ADDRESS 
BEFORE THE 
PHOENIX LITERARY SOCIETY 
OF THE 
* 
COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MARY, 
IN DEDICATION OF THEIR NEW HALL, 
ON THE STH OF DECEMBER, 1859. 
BY EDWARD S. JOYNES, A. M., 
Professor of Greek in William and Mary College. 
Published by Request of the Society. 
RI C II M ONI): 
MACFARLANE & FERGUSSON. 
1860. ADDRESS. 
Mr. President and Gentlemen 
Of the Phoenix Literary Society, 
Of William and Mary College : 
I thank you for the honor you have done me, in inviting me 
to address you on this occasion. Although reluctant always to 
appear unnecessarily before the public, and although fully con- 
scious of my inability to do justice to this occasion, or under 
the circumstances to meet perhaps even your just expectations, I 
have felt that this occasion had an appropriateness in itself, and 
a peculiar significance for us, which gave to your invitation a 
claim upon me, as a Professor in William and Mary College, 
and as an honorary member of your Society, which I could not 
disregard. If I have interpreted this invitation aright, it has a 
meaning beyond that of a mere personal compliment to me, 
however grateful to myself that may be. You have meant 
thereby to designate this occasion as one which might worthily 
unite the Faculty with the students of William and Mary for its 
appropriate celebration, and, by your choice of one of us to rep- 
resent you, to give expression to that community of interest and 
of feeling between you and us, which this occasion so eminently 
suggests, and which, I trust, it may serve to strengthen and per- 
petuate among us all. 
A few months ago, the Faculty and the students of William 
and Mary were mingled in a common sorrow; to night, we are 
here to participate in a common joy.. Together we have borne 
the privations which our desolation had brought upon us; to- 
gether we celebrate that finished work which restores our loss. 
That great calamity which laid our ancient temple in ashes, and 
brought affliction far and wide upon all who loved William and 
Mary, only served to bind still closer that sympathy of feeling, 
and that community of interests, which have ever united our 
Faculty and our students. Together we have passed through 
trial, and learned by it our mutual dependence. When we were 
driven, naked and houseless, into the world, to find, where we 4 
ADDRESS. 
could, a resting-place for our exiled Penates, the students of 
William and Mary, with a spirit worthy of their predecessors 
in the most glorious days of her history, rallied to a man around 
us, and assuring us of their sympathy and. approval, clung to us 
without flinching to the end; and the Faculty still remember, 
for they could not forget, those gloomy days, when, our buildings 
in ashes, our apparatus of every kind destroyed, your very rooms 
and furniture consumed, we met together in a building, not 
lathed, not plastered, nor even completely floored, and there, 
without benches, without tables, without comfortable fires in the 
dead of winter, still tried mutually to do our duty. This con- 
stitutes a claim upon our gratitude which we cannot forget; and 
as you stood by us in our troubles, sharing cheerfully every pri- 
vation through the darkness of the night, so it is right that we 
should join with you to hail the dawning of another day, bright 
in promise to us all, which restores to us our College, to you 
your halls, to William and Mary a local habitation, wherein the 
hearts of all her sons may dwell. And it is especially appro- 
priate that this celebration should take place first in the hall of 
the Phoenix Literary Society; for that conflagration which 
buried all in common ruin, spent its last consuming fury upon 
your hall. We saved something, however little, yet enough at 
least to serve as memorials of what we had lost, and to preserve 
unbroken the record of the glorious history of William and 
Mary ; you lost everything, your furniture, your library, the 
very records of your past existence. Ere help could reach the 
spot, your library, the collected treasures of years, with that 
monumental library of William and Mary, which history can 
never cease to mourn, were mingled in one common sacrifice- 
a precious hecatomb to the consuming God, while the flames 
leaped and laughed to heaven, as if exulting in triumph over 
the destruction, in an hour, of the treasured monuments of hu- 
man genius, which centuries had contributed to fame. 
In organizing your society, accepting as their motto the spirit 
of that Egyptian myth which, dimly foreshadowing what science 
has since revealed, symbolized in the beautiful fable of the Phoe- 
nix, the reproductive powers of nature, and that undying recrea- 
tive energy which brings new life out of the elements of disso- 
lution, your founders named it the Phoenix Society. Little did ADDRESS. 
5 
they then think that that name was destined to be not only the 
watchword of its life, but the presage of its doom. Little did 
you think, when last you met in that old hall, that you would so 
soon be called upon to test your title to the name, and, by the 
display in moral action of that undying energy which the Egyp- 
tians typified in the world of nature, to convert fable into fact, 
and martyred upon the blazing pyre, to rise yourselves " Phoe- 
nix-like from your ashes." And you have done so. This night, 
arisen to new life, you rebaptize yourselves "The Phoenix." 
You assemble to-night in a hall not unworthy of your past his- 
tory, to enter, like your fabled bird, upon a new career of youth- 
ful life, renewed and purified by fire. Not without embarrass- 
ments in the present, you are yet ready, with hope and courage, 
to encounter and conquer every difficulty. "Perplexed," it 
may be, you are not " in despair." " Cast down," you are not 
" destroyed." If you have lost your perishable possessions, you 
possess unbroken that moral power by which you may replace 
them; if you have lost your records, it only enables you to en- 
shrine your history in your memory, and to perpetuate in the 
glowing colors of tradition, more fond than history, those recol- 
lections which fire cannot destroy ; if you have lost your treas- 
ured library, that gives you a claim upon your honorary mem- 
bers, your Alumni and friends, which they cannot disregard, and 
which will more than enable you to replace your losses. With 
this session you enter upon a new era in your history; let it be 
not unworthy of your past fame, not unworthy of the inspiring 
name you bear, not unworthy of William and Mary, your Alma 
Mater, whose glorious Alumni are your elder brothers. 
