of the feebleness of 
 those assembled, -of the limited means at their command, 
 of the daily recurring pressure of their own private busi 
 ness, of their entire lack of strength, in time and funds, 
 to grasp with requisite power the mighty industrial and 
 intellectual forces which were sweeping the age onward 
 with terrific and almost resistless energy to its unknown, 
 yet predestined goal. 
 
 Few, if any, had entered that parlor with the expecta 
 tion that more was then to be done, or even contemplated, 
 than a formal organization under the charter an organi 
 zation to slumber on until favoring years or a happy con 
 currence of events should quicken its sleeping vitality into 
 vigorous action. All were satisfied that an educational 
 movement on a broader and more liberal basis ought soon 
 to be made ; and no one doubted that, when made, it 
 
so 
 
 should not be with a merely scholastic curriculum, but 
 with a sweep so extended and practical as to embrace 
 within its circle every department of intellectual culture, 
 whether to be applied by the student in after-life, through 
 some of the so called learned professions, or in the count 
 ing room or factory, or mechanic s shop, or on the decks 
 of our large steamers, or down in the earth among its 
 metaliferous veins, or in agricultural pursuits along the 
 fruitful prairies, valleys, and hillsides of the West, or in 
 making straight and secure iron pathways across a conti 
 nent, or in exploring the unrevealed properties of the clod 
 beneath his feet, or giving new application to the subtile 
 and mystic powers yet hidden in the laboratories of 
 nature. The whole circle of human knowledge is not too 
 large for the pressing wants of this age, country, valley, 
 or city. Hence the peculiarities and scope of our educa 
 tional plan, resting largely, as yet, in earnest determina 
 tion only, but ere many years, we trust, to receive a full 
 outward expression. 
 
 Our first meeting did not lead, however, only to con 
 sultation. A few days had hardly passed before the 
 large amount subscribed by some of those then present 
 revealed that a conclusion had been reached, as to the 
 immediate propriety of a direct beginning, of which 
 others had not dared to hope. Still, the sum thus given, 
 though unexpectedly large, was hardly adequate to a fit 
 commencement of so broad a scheme. 
 
 At that moment, one of our fellow-citizens, whose 
 name in this community is almost a synonym for gen 
 erous and noble-hearted liberality whenever the public 
 good demands a benefaction, and who, not then belonging 
 
31 
 
 to the Board of Directors, had chanced to hear of the 
 embryo-plan and whom I am rejoiced to see with us 
 here at this hour, honoring the occasion with his ever- 
 welcome presence " sero in coelum redeat ! " sent un 
 ostentatiously to the President title deeds to property 
 valued now at more than sixty thousand dollars. From 
 that hour, all chance of failure vanished. 
 
 That benefaction, coming as it did at the turning point 
 in the enterprise, gave it the required firmness and cer 
 tainty. What only a few evenings before no one had 
 probably regarded, save as a good to be slowly and 
 cautiously reached in the uncertain future, had most un 
 expectedly received vitality and proportions, demanding 
 the commencement of the first edifice that in which we 
 are now assembled preparatory to the organization of a 
 corps of instruction. 
 
 Did time permit, it would be a pleasant duty to recount 
 the various steps taken up to this hour to recall the 
 successive wants as they were suggested to the Board, 
 and the generous donations from the few by whom they 
 were promptly met, the circumstances under which the 
 educational corps was formed, the serious deliberations 
 upon the necessity of organizing, at the very start, the 
 Scientific Department, so as to meet what was deemed 
 the most urgent of the educational wants of the West, 
 the alacrity with which those who had before contributed 
 largely, added to their previous gifts, so as to accomplish 
 that indispensable object, and the zeal with which those 
 selected as Professors and Teachers engaged in the work 
 assigned them. But it would be indelicate, in this pres 
 ence, to repeat the names and services of each of the 
 
benefactors and patrons and founders, although the temp 
 tation is almost too strong to be resisted. Some facts 
 known to a few only, under the pledge of secrecy which 
 injunction cannot be disobeyed must remain concealed 
 until time reveals their worth. 
 
 The result, in part, is seen to-day. Around us are 
 gathered nearly all whose donations in money and land 
 and time and counsel, and whose unfaltering faith, have 
 founded here, in the heart of this great Valley, (the 
 destined home of more than a hundred millions of free 
 men,) an American University, on a plan as comprehen 
 sive as the educational wants of all classes and pursuits, 
 and as liberal as freedom from partisanship of clans and 
 sects, and as a true love for the universal laws of nature 
 and of Nature s God, will permit ; bearing, too, the name 
 of him who to his country and age, and for all coming 
 time, is the representative of the grandest human virtues. 
 
 As a director in the University, and as one of the 
 managers of the Polytechnic Institute, I feel a double 
 pride at this hour ; knowing as I do how harmoniously 
 they have hitherto worked together as parts of the same 
 system, and how indissolubly they are interwoven for the 
 attainment of the same great ends. Throughout the 
 land there are scholastic institutions of great efficiency 
 and high rank, worthy of the profound regard with 
 which they are cherished, fountains whence flow, peren 
 nially, pure classic streams to beautify and improve Amer 
 ican society. Long may they continue their blessed 
 work ! 
 
 The West has its due share of such institutions, 
 many, it is true, struggling, lonyo intervallo behind the 
 
33 
 
 honored shrines of Harvard, Yale, Union, Princeton, and 
 Columbia. Some of the most far-sighted patrons of 
 learning in the East, have felt the pressure of the times, 
 and given new prominence to abstract and physical 
 science, and especially to the applied sciences. Still 
 much remains to be done, if old prejudices are to be 
 finally exploded, and the controlling physical energies of 
 a young and bounding nation are to be subjected to the 
 directing power of a stronger and better culture. 
 
 There are more unwritten volumes of valuable infor 
 mation in the mart and workshop than have been gathered 
 into our libraries. Men possessing that true learning, 
 acquired by tradition, early training, or severe lessons of 
 personal experience, are applying it daily, with the confi 
 dence which the unvarying relations of cause and effect 
 should ever give ; acting upon and incessantly dealing 
 with scientific principles, which have either found their 
 way silently and unperceived from the laboratories or 
 closets of the philosophers, or have been hit upon by 
 some lucky accident after persevering experiments in the 
 workshop, or by a chance stroke of some careless artisan, 
 and which in their full force, and best applications, are 
 yet wholly unknown to the pale student or learned pro 
 fessor. So, on the other hand, our library shelves are 
 filled with books containing formulas and facts, which, 
 if known to the artizan and agriculturist, would save 
 months of useless toil, and a sad waste of misapplied 
 capital. This busy, working-day world needs a more 
 general diffusion of scientific truth ; and science itself 
 needs more frequent contact with the useful arts. Each 
 would, Anteus-like, rise from the contact with renewed 
 3 
 
34 
 
 vigor. Art has, by daily experiments, detected new com 
 binations, and unthought of analyses, of which the philos 
 opher remains profoundly ignorant. Many a student of 
 nature has toiled fruitlessly in the endeavor to verify his 
 most important discoveries, because ignorant of the sim 
 plest expedients to which manual skill and dexterity resort ; 
 and many an artizan has abandoned his best enterprises, 
 weary and heart-sick at his great loss and the oft-repeated 
 failure of his efforts, not knowing that his hand has been 
 in repeated contact with, and just on the point of grasp 
 ing, the very principle which, if seized, would have 
 opened to him unbounded triumph, and untold wealth. 
 It is time that this were otherwise that theory and 
 practice science and art walked ever, side by side, in 
 the workshops of the city and the halls of philosophy. 
 Each has lessons to teach, which the other needs to learn. 
 The life-blood of science must quicken and invigorate 
 the arts ; and the arts should, in their turn, give new 
 strength, useful hints, and fresh health to science. Such 
 vigorous action and reaction ought to be incessant an 
 uninterrupted circulation of the life-blood maintained, 
 from the heart to the head and hands and feet of the 
 body politic, giving to the whole system a ruddier glow, 
 quickening it by sympathetic action, and indicating the 
 ever-reproductive power of Nature s latvs, by which are 
 to be created, in the distant future, " a new heavens and 
 a new earth." In such a spirit the Institute is the indus 
 trial or practical department of this University the 
 department in which the professor and the artizan will 
 meet with mutual benefit. Their treasured stores should 
 not be concealed in libraries or workshops ; each being 
 
8.5 
 
 most interested in learning precisely what the other best 
 knows. 
 
 This department, as has just been said by its worthy 
 President, has made a fair beginning, and is under the 
 management of those, most of whom, like himself, from 
 the workshops of the city, are never content with failure 
 in any enterprise. It has commenced at the very foun 
 dation, by furnishing, through its evening school, to the 
 apprentices and journeymen of the city, such facilities for 
 education as they most need. It has opened the way to 
 continuous study, by its library and by its provision for 
 useful lectures hereafter. 
 
 In the future, it is hoped, that many of the students 
 now before me, will, after having been thoroughly trained 
 in every department of this University, take their appro 
 priate places at the head of the industrial movements of 
 the West, the equals in every branch of knowledge, and 
 in all respects, of the most learned and honored of the 
 land. 
 
 When in the progress of the movements leading to the 
 opening of the University, the corps of instructors had 
 been organized, and this hall prepared for its students, the 
 question arose whether the point had been yet reached at 
 which a formal inauguration of the Institution should be 
 held. As each director cast his eyes over the country in 
 search of one who united in his own person all the quali 
 ties requisite for the occasion, and whose presence and 
 words of wisdom would crown the enterprise with fresh 
 hope, dispelling any lingering doubts of permanent suc 
 cess, all rested, instinctively and simultaneously, on the 
 ripe scholar, patriot statesman, and gifted orator of New 
 
86 
 
 England, who in response to the urgent request, is with 
 us to-day, to aid in inaugurating here, in the centre of 
 our common country, an institution whose influences, we 
 trust, will be as wide as the republic of letters, as true as 
 the laws of nature, as humanizing as mental culture, as 
 pure as Christian morals, and as enduring as civilization. 
 Surely, no place is more appropriate for such an enter 
 prise ; and none more gifted or worthy to give utterance to 
 the thoughts of such an hour ! I know that all are impa 
 tient for the moment to arrive and none more so than 
 myself when from his lips we shall hear those eloquent 
 utterances on which the great interest of this occasion 
 hangs. It is therefore time for me to have done with 
 this desultory talk to leave you to the gifted voice and 
 far-reaching thoughts of him who has honored his Alma 
 Mater Old Harvard by filling the most exalted stations 
 in her academic halls, and who has shed increased lustre 
 upon our young Republic by serving her long and well at 
 foreign courts, and in her halls of legislation, and at her 
 cabinet councils, whose ripe thoughts and profound 
 views upon nearly every department of human culture 
 and action have already taken their appropriate rank 
 among the classic productions of the age. 
 
REV. DR. POST S ADDRESS. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 I CANNOT forbear, under the impulse of the invitation 
 so suddenly and so kindly extended to add my favoring 
 voice to the present occasion, so far to respond as to ex 
 press my earnest sympathy with the enterprise this day 
 inaugurated, and my gratification at the favorable auspices 
 under which it starts. I see around me, in the gifted 
 and honored representatives of different classes and pro 
 fessions of my fellow-citizens here present, the assurance 
 of much strength, and of general confidence in the move 
 ment ; and my assurance of its success is greatly 
 increased by the names that appear in its Board of 
 Direction, and eminently by the well-known efficiency, 
 and patient and successful energy of its President, so 
 honorably connected with the origin of much that is good 
 in this city, and under whose able management it has 
 been conducted to its present position of promise. 
 
 I cannot forbear expressing my gratification in view 
 of the fact that with so much strength of character, we 
 have evidence before us this day, that much of the 
 strength of wealth in our city is also rallying for its sup 
 port, and that God has bestowed on those among us to 
 whom He has given princely fortunes, a disposition to 
 employ them for princely uses. I am glad to see them 
 
40 
 
 associating* their names with institutions for popular edu 
 cation and liheral culture, that shall he their munificent 
 and honorable monuments to a grateful Future. 
 
 I am sure I may add, among other glad and favoring 
 omens of the present occasion, that one whose charm of 
 eloquence has been so extensively associated with litera 
 ture and culture in the East, is here to-day, to unite us 
 by the bands of Beauty and Persuasion with our cousins 
 and brothers on the Atlantic slope, in the assurance of 
 their sympathy in our enterprise to accomplish here, 
 beyond the Father of Waters, a work such as our com 
 mon Fathers wrought on the shores of the great ocean. 
 
