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law, education, charity, art, and all the thousand graces of the higher culture, beyond the Missouri, beyond the Sierra Nevada; perhaps, in time, around the circuit of the Antilles ; perhaps to the archipelagoes of the Central Pacific. The pioneers are on the way. Who can tell how far and fast they will travel? Who, that compares the North America of 1753, but a century ago, and numbering but little over a million of souls of European origin; or still more the North America of 1653, when there was certainly not a fifth part of that number; who that compares this with the North America of 1853, its twentytwo millions of European origin, and its thirty-one States, will venture to assign limits to our growth; will dare to compute the time-table of our railway progress, or lift so much as a corner of the curtain that hides the crowded events of the coming century?

This only we can plainly see; - the Old World is rocking to its foundations. From the Gulf of Finland to the Yellow Sea, everything is shaken. The spirit of the age has gone forth to hold his great review, and the kings of the earth are moved to meet him at his coming. The band which holds the great powers of Europe together in one political league, is strained to its utmost tension.

The catastrophe may for a while be staved off; but to all appearance they are hurrying to the verge of one of those conflicts which, like those of Pharsalia and Actium, affect the condition of States for twice ten centuries. The Turkish empire, encamped but for four centuries on the frontiers of Europe, and the Chinese monarchy, contemporary with David and Solomon, are alike crumbling.

While these events are passing in the Old World, a tide of emigration, which has no parallel in history, is pouring westward, across the Atlantic, and eastward, across the Pacific, to our shores. The real political vitality of the world seems moving to the new hemisphere, whose condition and fortune it devolves upon us and our children to mould and regulate.

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It is a grand, let me say, a solemn thought, well calculated to still the passions of the day, and to elevate us above the paltry strife of parties. It teaches us that we are called to the highest, and, I do verily believe, the most momentous trust that ever devolved upon one generation of men. Let us meet it

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with a corresponding temper and purpose, with the wisdom of a well-instructed experience, and with the foresight and preparation of a glorious future; not on the narrow platforms of party policy and temporary expediency, but in the broad and comprehensive spirit of Seventy-six.

E. Everett.

SIR,

LXXXIX.

OUR COMMON SCHOOLS

IR, it is our common schools which gives the keys of knowledge to the mass of the people. Our common schools are important in the same way as the common 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 widespread intelligence which, like a moral life, pervades the country.

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 the monarch of Castile and Aragon, 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 shores 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.

Sir, it is a solemn, a tender, and sacred duty, that of education. What, sir, feed a child's body, and let his soul hunger! pamper his limbs and starve his faculties! Plant the earth, cover a thousand hills with your droves of cattle, pursue the fish to their hiding-places in the sea, and spread out your wheatfields across the plain, in order to supply the wants of that body which will soon be as cold and as senseless as the poorest clod, and let the pure spiritual essence within you, with all its glorious

capacities for improvement, languish and pine! What! build factories, turn in rivers upon the water-wheels, enchain the imprisoned spirits of steam, to weave a garment for the body, and let the soul remain unadorned and naked! What! send out your vessels to the farthest ocean, and make battle with the monsters of the deep, in order to obtain the means of lighting up your dwellings and workshops, and prolonging the hours of labor for the meat that perisheth, and permit that vital spark which God has kindled, which He has intrusted to our care, to be fanned into a bright and heavenly flame, permit it, I say, to languish and go out!

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What considerate man can enter a school, and not reflect with awe, that it is a seminary where immortal minds are training for eternity? What parent but is, at times, weighed down with the thought, that there must be laid the foundations of a building which will stand, when not merely temple and palace, but the perpetual hills and adamantine rocks on which they rest, have melted away! that a light may there be kindled, which will shine, not merely when every artificial beam is extinguished, but when the affrighted sun has fled away from the heavens! I can add nothing, sir, to this consideration. I will only say, in conclusion, Education, when we feed that lamp, we perform the highest social duty! If we quench it, I know not where (humanly speaking), for time or for eternity,

"I know not where is that Promethean heat

That can its light relume!"