But we do not forget, that in congratulating you upon the 
opening of your new hall, we all congratulate each other and 
ourselves. And, indeed, we have cause for congratulation. 
This finished building, in which we now stand, whatever its im- 
perfections, is a triumph. In a few short months, against many 
obstacles, under every embarrassment, beyond the hopes of our 
friends, contrary to the expectations of the public, this building 
has arisen from a heap of smoking ruins into its present form; 
and, whatever may be said of its architecture, to-day it is fin- 
ished, and we are in it. Burnt out in the middle of one session, 
we hold the first lecture of the next in a completed edifice, 6 
ADDRESS. 
which, in all its accommodations and appliances, is second to 
no College building in the State, and this without a single day 
lost from our lectures, or a cent squandered from our treasury. 
This, I say, is a triumph, and a cause for congratulation. If 
the Faculty have not done all which they might have done under 
better' auspices, they have done all which could have been done 
under the circumstances; and for the promptitude and faithful- 
ness with which we have endeavored to do our duty, we confi- 
dently challenge criticism. And as a member of the Faculty, 
speaking in this presence, I should be insensible to the dictates of 
justice, if I did not signalize especially the ability and fidelity with 
which our President* has discharged his trying duties, and, ever 
ready at his post, in council or in action, has guarded the interests 
of the College through every emergency. To him, more than 
to any other human agency, is due, I sincerely believe, the early 
completion of this building. 
In seeking to do our duty, one thing we have not done. We 
have not ' removed this ancient landmark we have not torn down 
those old walls, and we rejoice in that when we remember our 
work. The traces of that antiquity which rendered the old build- 
ing so venerable, and so valuable as an historical monument, we 
have preserved in the foundations of the present; and for these in- 
tact we willingly surrender all the ornaments of modern architec- 
ture, These old walls arc sacred to the patriotic heart. They pre- 
serve unbroken a visible link, binding William and Mary to the 
glorious past of her history. The Ebenezer of a new epoch 
under the dominion of a mightier race, they rose here more than 
one hundred and fifty years ago, shedding the first light of 
science in the midst of an untutored wilderness, and heralding 
to a new world the conquering march of mind. Within them 
gathered the Indians, and here, under the sanction of the Chris- 
tian religion, the son of the forest was permitted to learn from 
the white man those lessons which might solace, it they could 
not avert, his own inevitable doom. They are connected with 
all the associations of our colonial history, when Williamsburg 
was the seat of the colonial government, and the centre of the 
colonial society, and when William and Mary was the royal 
Seminary, and as yet the only College in Virginia. They 
* Prof. Benj. S. Ewell. ADDRESS. 
7 
witnessed all the dark but glorious days of the Revolution. 
Within sight of them were enacted some of the noblest deeds, 
within sound of them were uttered some of the noblest words, 
that distinguished that glorious period. Within them had gath- 
ered, as students, some of the noblest of those heroes of the 
Revolution, whose names are now immortal as the Alumni of 
William and Mary. Here, in youth, they had nursed those 
noble inspirations which consecrated their manhood to liberty ; 
and William and Mary, proud of their perfected fame, still like a 
fond mother, remembers the days when she taught them to be 
men, while they were hers alone, ere fame had yet claimed them 
for immortality and mankind. 
These old walls are not only walls, but monuments ! The 
associations of centuries cluster around them. The spirit of the 
past, instinct with mute eloquence, dwells enshrined within them ; 
upon them arc hung, as in the ancient temples, invisible memo- 
rial tablets of glorious names, and the memories of kindred 
heroes hang like clustering pearls around them. So let them 
stand forever, the firm foundation of William and Mary,-sym- 
bol of her patriotic service, of her unshaken faith, of her con- 
servative history ; linking all the glories of her past with all her 
hopes of the future, and speaking to those who look upon them 
now the inspiration of an age of which we are the heirs, to 
exalt us by the memory of glorious examples, and to frown 
down upon us, if need be. the rebuke of a history of which it 
were a shame to be unworthy. 
In this building, thus worthy alike in the past and in 
the present, we are assembled to-night, to dedicate to its 
appropriate uses the hall of the Phoenix Literary Society. 
In assigning to the literary societies the largest and hand- 
somest rooms in the new building, the Faculty have intended 
not only to express their respect for these bodies, but 
to testify their deep conviction of the inestimable importance of 
such institutions as par^of a right system of education. As 
such they cannot be too highly prized. A voluntary, free asso- 
ciation of young men, for any worthy purpose, is always an in- 
teresting and animating spectacle. Youth, health, ambition, 
emulation, the ardor and hopefulness of youth, so beautiful to 
behold, are springs of power which, when associated and com- 8 
ADDRESS. 
bined into an organized machinery, and brought to bear upon a 
common object, must always produce effective results, for good 
or for evil, according to the law of their operation. Associated 
for such noble purposes as these, controlled and directed into 
healthy and harmonious action by the wise principles which 
govern your society, an organization combining such elements, 
constitutes an engine of intellectual and moral power beyond 
any other which can be brought to bear upon the education of 
young men. Such a society, self-constituted, self-governed, 
trains to true liberty, and the highest manhood, and develops 
every faculty into highest and most independent action, while 
it disciplines them all to the most harmonious co-operation. 