 It seems to me also to augur, or at least to merit suc 
 cess for the Institution inaugurated, that, while it is in 
 especial sympathy with the masses, and aims to bless 
 Labor with culture, and unite in happy combination the 
 speculative and scientific with the great practical issues 
 of popular education, it is also placed on a broad and 
 liberal basis on w^hich men of different ecclesiastical or 
 political schools can labor together. Such joint action for 
 a noble object is, through its unitive influence, a public 
 benefit as well as an augury of success. 
 
 But though the Institution is by its charter pledged to 
 be unpartisan and unsectarian, God forbid it should ever 
 be unpatriotic or unchristian. And I am happy to be 
 lieve there is a common ground on which, though with 
 different partisan and ecclesiastic names and symbols, we 
 can stand together in the great work of national educa 
 tion, without compromising or discarding those great and 
 vital truths and principles, religious and political, which 
 must constitute the ultimate warp and woof of all valuable 
 
41 
 
 culture and character. The tendency among us unques 
 tionably has been too much toward division and sub 
 division in educational enterprises ; until society is re 
 solved into fragments so minute that hardly any one is 
 strong enough to establish for itself a respectable system 
 of institutions. 
 
 I am far from affirming that institutions distinctively 
 ecclesiastic have not place and position, and are not doing 
 a great and good work in American society. But while 
 experiments are being made all around us, of institutions 
 of that description, I am gratified to see in our young 
 city an effort of such promise to establish a University on 
 a catholic and general basis, on which fellow-citizens 
 whose walk in life may be in other respects somewhat 
 different, can unite. I believe such an institution has 
 at this epoch in our history, a great, a good, a neces 
 sary work to do. Should this enterprise succeed as it 
 promises, we may regard it as in some measure inaugura- 
 tive of a new educational era among us ; and while absti 
 nent from some aims commonly, and perhaps beneficently 
 associated with denominational institutions, we hope it 
 may still be an accepted and a permanent instrument of 
 effective service, not only in the cause of liberal culture, 
 but also in the kingdom of our God, to whom we would 
 this day dedicate it. 
 
AN Address was also given by the HON. EDWARD 
 BATES, in his own peculiarly felicitous manner, but unfor 
 tunately no report or copy of it could be obtained. The 
 assemblage then adjourned to the Mercantile Library 
 Hall, to hear, at 3 P. M., Mr. Everett s Discourse. 
 
EXERCISES IN THE HALL 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MERCANTILE LIBRARY ASSOCIATION. 
 
REMARKS 
 
 BY REV. DR. ELIOT, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE CORPORATION. 
 
 FELLOW CITIZENS : The Inaugural Exercises of 
 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, having- been commenced this 
 morning at the University building known as " Academic 
 Hall," will be now continued by an Address from our dis 
 tinguished guest, whom you are undoubtedly impatient to 
 hear. I share in your impatience, but the necessity is 
 imposed upon me of detaining you, less than ten minutes, 
 that the occasion on which we now meet may be under 
 stood. For WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY is of so recent 
 date and so little known, that many of those here present 
 might reasonably be held excused if they now hear of it 
 for the first time. 
 
 It was incorporated four years ago, with a different 
 name, the continuance of which might have given it a 
 local and sectional character, and which was therefore 
 changed by those most interested in the enterprise. 
 But, under a happy coincidence, the charter had been 
 
46 
 
 "approved" on the 2d February, 1853, and the first 
 meeting of the corporators, at which the organization 
 of the Institution was accomplished, was held on the 
 S2d February, 1854*. By this coincidence of birth, the 
 narfte of WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY was suggested. It 
 is also a name admirably adapted to the plan proposed, 
 namely, the establishment of an American University, 
 upon the broad foundation of Republican and Christian 
 principles free from the trammels of sect and party ; 
 a University for the people, whom WASHINGTON served ; 
 to educate the rising generations in that love of coun 
 try and of our whole country, which the Farewell 
 Address of WASHINGTON inculcates, and in that faith 
 fulness to God and Truth which made WASHINGTON 
 great. 
 
 The Institution comprises several Departments, and 
 is intended to embrace the whole range of University 
 studies, except theological, and to afford opportunity of 
 complete preparation for every pursuit of practical and 
 scientific life. Three Departments have been already 
 established and organized, the Academic, the Scien 
 tific, and the Practical (or Industrial) Departments; 
 and others will be added as circumstances permit, 
 among which I would expressly name a Department of 
 Law, and a Department of the Fine Arts. 
 
 For the present use of the academic and scientific 
 department, a building has been erected on Seven 
 teenth Street with ample room for the accommodation 
 of two hundred and fifty students, and where one hun 
 dred are now in daily attendance. A large lot of land, 
 containing four acres in " Beaumont Addition," has 
 
47 
 
 also been purchased for the future erection of Univer 
 sity buildings. 
 
 A Chemical Laboratory, on the same lot with " Aca 
 demic Hall," is nearly finished, and arrangements have 
 been made for its thorough and complete furnishing, so 
 that on the opening of the next term, in September, 
 the best advantages of instruction can be supplied. A 
 Scientific Library and some expensive apparatus are yet 
 needed, but I hope will soon be obtained. In this con 
 nection, let me say that a superior Equatorial Tele 
 scope is now in the hands of the manufacturer, by or 
 der of our fellow-citizen, JAMES E. YEATMAN, at the 
 cost of $1,500, for the use of the University. 
 
 A Collegiate Department has not yet been sepa 
 rately organized, except by the appointment of Profes 
 sor, TRUMAN M. POST, to the Chair of History. 
 
 In the Scientific Department, the Chair of Mathe 
 matics and Civil Engineering is occupied by Professor 
 JOSEPH J. REYNOLDS ; that of Chemistry by Prof. A. 
 LITTON ; that of Comparative Anatomy by Prof. 
 CHARLES A. POPE; and that of Botany and Natural 
 History, by Prof. GEORGE ENGELMANN, now in Eu 
 rope. 
 
 Of the Practical Department, which is a novel and 
 important feature of the University, a few words must 
 be said. It was a part of the original design in ob 
 taining a charter, and its organization preceded that of 
 the other departments, having been rendered feasible 
 by a liberal endowment in land, now worth at least 
 $60,000, by Col. JOHN O FALLON, and of $20,000 in 
 money by other friends ; and, although yet in its in- 
 
48 
 
 fancy, it has already accomplished great good. For 
 the first year, it was under the sole management of the 
 Directors of the University, and nothing was done ex 
 cept the successful establishment of an Evening School 
 for young men, the purchase of a Philosophical Appa 
 ratus and a course of Scientific Lectures. As the plan 
 developed itself, it was thought best that this depart 
 ment, although continuing under the same charter, as a 
 department of the University, should be placed under 
 distinct management and control. 
 
 From its connection with the Academic and Scien 
 tific Department, it derives great advantages by the 
 facilities afforded for a thorough education, by the ser 
 vices of an able corps of teachers and professors, by 
 access to the Chemical Laboratory, and in many other 
 ways all of which will be enjoyed, so far as practi 
 cable, without charge, or at reduced cost. But all de 
 tails of management and proceeding of whatever kind, 
 are better attended to by a separate Board to \vhose 
 hands the Department has been intrusted, under the 
 title of "The O Fallon Polytechnic Institute." 
 
 For its permanent and successful establishment, the 
 one great desideratum now is, a large and convenient 
 building, without which comparatively little can be done. 
 I am, therefore, the more happy in announcing that I 
 am authorized here to state, that, if a suitable lot of 
 ground can be obtained for $30,000, it will be pur 
 chased and given by a friend of the Institution. / am 
 not authorized to say, but assume the privilege and 
 honor of saying, that the generous donor is one who 
 has already contributed largely to our funds a man 
 
49 
 
 whom this city has more than once delighted to honor 
 one of our mechanic princes, JOHN How. 
 
 I have been further authorized, since I came here 
 to-day, by our largest benefactor, to say, that he will 
 place at our disposal property, which at its lowest pres 
 ent valuation is worth $27,000, and which we propose 
 to increase to the sum of Fifty Thousand Dollars, at 
 least, as a fund for general University uses. 
 
 These noble gifts, together with other resources, will 
 enable the University to enter upon its second academic 
 year, free of debt, and with property, all of which has 
 been contributed in the course of three years, of more 
 than $200,000. The endowments of professorships, 
 (except of one,) and a general productive endowment 
 for University uses, are yet to be obtained, except as 
 above indicated. 
 
 In conclusion, let me add, that the members of the 
 corporation are conscious of no private or party pur 
 poses to serve. They have undertaken to establish, 
 upon a broad American foundation, an institution of 
 learning, practical science, and art ; and under the bless 
 ing of God, nothing shall divert them from their pur 
 pose. 
 
 With this view, they have invited for this inaugural 
 occasion, a national man, whom I now have the honor 
 of again introducing to you ; one who needs no title or 
 office to distinguish him, who belongs not to one 
 State but to the Union of States EDWARD EVERETT 
 of America. 
 
ACADEMICAL EDUCATION. 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED AT ST. LOUIS, 22d APRD1, 1857, 
 
 AT THE 
 
 INAUGURATION OF WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF THE 
 
 STATE OF MISSOURI. 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT, 
 
TO THE 
 
 REV. DR. WILLIAM G. ELIOT, PRESIDENT, 
 
 AND TO 
 
 MESSRS. JAMES H. LUCAS, JOHN HOW, WAYMAN 
 CROW, JOHN M. KRUM, SAMUEL TREAT, JOHN 
 O FALLON, JAMES SMITH, SETH A. RANLETT, 
 CHARLES A. POPE, JOHN CAVENDER, N. J. EATON, 
 PHOC10N R. McCREERY, GEORGE PARTRIDGE, 
 HUDSON E. BRIDGE, SAMUEL RUSSELL, THOMAS 
 
 T. GAUTT, 
 
 DIRECTORS OF 
 
 WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, 
 
 OF THE 
 
 STATE OF MISSOURI, 
 
 THIS DISCOURSE, 
 
 PRONOUNCED AT THEIR INVITATION, AND IN THEIR PRESENCE, IS, WITH 
 
 THE BEST WISHES THAT THE INSTITUTION MAY PROVE A RICH 
 
 BLESSING TO THE NOBLE VALLEY IN WHICH IT IS ESTABLISHED, 
 
 RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED BY 
 
 EDWARD EVERETT. 
 
 Medford, Mass. 
 
 , 1857. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 I APPEAR before you, fellow-citizens of St. Louis, at 
 the earnest request of the Trustees of Washington Uni 
 versity of the State of Missouri. The respect justly 
 due to an invitation from such a source, and a lively in 
 terest, ever cherished, in the cause of education, united 
 with a strong desire to see this mighty West, and to 
 salute the Father of her Waters, from one of the great 
 centres of her rapid growth and power, have induced me, 
 at considerable sacrifice of personal convenience, to under 
 take my present visit to your hospitable city. It has 
 already been a source to me of the highest gratification. 
 I feel as if my conceptions of our common country had, 
 in a brief space of time, been mightily enlarged. It is, 
 of course, impossible to form an adequate idea of an ex 
 tensive region, so distinctly in any other way, as by 
 traversing it, and inspecting it in person. We may 
 read the most minute descriptions ; we may add up 
 columns of statistical figures ; we may get the boundaries 
 and the list of counties by heart in manuals of geography ; 
 we may have at our fingers ends tables of population, of 
 the productions of the mine, the forest, and the field, of the 
 number of natives and the number of foreigners, and of 
 the children between four and sixteen ; but all this minute 
 
56 
 
 knowledge, though useful in its place, does not give a 
 vivid idea of an immensely extensive and rapidly growing 
 country. It is only when on board one of these floating 
 palaces, we have stretched along the sea-shore, or traversed 
 the sound, the river, the lake ; or, mounted on the fiery 
 wheels of steam, have rushed through winding valley and 
 mountain gorge ; crossing ridge after ridge, and stream 
 after stream; counting our progress by degrees of latitude 
 and longitude ; passing from tier to tier of prosperous 
 States ; from rivers that roll into the Atlantic amidst the 
 icebergs of Labrador, to those which pour their steaming 
 floods into the Gulf of Mexico ; it is only after this 
 actual traverse and survey of the mighty region, its 
 cities, its towns, its hamlets ; its boundless extent, its in 
 finite variety of field, and mountain, and flood; its wide 
 range of climate and of production, natural and artificial, 
 the work of Providence and man ; the whole joyous 
 and all but bewildering scene animated with its swarm 
 ing millions, that we can fully understand the natural 
 features, the vast improvements, the rapid progress, the 
 impending future of the Union. 
 
