ened, and his affections for our institutions be deeply rooted in his youthful bosom. He will be made to feel that this is the home of freedom, and an asylum for the oppressed. The country of his adoption opens a wide field for his future operations; and in return, his frugality, industry and enterprise, will not only repay the indulgences thus bestowed at the expense of the government in our common schools, but will also contribute in no small proportion to the wealth, prosperity and renown of the nation. We should not be discouraged, therefore, at the mighty swarms of foreigners who are annually approaching our shores in search of a peaceful and quiet home. The vast uncultivated regions of our country, and the benignity of our laws invite them hither. They build up and populate our infant. cities; they level the mighty forest, and spread the harvest of plenty amidst the wilderness. They dig our canals, construct our rail-roads, and engage with the spirit of the times in all our projects of enterprise. They have a well founded claim to the boon which our common schools may offer to their rising posterity. Let us therefore bid them a hearty welcome, and share with them the glorious blessing which our free institutions have guaranteed; and when time shall have denied to the present generation the further participancy in the enjoyments of our enlightened policy, let it take its departure with the consciousness. still fastened upon the soul, that those who are left to attain to the inheritance of civil and religious liberty, have been duly prepared to follow in the footsteps of their fathers, in cherishing and preserving the great charter of freedom and equal rights, not only to their own glory, but to the glory of all who may follow them.

In maturing a plan of popular education, and adapting it to the genius and policy of the government, perhaps no time could be selected more favorable to the success of the enterprise than the present. The hitherto constant and rapid ingress of population from abroad, and the frequent immigration of our own citizens from one State or portion of the country to another, thus intermingling the habits and customs of all, have, perhaps, to the present time, prevented the formation of those settled habits, sometimes peculiar to particular subdivisions, and which might be dreaded as a barrier to the introduction and progress of a general system of education, from whose influence we might hope to realize the advantage of a uniformity of habits, customs and laws throughout the respective States; and consequently a more general and lasting attachment to the UNION. At a future period, when the States shall have grown into a train of settled and inflexible customs peculiar to their respective locations and different systems of policy, it may be found too late to commence successfully the work; or to interest each State alike in the undertaking. The interest too, which is felt at the present time by the whole people,

in the cause of general education, makes the present period a favorable one at which to engage in the enterprise. In the language of a critical writer, I will add, that "the spirit of the age, like a mighty current, bears us all onward. None but plain, practical, efficient men are able to ride its heaving billows. The nineteenth century is indeed an era of action"—and we should now press-onward in a cause so interesting to all, and important to our future prosperity and happiness. There is equally as much, if not more danger to be apprehended from a monopoly of learning as from a monopoly of the country. The policy of our laws has wisely guarded against the destructive evils of the latter, and the history of other ages is rapidly opening the eyes of our citizens to the dangers of the former. "The immense masses of learning that were formerly hoarded up by a few fortunate individuals have been of late years freely distributed. The aristocracy of knowledge is passing into the republican simplicity of general diffusion. The agrarian law of intellect has made very learned men out of fashion, while he is regarded as the benefactor of his race who most successfully disseminates the greatest amount of useful knowledge."

In the introduction of a system of education, which should be so modeled as to meet the approbation of the several States, I am aware that there are many difficulties to be overcome. The States as well as the General Government will have an important part to act; and if any thing be accomplished in this particular, it must be done by the concurrent co-operation of all. Should each State engage, however, with a spirit of determined perseverance in doing its part towards the accomplishment of the work, the General Government would not long hesitate in offering the assistance necessary to the final success of the undertaking. A proper spirit necessary to the success of the enterprise is abroad. Other na tions of the world are already looking to the all important subject of popular education. Prussia, within the last twenty years, has established a system of general education which is well calculated to afford the opportunity for much improvement upon the plans, hitherto adopted by some of the States of this Union. From the able and luminous report of Prof. Stowe, made to the last Legisla ture of Ohio, we gather the encouraging, fact, that the Catholic King of Bavaria, "moved by the example of his relation, the Prussian Monarch," is now imparting to his people the benefits of a system of common schools, which, perhaps, is unequalled by the more civilized nations. "The Autocrat Nicholas of Russia,' says Prof. Stowe, "has been induced 'to commence a similar system throughout his vast dominions; and from the report of the Russian minister, it appears that already from Poland to Siberia, and from the White Sea to the regions beyond the Caucasus, including the provinces so recently wrested from Persia, there are

the beginnings of a complete system of common school instruction for the whole people, to be carried into full execution as fast as it is possible to provide the requisite number of qualified teachers." England, Scotland, and other portions of Europe are not lost to the incalcuble importance of providing at the public expense, for the support of schools, for the instruction of the indigent and destitute portion of the youths of these countries. Why should not our own government, therefore, take encouragement from these examples, and press onward in the common course, until the system shall have been so far perfected as to give the fullest assurance of the happy results, which need only be looked for under a general and well regulated plan of public schools. Such will be its determination, the work is already progressing.