Such a society is yours. In their highest conception, below 
which I hope you will never be content to rest, the exercises and 
ends of the literary society may be said to comprehend all 
knowledge, and every department of learning may bo made sub- 
servient to its high purposes. In a most important aspect, such 
societies mediate between the school and the world of life, rest- 
ing upon the one, and stretching forth into the other ; and the 
deep influence which they exert upon the student is perpetuated 
in the mind and character of the man, and eminently realised 
in the practical discipline of life. They at once inform the 
mind and form the character. They not only develop the indi- 
vidual powers, but they adapt them to the relations of social and 
public life, Rescuing scholarship from the forms of scholasti- 
cism, and pouring its treasures into the channels of life, adapting 
knowledge to action, and informing action with the spirit of knowl- 
edge, they teach the student to be not only a scholar, profound 
in the learning of the schools, but a man, trained to the high 
duties of manhood and of citizenship. They represent, indeed, 
the very spirit of true education, which seeks in the universality 
of knowledge always the unity of a consistent and practical dis- 
cipline as the end of all study. As a theatre for such educa- 
tion, this hall is not only the peer of any lecture room in this 
College, but it is above and beyond any one of them, for in- 
deed, in its high exercises and its varied discipline, it compre- 
hends them all. Do the mathematics train the mind to deep 
analysis, and drill the powers to the serried march of logic?- 
do the languages develop the faculties of analogy and compar- ADDRESS. 
9 
ison, by varied and many-sided discipline endow the mind with 
quick perception and versatile adaptation, or by the loftiest 
models form the taste, and train to precision of thought and 
power of expression ;-do the physical sciences reveal the world 
of nature, in its infinite relations and subtle forces, unfolding 
the beautiful harmony of Nature's laws, and the divine power 
that dwells in all;-do the intellectual and moral sciences reveal 
that still more wonderful subjective world, that inner temple of 
the divine creation, wherein reason sits enthroned, realizing to 
man the mystery of self;-does history unfold the past, and 
make the buried dead instinct with the ever-living voice of wis- 
dom and experience ; does political economy trace the univer- 
sal law's that determine the wealth of nations and of individuals, 
and sound the deep lunar tides that ever fluctuate beneath the 
bubbling current of human affairs; does constitutional law define 
the theory of government, or explain the machinery of that 
system under which wre live ; does rhetoric crown the intellect 
with the graces of aesthetic culture, and open the beauties of 
literature to the perceptions of a refined and critical taste ;- 
above all this, does your own reading, ranging far beyond the 
limits of College text-books, and gathering treasure wherever 
genius may have strewed its jewels, store your mind with varied 
knowledge, or does your own thought and daily observation add 
to knowledge, which is property, that wisdom which is power: 
still, I repeat it, this Society, in its high objects, if rightly con- 
ceived, comprehends all knowledge and every discipline. These 
exercises, the debates, the essays, the extemporaneous discus- 
sions, call for the exercise of every faculty, and demand the 
results of the highest training of each in every department. 
They tax every power of reason, every artifice of logic; they 
compass every range of thought, and demand in language every 
resource of power, precision, beauty for their adequate and 
artistic expression. In their broad range, embracing every in- 
quiry and every discussion, they comprehend all knowledge; 
they sweep the circle of the sciences, natural and moral, for 
illustration, argument and metaphor, and appeal to all history 
for precept and example. For there is not a truth in the whole 
domain of knowledge which does not bear relation to other truth, 
and may not be made to serve its illustration ; not a link of any 10 
ADDRESS. 
discipline which may not be welded into the consistent chain of 
reasoning; not a flower culled from any field of beauty which 
may not be woven into the wreath of eloquence. And here 
" you have taken all knowledge to be your provinceyou em- 
brace within your exercises every subject of interest, curiosity 
or speculation, taxing every power and exhausting every re- 
source at your command. 
If this be true, and it is true, if you will only realize in your- 
selves the dignity of this conception, am I not right in calling 
this hall the peer of any lecture-room of science ? Am I not 
right in calling the Literary Society an epitome of every 
department of collegiate instruction? Nay, more-it interprets 
them all in their practical relations to universal truth; and by 
adapting them all to the service of independent thought, for 
every purpose of illustration or argument, it makes them a part 
of the permanent life and property of the mind, and the instru- 
ments of its power. It is a reservoir into which they may be 
said to converge, through which they are made to flow back into the 
streams of life, bearing the treasures of knowledge through every 
channel of thought into every field of speculation or of inquiry. 
As the exercises of the Literary Society are thus high and 
varied, alike in the objects they embrace and in the discipline 
they afford, so, too, are its ends high and comprehensive, 
beyond the range of any single science or any single art. The 
attainment of eloquence and the cultivation of literature, 
are the objects which if proposes; and these objects, rightly 
conceived, are, in dignity and far-reaching influence, the high- 
est earthly to which the human mind can aspire. 
Eloquence is, in one word, the power and the beauty of the 
human intellect, the very flower of all the faculties in their 
highest energy, and in their most perfect harmony. It is not a 
science, thotigh its laws rest upon the deepest principles of our 
common human nature; it is not an art, though its expression is 
artistic in the highest conception of the beautiful; it is not in 
thought, though the grandest thoughts are its instruments; nor 
in language, though it is the very majesty of human speech; 
nor in feeling, though ^the deepest symyathies are its medium 
and its touchstone. It is more than all these-in them all, yet 
above them all. It is action, energy, power; the human intellect ADDRESS. 