 I experience a difficulty, my friends, in attempting to 
 do justice to my feelings, as I find myself in the centre of 
 that ancient province of Louisiana, the proudest memorial 
 of the name of Louis XIV. ; on the banks of the river 
 which bore for a short time the name of his illustrious 
 minister, Colbert ; but a few miles below its confluence 
 with the still mightier Missouri, which forms, with its 
 tributaries, one of the most extensive natural systems of 
 internal communication in the world ; and within the pre 
 cincts of the prosperous city, to which the enterprising 
 
adventurers of the last century gave the name of the mil 
 itary saint of France. It is on these vast and expressive 
 natural pages, as well as in the learned tomes of our 
 libraries, that the most instructive lessons of history are 
 recorded. Louis the XIV., the most ambitious, the 
 most magnificent, for a time the most prosperous, the 
 most liberal, the most arrogant, and at length the most 
 unfortunate of princes that have died on the throne, had 
 two ministers, Colbert and Louvois, the good and evil 
 spirits of his reign, angels of light and darkness to him 
 and his royal fortunes. The one stimulated his un- 
 chastened ambition with perpetual schemes of conquest ; 
 the other brought order out of the chaos of his finances, 
 and established the industrial arts in his wasted kingdom. 
 The one raised armies, built fortresses, and fanned the 
 flames of his wrath against his feeble neighbors ; the 
 other sought to persuade him to found a solid glory on 
 the welfare and affection of his subjects. Louvois poured 
 his relentless hosts upon the Netherlands and wrapped 
 the Palatinate in flames, where the memory of Louis, after 
 five generations, is still execrated. Colbert, not content 
 with all his efforts to improve the internal condition of 
 France, sent forth the devoted pioneers of the Christian 
 faith and culture to the new world, and stamped his 
 master s name on the then imperial wilderness. As 
 early as 1673, Father Marquette descended the Missis 
 sippi from the Wisconsin to the Arkansas ; and ten years 
 later, -just a century and three quarters ago the present 
 year, the heroic and indomitable LaSalle, in a frail bark 
 of his own construction, accompanied with a few gallant 
 spirits attempered like his own, not forgetting the sin- 
 
58 
 
 gular attendance of " twenty Indians from New Eng 
 land," starting from Chicago, crossed the State of Illinois, 
 passed the mouth of the Missouri and the Ohio, and, 
 first of civilized men, as far as our accounts can he 
 relied on, descended the noble stream to its mouth. 
 There, on the 9th of April, 1682, he took formal pos 
 session, in the name of his sovereign, of the entire region 
 drained by the mighty river which he had traced from 
 its upper waters ; and confirmed to it, if he did not first 
 bestow upon it, the name of Louisiana. The Mississippi, 
 as I have already observed, had borne for a short time 
 the name of Colbert ; but a wiser instinct soon restored 
 to it the native appellation, and by that venerable name 
 it will roll to the ocean, till the language we speak shall 
 cease from the tongues of men, 
 
 That year, 1682, may well be marked in the annals 
 of America ; great starting-points in our history cluster 
 round the date. In that year, William Penn landed 
 on the banks of the Delaware. In that year, Josiah 
 Franklin, a poor nonconformist English dyer, emigrated 
 to Boston, and in one century afterwards, the youngest 
 of his ten sons, Benjamin, signed at Versailles the pro 
 visional treaty which established the independence of the 
 United States. The struggle between liberty and pre 
 rogative, which ended in the American Revolution, com 
 menced in that year in New England ; * and in that year 
 LaSalle traversed the interior of the continent, from the 
 mouth of the St. Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico. As 
 I go back in imagination from the prosperous days in 
 
 * Minot s History of Massachusetts, Vol. I. p. 51. 
 
59 
 
 which we live to the date of these early adventures ; as 
 I trace in retrospection the history of the country from 
 its one and thirty States ; its twenty-eight millions of 
 population ; its thousand prosperous cities, its towns and 
 villages innumerable, bound together in a great political 
 confederacy which belts the continent; its commercial 
 tonnage already the largest which the ocean bears on its 
 bosom ; its network of railways and canals, not inferior 
 to that of the most powerful States in Europe ; the 
 innumerable steamers that crowd its interior waters ; 
 the immense contributions which it pours into the gen 
 eral markets of the world; its churches, colleges, and 
 schools, and all the countless institutions in which 
 Christian charity gathers the orphan families of want 
 to her maternal arms ; in a word, this world of physical, 
 intellectual, and moral resource, development, and action ; 
 when from this magnificent contemplation I retrace the 
 line of history through the vicissitudes of policy and 
 war, from the Union to the Confederation, from the Con 
 federation to the Revolution, from the Revolution to the 
 yet acquiescent state of provincial allegiance, and back 
 ward to the feeble youth and dependent infancy of the 
 colonies ; when I see how steadily, as I pass onward 
 from generation to generation, this exuberant contem 
 porary greatness converges and shrinks up into a narrow 
 strip of provinces along the coast, a few small ill-built 
 towns on the sea-side and the great rivers, some 
 hundreds of straggling cabins on the western slope of 
 the Alleghanies, not one subject to English jurisdiction 
 west of the Ohio and Mississippi a hundred years ago, 
 a half a dozen block houses and Missionary stations be- 
 
60 
 
 longing to France, in the seventeenth century, beyond 
 those frontier streams, a border ringing with the war- 
 whoop and gleaming with the scalping-knife, great 
 solitary rivers, as yet without a name or a burden, 
 hurrying with idle lapse to the sea ; and at last the 
 awful silence of the eternal forest ; I feel as if I were 
 following the Father of Waters from its mouth back 
 to its source ; tracing it from its emporiums of the 
 world s commerce on the seaboard, between populous 
 states, and beneath the walls of towering cities, leaving 
 successively its grand tributaries right and left ; upward 
 and backward from the alluvial delta to the pleasant 
 vicissitude of hill and valley ; ranging with its parallel 
 winrows of driftwood in great bends through broad 
 zones of latitude and longitude ; now tumbling for miles 
 over broken ledges, and anon bursting through basaltic 
 gateways, or sweeping across rolling prairies ; from 
 climate to climate ; from the burning tropic back to the 
 arctic glacier ; from the land where the sultry breeze 
 is scented with the orange and the myrtle, up to the 
 region where the hemlock and the pine defy the northern 
 blast ; turning the flank of mountain ridges and making 
 deep cuts through central plateaus, narrower, shallower, 
 purer as you ascend, a gentle current, a rippling stream, 
 a purling brook, a silver thread; till at last all that is 
 left of the mighty river, whose stupendous floods at its 
 mouth wage equal war with the stormy ocean gulfs, lies 
 sparkling in a cool moss-covered spring, fed by the trick 
 ling dews of the morning, enamelled with Alpine flowers, 
 in the bosom of the lonely hills. 
 
 These reflections, my friends, are not only preliminary 
 
61 
 
 to the remarks which you expect from me on this occa 
 sion, but are intended by me to strike the keynote of 
 my address. We are assembled here, at one of the foci 
 of this great western world, to inaugurate an institution 
 for the highest departments of education ; and you have 
 invited me, a citizen from one of the extreme corners of 
 the continent, to join you on this interesting occasion. 
 Born and bred within the sound of the eternal roar of 
 the Atlantic, upon the very spot where the foundations 
 of my native State were laid two centuries and a quarter 
 ago, a region already presenting many of the characters 
 of an ancient settlement, a territory stripped of the na 
 tive forest, a dense population, institutions venerable for 
 their age and the traditions of the olden times, you 
 have invited me to meet you on the banks of this 
 mighty inland river, whose very existence was but 
 vaguely conjectured, whose extent and course were 
 wholly unknown, when the settlements of New Eng 
 land commenced ; and where the teeming life and vigor 
 ous progress of which so many manifestations surround 
 us, are the growth of two generations, I had almost said 
 of one ; and my errand is to unite the expression of my 
 good Avishes and cordial sympathies with yours, on the 
 steps you are taking to found a seat of liberal and prac 
 tical education, adapted to the progressive character of 
 the age, and the peculiar wants of the West. In 
 approaching the subject, my thoughts involuntarily re 
 vert to the period to which I have alluded; and I feel 
 more deeply than ever before, that there is nothing in 
 human history which can compare in interest with the 
 condition of the American continent on the eve of its 
 
62 
 
 discovery and colonization, and its transition into the 
 sphere of civilized and Christian culture, looking back 
 from our present point of view upon the various stages 
 of this transition, as one great operation in the order of 
 Providence. 
 
 Consider it a moment ; there it lay upon the surface 
 of the globe, a hemisphere unknown to the rest of the 
 world, in all its vast extent, with all its boundless unde 
 veloped resources, not seen as yet by the eye of civilized 
 men, unpossessed but by the simple children of the forest. 
 There stretched the iron chain of its mountain barriers, 
 not yet the boundary of political communities ; there 
 rolled its mighty rivers unprofitably to the sea ; there 
 spread out the measureless but as yet wasteful fertility 
 of its uncultivated fields ; there towered the gloomy 
 majesty of its unsubdued primeval forests ; there glit 
 tered in the secret caves of the earth the priceless 
 treasures of its unsunned gold ; and more than all that 
 pertains to material wealth, there existed the undeveloped 
 capacity of a hundred embryo States ; of an imperial 
 confederacy of republics, the future abode of intelligent 
 millions, unrevealed as yet to the " earnest " but un 
 conscious " expectation " of the elder families of man, 
 darkly hid by the impenetrable veil of waters. There is 
 to my mind an overwhelming sadness in this long insu 
 lation of America from the brotherhood of humanity, 
 not inappropriately reflected in the melancholy expression 
 of the native races. The boldest keels of Phenicia and 
 Carthage had not approached its shores. From the foot 
 steps of the ancient nations along the highways of time 
 and fortune, the embattled millions of the old Asiatic 
 
. 63 
 
 despotisms, the iron phalanx of Macedonia, the living 
 crushing machinery of the Roman legion, which ground 
 the world to powder, the heavy tramp of barharous 
 nations from " the populous north ; " not the faintest 
 echo had aroused the slumbering west in the cradle of 
 her existence. Not a thrill of sympathy had shot across 
 the Atlantic from the heroic adventure, the intellectual 
 and artistic vitality, the convulsive struggles for freedom, 
 the calamitous downfalls of empire, and the strange new 
 regenerations which fill the pages of ancient and mediaeval 
 history. Alike when the Oriental myriads, Assyrian, 
 Chaldean, Median, Persian, Bactrian, from the snows 
 of Syria to the Gulf of Ormus, from the Halys to the 
 Indus, poured like a deluge upon Greece, and beat them 
 selves to idle foam on the sea-girt rock of Salamis and 
 the lowly plain of Marathon ; when all the kingdoms 
 of the earth went down with her own liberties, in Rome s 
 imperial Maelstrom of blood and fire, and when the 
 banded powers of the west, beneath the ensign of the 
 cross, as the pendulum of conquest swung backward, 
 marched in scarcely intermitted procession for three 
 centuries to the subjugation of Palestine, the Amer 
 ican continent lay undiscovered, lonely, and waste. That 
 mighty action and reaction upon each other of Europe 
 and America, the grand systole and diastole of the heart 
 of the nations, and which now constitutes so much of 
 the organized life of both, had not yet begun to pulsate. 
 The unconscious child and heir of the ages lay, wrapped 
 in the mantle of futurity, upon the broad and nurturing 
 bosom of Divine Providence, and slumbered serenely, 
 like the infant of Danae, through the storms of fifty 
 centuries. 
 
