rected. Although I would apply to this science, as to all others, the following lines of Shenstone : "O loved simplicity! be thine the prize! Contemns the power, the dull resource, to feign."* I still think that there is enough to task the energies of "assiduous art" in her own true sphere of labor. I have endeavored to distinguish her proper share in delivery from that of nature. The due observance of this distinction is fundamental. Oratory which has been carefully formed with a due observance of it will withdraw the mind of the hearer from the consideration of external manner, and fix it upon the sentiments uttered; and yet that manner, notwithstanding the hearer is unconscious of its influence, will in truth affect him far more forcibly than it could were his thoughts directed to it. This mode of cultivating oratory, therefore, will be the most effectual in accomplishing every desirable object in regard to both matter and manner. The subject of these remarks is of greater importance to the people of these United States, than to any other people upon earth; for in no country has eloquence so wide a scope for influence as in our own. In other lands fear is an open and very considerable agent in subjecting the people to their rulers. It is, indeed, an agent of greater consequence in some than in others. In ours, however, popular consent is the essential principle of government. Of how great moment, therefore, among us is the power, which Milton describes, "By winning words to conquer willing hearts, Its moment is more and more fully perceived from day to day, and in my opinion, few, if any, departments of instruction are destined within the next half century to undergo so thorough a reform in this country as that of ELOCUTION. LECTURE VI. ON THE RELATION SUBSISTING BETWEEN THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND FACULTY OF A UNIVERSITY, &c. BY REV. JASPER ADAMS, PRESIDENT OF CHARLESTON COLLEGE. MR. ADAMS' LECTURE. AT the close of the Revolution which severed these United States from Great Britain, the number of our universities and colleges was eight only;* the number now organized is nearly a hundred. Many of these institutions are feeble, as the original eight all were, during and at the close of our colonial existence, but their establishment is good proof of a spirit on the part of the people of this country, worthy of all commendation and encouragement. They have been planted with the original settlement of the country itself, and they may be expected to grow with its growth and strengthen with its strength. They must continue to be, as they have hitherto been, the foundation of our honor and renown, the prime sources of our moral prosperity and welfare; the fountains whence are to flow, the fertilizing waters of literature, of science, of philosophy, and of religion. Our country, too, is blessed with very numerous institutions designed for the study of law, medicine and theology, which have attained to various degrees of strength and stability. Besides these several classes of institutions for the attainment of liberal and professional learning, we have hundreds of academies, a considerable number of which have attained to much distinction and usefulness. The permanent success of these institutions, essentially involves, as has been suggested, the great cause of the literature, the science, the morals, the religion and the education of the country. Every thing which we are accus * Pitkin's Civil and Political History of the United States, Vol. I. p. 153, |