11 
in its grandest expression; the human heart in its deepest 
emotions; science and art transfused and transfigured into 
speech: thought, language, gesture: intellect, imagination, pas- 
sion: reason and persuasion; all combined into one mighty 
engine of power, which inspiration alone can move, which 
genius alone can wield. No analysis can define it; for its 
essence is a spirit and a power which defies analysis, and can 
be understood only when realized in its perfect and immediate 
action. A great occasion, appealing to the interests and sym- 
pathies of men; grand thoughts, apt to the subject, and fitly 
clothed in earnest words-above all, truth in thought and word 
and purpose; deep conviction and earnest feeling springing in 
the very soul, expressed in tone, in look, in action, and working 
by sympathy upon the minds and hearts of men, convincing the 
reason, persuading the will, inspiring the imagination, and lead- 
ing the whole soul captive to the enthusiasm of a master-mind-- 
all these belong to Eloquence, yet all these do not define it. 
Its only measure is its power ; and to this human nature every- 
where and all history bear concurrent testimony. 
It is through Eloquence that in all ages great minds have 
acted most powerfully upon the mass of men; through eloquence 
that individual character has wrought its deepest impress upon 
the history of nations. Eloquence, the power of speech, work- 
ing upon men through the leaven of human sympathy all perva- 
sive and all powerful, has won triumphs which swords could not 
win; has controlled multitudes where law was powerless; has 
animated enthusiasm where patriotism was dead, and has led 
men to great deeds and heroic sacrifices when every other 
motive was paralysed. It is a great moral agency, working 
through man upon men; and, as a power in history, could its 
influence be traced, it would be found to have wrought effects 
scarcely inferior in magnitude and permanency to the combined 
results both of arms and diplomacy. Better than these, it is a 
moral power; for while force may constrain the will, and com- 
pel to a reluctant obedience, Eloquence, appealing to the moral 
nature, moving and exalting the will, elevates the man into a 
freeman, and imparts itself the power which it evokes into 
action. A moral power, its influence is not limited by the occa- 
sion that calls it forth, nor are its triumphs exhausted by any 12 
ADDRESS. 
single trophy. Its empire is as enduring as truth, and as wide 
as universal sympathy. Its voice may be silenced, or its influ- 
ence for the present defeated, by the force of arms, or the hand 
of power; but the truths it utters arc eternal, and its appeals, 
addressed to our common human nature, speak even to future 
generations the voice of its power. Demosthenes went down 
before Philip-the Athenian orator before the armed king, 
whose Extraordinary power he had denounced in vain; the 
Philippics were silenced before victorious arms at Cheronma. 
But now, Macedonia is a conquered province; her very 
boundaries are erased from the map of Europe; the grave of 
Philip is trodden under barbarian heels, and the sceptre has de- 
parted from his house; while Demosthenes reigns, a king upon 
an eternal throne, and those Philippics, clothed in the immortal 
power of truth, enduring as the love of liberty itself, still thun- 
der against every tyrant, and inspire the hearts of patriots in 
every land. Cicero was beheaded upon the lonely sea-shore at 
Caieta, and the very hands that had penned his orations were 
cut off, by the minions of Mark Antony, who vainly dreamed 
that now the voice of Boman liberty was hushed; yet he and 
his Cleopatra, with all their pearls, have mouldered into forgot- 
ten dust, while Cicero, through his orations, preserved in the 
hands of every student, of every statesman, the revered model 
of the purest eloquence, speaks to us to-day in tones which no 
leagued triumvirate can hush, wielding an empire wider than 
ever Caesar swayed. 
If this is so, if such be its power, am I not right in saying 
that true eloquence is above every science and every art; and 
that it is a more worthy object of human effort, as it is a higher 
expression of individual power, than any one or all of them; 
and that an institution which has for its object the cultivation of 
this power is more important in the education of young men 
than any department of collegiate instruction ? 
It is true, that Eloquence is not a mere art. It cannot be 
learned. Its faculty is inborn. Its highest type is a revelation 
from heaven, which no study can attain where the divine afflatus 
is wanting; but it is equally true that its expression rests upon 
artistic principles, and that its means may be cultivated and 
improved. The greatest orators have always realized this truth, ADDRESS. 
13 
and the consciousness of inborn power did not lead them to 
despise those aids of discipline by which their faculties might 
be brought into most perfect expression. There is no man of 
ordinary capacity who may not, by study and self-discipline, 
attain to some degree of force and freedom as a p iblic speaker. 
The triumphs of the actor show how much may be effected by 
the cultivation of the merely external forms, the person, the 
voice, the look, the gesture, the habit of self-command, of bold 
and deliberate utterance; but all these are only outward forms, 
powerful, indeed, as aids to expression, but not the essence of 
eloquence. He who would attain to true eloquence, must pene- 
trate to its fountain, which is within himself, and there open up 
its living sources. To sincerity of conviction and enthusiasm of 
purpose, moral qualities, which only moral culture can develop, 
must be added the power of clear, strong thought, and the mas- 
tery of forcible, apt, and adequate language. And here I can- 
not too strongly emphasize the intimate connection between 
thought and language. They are as soul and body, as substance 
and form, intimate and essential; and there can be no true 
development or excellence in the one without a corresponding 
development and excellence in the other. Language is the 
immediate sign and essential form of thought; thought finds 
in language its immediate and only adequate expression. He 
who thinks clearly and strongly, will be sure to speak clearly 
and strongly. Confusion and weakness of language spring 
from confusion and superficiality of thought, however vanity 
may seek to veil the truth from ourselves; and that com- 
mand of language, clear, apt, forcible, which is the gift of 
eloquence and the charm of every society, can be attained 
only as the expression of thoughts themselves clear, simple, 
forcible. A ready tongue may beguile the ear and charm 
the senses for the moment with superficial phrases and well- 
turned periods; but that language which convinces and per- 
suades, which instructs and delights, can be the gift only of a 
mind habituated to exact thought, and trained to the mastery 
of its powers. And herein, gentlemen, simplicity is the 
chief virtue. Simplicity is the secret of strength, in thought, 
as in language; simplicity is clearness; simplicity is force; 
simplicity is truth. Without simplicity there can be no true 14 
ADDRESS. 