64 
 
 But we should omit a most important link in the chain 
 of reflection, by which I desire to illustrate the agency of 
 educated mind in promoting the civilization of this conti 
 nent, if we forbear to state that it was not wholly desti 
 tute of occupants of the same blood as those who from 
 the creation of the world have performed the great drama 
 of Asiatic and European life. These vast plains, though 
 uncultivated, these forests which never rang to the music 
 of the settler s axe, these lovely valleys which as yet 
 wasted their sweetness on the desert air, were not wholly 
 untenanted. They were the abodes of numerous tribes 
 of our fellow-men, nowhere consolidated into powerful 
 empires, at least not in this part of the country, though 
 possessing in the aggregate formidable powers both of 
 aggressive and defensive action ; a most interesting branch 
 of the human family, whose condition, as far back as we 
 can trace it, presents some of the most difficult problems 
 in the history of our race. Gathered by the elementary 
 instincts of our nature into rude social and political rela 
 tions ; not destitute of a certain imperfect mental culture, 
 which found expression in the pictured rhetoric, the wail 
 ing poesy, and the wild mythology of these blighted 
 races ; speaking languages of a highly artificial and com 
 plicated structure, but wholly ignorant of that divine art, 
 by which the creations of thought are embodied in visible 
 signs and transmitted to other times ; from ages im 
 memorial the vagrant lords of the soil, and for an un 
 known lapse of time undisturbed in its possession by 
 violence from abroad ; a wandering but not a nomadic 
 race ; owning no flocks nor herds but those which, with 
 each returning spring, the Great Shepherd leads forth, in 
 
65 
 
 multitudes which darken the prairies, from New Mexico 
 to Hudson s Bay ; destitute of all the institutions and 
 fixtures of a stable society ; divided into rival communi 
 ties, but instead of rising to higher stages of progress, in 
 the lapse of time, by the emulations of peace or the col 
 lisions of war, rendered apparently from age to age more 
 and more barbarous and degenerate, in the effect of their 
 hereditary and internecine tribal hostilities ; producing 
 chieftains of no ordinary capacity, such as King Philip of 
 Mount Hope in the seventeenth century, Pontiac in the 
 eighteenth, and Tecumseh in our day, all of whom con 
 ceived large designs but formed no systematic polity ; ac 
 quiring no arts but those necessary for the chase and their 
 stealthy murderous tactics ; their senses trained, in the 
 pursuit of their game or the enemy, to a preternatural 
 quickness, which, however, admitted no intellectual or 
 artistic application to the higher ends of life ; they plainly 
 showed, in the whole tenor of their history, that whatever 
 may have been the mysterious design of Providence in 
 placing them upon our continent, it certainly was not " to 
 replenish the earth and subdue it," to develop its re 
 sources, to cultivate its wastes, and to make it the abode 
 of civilized and enlightened races. That great work, ex 
 perience has shown, was to be performed by another 
 branch of the human family, whose advent, establishment, 
 and progress on the continent of America have unhappily 
 kept pace with the retirement and decline of the primitive 
 inhabitants. 
 
 There is, in my opinion, no inquiry more profoundly 
 interesting than that which regards the means and the 
 agencies by which this great work has thus far been 
 5 
 
66 
 
 effected ; by which, in not more than two centuries and 
 a half from the first efforts at settlement, so much of our 
 continent has been brought within the domain of civiliza 
 tion, and raised to so high a point of improvement in the 
 arts of life and in intellectual culture ; and this inquiry, 
 if I mistake not, conducts us directly to the objects and 
 purposes which have brought us together at this time ; I 
 mean to the subject of education, in the largest compre 
 hension of the term. The immediate agencies by which 
 the great work has been accomplished, the second causes, 
 if I may so call them, of the rapid progress made in the 
 civilization of the North American continent, are to be 
 sought, no doubt, in various geographical, political, and 
 moral conditions which it would require a minute and 
 protracted analysis to trace in detail ; but the great master 
 cause, humanly speaking, the causa causans, is unques 
 tionably to be found in the creative power, the resistless 
 energy, and the legitimate sway of educated mind^ acting 
 upon this broad theatre, upon the inexhaustible materials 
 of social improvement presented by the new found hemi 
 sphere, and working under the lead of a gracious Provi 
 dence toward the elevation of our common humanity. 
 
 This great human miracle, I say, is the work of edu 
 cated mind ; and when you found a seminary of learning, 
 you do but seek the farther development, discipline, and 
 application of that ethereal power, which brooded over 
 the dark chaos of the barbarism that covered our be 
 loved America three centuries ago, bade light to shine 
 upon its broad surface, set the great luminaries of intel 
 lectual and moral culture in its firmament, and called its 
 lovely creations of art and knowledge, to life and day. 
 
6? 
 
 It is not brute force, nor material elements, nor political 
 influences by which, in the last analysis, this all-important 
 work has been achieved ; it is the sovereign power of edu 
 cated mind. 
 
 It would be foreign to my present purpose, though a 
 most interesting subject of discussion, to trace to their 
 sources in Europe the intellectual energies and influences 
 by which this great work thus far has been achieved. 
 It may be sufficient to remark in general that the first 
 European settlers of this continent brought with them, 
 in various measures, the intellectual culture of the old 
 world, some in a high degree, a majority that portion 
 which falls to the average lot of the mass of the com 
 munity, and which places the day-laborer of Europe and 
 America, who reads a good newspaper week-days, and 
 goes to church on Sundays, in many respects on a 
 higher level of intelligence, than the Sultan of Turkey, 
 or the Shah of Persia. Assuming the seventeenth cen 
 tury as the period of colonization, the first settlers of 
 North America left their native countries in the age of 
 Bacon, and Shakespeare, and Milton, and Newton; of 
 Grotius, of Pascal, of Descartes, of Bossuet, of Corneille, 
 of Racine, of Galileo, of Tasso, of Kepler ; not to speak 
 of other names, not unworthy to be mentioned with these, 
 in preceding generations. They accordingly left the old 
 world at a time, when cultivated rrynd had, in some 
 departments, reached its culminating point. To prevent 
 this intellectual culture from being extinguished, under 
 the hard material conditions of the new world, was their 
 earliest care. They immediately made such provision 
 for education as circumstances admitted, in their new 
 
68 
 
 homes. Those whose means permitted it, and who 
 desired greater advantages of education than the new 
 settlements could furnish, were sent to European semi 
 naries. Of whatever national origin the settlers might 
 be English, French, German, a living cord of sym 
 pathy bound them to the cultivated mind of some one of 
 the most improved peoples and languages of Europe. 
 Geographically they might be the neighbors of the savage 
 on the remotest frontier ; the log cabin, with the green 
 twigs sprouting upon it, might be their only shelter, and 
 the wolf might howl by night at their threshold; but 
 they were educated in the communion of the choicest 
 spirits of our race, and every ship that crossed the 
 Atlantic kept their minds in the neighborhood of the 
 cultivated intellect of Europe. The young consumptive 
 clergyman, who in 1637 just landing on the continent, on 
 his way to heaven, laid the foundations of Harvard Col 
 lege, in Cambridge, brought with him, besides a pretty 
 substantial ballast of dogmatic theology, some of the 
 great masters of ancient wisdom, and that golden volume 
 of Lord Bacon s Essays, of which it has lately been said, 
 that " of all the productions of the English language it 
 contains the most matter in the fewest words." * Frank 
 lin, a poor apprentice boy in Boston, picked up an odd 
 volume of the Spectator, then lately published, and there 
 learned his unaffected, transparent, English style ; and 
 the immortal young surveyor of Virginia, while living 
 with Lord Fairfax, in the valley of the Shenandoah, then 
 the very frontier of civilization, gave his leisure hours to 
 the same inimitable pages. 
 
 * Quarterly Review, September, 1856. 
 
69 
 
 In addition to direct literary culture brought from 
 Europe, or kept up by constant intercourse with it, the 
 multiform traditions of social life trained the masses. 
 The great professional institutions of the old world were 
 substantially transferred to the new. They carried to 
 the remotest cabin of the settler of English descent, those 
 foundation principles of social right which had been 
 maturing in the common law for ages. The French 
 settler brought with him the still older principles trans 
 mitted in the Roman code, from the most highly devel 
 oped jurisprudence of the ancient world. The German 
 emigration was of a later date ; and its educated men, 
 magistrates and preachers, had been trained in the intel 
 lectual system and habits of the most philosophical and 
 speculative of the modern nations. Accordingly, although 
 there was, for more than a century and a half, a hard 
 struggle with material nature, and the political straights 
 of colonial infancy, there was no disconnection from the 
 mind of the civilized world ; no intellectual crudeness 
 in any period of our history. Every thing which per 
 tained to outward condition was rough, provisional, and 
 imperfect ; but high literary culture was perpetuated ; 
 and whenever grave counsel was to be taken, or impor 
 tant business transacted, or the written or spoken word 
 to be employed in any branch of the public service, an 
 astonishing ripeness and skill never failed to be disclosed. 
 In this way, as a handful of disciplined soldiers, wielding 
 the arms of civilized warfare, and led by intrepid chiefs, 
 seldom if ever fails to triumph over any number of plumed 
 savages ; so the intellect of the European settlers, forti 
 fied with all the agencies of education, gained an easy 
 
70 
 
 mastery over the physical hardships that awaited them 
 here ; and operating upon this almost houndless field, 
 comparatively safe from the political complications of the 
 old world, has produced and is daily producing results, 
 which, with all their familiarity, fill us with amazement. 
 
 To train and strengthen by discipline the powers of 
 the mind, in other words to give still greater force and 
 wiser direction to those intellectual energies, which have 
 established civilized man in this western world, is the 
 great object of institutions of education, from the hum 
 blest infant school to the most advanced seminary of 
 learning, of science, of art, of the professions. Justly 
 tracing their prosperity to its rightful source, plainly dis 
 cerning a trophy to the triumphs of education in every 
 square league of territory wrested from the wilderness, 
 the people of the United States, in every stage of their 
 progress, as far as local circumstances have permitted, 
 have acted upon these principles, and have cared for 
 education. They have regarded it, not as a separate in 
 terest of a favored class, but as the most important con 
 cernment of the whole community, practically interwoven 
 with its inmost life. 
 
 From the early legislation of the colony of Massa 
 chusetts Bay which provided for the foundation of a 
 college, and the establishment of a school in every town, 
 down to the congressional reservation of one thirty-sixth 
 part of the public domain for this purpose, more, I think, 
 has been done for education in this country, and at an 
 earlier period, by systematic public action, than under any 
 other government. Nor, considering the comparative 
 want of vast private fortunes in the new world, is the 
 
71 
 
 extent to which individual liherality has heen bestowed in 
 this direction less creditable to the country. 
 
 It may seem, therefore, a work of supererogation, in 
 this country, on any occasion, or in any place, to attempt 
 an argument on the importance of institutions of educa 
 tion ; more especially on an occasion like this, which 
 evinces in its very nature that you, at least, need no 
 argument on the subject ; and that, by whomsoever else 
 or wheresoever else the duty of founding and endowing 
 places of education may be called in question, it will not 
 be done by those I have now the honor to address. 
 
 But though the universal mind of America has ac 
 cepted as an axiom in social economy, that the largest 
 possible provision is to be made for public education, it 
 is perhaps rather in reference to elementary education in 
 common schools that this principle has been established ; 
 and we frequently hear the necessity, sometimes the value 
 of education as obtained in the higher institutions, 
 colleges, universities, and professional schools, seriously 
 questioned ; and brilliant examples of " self-taught " men 
 ominously and triumphantly quoted, to prove the inutility, 
 if not even the inexpediency of academical training. 
 
 Nothing could be more abhorrent to my feelings than 
 to speak disparagingly of self-taught men. I have neg 
 lected no fitting opportunity to eulogize them among the 
 departed, nor to manifest sympathy and respect for them 
 among the living. I know of no spectacle on earth, per 
 taining to intellectual culture, more interesting than that 
 of a noble mind, struggling against the obstacles thrown 
 by adverse fortune in the way of its early improvement ; 
 no triumph more glorious than that which so often re- 
 
7*5 
 
 wards these heroic exertions. It is because I appreciate 
 the severity of the struggle, and deeply sympathize with 
 those who have forced their way to eminence, in the face 
 of poverty, friendless obscurity, distance from all the 
 facilities for improvement, and inability to command their 
 time, that I would multiply the means of education, and 
 bring them into as many districts of the country, and as 
 near the homes of as large a portion of the population 
 as possible, in order to spare to the largest number of 
 gifted minds, the bitter experience by which those who 
 succeed in doing so are compelled to force their way to 
 distinction. 
 
