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mon air, the common sunshine, the common rain, invaluable for their commonness. They are the corner stone of that municipal organization which is the characteristic feature of our social system; they are the fountain of that wide-spread intelligence, which, like a moral life, pervades the country; they are the nursery of that inquiring spirit to which we are indebted for the preservation of the blessings of an inquiring, Protestant, spiritual faith. Established as they were by special legislation in the infancy of the colony, while they are kept up and supported with a liberality corresponding with the growth of the country, no serious evil can befall us. Whatsoever other calamities, external or internal, may overtake us, while the schools are supported, they will furnish a perennial principle of restoration. With her three thousand district schools, supported at the public expense, nothing but the irreversible degree of Omnipotence can bring the beaming forehead of Massachusetts to the dust. Vicissitudes may blight the foliage, but there will be vigor in the trunk, and life at the root. Talent will constantly spring up on her barren hill-sides, and in her secluded vales, and find an avenue, through her schools, to the broad theatre of life, where great affairs are conducted by able men. Other states may exceed her in fertility of soil, but the skilful labor of her free citizens will clothe her plains with plenty. Other states may greatly outnumber her, but her ingenuity will people her shady glens and babbling waterfalls with half-reasoning engines, which will accomplish the work of toiling myriads. Other states will far surpass her in geographical domain; but the government of cultivated mind is as boundless as the universe. Wheresoever on the surface of the globe, and in the long line of coming ages, there is a reasonable being, there is a legitimate subject of mental influence. From the humblest village school, there may go forth a teacher who, like Newton, shall bind his temples with the stars of Orion's belt, with Herschel, light up his cell with the beams of before undiscovered planets, with Franklin, grasp the lightning. Columbus, fortified with a few sound geographical principles, was. on the deck of his crazy caravel, more truly

VOL. II.

46

the monarch of Castile and Arragon, than Ferdinand and Isabella, enthroned beneath the golden vaults of the conquered Alhambra. And Robinson, with the simple training of a rural pastor in England, when he knelt on the shore of Delft Haven, and sent his little flock upon their gospel errantry beyond the world of waters, exercised an influence over the destinies of the civilized world which will last to the end of time.

OPENING OF THE RAILROAD TO SPRINGFIELD.*

MR PRESIDENT:

My distinguished and much respected friend, who has preceded me on this occasion, (Governor Lincoln,) has been pleased to allude to that circumstance in a manner which would be oppressive to my feelings, but for the kindness with which I knew it was intended. He expressed some reluctance at preceding me; but I shall, on every occasion, deem it a privilege in following him, to have the benefit of his example. In whatever situation I may be placed, I shall consider myself fortunate if, in any humble measure, I may be able to emulate either his wisdom of counsel or eloquence of speech.

I rise to address you, sir, and this great company, with real embarrassment. Feelings, emotions I have, inspired by the occasion; anticipations, if you please, visions. But I never felt less able to throw what is passing in my mind into the form of a set speech. As an original subscriber, an early public advocate, and in my official capacity, as far as my constitutional competence extends, the promoter of this great work, I may honestly claim to be, what you have kindly called me, its steady friend. Now that it is so far advanced towards its completion, I want language to express all that I feel of its importance. It is just four years, within three days, since many here present met, with a multitude of others, in Faneuil Hall, to take such measures as might be deemed expedient to

* Delivered at the public table at Springfield, on the 3d of October, 1839, on occasion of the opening of the Western Railroad, to that place. See, in the early part of this volume, the speech at Faneuil Hall, on the 7th October, 1835.

effect the completion of the original private subscription to the Western Railroad. It was my fortune, at the request of the gentlemen charged with the arrangements for the meeting, to take some part in its proceedings; and I then hazarded the sentiment, "that next to the great questions of liberty and independence, the doors of Faneuil Hall were never thrown open on an occasion of greater moment to the people of the city and the state." That opinion I ventured to express in the distant prospect of this noble work; and now, sir, that the first great section of it is completed, I would emphatically reaffirm the proposition, that next to the days which gave us a charter of national independence, and a constitution of republican government, that day will be the most auspicious in the annals of Massachusetts, when the western hills and the eastern waves shall be brought together, and a bond of connection, stronger than the bars of iron that produce it, a bond of connection commercial, political, and social, shall bind the extremities of the commonwealth in a union never to be dissolved.

I ventured, also, on the above-mentioned occasion, to compare the railroad then in contemplation, with a natural channel of communication, such as a navigable river, uniting Boston and Albany. Might I not say with truth, sir, that, regarded merely as a medium of conveyance between the two places, the railroad we have travelled to-day will be of more importance to Springfield, than if that most beautiful river, which flows at your feet, were turned round to a right angle, and made to flow to the sea? Does this seem extravagant? When, since the waters of this noble river first gladdened the eyes of a civilized being, was it possible to move upon it, up stream and down, at the rate of sixteen or eighteen miles an hour? to say nothing of the considerable part of the year, for which, on account of summer's drought and winter's frost, it ceases to be navigable. It was long ago enthusiastically observed by a great constructer of canals in England, that rivers are valuable only as feeders. The rapid progress of modern art seems to show that they are likely to be superseded even in that subordinate capacity. I begin to feel com

punction for the disparaging manner in which we are inclined to speak of these noble streams; and it may be deemed quite fortunate that, as water happens to be the material of which steam is manufactured, there is a chance that they will not be voted altogether a nuisance.

But, sir, I do injustice to my present feelings to indulge in pleasantry, however innocent, on this subject. As I passed over the noble embankments, and through the grand corridors of solid rock, this morning, I experienced emotions which no language of my own can fully express. In considering a railroad, most persons, perhaps, dwell upon its upper portion, and the action of its locomotive appendages. But I own the first operations of the engineer fill me with amazement. The rapt prophet, in describing the approaching glories of the millennial age, can select no higher imagery than this: "Let every valley be exalted, and every mountain and hill be brought low;" and what other process have our eyes this day beheld, from the ocean to this first resting-place on the pathway to the west? Nor has this been effected by those insane efforts of despotic power, of which we read in ancient story, such as those by which the walls of Babylon, or the pyramids of Egypt, were piled to the clouds. No, it has been by such judicious obedience to the guiding hand of nature, following the sparkling footsteps of the river through the highlands, and tracing the sidelong slope of the hills, as to bring the work within reasonable limits, both as to time and expense. Then to look at the exterior: let us contemplate the entire railroad, with its cars and engines, as one vast machine! What a portent of art! its fixed portion a hundred miles long; its movable portion flying across the state like a weaver's shuttle; by the sea-side in the morning, here at noon, and back in the compass of an autumnal day! And the power which puts all in movement, most wondrous,a few buckets of water, like that which, while I speak, is trickling from yonder homely fountain.*

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* The tank in the spacious car-house in which the company was

assembled.

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