constituted, still, as true and faithful Alumni, we are bound to maintain, that ours, like the Julian star, Micat inter omnes, velut inter ignes, Our Alma Mater has, since her origin, been embarrassed by many difficulties, and has had to contend with the most serious opposition. At the first institution, she had to enter the lists with two excellent and pre-established colleges-Yale on the one side, and Nassau Hall on the other. Her endowments were disproportioned to her exigencies. The controversies about our independence entered into her walls, and the horn of civil discord was even sounded in the retreats of science and the temples of education. From the first period of her existence, she was viewed with apprehension by the prying eyes of sectarian jealousy-how improperly, we can all testify; and we also know with what shameful illiberality this spirit was exerted in late years, to defeat the contemplated bounty of the State. And permit me to add, and to add with a most perfect contempt of unworthy prejudices against foreigners, that since our professors have been of native growth, our institution has experienced her present fullness of prosperity. And this must not be understood as proceeding from any defects of character or education, but from ignorance of the American character, which, like our language, is difficult to be comprehended by strangers. This knowledge is essential to persons engaged in education; and men, not without great claims to talent and perspicacity, have resided for years among us, and have remained as ignorant of our national character, as on the day of their arrival. The sturdy spirit of liberty which distinguishes our youth, and the precocity of manly demeanor which marks them from their first advent into our schools, will not tolerate the stern infliction of exotic discipline. The spirit of education must be bent to the spirit of its objects, or the paths of instruction will be strewed with thorns and briars. The son of an American citizen will not submit to the same rigor of treatment, that is inflicted on the sons of vassals and subjects. Like the American lawyers described by Burke, he augurs misgovernment at a distance, and snuffs in the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze. All our professors and our most respectable President, are indigenous plants, and their fostering superintendence and powers of instruction are felt in the flourishing state of our Alma Mater. Never did she stand on higher ground, with a more commanding aspect, and on a firmer foundation. Her prospects are brilliant, and her numbers are increasing, and will increase with the augmented population of the State. In the midst of a populous city, she can derive sufficient support from it alone. During the last year she had under her care 127 students. The three other Colleges embraced 310. Situated at the confluence of all the great navigable communications of the State, from the shores of the Atlantic to the northern and western lakes, she presents every facility of economical and rapid access. Placed in the very focus of all the great moneyed and commercial operations of America, where agriculture pours forth her stores of plenty, where manufactures transmit their fabrics, where internal trade and foreign commerce delight to dwell and accumulate riches, where, in short, every man that wishes to buy or to sell to advantage, will naturally resort, what site can furnish a stronger invitation to a participation in education? Here, too, you will have the most distinguished divines, the most able jurists, the most skilful physicians. Here will men of science and ingenious artists fix their abode,-and also talented men who will devote themselves to vernacular literature. Whoever wealth can tempt, knowledge allure, or the delights of polished and refined society attract, will occasionally visit or permanently reside in this great emporium. Every inducement that an institution can present, whether for the acquisition of knowledge, the refinement of manners, or the exaltation of character, is here furnished with unsparing liberality. Unless some extraordinary visitation of calamity, distracts and deranges the natural current of events, and blights the purest prospects of greatness, this city will, ere the lapse of a century, extend itself over the whole island, and cover the shores of the adjacent rivers and bays with an exuberant population of more than a million, and alone will furnish a correspondent number of students; and with immense means of patronage and endowments, we may fondly anticipate, that before the expiration of a century, Columbia College will stand upon an equal footing with the most celebrated Universities of the Old World. By the last returns, the four Colleges of the State contained 437 students; thirty-three incorporated academies, 2,440; and 8,144 common schools, 431,601. Add to this last the number taught in private institutions, and we may calculate, without the charge of exaggeration, that 460,000 human beings are at this hour, in this State, enjoying the benefits of education. From the apex to the base of this glorious pyramid of intellectual improvement, we perceive an intimacy of connection, and identity of interest, a community of action and reaction, a system of reciprocated benefits, that cannot but fill us with joy and make us proud of our country. The National School Society of Great Britain, educates but 330,000 children annually; and there is no state or country that can vie with our common school establishment, and the number of its pupils-I wish I could add, in the merits of its teaching. We want an extension of the system, to higher and other objects of instruction. We want a corps of educated instructors-we want gratuitous instruction in our academies and colleges. The dii minorum of learning ought to be elevated in the scale of public estimation and intellectual endowment. For from their hands the rude materials of the mind must receive their first polish of usefulness and improvement; and our depôts of general instruction, like the speaking-bird of Asiatic fiction, which gathered around it all the singing-birds of the land, ought to contain all the youth of the country that are fit for improvement. Like the Indicator of Ornithology, that leads the way to the collected tenantry of the forest, they must and will conduct us to the higher enjoyments of knowledge; they will act to us as pioneers to delights, which nothing but intellectual pursuits can communicate. With the learning taught in the ancient universities, this seminary has most felicitously adapted its instruction to the improvements and discoveries of modern times, and has embraced the benefits of both within its comprehensive arms. The exact sciences are sedulously attended to, as well as classical literature; Political Economy and Natural Science, are held in merited estimation. And we may feel assured, even if we embark in public life, that sooner or later, we will feel the importance and appreciate the value of our college acquisitions. When the pensioner, John De Witt, who was in his early life an enthusiastic devotee of the Mathematics, was tauntingly asked, of what use they were to him then, as, in the active scenes in which he had been since engaged, he must have lost all his knowledge of them; his reply contained a volume of wisdom. They have passed, said he, from my memory to my judgment. When Hamilton was called on to preside over the finances of the United States, he stood in the same position, and he felt relieved by availing himself, in his calculations, of the great science of Professor Kemp. Besides, these abstract investigations strengthen the general tone of the mind, teach habits of patient and deliberate inquiry, and coumunicate the same vigor to the understanding, that severe exercise does to the body. I am well aware that there is a sect in this country, which extends its influence, more or less, into all the ramifications of society, that explodes all kinds of knowledge not founded on personal experience; which inculcates that ignorance is the summum bonum; that the less one reads the more he thinks, and that the less he understands, the better he can act; that education beyond the precincts of common schools is allied to aristocracy, and incompatible with natural equality; and that the youth who spring from our colleges, and who enter into the liberal professions, would be more serviceable to mankind, if they had been confined to those habits and acquisitions which distinguish the quacks, the empirics, and the charlatans of the com |