 This premised, I have four words to say concerning 
 self-taught men. The first is, that while a few minds of 
 a very high order rise superior to the want of early op 
 portunities, with the mass of men, that want, where it 
 exists, can never be fully repaired. In the next place, 
 although it is given to a few very superior intellects to 
 rise to eminence without opportunities for early educa 
 tion, it by no means follows that, even in their case, such 
 opportunities would not have been highly beneficial, in 
 smoothing the arduous path and leading to an earlier and 
 more perfect development of the mental powers. Accord 
 ingly we find in the third place, that highly intelligent 
 men, who have felt the want of early education them 
 selves, are (without an exception, as far as my observa 
 tion has gone) the best friends of academic education ; 
 as if determined that others should enjoy the advantages 
 of which they were deprived. It would not be neces 
 sary to leave this platform, to find the most striking 
 illustrations of the truth of this remark. Lastly, this 
 
73 
 
 epithet, " self-taught," is subject itself to great miscon 
 ception. It is by no means to be supposed, because 
 eminent men, in any department of science or art, passed 
 their first years and earned their first laurels without 
 early opportunities of education, that they remained, more 
 than other men, destitute to the end of their lives of in 
 struction from abroad. Far otherwise ; in all ordinary 
 cases, the epithet in question applies only, with real signi 
 ficance, to the early stages of a distinguished career. As 
 soon as a gifted person, however destitute of early 
 culture, has possessed himself of the keys of science and 
 literature, and gained access to books, he is no longer 
 self-taught, he is a regularly entered pupil in the great 
 high-school of recorded knowledge, in which the wise 
 and famous of every age are the masters. He may have 
 acquired the elements of any branch of literature or 
 science by weary and solitary toil over the poorest 
 manuals, but as soon as they are acquired, Euclid and 
 Newton become his teachers in geometry ; Addison and 
 Goldsmith correct his compositions ; Tully and Demos 
 thenes teach him to speak. He learns his chemistry 
 from Lavoisier and Davy ; his electricity from Franklin 
 and Volta ; Galileo and Herschel teach him to point 
 his telescope to the heavens ; Thucydides and Tacitus 
 are his lecturers in history ; and Milton and Dante, and 
 Virgil and Homer, conduct him to the inmost shrine of 
 the muses ; while, to encourage his progress by living 
 examples, not to mention the illustrious names of 
 foreign lands, he will find guides and models in every 
 department of knowledge in his own country. 
 
 But there is an impression, I grant, perhaps a grow- 
 
7* 
 
 ing impression, on the part of a considerable portion of 
 the community, that some at least of the studies pursued 
 at our colleges and universities, as at present constituted, 
 are scholastic, antiquated, and abstract ; tending at best 
 to the acquisition of learning which is rather curious than 
 useful, and not adapted to qualify men for the actual 
 duties of life. 
 
 Before inquiring whether this impression is well- 
 founded, or attempting to meet the reproach which is 
 implied in it, let me say a few words, if I dare do so in 
 this utilitarian age, for the noble inutility of generous 
 studies ; rather let me call it for the ineffable beauty, 
 dignity, loveliness, and priceless worth of the meditations 
 and exercises of the thoughtful, well-instructed mind, 
 soaring on the wings of its conscious, nay, better, of 
 its unconscious powers and susceptibilities, far above 
 the region of utilitarian appliances, to the highest heaven 
 of thought, imagination, and taste. I am not so pre 
 posterous as to disparage utility, properly understood and 
 pursued, but it is in its ordinary acceptation the hand 
 maid of imperfection and frailty, and carries with it a 
 greasy feel of selfishness, a brassy taste of self. It im 
 plies wants to be relieved and defects to be supplied ; 
 hunger to be fed, nakedness to be clothed, and sheltered, 
 and warmed ; and the dependent weakness of a feeble 
 and suffering nature to be armed against the thousand 
 ills that flesh is heir to. And so with immense toil, 
 evil at once and remedy, intense labor to obviate the 
 necessity of laboring, incessant care to gain relief from 
 care, a killing strain upon the faculties to procure re 
 pose of mind, it plies the axe in the primeval forest, 
 
75 
 
 ploughs, and plants, and reaps the field, bridges the river, 
 navigates the ocean, unlocks the gates of mountain chains, 
 explores with groaning enginery the Tartarean depth of 
 mines ; drags up spouting Leviathan from the abyss ; 
 lifts from the earth, to warm and light our dwellings, 
 great black clods, into which the forests of an elder world 
 have been crushed and condensed ; imprisons the muti 
 nous force of steam in iron cells, there to work the bid 
 ding of its master ; turns brawling rivers upon the wheels 
 of industry ; smelts the ore ; poises the trip-hammer ; 
 forges the anchor ; tempers the watch-spring ; tips the 
 gold pen with a spark of iridium ; touches the needle 
 with magnetic life ; stamps thought upon paper ; deli 
 neates the human face by the solar ray ; packs up the 
 ship s longitude in a watch-case ; balances the steerage 
 of tall navies on the gimbals of the compass-box ; and 
 transmits intelligence by the electric spark from continent 
 to continent, beneath the ocean s bed. All this is the 
 work of mind indeed ; but of mind dealing with material 
 forces and elements, to supply the wants and avert the 
 sufferings of our physical nature ; often, in the individual 
 case, at the cost of greater hardships than it relieves. 
 Man prays to Heaven for his daily bread. Heaven 
 showers down no manna upon the waste, but teaches, 
 through the inventive faculties, those bread-giving arts, 
 and clothes the land with plenty. 
 
 But, oh, my friends, there is that in the capacities of 
 our minds which is more than useful, and which deals 
 with higher elements than those of material well being. 
 It is not appointed to man to live by bread alone, 
 and 
 
76 
 
 " The thirst that from the soul doth spring, 
 Demands a drink divine." 
 
 There are facts in this great and wondrous universe, 
 which it is delightful to trace, though we cannot as yet 
 discern their relations to the service of man. There are 
 truths and groups of truths, which seem to hind all crea 
 tion, the flower of the field, the stars of the sky, and the 
 marvellous frame of man in honds of strange analogy, 
 of which it lifts the soul from earth to heaven to catch a 
 glimpse, as of a golden thread woven in the great loom 
 of Providence through the mystic tissue of the Universe. 
 Immeasurably above all the delights of sense is the serene 
 rapture of meditation, the calm ecstasy of pure thought, 
 sounding the depths of its own consciousness, and ruling 
 all else which is subject to man, in the heaven above and 
 the earth beneath, with the sovereign mastery of mind. 
 Unspeakable are the attractions of patient enthusiastic 
 science, now following the traces of creative wisdom, 
 along the minutest fibres of microscopic life, and now 
 clinging to the folds of the streaming robe of Omnipo 
 tence, as it floats over the transcendent galaxies of the 
 highest heavens. Calm and pure the satisfactions of the 
 scholar, who, aloof from the competitions and the prizes, 
 the mean jealousies, the hollow pretences, the brutal vili- 
 fyings, the base intrigues, the measureless corruptions of 
 public life, holds converse in his inoffensive seclusion with 
 the unenvious wise and gifted of every country and every 
 age. Exquisite the enjoyments of a refined taste, keenly 
 alive to the beauties of sight and sound ; to the fair crea 
 tions which rival nature on the glowing canvas, or which 
 start from the quarried marble, clothed with form and 
 
77 
 
 grace, beneath the sculptor s hand. Sweet the entrance- 
 inent of music, as it breathes in vocal melodies from tune 
 ful lips ; or cries with almost human pathos from the 
 chorded viol ; or stirs the blood in the inmost chambers of 
 the heart with the voice of the crashing trumpet ; or rises 
 and swells, and rolls, soft or loud, in full diapason, along 
 the quivering arches of some grand cathedral, heaving 
 and mounting in one overflowing tide of harmony from 
 all the full-mouthed stops of the pealing organ far up to 
 the resounding dome, and bathing in rich floods of music 
 the resplendent forms of saints and martyrs, whose purple 
 robes and golden halos blaze from the storied windows on 
 high. And nobler, purer, higher than the inarticulate 
 voice of chord, or reed, or flute, or sounding key, the 
 articulate voice of Poetry ; the music of the genius, the 
 fancy, the heart ; the nearest approach of the human 
 faculties to raptures more than human ; the earthly trans 
 figuration of wisdom into prophecy, of genius into inspi 
 ration, of Nature into the supernatural, of the letter which 
 killeth into the spirit which maketh alive ; the brightest 
 vision which mortal eye can catch of harmonies and rela 
 tions beyond the pale of sense ; the noblest conquest of 
 humanity over time and fortune ; mysterious quintessence 
 of our intellectual being ; the golden casket in which 
 memory locks up her choicest treasures ; the eternal col 
 umn on which Fame records her brightest and dearest 
 names. 
 
 But let us admit, for the sake of argument, that it is 
 the business of places of education, not to train the mind 
 to these higher tastes or minister to their gratification, 
 but to pursue those studies and form those mental habits 
 
78 
 
 which tend directly to the practical uses of life, and, I 
 think, we may still boldly venture to submit the usual 
 branches of Academic learning to this test. I apprehend 
 that we shall find that the value and importance of col 
 legiate education can be sufficiently vindicated as the ap 
 propriate discipline and preparation for many of the most 
 important departments of public and professional duty ; 
 understanding, when we speak of " the practical uses 
 of life," not the life of a cabbage or a dray-horse, of 
 " Epicurus stye " or the anchorite s cell, but the life of a 
 Christian man in civilized society. 
 
 It will be observed that I speak of collegiate education 
 chiefly as a discipline and a training ; not as if it dis 
 missed its subject with an absolute fitness for the duties 
 of life. The truth is, that education of all kinds, in many 
 respects, begins precisely when in common parlance it is 
 said to be completed. With the single exception of the 
 languages, if even they form an exception, the abso 
 lute attainments to be made in three or four years passed 
 at college, compared with those of after-life, are of minor 
 consequence ; especially when we remember how many 
 departments of science and literature are in their nature 
 so rapidly progressive, that theories which commanded 
 universal assent thirty years ago, are now in many cases 
 exploded, with every probability that another generation 
 will work the same change with some of those which we 
 adopt. But, while the law of progress thus operates on 
 results, habits of philosophical, cautious, and liberal in 
 vestigation, formed in early life, will never cease to guide 
 the conscientious inquirer to the discovery and application 
 of truth. 
 
79 
 
 It is, I know, a common prejudice against places of 
 academical education that they must be comparatively use 
 less, because they are stationary while every thing else is 
 progressive. Universities have been wittily compared 
 to vessels at anchor in the stream of time, serving little 
 purpose but to show with what rapidity independent 
 Research moves down the current. Many illustrious 
 examples might be gathered from Academical history, 
 the names of Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton alone 
 are enough, as far as science is concerned, to refute this 
 sarcasm. But, whatever may have been the case in 
 former times, I think it can truly be said that nothing in 
 Science, Literature, or Art is more progressive, at the 
 present day, than Education in all its forms, Elementary, 
 Academical, and Professional. As far as my acquaintance 
 with American colleges and Universities extends, the 
 ancient reproach of bigoted scholasticism has wholly 
 passed away. The despotism of Aristotle and Plato ; the 
 slavish transmission from age to age of jejune systems ; 
 the trammels of a sterile logic, productive of nothing but 
 verbal puzzles and controversial subtleties ; the use of 
 arid manuals, and of the learned languages, to the ex 
 clusion of the vernacular, as the vehicles of instruction ; 
 the neglect of modern and contemporary literature and 
 natural and practical science ; all these short-comings and 
 prejudices and obstinate adherences to the past have, in 
 the American colleges and in many of the European, 
 past away. The leaning with us is rather to the other 
 extreme ; the too prompt and facile adoption of novelties 
 in the modes and subjects of study, and in the objects and 
 conduct of collegiate education. As far as my own ob- 
 
80 
 
 servation has extended, the spirit of progress and im 
 provement is as much alive at our places of education as 
 in any of the walks of active life. 
 
 The branches of study usually pursued in our higher 
 American seminaries, are mainly the following : 1. Lan 
 guages, principally the ancient, but not excluding modern 
 foreign languages and the philosophical study of our own ; 
 2. Science, in its two great branches of exact and ap 
 plied ; 3. Physiology, in all its departments, meaning 
 thereby the knowledge of external nature, animate and 
 inanimate ; 4. The philosophy of the mind, or the inves 
 tigation of the intellectual powers ; 5. History, the general 
 record of human action and progress ; 6. The various 
 branches of social science, including civil polity, political 
 economy, and constitutional law ; 7 The circle of the 
 moral sciences, comprehending all those which rest on 
 the discrimination of right and wrong ; and, 8. The re 
 lations and duties of man as a spiritual and religious 
 being.* 
 
 It will probably be admitted that some acquaintance 
 with most of these branches of knowledge, would be 
 highly desirable as a preparation for almost any calling 
 of active life. But it is the intention of the Trustees of 
 the Washington University of the State of Missouri to 
 give a peculiarly practical development and application 
 to the studies designated under the second and third 
 heads. To this end they propose to connect with the 
 institution, as a prominent and peculiar feature in its 
 
 * The charter of the Washington University of the State of Missouri 
 divests the institution of all sectarian or denominational character. 
 
