ous names that throng in the catalogue of Eton, the Boyles, the Walpoles, the Chathams, the Grays, the Porsons, the Grenvilles, the Cannings, and the Windhams, would he not have felt a far higher satisfaction than in any, or all of his royal successors? Yes, might he not have exclaimed, in the language of that great poet who was educated upon his foundation,

"Visions of glory spare my aching sight,

Ye unborn ages crowd not on my soul,

No more our long lost Arthur we bewail,

All hail! ye genuine kings, Britannia's issue hail!"

And may not you, sir, on this day which marks the successful completion of the first period of the history of this institution, in the erection of which you have engaged with all the wisdom of mature age, and with all the devotion and ardor of early manhood, with these promising re cipients of your bounty before you, who begin this very week to drink of the streams which your benevolence and labors, and those associated with you, have caused to flow, may not you venture to look down the vista of coming years, and see springing from the foundation which has here been laid, with profound wisdom and princely liberality, a long race of virtuous men arising to bless your memories, and to honor your bounty-may not you, sir, in the light of the history of similar institutions, behold with cheerful confidence, your native hills and streams thronging with those who will “unfold new properties of matter, new forces of the elements, new applications of the mechanical powers, which may change the condition of things;" yes, and with those too who will rule in the realms of abstract thought, who will push moral and metaphysical investigation beyond the limits to which it has been carried by Wayland, will take up Greek culture where our own Woolsey shall leave it, and strike hands with the successors of our Sillimans, our Danas, our Websters and our Barnards, in new and still more brilliant achievements in their respective fields of inquiry?

But, sir, it is time for me to dissolve these bright visions of the fancy, glad as I should be to dwell still longer upon so inviting a theme-to point out with some distinctness the points of resemblance and contrast between our own institution and its great English prototypes-to place, as it were, side by side, the cloistered halls and the scholastic studies, the trivia and the quadrivia of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and the far more genial and simple structures with their whole encyclopædias of study which characterize this nineteenth century; to take Winchester and Eton, or Rugby and Harrow, as they stand to-day, (modified it is true in some features by Time, that greatest of reformers,) with the hoary vestments of four or five centuries upon them,

"Rich as they are in names that can not die,
And youthful hearts already beating high,
To emulate the glories won of yore;

That days to come may still the past outvie,

And their bright rolls be lengthened more and more,

of statesmen, bard and sage, well versed in noblest lore,"

and show what greater elements of power have been gathered by advancing civilization for the work which we have this day commenced.

It would not be too much to say that our starting point is far in advance of that which they have now reached-that with the best elements of their culture, we combine others of perhaps equal power, and with a freedom in our charter to profit by all the improvements and discoveries that may be made in the great science of education. But these are thoughts and reveries in which you, sir, may properly indulge—you may give yourself up to these visions, and feel that they are rightfully yours. For me there is a view less fanciful. With you, sir, this is a day of triumph. You can look back to the day when with some anxiety, yet without grudging, you launched this enterprise, with the generous subscription of $7,500, and feel that your part of the work is in a measure completed. You can review the seasons of perplexity and embarrassment and delay through which you and your coadjutors have passed, and feel to-day, by the blessing of Heaven, that you have achieved a triumphant success. It is at this point that my labor begins. These massive walls, these spacious apartments, these ample and delightful acres, this noble library, this beautiful and efficient apparatus, you commit to my care as the means for performing the great work to which you have called me. As I gird on my professional panoply, to enter this new field of action, permit me to assure you, in all sincerity, how deeply I feel the greatness of the trust which I have presumed to accept at your hands. Should I be able, in some humble degree, to realize the hopes which the founders of this school have cherished, and organize and instruct a school which shall be in some measure in harmony with these princely accommodations, I shall feel that something has been done towards advancing the interests of education beyond the limits of this immediate community. The magnitude of the work is, I confess, at times almost appalling. And yet there is something inviting in the very greatness of the work which I see before me. To attempt the solution of the problem which you have committed to my hands-to determine whether it is feasible to educate human beings in perfect harmony with their varied and exalted powers-to present to the young and plastic mind, the nutriment that it craves—to surround it with the influences which will elevate and refine, and yet not enervate nor bewilder it-to cherish every noble aspiration, and restrain the first motions of unhallowed ambition-to stimulate inquiry, and yet not encourage a restless and vague curiosity-to develop the mind and not neglect the health of the body-to strengthen the intellect, and still purify the heart to regard constantly the interests of this present fleeting life, and not overlook for one moment the future and eternal life—to guard, in short, with the strictest care, all the interests of the rational mind and immortal soul, and endeavor in God's strength to repair the ruins of our fallen nature, and produce an intelligent, vigorous and virtuous manhood, reflecting, in some degree, at least, the glory of the great Original-to attempt all this, and as far as possible ascertain the conditions of its successful accomplishment, combines elements not of solicitude only, but of hope and attraction as well.

