While Bacon is attuning the sweetest strains of his honeyed eloquence, to soothe the dull ear of a crowned pedant, and his great rival, only less obsequious, is on his knees to deprecate the royal displeasure, the future founders of the new republic beyond the sea, are training up for their illustrious mission, in obscurity, hardship, and weary exile.

And now, for the fulness of time is come, let us go up once more in imagination to yonder hill, and look out upon the November scene. That single dark speck, just discernible through the perspective glass, on the waste of waters, is the fated vessel. The storm moans through her tattered canvas, as she creeps, almost sinking, to her anchorage in Provincetown harbor; and there she lies, with all her treasures, not of silver and gold, (for of these she has none,) but of courage, of patience, of zeal, of high spiritual daring. So often as I dwell in imagination on this scene; when I consider the condition of the Mayflower, utterly incapable as she was of living through another gale; when I survey the terrible front presented by our coast to the navigator, who, unacquainted with its channels and roadsteads, should approach it, in the stormy season, I dare not call it a mere piece of good fortune, that the general north and south wall of the shore of New England should be broken by this extraordinary projection of the Cape, running out into the ocean a hundred miles, as if on purpose to receive and encircle the precious vessel. As I now see her, freighted with the destinies of a continent, barely escaped from the perils of the deep, approaching the shore precisely where the broad sweep of this most remarkable headland presents almost the only point at which, for hundreds of miles, she could with any ease have made a harbor, and this perhaps the very best on the seaboard, I feel my spirit raised above the sphere of mere natural agencies. I see the mountains of New England rising from their rocky thrones. They rush forward into the ocean, settling down as they advance; and there they range themselves, a mighty bulwark around the heaven-directed vessel. Yes, the everlasting God himself stretches out the arm of his mercy and his power in substantial manifestation, and gathers

the meek company of his worshippers as in the hollow of his hand.

Within that poor tempest-tost vessel there lay, on the eleventh of November, 1620, a moral treasure, of value wholly inappreciable; - faintly conceived of even now by us, its immediate inheritors, after two hundred years' possession;principles of social and moral growth and improvement, which, for ages to come, will not be developed in all their virtue and efficacy. There lay, scarcely organized, the elements of a pure democracy. On that day, the first written constitution of popular government was drawn up and signed, by the people assembled in convention for that purpose. Cycles of human history may pass, before events of equal importance to humanity shall recur. And what a disaster to the general cause of freedom and truth, had this vessel and all she contained been lost! Embattled navies might contend and go down. Foundered galleons might pave the green floors of the ocean with ingots of silver and gold, and the next generation be neither the poorer nor the weaker for the loss. But if this weather-beaten Mayflower and her company had sunk beneath the waves, which so often seemed opening to ingulf her, (decisive as the event would probably have been, for an indefinite period, of all further attempts to colonize America,) there would have been inflicted a wound which might never have been healed, on the great cause of civil and religious freedom.

I meant, sir, to have said a few words on the principles and institutions of the fathers of the Old Colony, as the direct sources of those blessings which we have inherited from them. I meant to have spoken briefly of the two great pillars on which they rested the temple of liberty, - freedom in the churches, as opposed to the domination of a hierarchy, and freedom in the state, founded on the absence of all hereditary privileges, on a recurrence to the popular will by frequent elections, and on a system of public education in free schools. This last object early received the attention of the government of Plymouth Colony. Besides requiring the towns to support schools, the proceeds of the public fisheries

were appropriated to their encouragement. But I leave these fruitful topics to gentlemen around me, who are abundantly able to do them justice. There is one point, only, which can never be wholly overlooked, in speaking of the Pilgrims: I mean their faults. They were men, and, of course, had faults, upon which those who like the occupation may descant. I do not, and I am sure there is no one here who does. This counsel only I would give to any who takes in hand to rebuke the errors of the fathers of Plymouth or Massachusetts, to settle with himself, at the outset, considering what human nature at the best is, whether precisely the kind of virtues, the unyielding, dauntless, all-enduring, all-daring spirit, necessary to accomplish the great work of founding a new state under every imaginable discouragement, could have subsisted, without something of that austerity and sternness of which it must be admitted there are lamentable memorials in the Pilgrim annals.