81 
 
 plan, departments for the useful and the fine arts, in which 
 the youth of the West shall be furnished with such sys 
 tematic instruction, as shall enable them to carry to the 
 factory, to the laboratory, to the quarry, to the mine, and 
 to the farm, that scientific knowledge which is required 
 to deduce practice from theory ; to give dignity as well 
 as efficiency to labor ; and connect abstract principles with 
 the industrial pursuits of life. They feel that this mighty 
 West requires an education, in some respects, of a pecu 
 liar character, corresponding with its great extent, the 
 unexampled rapidity of its growth, and the magnitude of 
 all its relations, social, industrial, and political. While 
 they are determined, as far as depends upon them, that 
 its emulous young men shall enjoy all the advantages of 
 academical education, in the best forms in which it is 
 known in older communities, it is no less their fixed pur 
 pose to furnish the requisite scientific preparation for the 
 intenser life that exists in the great valley of the Mis 
 sissippi. 
 
 Such being the case, it would be surely a waste of 
 time to undertake, on this occasion, and before this audi 
 ence, a general vindication of university studies, against 
 the imputation to which I have above referred, inasmuch 
 as the greater part of the studies in all our American 
 collegiate institutions have an evident and avowed tend 
 ency and design toward practical utility ; and that end 
 will be especially kept in view, in the institution whose 
 establishment we this day inaugurate. I shall therefore, 
 in the remainder of this discourse, confine myself to the 
 inquiry, whether the unfavorable impression of which I 
 have spoken is founded in reason or popular prejudice, in 
 6 
 
reference to those particular studies which are usually 
 objected to as antiquated, scholastic, and abstract ; such as 
 language, and especially the dead languages ; the higher 
 mathematics ; and metaphysics, as that branch is usually 
 called. A few hints only on each topic are all that the 
 limits of the occasion will permit. 
 
 1. And first language, which is sometimes disparaged 
 by an invidious contrast between words and things ; and 
 the dead languages, so called I suppose by antiphrasis, 
 because some of them have outlived ninety generations 
 of our race, and in all human probability will outlive as 
 many more. What then is this so much disparaged lan 
 guage I It is the sign and image, the embodiment, the 
 incarnation (if I may presume to use the word) of this 
 spiritual thing which we call thought, including in that 
 term, for convenience, all the mental exercises. I will 
 not insist, with some philosophers, that the ivord^ written 
 or spoken, is essential to the existence of the idea, 
 though I cannot myself practically separate them. But 
 if it were admitted that, in the secret recesses of the 
 mind, there could be thoughts unassociated with words 
 to represent them, still, it would be certain that without 
 language, there could be no revelation of thought to the 
 outer world. Here, then, let us pause for a moment, 
 and, with the aid of this preliminary view, contemplate 
 the sublime functions and the mysterious significance of 
 language, as the representative of thought, and judge 
 whether it is a subject worthy to engage our attention 
 at a place of education. 
 
 This wonderful essence, then, which we call mind, 
 of which thought is the exercise, which, under Provi 
 dence, governs all created things subjected to man ; 
 
83 
 
 which moves material masses ; guides and controls 
 natural forces ; develops and applies physical proper 
 ties ; gathers and regulates the societies of men ; the 
 created life of the universe, without which all else would 
 be a senseless clod, an irrational machine, a body without 
 a soul ; this mind, I say, essence mysterious, ineffable, 
 sovereign ; where is it, what is it, how acts it I I cannot 
 feel it, I cannot see it, I cannot hear it. It has no sub 
 stance, no shape, no parts, no whole. It gives perception 
 to the senses, but I cannot in turn perceive it ; it is not 
 sense. At its bidding, the valves of the heart permit the 
 conscious blood to pour tumultuously into the blushing 
 cheeks, or to rush back fainting and affrighted from their 
 pallid collapsing cells ; but it is not the heart nor the 
 blood. It sends out living nerves from the lordly brain 
 and the stately column that supports it, to the remotest 
 avenues of feeling ; but it is not brain or nerve. It hears 
 with the ear and it sees with the eye, but it is not eye 
 nor ear. It is every where within me but not any where, 
 inscrutably wrapped up in this muddy vesture of decay, 
 every particle of which it clothes with beauty, and life, 
 and power. 
 
 How does this unseen and spiritual nature manifest 
 and express itself; how does it act upon surrounding 
 fellow-men, on kindred minds, in other regions, in after 
 ages 1 It manifests itself, it becomes perceptible, it 
 enters into communion with kindred mind, chiefly by the 
 agency of articulate speech ; by the twofold interchange 
 able mystery of language ; this double system of intelli 
 gible signs ; the one a few black marks addressed to the 
 eye. the other delicate vocal undulations of the air ad- 
 
84 
 
 dressed to the ear, too faint to be perceived by the 
 other senses ; totally different from each other, and both 
 as different from the mind itself (which they represent) 
 as matter and spirit ; and yet made by a standing miracle 
 not only to express with automatic accuracy and electric 
 speed the minutest shades of thought ; but to do it at 
 pleasure in the language of the eye or the language of the 
 ear, as if they were one and the same thing ; instead of 
 being as radically distinct as sight and sound, or as air 
 and light. 
 
 Such is language, the representative of thought. 
 Dwell upon it, I pray you, a moment longer ; it is a 
 great mystery of our being. By the use of a few written 
 or printed lines on paper, so like each other, that, in lan 
 guages with which we are unfamiliar, witness a Malay 
 or a Japanese manuscript, there seems scarce any dif 
 ference between them; this unseen, intangible, mysteri 
 ous mental essence, compared with which a perfume, a 
 sound, a lunar rainbow is gross and material, expresses 
 itself to the eye ; by the gentle impulse, the soft vibra 
 tions, which the lips impart to the elastic air it expresses 
 itself to the ear. To give the spoken word duration, I 
 translate it into written character ; to give the written 
 sign a vital emphasis, I translate it into vocal speech. 
 By one divine art, the dead letter, charged with a living 
 meaning, sounds through echoing halls, and wins or 
 storms its way to sympathetic hearts ; by another, the 
 fleeting wavelets of the air are crystallized into a most 
 marvellous permanence, and become imperishable gems 
 of thought, whose lustre no lapse of time can obscure ; 
 while, by the union of both, this incomprehensible being, 
 the mind, gently wooed from the vestal chambers of our 
 
85 
 
 inmost nature, comes forth like a bride adorned for her 
 lordly spouse, the word ; clad in the rich vesture of con 
 versation, of argument, of eloquence, of poetry, of song- ; 
 to walk with him the busy or the secluded paths of life ; 
 to instruct and delight the living generations ; ethereal 
 essences as they are, to outlive columns of brass and pyra 
 mids of granite ; and to descend in eternal youth the 
 unending highways of the ages. 
 
 Does it seem much that the skill of men has in these 
 latter days contrived the means of communicating intelli 
 gence almost with the rapidity of thought, across the ex 
 panse of continents and beneath the depth of oceans by 
 the electric wire 1 That a message despatched from 
 Boston at midday, will so far out-travel the sun as to 
 reach St. Louis an hour before he arrives at that merid 
 ian I It is much, and we contemplate with just amaze 
 ment the wonderful apparatus which, when laid down, as 
 sooner or later it perhaps will be, so as to connect the 
 three continents, may, by possibility, send the beginning 
 of such a sentence as I am now pronouncing around the 
 terraqueous globe and return it to the lips of the speaker, 
 before he has completed its utterance. But this amazing 
 apparatus is but another form of language ; it transmits 
 intelligence only as it transmits words. It is like speech, 
 like the pen, like the press, another piece of machinery 
 by which language is conveyed from place to place. The 
 really wonderful thing is language itself, by which thought 
 is made sensible and communicated from mind to mind, 
 not only in the great living congregation of the civilized 
 world for the time being, but through the vast general 
 assembly of the ages : by which we are able at this mo- 
 
86 
 
 inent, not only to listen to all the great utterances which 
 express the thoughts and emotions of the present day 
 throughout the world, hut to soar with Milton to the 
 
 o ~ 
 
 green fields of Paradise in the morning of creation ; to 
 descend with Dante to the depths of penal woe ; to listen 
 to the thunders of Tully and Demosthenes, and, by the 
 golden chain of etymology, trace the affinity and descent 
 of nations back, through the labyrinth of the past, almost 
 to the cradle of the race. 
 
 I hold in my hand a portion of the identical electrical 
 cable, given me by my friend, Mr. Peabody, which is now * 
 in progress of manufacture, to connect America with 
 Europe. I read upon it the following words : "A part 
 of the submarine electric telegraph cable, manufactured 
 by Messrs. Glass & Co. of London, for the Atlantic 
 telegraph company, to connect St. Johns, Newfoundland, 
 with Valencia, Ireland, a distance of sixteen hundred and 
 forty nautical, or nineteen hundred statute miles." Does 
 it seem all but incredible to you that intelligence should 
 travel for two thousand miles, along those slender copper 
 wires, far down in the all but fathomless Atlantic, never 
 before penetrated by aught pertaining to humanity, save 
 when some foundering vessel has plunged with her hap 
 less company to the eternal silence and darkness of the 
 abyss I Does it seem, I say, all but a miracle of art, 
 that the thoughts of living men, the thoughts that we 
 think up here on the earth s surface in the cheerful light 
 of day, about the markets, and the exchanges, and the 
 seasons, and the elections, and the treaties, and the wars, 
 and all the fond nothings of daily life, should clothe them 
 selves with elemental sparks, and shoot with fiery speed 
 
 * April 22, 1857. 
 
87 
 
 in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, from hemisphere 
 to hemisphere, far down among the uncouth monsters 
 that wallow in the nether seas, along the wreck-paved 
 floor, through the oozy dungeons of the rayless deep ; 
 that the last intelligence of the crops, whose dancing tassels 
 will in a few months be coquetting with the westwind on 
 these boundless prairies, should go flashing along the slimy 
 decks of old sunken galleons, which have been rotting for 
 ages ; that messages of friendship and love, from warm 
 living bosoms should burn over the cold green bones of 
 men and women, whose hearts, once as warm as ours, 
 burst as the eternal gulfs closed and roared over them, 
 centuries ago I Behold another phenomenon of a surety 
 not less surprising, an intellectual electrical telegraph, 
 if I may so call it, not less marvellous ! The little 
 volume which I hold in my hand contains the two im 
 mortal poems of Homer, those world-renowned strains, 
 which one of the imperial minds of our race, not far from 
 thirty centuries ago, poured forth in the delighted ears 
 of heroic Greece, while the softest down of youth was 
 upon the cheek of its young nationality, those glowing 
 golden legends, that sovereign wrath of Achilles, which 
 
 shall burn unquenchably, 
 
 Until the eternal doom shall be, 
 
 the parting of Hector and Andromache, a scene to 
 which the sad experience of three thousand years could 
 not add one image of tenderness and sorrow ; the threats 
 of Jupiter to the awe-struck gods, while every peak of 
 Olympus was ablaze with his leaping thunders ; the 
 piteous supplications of aged Priam, kissing the hand and 
 bathing with his tears the feet of the cruel chieftain, who 
 
88 
 
 had dragged the torn body of his noble son three times 
 round the Ilian walls ; the weary and sorrowful wander 
 ings of Ulysses, which every subsequent age of mankind 
 has retraced with delight, these all, like the cunningly 
 imprisoned airs of a musical box, breathe to us in one 
 perennial strain of melody from within the covers of this 
 small volume. By the simple agency of twenty-four little 
 marks, stamped on the written or the, printed page, the 
 immortal legend has flashed down to us through the 
 vicissitudes of empires and eras ; across the vast expanse 
 of enlightened and benighted periods of history ; from 
 region to region, from his own rocky islet in the .ZEgean 
 to shores unknown, undreamed of, by him ; beneath the 
 overwhelming billows of three thousand years, where 
 peoples whole have sunk ; and it now binds together, by 
 the golden wires of intellect and taste, the mind of Europe 
 and America, at this meridian of their refinement, with the 
 mind of every intervening age of literary culture, back to 
 the cradle of infant Greece. And while, at our places of 
 education, we diligently investigate the wonderful proper 
 ties of matter developed in the phenomena of the physical 
 world, shall we not, my friends, deem a portion of our 
 time and attention well bestowed upon the miracles of the 
 ivord, written and spoken, the phenomena of language, 
 which lie at the foundation of all our intellectual improve 
 ment, of all our literature and science, in a word, of all 
 rational communication between man and man ? 
 