This occasion must not pass without a brief notice, at least, of those who are to reap the benefits of this beautiful building, and its ample

endowment. It is to me, sir, a matter of the deepest interest, that this day brings together the founders of this academy and those who are to share immediately in its advantages. I see before me the representatives of two generations--one that has acted the greater part of its share in the great drama of life, the other, as it were, but just rehearsing, preparatory to entering upon the great stage of action--the one thoughtful and grave, with lines of care impressed upon brows which have buffeted the storms of two and threescore years; the other elastic and joyous, and as yet inexperienced in the real warfare of life. It is a rare felicity, my young friends, which you this day enjoy, of meeting your benefactors face to face, and of receiving directly from their hands the sacred trust which you are to transmit as well as enjoy. Your position is one of responsibility, as well as of privilege. The trust which you this day receive, will hardly pass from your hands to your successors, in the same condition as you receive it. As you convey these blessings down through every rising race, see to it that they suffer no diminution in your hands. Let me exhort you to rise to a full apprehension of the nature of the position which you now occupy. Look upon these ample halls that are thrown open to you to-day; behold this lovely landscape, arrayed as it were, in all its festal drapery; these groves that have put on their autumnal robes of gold and scarlet; the heavens above you smiling as if in approbation and sympathy with this scene; behold the benefactors who bid you more than welcome; remember the parents who have brought you hither, with all those anxieties, yearnings and aspirations, too vast for words, too deep for tears, which parents alone can know; look down the vale of coming years and see the shadowy forms of future generations, who are waiting to occupy your places, rising and with clasped hands imploring you to be true to your duty; survey this whole field of noble incentive, and as you take your places as scholars in these rooms, let your fidelity testify that you are the worthy recipients of these signal advantages.

Mr. President, permit me in conclusion to congratulate you upon the consummation which you are permitted to realize this day-that you are permitted to behold the completion of a work which has occupied so large a portion of your time and attention, for the last three years. You enjoy a happiness this day which seldom falls to the lot, because it so seldom coincides with the desires of any man. In the serene evening of a virtuous, an earnest and a useful life, with your eye undimmed, and your natural force unabated, regardless of the clamor of political strife, you are permitted to lay the foundations of an intellectual empire which we hope will live and flourish when all the rage of party and faction shall have ceased.

"The good begun by you shall onward flow,
In many a branching stream, and wider grow;
The seeds that in these few and fleeting hours,
Your hands unsparing and unwearied sow,
Shall deck your grave with amaranthine flowers,

And yield you fruits divine in heaven's immortal bowers."

XVII. AN AMERICAN UNIVERSITY,

BY AN ALABAMIAN.

MUCH has been said, within a year or two past, in regard to "An American University." Elaborate and able addresses have been delivered at college and society anniversaries, calling attention to the subject, and presenting such views as were calculated to awaken in its behalf a profound and general interest. Yet, for reasons which it will not be difficult to point out, these views have failed to reach the ear of the American people. Indeed, they seem scarcely to have gone beyond the circles to which they were immediately addressed. Two or three of the most palpable causes of this result, it may be worth while to mention.

Sectional politics have weaned men, in a great measure, from the charm of the American political ideal. The watchword Union no longer rallies them. If you convince an assembly of men, in the North, or in the South, of the importance of any move, to the true interests of the American Republic, they do not take up the conviction, as once they would have done, and carry it through city, town and country. It drops into their hearts like a sadly remembered tune, in which they have neither courage nor voice to join. They have lost confidence in the perpetuity of the Republic as a unit, and they feel that whatever is expended upon it, as such, is so much wasted.

Another cause may be found in the fact, that the American people can not easily be made to feel the need of an American University. You may convince the scholars of it, but to convince the moneyholders and the voters is quite another conquest, not so speedily achieved. Upon them, the true University idea has scarcely ever dawned. The college in which they, or their sons, or their neighbors' sons, were educated, is, in their estimation, the repository of all knowledge. It is barely possible to convince them that such institutions as the Virginia University, Yale College, and Harvard University with its excellent Lawrence School, though unsurpassed in their kind, are limited in their scope, and fall far short of filling up the measure of the country's demands. Our patriotic democrats are slow to believe that England, and France, and Germany, and Italy, and Russia, furnish better facilities than America can boast, for the thorough instruction of men in Science and the Arts. Point them to the hundreds of young men that annually cross the Atlantic in search of purer springs and larger streams of knowledge, and they will tell you

that ""Tis distance lends enchantment." They will quote to you the opinion of some "great man in their neighborhood, which he delivered on a fourth of July occasion, or in an electioneering harangue, to the effect that "no country could boast of an educated people so truly as the United States." An American University seems to them, therefore, wholly uncalled for.

A third cause, and which is almost a part of the second, is that the means employed, as yet, are totally inadequate to the end proposed. That end is the enlistment of the United States of America in the enterprise of founding a great National University. This can only be accomplished through the million. A people is to be enlightened in regard to a thing which they can not comprehend, but which, by possibility, they may be made to apprehend sufficiently to lead to action. What grander labor ever awaited performance? It is to be done, if at all, through the instrumentality of American scholars. They are fully alive to its importance, but they contemplate, with aching hearts, the difficulty of the task.

In alluding to the insufficiency of the means already employed, no disparagement of those efforts is intended. It was well to assemble scholars from different sections of the country and imbue their minds with the spirit of the great movement. But why stop here? If this much was worth doing, it was certainly important to follow it up with still more expansive measures. Do we deprecate too great haste? Let us remember that persistent, unremitting and multifarious effort, so far from vindicating thoughtless haste, is the exponent of the wisest patience.

Here then, we may rehearse, in brief, the three chief reasons why the idea of An American University, so timely and beneficent in its conception, and so respectably enunciated to the world, seems to have fallen immediately into oblivion.

1. A want of confidence in the permanency of the Federal Union. 2. A lack of ability on the part of the people to discern the need of such an institution.

3. The inadequacy of the means hitherto employed in its promotion. A few words more upon each of these points may not be amiss.

The want of faith in the stability of our Republic is not universal. There are many who think they see, in the successive triumphs of conservatism over blind zeal, the evidence of growing strength in the foundations of the government. But a fact still more encouraging is, that there is nowhere a complete destitution of confidence. The gloomiest croakers, North or South, are not without misgivings as to the fulfillment of their sad prophecies. Extremists on both sides feel that possibly the country may outride the storms that conflicting interests and conflicting opinions have brought upon it. But, that the