present means; young men of rare talent and promise, who, though barely able to get along with the assistance of public and private bounty, are compelled to make efforts and seek occupations by which their progress is delayed and often their health impaired. I know such cases, sir; they have painfully excited my deepest sympathies. I have known instances of young men, of the finest powers and the most exemplary characters, supporting themselves for fifty or sixty cents a week, and I have scarcely dared ask myself the question, how the twenty-one meals are to be got out of this sum. These, sir, are the young men to be helped. They deserve it; they will repay it in valuable service to their day and generation.

I know that the fountains of private charity are deep and perennial. But is it quite right to draw exclusively upon them? Does the state owe nothing to these its most meritorious children? It is an acknowledged duty of the legislature to support the common schools; but I am not aware that this duty rests on any other grounds, than those which equally enjoin a reasonable care for the higher places of education.

I apprehend, sir, that there is some misconception on this point, and that, while it is admitted and felt to be a popular interest to provide for the common schools, and see that their advantages are within the reach of the entire population, it is not thought to be equally a popular interest to facilitate the acquisition of a collegiate education. This seems to me a radically erroneous view; and, unless we are prepared wholly to deny the benefits of such an education, we must admit that the poorest children of the community, who show peculiar aptitude for the purpose, ought, to some practicable extent, to be aided in obtaining it. Unless this course is pursued, you in reality confine the advantages of a college education wholly to the wealthier classes, except so far as private benevolence may extend them to those less favored of fortune.

I must say, sir, that this does not strike me as a popular doctrine, in the proper sense of the word. It is not such a

doctrine as tends to the improvement of the people. With all our republicanism, we might take a lesson on this head from other governments. There is much ampler provision by law in Massachusetts for extending the blessings of a common school education to the whole community than there is in any country of Europe, with perhaps a single exception. It is not so in respect to higher education. Numerous ancient foundations in England afford the means to a considerable number of persons, in the humblest walks of life, of obtaining the best education which the country affords, and of eventually rising in this way to the highest posts of church and state.

I hope I shall not be understood to intimate that a college education is essential to greatness or usefulness in any of the walks of life. I do not forget that we are in the city where Franklin was born and Bowditch died. I claim for such an education only what the universal consent of mankind allows it to be the appropriate training, in the majority of cases, for the professional career, for scientific eminence, and literary distinction.

I have thus, sir, gone through, in rather a desultory manner, and without premeditation, such remarks as occur to me in support of our memorial, or in explanation of its objects. I presume not to enforce upon this honorable committee the duty of the commonwealth to foster all institutions for education. What was done in former days is known to all who have read the history of the state. You will find, sir, on the list of grants and gifts prepared by the treasurer, that, for a long course of years, and out of the slender means of the province, annual provision was made for the support of the president and one or more of the professors of Harvard College. Yes, sir, in the poor old colony times, in paper money times, in "old tenor" times, in time of war as well as peace, the current of the public bounty never ceased to flow in that direction. Since the revolution, the great era of our prosdisposable wealth of the

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perity, from which nearly all the country, public as well as private, dates, that current, as far as the colleges are concerned, has all but dried up. The

last of the annual grants to Harvard College dates from 1786. I have not forgotten the munificent appropriation, in 1814, of sixteen thousand dollars a year for ten years to the three colleges in the state, of which ten sixteenths were allotted to Cambridge; an act of public bounty never to be mentioned but in the language of admiration and gratitude. A fourth part of this sum was given in aid of the education of meritorious young men in indigent circumstances, and the residue was appropriated to building the Medical College in Boston, and University Hall at Cambridge.

I am not, however, of the number of those, if any there are, who have despaired of the renewal of the public patronage in favor of our colleges. Our ancient and venerable commonwealth has not changed her character. Old and prosperous, she will not cast off the interests which she found means to foster in her youth and her poverty. If in this generous career she has paused, it has been to gather strength to move onward more vigorously. She has had other great objects of her bounty. She has had hospitals to found, and asylums to endow, and she has done it with a munificence that gladdens the heart of her dutiful children. The wealth of the Indies could not purchase for her the riches of character she has laid up for herself in these endowments; and now that she has provided for these worthy objects, has established an ample fund in aid of her schools, has taught the blind to see, and the deaf to hear, and gathered the forlorn and desolate of every name into her maternal bosom, she will renew, I doubt not, that care for the higher interests of education which formed her glory in other times.

By the constitution of the commonwealth, it is made "the duty of legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and the sciences, and all seminaries of them; especially the university at Cambridge, public schools, and grammar schools in the towns." Since the formation of the constitution, three new colleges have been chartered by the legislature, two of which have, equally with Cambridge, a claim on the parental bounty of the commonwealth. The constitution recom

mends them equally with us to your fostering care. I rejoice in the liberal grant to one of them the last session, as an indication that a feeling, on the part of the legislature, in favor of extending the public patronage to the collegiate institutions, is still alive and active. It is one of the pleasantest circumstances connected with the present application, that the several colleges are united in it. We are happy - I know I may speak for my brethren as well as for Cambridge

thus to cooperate with each other; and in asking a boon for ourselves, to ask it at the same time for our sister seminaries. I will not pretend to say I had rather it should go to them than to us. We are not commanded to love our neighbor more than ourselves; but I do say, with great truth, that, should we obtain the aid we ask for, it will heighten our satisfaction that it is shared by our colleagues.

EULOGY ON JOHN QUINCY ADAMS.*

PREFATORY NOTE.

A CONSIDERABLE resemblance will be perceived, in the narrative part, between the following eulogy and other discourses of the same description, which have been published since President Adams's decease. This similarity arises from the fact that the biographical portion of all these performances (as far as I am aware) has for the most part been derived, directly or indirectly, from a common source, viz., the memoir prepared for the National Portrait Gallery, in 1839, by Mr C. W. Upham, of Salem. That memoir was drawn up from authentic sources, and is the principal authority for the biographical notices contained in the following pages. It has, however, been in my power to extend some of the details, and to add others wholly new, from materials kindly furnished to me by Mr Charles Francis Adams, from the papers of his honored father. A few facts have been given from personal recollection; and their number could have been greatly increased, had the nature of the occasion rendered it proper to enlarge upon the subject of Mr Adams's administration, during the whole of which, as a member of Congress possessing his confidence, and for the last half of his administration as chairman of the committee of foreign affairs, I had occasion to be in constant and intimate communication with him.

The communications of the Hon. Joseph E. Sprague to the Salem Register, written during the period preceding the presidential election of 1824, contain a great deal of information of the highest value and interest, relative to the life, services, and career of Mr Adams.

Some new facts of interest are contained in the admirable funeral sermon delivered by Rev. Mr Lunt, at Quincy, a performance rendering any further eulogy superfluous.

A few passages in the following discourse, omitted in the delivery on account of its length, are inserted in the printed copy.

CAMBRIDGE, 17th April, 1848.

Pronounced in Faneuil Hall, on the 15th of April, 1848, at the unanimous request of the legislature of Massachusetts.