Many of the States have already made encouraging progress towards the final completion of a plan for the moral and intellectual culture of the rising generation. Others have but recently turned their attention to the subject of public schools; but such is the growing popularity of the cause, that we may entertain the most cheering hope, that ere long, there will be no State in the Union which will continue to remain so blinded to its own best interests, and the interests of posterity, as not to make the most suitable provisions for the permanent support of popular schools. Many of the Eastern States have, for a series of years, sustained their common schools entirely or chiefly at the public expense. And in the language of a distinguished writer on the subject, we have already seen" the magic influence" of these schools, "in the habits of industry, sobriety and order, which prevail in the community; in the cheerful obedience so generally yielded to the laws, and in the acts of charity and benevolence which are every day multiplied around us." 66 Rarely," says the same author, "have we seen a native of Massachusetts, paying the forfeit of his life to the violated laws of the State. Still more rarely have we found of the unhappy number of capital sufferers, one whose early years have been passed in the seminaries of our villages." Such is the flattering picture given us of the influence of public instruction upon the communities in which free schools have been fostered. And it may be said of our own State, where the system has been but a few years in progress, and by no means at its maturity, that its advantages are already being felt in every neighborhood and village throughout the State.. "The schoolmaster is abroad in the land,” and ignorance with its concomitant evils is rapidly receding from the cheering influence of our liberal policy. Wherever we direct our footsteps-whether to our beautiful and growing villages, across our productive valleys, or amidst the towering, and as yet, but partially broken forests of Ohio-the eye is greeted and the heart made glad by the plain, yet neat and tasty district school house. Thousands of our youth have been wrested from the cold

embraces of ignorance and indolence, by the spreading influence of our free schools; and have hastened to give the ample promise of an industrious and useful, if not a brilliant career. Had not the doors of our common schools been thrown open to these youths, many of them must have grown up in ignorance and been left to drag out an existence, not only disgraceful and burthensome to themselves, but a lasting reproach upon the escutcheon of their native or adopted State. Crime and degradation must have marked their pathway-perhaps the forfeit of liberty, or of life, their merited reward. How different now is the prospect? The highest honors of their country hang within their reach; the noblest efforts of their nature thus invited into action, and the most worthy emulation inspired in their bosoms. The Governor of New York, in speaking of the influence of common schools, a few... years since, remarked in one of his messages, "that of the ten thousand children educated in the metropolis of that State, not one had ever been convicted of an: infamous crime.". And, from an interesting address, recently delivered before the Teachers' Association of Bowdoin College, I extract the following, that "of the two hundred and six members of the Connecticut Legislature, at one period, more than one hundred and eighty were indebted for their education entirely or chiefly to their common schools." The cause is gradually spreading, and the time is not far distant when its salutary influence will be so widely extended, and so universally acknowledged, that the force of public opinion, succored by the strong arm of the nation, will so identify these institutions of learning with the national policy of the government, as to secure the greatest blessing of which mankind can boast the union of these States, the perpetuity of our free and liberal institutions, the identity of habits, customs and laws throughout the several States, and the mutual reciprocity of interest and feeling upon the part of the various geographical divisions of our country, which the world

cannot sever.

How shall the work be commenced? This is an enquiry which involves much perplexity. If the work was once fairly commenced, there are none who would doubt a sufficient degree of energy and ability on the part of the American people to push successfully the enterprise. We proceed, then, to the main proposition which we had intended to discuss, to wit: The importance of establishing a National Institution, for the exclusive education of such young men, coming from the various portions of the republic, as may design making themselves teachers and conductors of common schools or public institutions of learning, The time which I have already detained you, admonishes me that I should pass briefly over this part of my subject. Indeed it does not ap-" pear to me, that many arguments will be required in convincing so intelligent an audience, of the importance of an institution of the

...

kind here proposed. Our country does not so much stand in need of the adequate means for sustaining a system of common schools. in the several States, as it does of efficient teachers to conduct them. The fact is known to many of us, that a large portion of our common school fund is uselessly spent under our existing plan of common schools. Such has been the great demand for our learned and talented men, in the other departments of our civil polity; such have been the inducements otherwise held out to the enterprising portion of our countrymen; and I may add, that such has been the low grade so usually fixed by public opinion upon the profession of common school teachers, that it has hitherto been impossible in general, to engage such men in the business of teaching our schools, as are every way capable of maintaining the dignity of the station thus assigned them. This, perhaps, is the greatest evil under which the country now labors, whilst endeavoring to promote the cause of education. Such is the loose and irregular system, too, under which our schools are too often conducted, that they afford but little encouragement in the promotion of the great end for which they were intended. These embarrassments should be overcome. The indigent but talented youths of our country, should be invited. from their idle and destitute haunts, to enroll themselves as members of an institution which will not only confer upon them honors, but will also, by imparting to them a profession, prepare them for the most useful and honorable employment. The profession of the teacher would thus become elevated, and would assume a stand with the other learned professions. The system of teaching would be reduced to one general and certain standard, and would be governed by the same laws and principles throughout the whole of our country. Teachers would not only become more abundant, but they would also be relied upon as possessing the high moral and intellectual attainments which the spirit of the age demands.

A national school for the education of professional teachers, would, as we believe, exert a more beneficial influence on the government, than could be derived from any other source whatever. The benefits which would result from giving uniformity to the plan of common school instruction, throughout the several States and Territories of the Union, could scarcely be calculated. Such an influence would speedily and imperceptibly lead to the formation of a national character, and would conduce, more to the desirable object of combining the habits, customs and manners of the various portions of our people, than would perhaps, on a cursory view of the subject, be acknowledged. An established national character gives distinction, stability, strength and renown to a nation, and to promote such character, should be a paramount desire with all.

Such an institution would inspire a sentiment of emulation on