settlements the southern, the northern, and the centralhave afforded to each other strength, consideration, and stability; that, in human probability, they could not have stood and prospered-certainly not to the same extent — alone. In the great revolutionary and constitutional crises, the harmonious action of old Virginia and old Massachusetts, and the groups of states that followed their lead respectively, was the ark of our safety. Since those eventful days, another great sectional interest has been added to the Union in the west, carrying with it the principles both of contrast and assimilation which exist in the older states. The historian of America (Mr Bancroft) calculates that one third part of all its citizens, however dispersed, are of Pilgrim descent. May we not, without partiality, say, that to whatever portion of the common inheritance they are called, they will have no reason to be ashamed of their origin; and that the warmest local patriotism can form no wish more auspicious for the younger members of the republic, than that they may grow up on the good old foundation, to which this day and this spot are sacred?

The natural products of the earth vary with its latitudes, and every climate has its growth. There is but one soil on which national prosperity and greatness can flourish, and that is the soil of justice and truth. The hand that conducted the Mayflower across the pathless wilderness of waters, is the only hand which can with safety guide the caravan which, laden with the destinies of future states, is even now winding its way across the desert to the rocky portals of the western mountains.

I do not mean, Mr President, to indulge in extravagant eulogy. I am not blind to the imperfections of the Pilgrims. I mourn especially that they did not recognize in others the rights which they asserted for themselves. I deplore their faults, though the faults of the age. I am grieved that in pursuing the simplicity and purity of the gospel, they could not have imbibed more of its lovely meekness. But so often as I revert to this painful contemplation, I am checked by the doubt, whether the great work could have been done

by softer instruments. I doubt whether we have a right, living as we do in ease and luxury, to take for granted that this heavy burden could have been borne by more delicate frames and gentler tempers. By their fruits ye shall know them. Not by the graceful foliage which dallies with the summer breeze, not by the flower which fades away with the perfume which it scatters on the gale, but by the golden, perfect fruit, in which the mysterious life of the plant is garnered up, which the genial earth and the kindling sun have ripened into the refreshment and food of man, and which, even when it perishes, leaves behind it the germs of continued and multiplying existence.

UNIVERSITY EDUCATION.*

THE institution under whose auspices we are assembled is considerably the oldest of the kind in the United States, and is probably the oldest establishment for secular education on the western continent. Its foundation was a part, very early executed, of the great work of transferring the civilization of the Anglo-Norman race to the new-found hemisphere

a work in which the first settlers of New England bore so large a share. They brought with them those forms of municipal organization in which so much of the machinery of our present republicanism lay dormant; the idea of representative government further developed than in the mother country; the general system of English jurisprudence, and especially its most characteristic feature, the trial by jury; and still more, those peculiar principles of Protestantism, which, at the time of the emigration, were struggling towards the mastery in the state, which was soon after won and lost. With these institutions and principles, - honored companions of their exile, the civil and religious fathers of New England brought with them an affectionate attachment to the universities of their native land, and especially to the university of Cambridge, at which so many of them had been reared. They seized the first opportunity to make provision, in the home of their pilgrimage, for the education of

An Address delivered on occasion of the inauguration of the author as president of the University at Cambridge, on the 30th of April, 1846.

† See the result of the patient and accurate inquiries of Mr James Savage on this subject, in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Third Series, Vol. VIII. pp. 246-251.

their children on this model. To rival the majestic piles of their alma mater - already many of them of venerable antiquity could not have entered even into their sanguine imaginations; but they fondly gave the name of Cambridge to this spot, which they had chosen for their infant seminary. The course of studies-limited, it must be owned-was copied, we have reason to think, from that which was pursued at the time in the parent country; and the literary honors of the newly established institution were carefully declared to be conferred "pro more academiarum Anglicarum."

As there is no institution which so directly carries us back to the cradle of New England, and connects us beyond it, by unbroken intellectual tradition, with the elder world, so we may confidently hope that there is none which is more sure to enjoy the continued sympathy of good citizens and true patriots, in all future time. Our civil and social condition, and every thing belonging to the political state of the country, have undergone changes so stupendous since our university was founded, as to lead us to admit the possibility of changes not less important hereafter. These, though we cannot define them, we must vaguely anticipate; but we have no reason to fear that, in any coming time, or under any change that awaits the material or political fortunes of the country, the great idea of an academical training of youth for the duties of life, foremost in the minds of our fathers through all the vicissitudes of two centuries, will cease to be cherished by the latest posterity. We have no reason to fear that the time will ever come when our beloved alma mater, who has this day gathered us into her venerable presence, will be less an object of affection and care to our children's children than she is this hour to us.

We shall not, therefore, be devoting our attention to any theme of passing interest, if we employ the hour set apart for this portion of the day's ceremonial in the consideration of the objects of a university education, as understood at this time in our ancient seminary, and in the other similarly organized American institutions. Such, in fact, seems to be the most appropriate topic of discourse on the present occasion.

It must be observed, however, in the outset, that it is the subject rather for an elaborate treatise than for an occasional address. I can hope only to glance at the leading points of a discussion which volumes would be insufficient to exhaust.

I

The constitution of the commonwealth, in a chapter exclusively appropriated to the subject, bestows the name of the "University at Cambridge" on our venerable foundation. This word "university" has been variously applied to places of education. In France, under the empire, - and in this respect the system is unchanged, it was used to denote the aggregate of all the schools and academies in the kingdom. The term was employed in a similar acceptation in New York, at a still earlier period,* and is so used, I believe, in some other of the states of our Union. In most of the other countries of the continent of Europe, particularly in that whose universities are most numerous and prosperous, mean Germany, the universities are professional schools. They are resorted to by young men, after receiving their academical education at institutions of various name, -lyceum, gymnasium, or college,- for the purpose of studying the three learned professions, usually so designated, with an addition in the German universities, and perhaps in others, with which I am less acquainted, of a fourth faculty, called the "Philosophical," in which are included the branches of classical, historical, and general literature, adapted to the academic career, or to an education for the public service, or to a life of liberal leisure.

The English universities, originally founded or early modelled on a monastic type, and retaining an intimate connection with the established church, are nevertheless mainly academical institutions, of a very peculiar character, however,

The "Regents of the University of the State of New York" were established by charter in 1784.

+ I state this point in the alternative, as it is one of some controversy as a matter of antiquarian detail. The works of Meiners on the German universities, and Hüber's late work on the English universities, translated by Professor Newman, can be consulted.