E. Everett.

XC.

WEBSTER'S GREATEST PARLIAMENTARY EFFORT.

THE greatest parliamentary effort made by Mr. Webster, was

his second speech on Foot's resolution,

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the question at

issue being nothing less than this: Is the Constitution of the United States a compact without a common umpire between confederated sovereignties; or is it a government of the people of the United States, sovereign within the sphere of its delegated powers, although reserving a great mass of undelegated rights to

the separate State governments and the people? With those who embrace the opinions which Mr. Webster combated in this speech, this is not the time nor the place to engage in an argument; but those who believe that he maintained the true principles of the Constitution, will probably agree, that since that instrument was communicated to the Continental Congress, seventy-two years ago this day, by George Washington as Pres ident of the Federal Convention, no greater service has been rendered to the country than in the delivery of this speech.

Well do I recollect the occasion and the scene. It was truly what Wellington called the battle of Waterloo, a conflict of giants. I passed an hour and a half with Mr. Webster, at his request, the evening before this great effort; and he went over to me, from a very concise brief, the main topics of the speech which he had prepared for the following day. So calm and unimpassioned was the memorandum, so entirely was he at ease himself, that I was tempted to think, absurdly enough, that he was not sufficiently aware of the magnitude of the occasion. But I soon perceived that his calmness was the repose of conscious power. He was not only at ease, but sportive and full of anecdote; and as he told the Senate playfully the next day, he slept soundly that night on the formidable assault of his gallant and accomplished adversary. So the great Condé slept on the eve of the battle of Rocroi; so Alexander slept on the eve of the battle of Arbela; and so they awoke to deeds of immortal fame. As I saw him in the evening, (if I may borrow an illustration from his favorite amusement,) he was as unconcerned and as free of spirit, as some here have often seen him, while floating in his fishing boat along a hazy shore, gently rocking on the tranquil tide, dropping his line here and there, with the varying fortune of the sport. The next morning he was like some mighty Admiral, dark and terrible, casting the long shadow of his frowning tiers far over the sea, that seemed to sink beneath him; his broad pendant streaming at the main, the stars and the stripes at the fore, the mizzen, and the peak; and bearing down like a tempest upon his antagonist, with all his canvas strained to the wind, and all his thunders roaring from his broadsides.

E. Everett.

I

XCI.

WHAT GOOD WILL THE MONUMENT DO!

AM met with the great objection, What good will the Monument do? I beg leave, sir, to exercise my birthright as a Yankee, and answer this question by asking two or three more, to which, I believe, it will be quite as difficult to furnish a satisfactory reply. I am asked, What good will the monument do? And I ask, What good does anything do? What is good? Does anything do any good? The persons who suggest this objection, of course think that there are some projects and undertakings that do good; and I should therefore like to have the idea of good explained, and analyzed, and run out to its elements.

When this is done, if I do not demonstrate, in about two minutes, that the monument does the same kind of good that anything else does, I shall consent that the huge blocks of granite already laid, should be reduced to gravel, and carted off to fill up the mill-pond; for that, I suppose, is one of the good things. Does a railroad or canal do good? Answer, yes. And how? It facilitates intercourse, opens markets, and increases the wealth of the country. But what is this good for? Why, individuals prosper and get rich. And what good does that do? Is mere wealth, as an ultimate end, gold and silver, without an inquiry as to their use, are these a good? Certainly not. I should insult this audience by attempting to prove that a rich man, as such, is neither better nor happier than a poor one. But as men grow rich, they live better. Is there any good in this, stopping here? Is mere animal life-feeding, working, and sleeping like an ox — entitled to be called good? Certainly not. But these improvements increase the population. And what good does that do? Where is the good in counting twelve millions, instead of six, of mere feeding, working, sleeping animals? There is, then, no good in the mere animal life, except that it is the physical basis of that higher moral existence, which resides in the soul, the heart, the mind, the conscience; in good principles, good feelings, good actions (and the more disinterested, the more entitled to be called good) which flow from them. Now, sir, I say that generous and patriotic sentiments, senti

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