eloquence. Every great thought is simple, and the simplest 
language is its natural and most adequate expression; while the 
meretricious ornaments of a false rhetoric, obscuring the thought 
and confusing the language, are alike abhorrent to truth and 
offensive to good taste. 
Let him, then, who would open within himself the deep source 
of true eloquence, cultivate habits of simple and exact thought. 
Let him seek to attain clear and decided convictions upon every 
subject which he studies, and accustom himself, even in ordinary 
conversation, to the right use of the purest and simplest lan- 
guage. Disciplined to these habits, if called upon to speak, his 
mind will be ready to think at once, clearly and rapidly, and to 
the purpose; and such thoughts will be sure to find their easy 
expression in apt and forcible language. That embarrassment, 
which is the offspring of confused thoughts, will vanish before 
the clear perceptions and the strong purpose of a well-trained 
mind. Self-control, the result of habitual discipline, will secure 
dignity of manner and ease of delivery, and the ready command 
of language will give eloquent expression even to the plainest 
thoughts. 
Thus, if we cannot attain to the highest eloquence, we may 
at least master its elements. And there is no one, however 
humble his aspirations, who does not need to do so. In this 
country, every man, whether he seeks it or not, may be called 
upon to address assemblies of his fellow-citizens, in deliberation 
or in debate, in public meetings, or even at the festive-board. 
Our love for speech-making is proverbial, and few educated 
men can escape the inexorable call. On such occasions, every 
man should be prepared to acquit himself as becomes his posi- 
tion; and for this purpose, every man, whatever his native 
powers, needs to have trained himself by habitual discipline in 
thought and in language, which alone can give the power of 
ready and forcible speech. 
But in public life, at the forum, upon the hustings, in the 
legislative hall, not to trench upon the sacred precincts of the 
pulpit, public speaking is the chief means of influence, and 
eloquence is the passport to power. For those, then, who 
cherish public aspirations, the attainment of eloquence becomes 
the chief object of ambition; for it is the great lever of popular ADDRESS. 
15 
favor, and its mighty influence upon the opinions and passions 
of the people opens at once the highroad of honor and power 
to the successful orator. This is peculiarly true in this country, 
under our democratic government. The power of eloquence 
has ever been most conspicuous where men have been most free, 
for only freemen are free to listen to its appeals, or to obey its 
motives, and only freemen are capable of conceiving its spirit, 
oi- free to speak out its inspirations. It is itself free thought 
and free speech, in their most perfect energy. Eloquence is, 
indeed, the very voice of liberty; and the freest countries have 
ever produced the most and the greatest orators. Every epoch 
in the constitutional history of Great Britain has been signal- 
ized by the eloquence of illustrious British orators; and in our 
own country especially, under the impulse of democratic institu- 
tions, oratory has surpassed every other form of literature. 
The highest models of modern eloquence are to be found in our 
language; and by that subtle law of action and reaction, which 
adapts a language to the wants and uses of a people, and makes 
its development characteristic of theii' history, our English lan- 
guage has developed a power for spoken eloquence confessedly 
beyond any other ever spoken, the Greek alone, perhaps, ex- 
cepted. So that the young American who would attain to true 
eloquence, has at once the best models for its study, the fittest 
language for its expression, the widest field for its exercise, and 
the highest rewards as the prize of its attainment. 
Let those of you, young gentlemen, who possess or may 
acquire that gift, remember, that in this country especially, 
where it works so mightily upon the public mind, eloquence is 
the patriot's highest trust; that it is a talent, lent for his coun- 
try's good, a divine seed implanted within him, to be reared for 
the eternal harvest of truth and justice, and not alone for the 
perishing food of personal ambition. Here, freed from all con- 
straint, and under every impulse to its freest exercise, public 
oratory has become a mighty,engine of power-mighty indeed 
for good, but equally mighty for evil, according to the moral 
purpose which inspires and directs it. May you here, in this 
society, aspire to that true moral eloquence which is virtue as 
well as power. May you cultivate here principles and sentiments 
of character, as well as habits of thought and language, which 16 
ADDRESS. 
shall elevate you in public life above the base arts of the dema- 
gogue, who perverts the divine gift of eloquence to dazzle and 
mislead the popular mind; to disguise falsehood and selfishness 
under the deceitful form of plausible words; to arouse blind 
prejudice and mad passions, that he may ride to power, reckless 
of consequences, upon the surging billows of party; and which 
shall raise you to that true ideal of the orator, who teaches the 
people the right, the true, and the just; who, speaking from a 
noble soul, appeals only to the nobler nature ; who, revering 
humanity, shall speak to the intelligence that constitutes a 
people, and not to the base passions that make a mob; who, 
pleading for right, perverts not the truth by cunning sweetness 
of the tongue; who, swearing by liberty, takes not her name in 
vain, as though she were a harlot; who, claiming to serve his 
country for his country's good, remembers the moral foundations 
upon which her prosperity must rest, and holds the public weal, 
and those enduring principles of truth, justice, patriotism, in 
whose august name he speaks, as higher than any triumphs of 
eloquence, dearer than any personal ambition. Such an orator 
is indeed the apostle of a mission divine; the demagogue is a 
demon, whose arts are devilish! Such an eloquence is worthy 
of an angel; to attain such a power were the very transfigura- 
tion of human ambition. 