 . The mathematics, abstract and applied, form another 
 leading branch of study, especially as pursued in scientific 
 and polytechnic schools ; and one, I suppose, which the 
 majority of young persons regard with least favor and 
 
89 
 
 pursue with least success, either as attended in the higher 
 departments of the study Avith greater difficulty, or as 
 requiring a peculiar aptitude possessed by fewer persons, 
 or as supposed to be less directly applicable to the 
 business and duties of after-years. Beyond the little 
 arithmetic required for the ordinary economies of life, 
 the mass of college-bred men, unless engaged in the busi 
 ness of instruction of in pursuits which directly involve 
 ttoeir application, from the time they leave their places of 
 education, of whatever name, give up the Mathematics as 
 a useless and hopeless abstraction. 
 
 But more closely viewed, the Mathematics, like lan 
 guage, (of which indeed they may be considered a species,) 
 comprehending under that designation the whole science 
 of number, space, form, time, and motion, as far as it can 
 be expressed in abstract formulas, are evidently not only 
 one of the most useful, but one of the grandest of studies. 
 Commencing with arithmetic, which, however humble 
 and familiar its processes, is the pivot on which the busi 
 ness of the world turns, either as regards private fortunes 
 or the policies of great states ; ascending through algebra 
 and geometry, where lies the broad field of nearly all the 
 applied sciences and many of the mechanical and manu 
 facturing, and some even of the fine arts, for music and 
 drawing and architecture have their mathematical prin 
 ciples, till we reach those transcendental refinements of 
 the calculus by which the great dynamical problems of 
 the Universe are solved and the laws of its phenomena 
 demonstrated, it is evident that no other study can exceed 
 the mathematics, not merely in the variety of their appli 
 cations to the service of man, but in proper dignity and 
 importance. 
 
90 
 
 A large part of the training of the engineer, civil and 
 military, as far as preparatory studies are concerned ; of 
 the builder of every fabric of wood, or stone, or metal, 
 designed to stand upon the earth, or bridge the stream, 
 or resist or float upon the wave ; of the surveyor who 
 lays out a building lot in a city, or runs a boundary line 
 between powerful governments across a continent ; of the 
 geographer, navigator, hydrographer, and astronomer, 
 must be derived from the mathematics. Although with 
 the majority of those who study and practice in these 
 capacities, second-hand acquirements, trite formulas, and 
 appropriate tables are sufficient for ordinary purposes, 
 yet these trite formulas and familiar rules were originally 
 or gradually deduced from the profound investigations of 
 the most gifted minds, from the dawn of science to the 
 present day. A most important case recently adjudicated 
 in the East, has shown that the highest mathematical prin 
 ciples may be involved in the production of the simplest 
 mechanical result. The further developments of the 
 science, with its possible applications to larger purposes 
 of human utility and grander theoretical generalizations, 
 is an achievement reserved for a few of the choicest 
 spirits, touched from time to time by Heaven to these 
 highest issues. The intellectual world is filled with latent 
 and undiscovered truth as the material world is filled with 
 latent electricity. The latter, " much enforced " by our 
 cylinders and batteries, " shows a hasty spark," which is 
 straight reabsorbed into the surrounding medium ; but 
 the new truth, which is struck out from the all-surround 
 ing realm of thought, will shine and burn, unabsorbed 
 and unabsorbable, till the partial glimpses we now catch 
 
91 
 
 of the material universe shall kindle up into the broad 
 effulgence, and the unclouded illumination, of higher 
 spheres of being and knowledge. 
 
 But it would be a grievous wrong to mathematical, as 
 indeed to any science, to rest its importance mainly on a 
 utilitarian basis. The great truths with which it deals, 
 are clothed with an austere grandeur, far above all pur 
 poses of immediate convenience or profit. It i& in them 
 that our limited understandings approach nearest to the 
 conception of that absolute and infinite, toward which in 
 most other things they aspire in vain. In the pure 
 mathematics we contemplate absolute truths, which 
 existed in the divine mind before the morning stars 
 sang together, and which will continue to exist there, 
 when the last of their radiant host shall have fallen from 
 heaven. They existed not merely in metaphysical possi 
 bility, but in the actual contemplation of the supreme 
 reason. The pen of inspiration, ranging all nature and 
 life for imagery to set forth the Creator s power and 
 wisdom, finds them best symbolized in the skill of the 
 surveyor. " He meted out heaven as with a span ; " 
 and an ancient sage, neither falsely nor irreverently, ven 
 tured to say, that " God is a geometer." Yes, precisely 
 by the same calculus by which I might number the 
 individuals on this platform, has the Omniscient mind 
 numbered the leaves in the interminable forest, the sands 
 on the sea-shore, the particles of light that radiate from 
 a universe of suns, the atoms of the ethereal medium, if 
 such there be, which fills the infinite of space. The same 
 divine enginery which shapes the drop now falling from 
 my finger, gave its form to the unfathomable ocean which 
 
encompasses the globe, to the moon which heaves the 
 weltering tides of that ocean from their darksome beds, 
 to the sun which chains moon and earth alike to the 
 eternal centre. The laws which keep that roof from fall 
 ing on our heads, are no other than those which suspend 
 the fluid ring of Saturn, a bottomless and shoreless 
 ocean, as it has been shown to be, by our own Bond 
 and Peirce, high in the heavens above the encircled 
 planet, upheld in circumfluent equilibrium, by his eight 
 sustaining moons. The teacher of the village school, 
 who draws an ellipse on the blackboard, has described 
 the curve of revolution of every luminary that travels 
 the infinite of space. Those principles which are true 
 in the recitation-room, are true in the nebula of Hercules ; 
 as true when they carry a falling apple to the earth, as 
 when they wheel the starry universe about its central 
 sun. 
 
 3. But not less important or interesting as a branch 
 of university education than language or mathematics, is 
 the philosophy of the mind, though somewhat discredited, 
 it may be feared, under the accidental, and, as usually in 
 terpreted, not very significant name of metaphysics. If 
 it be true that " the proper study of mankind is man," 
 surely there is no part of that study so worthy of our 
 attention as those intellectual powers, the nature and 
 functions of that spiritual essence, in which man chiefly 
 differs from the beasts that perish. In much that belongs 
 to our material frames we share with them a common 
 organization ; nay, in those bodily senses and organs 
 which belong to both, they sometimes excel us. The 
 eagle discerns the sportsman from a greater distance than 
 
93 
 
 the sportsman discerns the eagle. The antelope is fleeter 
 of foot and quicker of ear than his pursuer. All that 
 marvellous and inexplicable network of vein, and artery, 
 and nerve, however various the detail of its structure, 
 exists in the same astonishing complication in the subject 
 animals, as in man. 
 
 But without attempting to define the nature, or assign 
 the limits of the wonderful instincts, possessed by the 
 humbler orders of sentient beings, we may safely claim 
 an unshared preeminence for man, in the glorious pre 
 rogative of reasoning mind ; and the study of its mysteri 
 ous powers and faculties, besides its practical utility for 
 the purposes of education and mental discipline, is surely 
 as noble an exercise of thought as can engage our time 
 and attention. 
 
 It is true the inquiry is attended with peculiar diffi 
 culty, arising from the very circumstances which give it 
 interest and importance. Clothed with material bodies, 
 endowed with material organs and senses, and connected 
 with our fellow-men and the world around us by material 
 ties, not merely convenience and habit, but the very 
 necessities of our being, direct our first attention to the 
 outer world and give a paramount importance to material 
 nature, in reference to all the ordinary business and duties 
 of life. But outward nature and our material frames are 
 a part only of our being. We are conscious of a spiritual 
 essence within us, endued with a higher order of faculties, 
 and destined, as we believe, to a higher sphere of life and 
 action, when our bodily frames, and the vital relations in 
 which we are placed by them, shall have passed away. 
 
 This transcendent mystery of our nature is the subject 
 
94< 
 
 of the philosophy of the mind. It rises from extension 
 and solidity, and weight, and form, and color, wonder 
 ful properties, I grant, of some wonderful, undiscovered, 
 and probably undiscoverable substratum, which we call 
 matter, to the incalculably higher properties of percep 
 tion, attention, abstraction, association, imagination, mem 
 ory ; the exalted attributes of the intellectual nature. It 
 seeks, through the careful study of their operations, and 
 a patient scrutiny of our own consciousness, to acquire 
 some accurate knowledge of these exalted powers ; of 
 that intuition which darts to its goal more swiftly than 
 the electric spark to the completion of its circuit ; of that 
 abstraction which gathers from a thousand actual exist 
 ences the common attributes which are concrete in all, and 
 separate in none; of that association which binds our ideas 
 in chains as strong as they are often mysterious and arbi 
 trary ; of that imagination which neither space, nor time, 
 nor nature can limit ; of that memory which gives con 
 tinuity to our intellectual being, and preserves the sacred 
 deposit of a life of action and thought ; of those emotions 
 and passions which impart to character its force ; of that 
 will which determines the moral character of our actions ; 
 of that conscience which reigns supreme ovef the whole 
 realm of voluntary and responsible conduct. 
 
 Can we doubt the dignity and importance of such a 
 study ? Shall we think it a profitable employment of 
 time to devote weeks, and months, and years to the in 
 vestigation of the circulatory system of the poor beetle 
 that frets the velvet cheek of the rose-bud ; to the dis 
 covery of the periods of binary stars, whose separate ex 
 istence as faint sparks of light in the remotest heavens 
 
95 
 
 can only be detected by telescopes of the highest defining 
 power ; to the assignment of the geological age of strange 
 trilobites, and paradoxical fish-lizards, that ceased to exist 
 uncounted ages before the present orders of being on 
 earth began, but which the science of these latter days 
 has evoked from the marble jaws of her lowest strata, 
 shall objects like these occupy our time and deserve our 
 attention, as I admit they do, for the hand of the Creator 
 is as visible in them all, in the star, the fossil, and the 
 insect, as in the sun which it guided this morning from 
 the horizon to the zenith, and shall we find no interest in 
 the inquiry into the nature of the very faculties by which 
 we conduct these curious investigations, and contrive the 
 marvellous apparatus by which they are pursued ; which 
 enable the sagacious, the patient, the ardent lover of 
 truth, to work the miracles of inductive reasoning ; which 
 embolden him, not with presumptuous daring but with 
 reverential aspiration, to build the sublime stories of 
 analogy to the highest heaven ; * to pierce the earth 
 almost to its core ; to achieve those triumphs of inven 
 tion and demonstration, of art and of science, in which 
 our frail nature makes its nearest approach to the infinite 
 and the divine. 
 
 I know it is objected to the study of the philosophy of 
 the mind, that all our labor and research must end with 
 the inquiry into the operation of the mental powers, and 
 that it is impossible to penetrate to the mental essence. 
 But, great heavens, is not this equally the case with the 
 study of matter I Do not all our labor, and all our re 
 search in the study of nature, end with the discovery of 
 * Amos, ix. 6. 
 
96 
 
 material properties; and is it not equally impossible to 
 penetrate to material essence ^ Are not extension, 
 solidity, form, temperature, color, ductility, elasticity, 
 magnetism, electricity, and gravitation, the master qual 
 ity of all, mere properties, primary or secondary, of the 
 unknown, hidden basis which we call matter ; and which 
 defies alike the piercing eye of the microscope, the merci 
 less search of the crucible, the biting tooth of the solvent 
 acid, and the all-subduing, blasting energy of the voltaic 
 spark. It may be burned to ashes, or ground to powder, 
 or melted to glass,, or evaporated into air, and not a ray 
 of light will be thrown upon its nature. The all-wise 
 Creator has placed the bars and the bolts of impenetrable 
 mystery as firmly on the secret nature of the material 
 as of the immaterial world. We know them both but 
 in their properties and qualities. In what those prop 
 erties inhere we are in both cases profoundly and equally 
 ignorant ; and it is the great superiority of the intellec 
 tual nature, that it is endowed with those faculties, by 
 which alone, not merely the wonders of its own con 
 sciousness, but all the phenomena of the outer world are 
 explored and comprehended. 
 