Besides, sir, our poor fathers were pestered with troubles, and had to provide against evils, of which, in these latter days, we know nothing. It seems that it was thought necessary, in the early legislation of the colony, to enact that "no man shall strike his wife, nor any woman her husband, on penalty of such fine, not exceeding ten pounds for one offence, or such suitable corporal punishment, as the court may direct." I see, by the smiling faces of both sexes around me, that there is no occasion, at the present day, in the Old Colony, for any such legislation as this; that, law or no law, that man is held to be a villain, on Cape Cod, who raises his hand toward a woman except in kindness; and that, in return, no man is in danger of being smitten by the gentler sex with any other weapon than the bright glance which heals while it wounds. Again, the learned and eloquent orator of the day has reminded us that it was deemed necessary to provide, among the first acts of legislation in the Old Colony, that, "if, now or hereafter, any were elected to the office of governor, and would not stand to the election, nor hold and execute the office for his year, that then he should be amerced in twenty pound sterling fine." All trouble upon

this score, I believe, has disappeared, at least since the happy period when the Old Colony was united with Massachusetts. But I cannot answer for it, Mr President, that this will always be the case if things continue to be managed as they have been to-day. I must candidly tell you, that, when I found myself moving along to this pavilion, in solitary grandeur, excluded from that part of the procession which was honored by the presence of the ladies, and when I perceived that my position here, on this elevated platform, was to be one of like privation, (to say nothing of the natural misgiving which may well come over one who finds himself directly in front of his honor, the chief justice, and the sheriff,) — I say, sir, when I found that these were the consequences of official dignity, I had some thoughts of taking advantage of the Old Colony law, and paying my fine.

A single sentence more, sir, and in the serious strain which perhaps better becomes the occasion. In all that concerns the history and character of the Old Colony, the people of Barnstable have a peculiar interest. Your shore was pressed by the feet of the Pilgrims before they rested on Plymouth Rock. When the good seed raised around that chosen spot began to be cast abroad, one of the first handfuls fell on your genial soil; and, from that time to this, through two centuries of humble beginnings and rich fruits, of trial and hardship, of success and glory, you have grown up a living, leading, integral part of that illustrious "OLD COLONY" with whose annals commences, if I may so express myself, the New Testament of American liberty.

With your permission I would say, in taking my seat, THE CAPE: GOD BLESS HER. The sons and daughters of Barnstable are among the fairest jewels in her crown of honor: wherever dispersed, there is not one of them who will not exclaim,

"Where'er I roam, whatever realms to see,
My heart untravelled fondly turns to thee."

NORMAL SCHOOLS.*

WE are assembled to take a suitable public notice of the opening of an institution in this place, destined, as we hope, to exercise a salutary influence on the cause of common school education. The visitors of the institution have thought it expedient that a public explanation should be made, at this time, of its nature and objects, and of the hopes and expectations with which it is founded; and they have requested me, on their behalf, to appear before you for this purpose. I have complied with their request cheerfully. My official connection with the Board of Education, which, under the authority of the legislature, has established the school, and the deep personal interest I take in the result of this experiment for the improvement of popular education in the commonwealth, (convinced as I am that the time has come when it is incumbent on the people of Massachusetts to do more than has yet been done for the improvement of their common schools,) are the motives which have led me, at considerable personal inconvenience, to undertake the duty which has been assigned to me on this occasion.

The institution which is now opened in this pleasant and prosperous village, is devoted to the education of teachers of common schools, and is called a normal school. The name normal is derived from a Latin word, which signifies a rule, standard, or law. Schools of this character were called normal schools, on their establishment in France, either because

* An Address delivered at the opening of the Normal School at Barre, 5th September, 1839; now first published.