But mightier even than the power of Eloquence, because more 
enduring, is the influence of the Pen. This has been suggested, 
and is, indeed, partly included, in what has been already said; 
for it is only by the aid of the Pen that Eloquence itself can be 
rescued from oblivion. 
Eloquence speaks upon the inspiration of an occasion-it 
springs from a definite purpose, and aims at a definite result ; 
and when its immediate object has been attained, its tones, un- 
less embalmed by the pen, die away with the occasion which in- 
spired them, or live only in fond tradition which seeks in vain 
to perpetuate their echoes. But the Pen constructs monuments 
which survive the lapse of time, and speak to all ages with a 
voice as universal as human language itself. Dynasties may 
change, nationalities may be obliterated, languages themselves 
may perish from the earth, but literature survives in perpetual 
possession ; for it is a part of the common property of the ADDRESS. 
17 
universal mind. The influence of the warrior or the statesman, 
if it be not spent, will at least be lost to sight in the vanishing 
labyrinth of ultimate causation, which no human eye can trace ; 
but the work of the pen remains itself an enduring monument 
to fame, and its influence survives as a moral pewer, which 
time only consecrates and extends. Alexander perished in the 
midst of his victories ; time has wrested back his conquests; the 
thrones he established are fallen forever ; the very language 
which he bore in triumph to the ends of the world has ceased 
to be spoken upon the earth ; yet Aristotle, the philosopher, 
who trained him to greatness, the herald of a progress mightier 
than the march of a Macedonian phalanx, still survives in his 
written works, extending the empire of his mind through every 
language, in every land. Pisistratus, however unjustly, is 
known as a statesman only by the title of "the Tyrant," who 
rose to power upon the ruins of liberty; but that Homer, whose 
precious poems he rescued from oblivion, will, carry his name on 
the sweet music of the Iliad and the Odyssey to the latest 
breath of posterity, immortal as the " wrath of Achilles." 
There is nothing so immortal, which we mortals can produce, 
as enduring works in literature and in art; there is nothing- 
mortal, so like immortality itself, as that fame and that influ- 
ence which follow upon great achievements in the world of 
letters. That which an individual or a nation has conceived of 
truth, and incorporated into forms of beauty, whether in writ- 
ten language or in the plastic arts-for all art is literature in 
the highest sense-cannot die, because it is the property of univer- 
sal humanity. It belongs to the domain of truth and beauty, 
whose empire is universal and eternal, so long as men can think 
and feel and aspire ; and becomes henceforth the common her- 
itage and treasure of every tongue and nation and kindred, 
wherever there is intellect to understand, and sensibility to ap- 
preciate. The noblest work of any nation is its literature ; 
for this is the very life of its mind, wrought into enduring 
form. A nation's literature is its history, the history of its 
spiritual being ; and the works in .literature and art which it 
has produced are the highest monuments it can leave of itself, 
the truest expression of its intellectual character, its best con- 
tribution to universal history, and its noblest gift to posterity. 18 
ADDRESS. 
To enjoy this fame, to wield this influence, is the highest 
achievement. Though less rapturous than the triumph of the 
orator, in the moment of exulting inspiration, the triumph of 
the writer is more satisfactory in the consciousness of a wrnrk 
done which shall endure forever ; though less transported upon 
the applause of the moment, he wins more of the meed tf true 
fame ; though less mighty in immediate and apparent effect 
upon a few, his influence is wider and more enduring, for his 
audience is the world, and his words live forever. And as the 
empire of the pen is thus more universal than that of the 
tongue, so it is more democratic in its suffrages; as its prizes 
are more enduring, so it is more impartial in the distribution of 
its honours. The highest attainments of eloquence pre-suppose 
gifts of person, voice, manner, temperament, from which many 
are by nature precluded; but the kingdom of the pen is a spir- 
itual kingdom, whose high places are closed against no physical 
infirmities. Kant was a curiosity in appearance, a very bear 
in personal habits; Neander looked like an idiot, and dressed 
like a heathen; yet the " Philosophy of Reason," and the 
" History of the Church," have made these men immortal, as 
the instructors and benefactors of mankind, and only the pic- 
ture upon the title page betrays their infirmities. Prescott was 
bhnd, Byron was lame and morbidly diffident, Coleridge was the 
paralyzed victim of opium, Goldsmith " talked like poor Poll,"yet 
he "wrote like a God," and the Vicar of Wakefield is in every 
house. The arena of letters is open to every competitor, how- 
ever weak in worldly power, and its prizes may be won by any 
hand that is strong enough to hold a pen. But not the less 
therefore docs it require intellectual and moral qualities, both 
of endowment and of discipline, of the highest character to en- 
sure suqcess with the pen; nay, rather the more because the 
writer is devoid of those external effects, and those personal 
sympathies, which so mightily aid the orator. Original thoughts 
and noble sentiments, expressed in strong and noble language, can 
alone entitle a writer to the attention of his contemporaries; and 
the very highest endowments, both of intellect and of tempera- 
ment, are essential to that authorship " which shall live forever 
upon the lettered page." 