 These natural sciences, as we call them, are but logical 
 sequences of thought ; these branches of physical 
 knowledge are the creations of intellect. The celestial 
 vault sparkling with its countless suns is but a darkling 
 blank, till the sun of reason, the immortal mind, has 
 shot a perceptive glance up to its peerless glories. The 
 brightest star has no eye to behold its own lustre or 
 that of its sister star. This infinite loveliness of nature 
 on earth holds no mirror up to itself ; the prairie has no 
 
97 
 
 eye- for the flowers that paint it ; the forest has no ear 
 for the crashing symphonies of the whirlwind. The 
 river rolls along unconscious of its verdant bank ; the 
 verdant bank drinks in no music from the murmuring 
 stream. This gorgeous atmospheric drapery, which hangs 
 its aerial festoons over land and sea, lined at morn 
 ing and eventide with cloudy lutestrings of purple and 
 gold, and dipped at noon in ultrameridian blue ; these 
 columnar mountains, whose granitic architraves, carved 
 and fretted with the tempests of ages, support the 
 vaulted sky ; these great arterial rivers which drain the 
 waters of whole continents into the mighty ocean 
 alembic, thence to be carried by vaporous distillation 
 to the piteous heavens, to be wept down again in 
 compassionate showers upon the parched earth ; 
 this heavenly concert of falling waters, and sighing 1 
 breeze, and rustling grove, vocal with all the music of 
 spring, were lost, but for the human intellect. There 
 is in all creation, below God and the angels, no 
 eye for the beauty, no ear for the melody, no sense 
 for the fragrance, no perception for the symmetry, no 
 comprehension for the unutterable bounty, dignity, and 
 grandeur, but in the rational mind. It would all lie 
 hushed, and blank, and cold, but for the vitality en 
 kindled in it from the living sense of intelligent man. 
 I pass by, at this time, as too vast, too various even 
 for the most hasty enumeration, the novel forms and 
 wondrous combinations wrought in the natural elements 
 by the inventive and disposing powers of mind ; as I 
 do also of necessity the intellectual and moral creations 
 of our reasoning and imaginative faculties. 
 
 7 
 
98 
 
 Yes, my friends, this external creation is unutterably 
 magnificent and fair ; but we have " that within which 
 passeth show." Not all the kingdoms of the earth, with 
 all their wonders, which the lying tempter promised 
 to the patient Son of God from that exceeding high 
 mountain to which he had taken him up, can be com 
 pared to the wonders of the little world within ; of that 
 creative principle through which and by which alone 
 the power, and wealth, and grace of the material world 
 are perceived and explored. I repeat it, the phenomena 
 of matter exist for us, only as they are disclosed by 
 the contemplations of mind. Is it not so] Trace the 
 history of science from its commencement. Since the 
 world began, the magnetic attraction had dwelt uncom- 
 prehended beneath its flickering auroral canopy enthroned 
 " on the sides of the North ; " traversing unobserved the 
 curve of its inscrutable oscillations, and breathing its un- 
 perceived influence all round the globe. The acuteness 
 of some happy observer in what we arrogantly call the 
 dark ages, (the ages that built cathedrals, and taught 
 their arches to resound to organs attuned to the praises of 
 the Most High, which produced the Divina Commedia 
 and the Canterbury Tales,) penetrated the outer vesti 
 bule of this elemental mystery ; and oh, divine com 
 pensation, from behind the eternal battlements of this 
 ice-bound unapproachable North, from within those frozen 
 portals, where even now the hardiest frames and the 
 stoutest hearts knock for admittance, in vain, alas, 
 as the recent sorrows of the whole country too well 
 attest, went forth the guiding spirit, the trembling 
 little pilot which conducts the mariner over the pathless 
 
99 
 
 ocean, beneath the darkest night, to the uttermost ends 
 of the earth. Since the world began, the vapor of heated 
 water had risen, and diffused, and lost itself in the air ; 
 ages on ages passed by and witnessed unconsciously this 
 stupendous waste of mechanical power ; till the keen re 
 flection, the patient research, the untiring perseverance 
 of a long line of philosophers, ending in Watt and Ful 
 ton, grappled with the problem, and brought to perfec 
 tion the machinery which has turned these fleeting watery 
 atoms into a mighty mechanical force, revolutionized 
 the industrial world, and for all the purposes of material 
 power has, within the last half century, doubled the popu 
 lation of the globe. Since the world began, the light 
 ning had played harmlessly upon the fringes of the 
 distant cloud, or shot its three-bolted artillery in dread 
 ful volleys through the piled and rolling embrasures of 
 the storm, till a creative glance of Franklin s mind, 
 just a hundred years ago this year, pierced the hidden 
 nature of the subtle element, and laid the foundation of 
 those discoveries which have been since made the instru 
 ment of transmitting that thought which it most re 
 sembles across continents and oceans, and recording the 
 movements of the furthest stars. Finally, the great 
 frame of nature, from the infinitesimal molecule to the 
 entire compacted universe, is held together by the law 
 of gravity ; every mote that floats in the sunbeam, every 
 leaf that falls in the forest, every drop that distils from 
 the clouds, every planet that encircles the sun, every sun 
 which holds together its attendant system, and every 
 system which swings in vast gyration through the infi 
 nite of space, obeys this mysterious power. But the 
 
100 
 
 sovereign law, though impressed on every particle of 
 created matter, was written in hieroglyphics which 
 Pythagoras, and Aristotle, and Archimedes, and Coper 
 nicus, and Keppler, and Galileo, and Bacon, beheld but 
 could not decipher ; and to which, at length, the mind 
 of Newton first found the key, not two centuries ago. 
 No, my friends, when you make provision at your 
 places of education for the study of the philosophy of the 
 mind, it is no refined abstraction or scholastic subtlety to 
 which you invite the student s attention. You seek to 
 impart to him the knowledge of that principle within us, 
 whose essence indeed is inscrutable, but whose facul 
 ties, under providence, rule with divine vicegerency the 
 created world, and stamp upon our frail humanity the 
 reflected image of the Creator. Yes, noble Aristotle, 
 thou or thy commentators are right. Msra ra cpvcixd this 
 divine philosophy may well be called ; after beyond 
 the natural things. The region to which the philosophy 
 of the mind conducts us, dimly discerned in the present 
 state of being, lies far off , beyond the realms of material 
 nature ; beyond these crowded cities, and fertile fields, 
 and dewy vales, where some of us linger with sobered 
 step, and the youngest of you, my friends, will soon 
 reach the goal; beyond the lofty hills that bound the 
 horizon, and which fly before us as we advance ; over 
 the land and over the sea ; broader than earth, and 
 ocean, and sky ; above these burning stars which speak 
 down to us in the still watches of night, from the sacred 
 heavens ; behind these veils of aching, fainting, dying 
 flesh. After the bloom of the cheek has faded ; after the 
 wreath of fame has withered ; after the taste of pleasure 
 
101 
 
 has palled ; after nature, after time, after life, after 
 death, we reach at last the pleasant land, 
 
 Sweet fields beyond the rolling flood,"-^- 
 
 where the philosophy of the mind awaits, at the foot of 
 the Cross, from a WISDOM higher than its own, the com 
 plete solution of its momentous problems. 
 
 Go on, then, my friends, in your praiseworthy under 
 taking 1 . The cause in which you are engaged is that of 
 civilization, of virtue, of truth, and of religion. The in 
 fluences you seek to strengthen and extend are those, 
 which in three centuries have brought our beloved 
 America from the infancy of barbarism to her honor 
 able position in the family of nations. The studies for 
 which you make provision are not only the skilful 
 purveyors to the common wants of our nature, but 
 the ministers to its purest delights. The faculties you 
 endeavor to discipline and to cultivate, are those which 
 raise intellectual man above the savage and the brute. 
 Complete then your already liberal endowments. Fill 
 your departments with able and faithful instructors. 
 Establish on a permanent basis a liberal seminary of 
 education ; a great school of literature, science, and 
 the arts. Collect an ample library that great, silent, 
 but all-eloquent teacher of every branch of knowledge. 
 Found an observatory* upon the meridian of St. Louis, 
 the ninetieth west from Greenwich, and thereby admir 
 ably adapted for the comparison of observations. Let 
 solid learning, and sound principle, and pure morals go 
 
 * See Appendix, B. 
 
forth to the rising West, from this, one of the chief 
 /oa ; of lev natural communications and expanding corn- 
 Amerce!. Your honored fellow-citizen, Judge BATES, has 
 jusl, compared it to the spider s web, which gathers to 
 its centre whatever ventures within its circuit ; let it 
 be also a genial sun, sending forth its beams of light 
 and truth to the farthest bounds of this imperial valley. 
 Be faithful to the great heritage of freedom, prosperity, 
 and power which you have received from your fathers. 
 Enter into a generous emulation with your older sister 
 States, and thus keep alive the kindly sympathies which 
 bind the cultivated mind of the country together. In 
 your day of small things, remember the infancy of 
 those " twins of learning " in the East ; the frugal 
 legacy that gave being to Harvard, the few precious 
 volumes that founded Yale ; not doubting that the time 
 will come, if your enlightened views shall be shared by 
 your successors, that the seminary you are now found 
 ing will take rank hereafter with those venerable patri 
 archs of our literary republic. The dust of your fathers, 
 with few exceptions, lies side by side with the dust of 
 our fathers in the honored soil of the East. On that 
 soil may the love of Heaven forever fall in gentle dews 
 upon it many of yourselves first drew the breath of 
 life. Let these tender associations give strength to the 
 sacred bond of brotherhood which unites us, and before 
 the dark day shall arrive that witnesses its rupture, may 
 these eyes be closed beneath the sod. Above all, my 
 friends, lay the corner-stone of your institution on the 
 Rock of Ages, and may the blessing of Heaven rest 
 upon it. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 A. 
 
 THE change in the Charter, above indicated, was made by the 
 insertion of the following sections, in compliance with the petition 
 of the Directors to the General Assembly of Missouri. [Act 
 approved February 12, 1857.] 
 
 SEC. 2. No instruction, either sectarian in religion, or party 
 in politics, shall be allowed in any department of said University, 
 and no sectarian or party test shall be allowed in the election of 
 professors, teachers, or other officers of said University, or in the 
 admission of scholars thereto, or for any purpose whatever. 
 
 SEC. 3. It shall be the duty of the Board of Directors of said 
 University, upon being informed of any violation of the second 
 section of this act, forthwith to institute an inquiry into the charge 
 or charges that may be preferred in respect thereof, by any credi 
 ble person, in writing, against any officer of said University ; and 
 if it shall appear that any officer of said University has violated 
 the said second section of this act, the Board of Directors shall 
 forthwith remove such person so offending, from any office which 
 he may then fill in any department of said University ; and such 
 person so removed shall be forever thereafter ineligible to any 
 office in said University. 
 
 SEC. 4. In case the Board of Directors, upon being notified 
 in writing by any credible person of a violation of the second sec 
 tion of this act, shall refuse or neglect to investigate the charge 
 hereupon preferred against any officer of said University, it shall 
 be competent for the St. Louis Circuit Court, or the St. Louis 
 Court of Common Pleas, to compel the Board of Directors, by 
 
mandamus, to perform their duty in investigating such charge, 
 and to show their performance of such duty to the satisfaction 
 of the court having cognizance of the matter ; and all proceedings 
 under this section shall be summary, and conducted to a conclu 
 sion with as little delay as possible ; and the power hereby given 
 to said courts may be exercised by the judge of either of said 
 tribunals in vacation. 
 
 
 B. 
 
 THE Board of Directors are gratified to state that this appeal 
 has met with a hearty and generous response from one of their 
 own number. JAMES H. LUCAS, Esq., one of the most highly 
 respected citizens of St. Louis, and to whose enterprise much of 
 its prosperity is due, has declared his intention of building and 
 endowing an Observatory, on a large and national scale, at an 
 estimated cost of two hundred thousand dollars. For a work of 
 such magnitude several years will, of course, be requisite, in order 
 to its successful completion, but a beginning will be made at the 
 earliest day practicable. 
 
 It is an interesting coincidence that Sir ISAAC NEWTON was 
 Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. No better augury could be 
 desired in the establishment of the LUCAS OBSERVATORY OF 
 ST. Louis. 
 
 The Observatory buildings will not be erected on land now 
 belonging to the University. A beautiful and commanding site 
 containing twenty acres, has been set apart for the purpose by 
 Mr. LUCAS, and will be used, unless some more suitable place 
 can be found. 
 
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