But besides those natural endowments, which indeed no effort ADDRESS. 
19 
can supply, there is much that discipline can, in a great meas- 
ure, effect. That continuity of thought, that symmetry of form, 
that witchery of language, that winning sweetness and grace of 
expression, which give to thought new dignity and beauty, and 
which, in some authors, throw a charm inexpressible around the 
simplest subjects ; these are qualities which, in a great measure 
certainly, may be obtained by discipline and effort. This is an 
art, and the highest art. This is style ; not a mere trick of 
words, nor the flow of rhythm in graceful periods. Its secret 
and source is in that discipline of the mind to order, that har- 
monious development of the faculties, that educated sensibility 
to beauty, which shall give to every thought order, unity, sym- 
metry ; to language, fitness, grace, music ; to style, in a word, 
a soul of truth, and a form of beauty, which is the summit of 
all rhetoric, the spiritual type of the highest art. This art 
can be cultivated ; and, as in every art, it is the study of the 
highest models in every department of excellence, which at 
once educates the taste to the appreciation of their beauty, and 
trains the mind to the mastery of those principles by which 
they are conceived and perfected. Not for the servile imita- 
tion of any master; but such a study of the highest models in 
literature, such a communion with the great masters of thought 
and language, that the soul itself shall become instinct with 
their spirit, and the mind shall be moulded by their contact. 
A mind thus habituated to beautiful forms, in thought and in 
language, will adapt itself spontaneously to such forms as the 
natural law of its own operations. Trained to perceive the 
Beautiful everywhere, it will instinctively, as it were, reproduce 
its images. Formed by such standards, Order will be the law of 
its own conception, Beauty the natural form of its expression. 
This is not imitation; it is transfusion and appropriation. It 
aims at the highest development of all the powers by sub- 
jecting them to that perfect law of order, which is the condi- 
tion of the highest development of each; and the boldest 
originality need not be ashamed of such a reverent study. 
But even for those who do not aspire to authorship, nor 
propose an exclusive devotion to literary pursuits, the culti- 
vation of style and the habitual exercise of the pen cannot be 
neglected. As a discipline merely for the mind, this exercise 20 
ADDRESS. 
is of the highest value. He who writes well will speak well; 
and he who writes most and best, will speak best and most 
easily. The pen is the touchstone of thought. It is easy 
enough to think superficially and hastily upon any subject, but 
the effort to reduce one's thoughts to writing will compel us to 
think deliberately and accurately, to mark well the connec- 
tion of ideas in the effort to construct them into consecu- 
tive sentences or harmonious periods- In order to clothe our 
thoughts in appropriate forms of language, we must give to the 
thoughts themselves order, form, unity ; to be clear and com- 
pact in style, we must be clear and compact in thought; and 
for this no test is so infallible as the pen. No study in litera- 
ture, no practice in speech, can impart that power and ease of 
expression, which is the touchstone of strong thought and the 
highest mark of true discipline, without the frequent and inde- 
pendent exercise of the pen. This is the highest discipline, 
for it is self-education both in thought and in language- Added 
to this, the conscientious criticism of our own writings, by the 
highest standards of style will give that due estimate of our 
own powers which is the measure of true knowledge, and 
keep alive that true humility which is the spring of true am- 
bition and the best guarantee of success. 
But the ambition of authorship, and the aspiration for lite- 
rary fame, are not the only pursuits which consecrate the 
pen. Though the heritage of mankind is in the past, and its 
hopes are garnered in the future, yet its most vital interests are 
in the present, which is at once the heir of all the past and 
the embryo of all the future. That Prayer, the Liturgy of lips 
divine, which reaches from eternity to eternity, compassing 
every mortal want and every immortal aspiration, does not for- 
get the petition for " this day our daily bread." In the pres- 
ent we live, a series of ever present moments constitute that 
life which shall bring us into an eternity, itself ever present; 
a succession of epochs and events, ever present to their actors, 
make that history which writes the destiny of the world. The 
present moment is the measure of moral accountability; for it 
alone is ours. All else is memory, in joy, regret, or remorse- 
anticipation, in hope, purpose, or fear. " Act ! act I in the 
living present," is the voice of Philosophy and Religion, as ADDRESS. 
21 
well as of poetry; and the pen has its present uses, not less 
noble, if less ambitious, than the highest aspirations of au- 
thorship. 
There is an ephemeral literature, which, born of the present 
and aiming to work only in the present, is not less noble in its 
mission, nor less mighty in its influence, than the most treas- 
ured monuments of genius which the applause of centuries may 
have consecrated. The newspaper press has become the 
mightiest moral engine in the world. It is the universal me- 
dium for the dissemination of intelligence, for the interchange 
.of opinion, for the public discussion of the most vital questions 
of human interest, foi' the instruction of the public mind, and 
for the expression and the control of public opinion. The 
editor of a public journal stands at the very centre of moral 
influence, and " wields from its fulcrum a lever that is bound- 
less in its sweep." In our own country especially, where that 
liberty of unlicensed printing, for which Milton plead so elo- 
quently, is assured as the inalienable right of freemen; where 
the issues of party politics furnish such abundant material for 
public discussion ; where the manifold interests of a vast and 
growing country expand and stimulate the public mind to 
thought and inquiry; where public opinion, ever awake to every 
question, is ever seeking public expression, newspapers have 
multiplied in numbers and increased in influence, beyond all 
parallel in history. The newspaper is the great lever of the 
popular mind, universal and powerful beyond any other; and 
this ephemeral press supplies reading, thought, instruction, and 
opinion, for thousands of busy men who never open a book. 
Daguerreotyping thought upon paper by the magic machinery 
of the type, reproducing its impressions with a rapidity which 
would paralyze Cyclopean arms, by engines instinct with a 
power more cunning than Vulcan, the daily press plies its cease- 
less batteries, and spreading the wires of its spiritual telegraph 
into every household, it sends its magnetic messages from mind 
to mind, charging the whole body of society, and flooding the 
land with the unseen but mighty wave of its influence. Already 
the press has acquired a fearful power-a power mighty for 
good, but no less terrible for evil; mighty to instruct, to exalt, 
to educate-to knowledge, patriotism, peace ; terrible to mis- 22 
ADDRESS. 
lead, to beguile by false show, to arouse prejudice and passion, 
and to furnish food for those consuming excitements, which 
burn out the heart of a people. And it is much to be feared 
lest, in this country, this mighty organ has been in too many 
cases perverted to abuses, which, unless corrected by a whole- 
some public opinion, may well cause the patriot already to 
tremble before the consequences. Instead of being the organ 
of a wise and enlightened public opinion, the instructor of the 
public mind, disseminating true knowledge, and educating to a 
conservative love of liberty, the press has become, in a great 
measure, the tool of party, the servile mouthpiece of selfish in- 
terests, feeding the excited passions of party strife, and de- 
grading the issues of principle to the selfish struggle for power. 
The observant reader of newspapers has not failed to perceive 
the proofs of this degeneracy ; and in the signs of the times 
there is reason to fear lest this evil, already so great, should 
become still more terrible; lest the press, from being the voice 
of the people, which is the voice of God, should become alto- 
gether the clamor of faction, which is the howl of a demon ; 
lest that power into whose hands we have entrusted the beacon 
lights of liberty, should bear aloft the torch of the incendiary; 
lest that mighty agency to which we had looked as the sword 
and bulwark of our free government, should be turned against 
ourselves, to undermine our institutions, and to hasten on that 
day-Deus avertat omen-when the public mind, beguiled by a 
false philosophy, and blinded by excited passions ; the public 
confidence lost; the truth distorted ; justice and moderation ban- 
ished from the public councils as from the public press ; pat- 
riotism itself confused, blinded, staggered, by the false lights 
and raging fires of party ; the poisoned fountains shall at last 
burst forth, and the nation rent by anarchy, shall be driven to 
seek refuge from its horrors beneath the power of a despot. 
And if the worst must come to the worst, if ignorance is to be 
deluded with a deceitful confidence of knowledge, and taught the 
watchword of principle for the service of party; if brute force 
is to be armed with the weapons of destruction, and urged on 
to the work of ruin; if passion is to be exalted to the throne of 
reason, patronage to be substituted for patriotism, liberty to be 
prostituted to the harlotry of license-then God deliver us ! ADDRESS. 
23 
for if there is any tyranny that is monstrous and intolerable, 
without remedy and without appeal, it is the tyranny of the 
many-the tyranny of a multitude, beguiled by false leaders, and 
mad with misguided passions ; for this tyrant is irresponsible and 
nameless, without reason and without feeling; a Protean mon- 
ster whose heart no patriot dagger can reach ; a hydra, whose 
multitudinous heads no Hercules can sear. How far this is so, 
how far this tendency has wrought already in our country; how 
far our party press represents the sentiments of the majority 
of intelligent and patriotic men, or how far rather the interests 
of the unprincipled demagogue, or self-seeking partizan ; how 
far it speaks for country, or' rather how far it clamors for party, 
how for it instructs, elevates, and confirms the public mind, or 
rather how far it misleads, inflames, excites it; how far indeed 
that excited temper which too often distinguishes our people ; 
those intemperate opinions which characterize party discussion, 
that lawlessness which runs riot in oui' cities, turning to mock- 
ery the very name of liberty, and trampling in blood its most 
sacred institutions ; those crimes in frequency unparalleled and 
increasing, which bring disgrace upon our laws ; that impa- 
tience under restraint, which can brook no authority ; that ma- 
terialism which knows no reverence ; that discontent ever seek- 
ing after change ; that disregard of human life, which commits 
wholesale slaughter upon our public highways; that recklessness in 
speculation, which again and again brings on first the crisis and 
then the crash, unsettling property, destroying credit and 
shaking the very foundations of society; that spirit of aggres- 
sion and rebellion which deluges our borders in blood, and hoists 
the red banner of insurrection ; that wild fanaticism which at- 
tacks every institution human and divine, prostituting philan- 
thropy to abolitionism, matrimony to the disgusting orgies of 
free love, and preaching, even from the pulpit, doctrines and 
superstitions repugnant alike to religion and to humanity;-how 
far all this (and who has not seen all this somewhere or other 
in this wide country ?) is due to causes which the false teach- 
ings and degrading influence of an immortal press have helped 
to excite and to inflame; a press which, uniting the spirit of 
the partizan to the arts of the demagogue, conspires with these 
to urge on the strife of party, reckless of ruin ; a press, which, 24 
ADDRESS 
enslaved to the passions of the hour, makes heroes of agitators 
and martyrs of traitors ; a press, which in matter and style ever 
seeking to make a sensation, applauds all novelty, and exagger- 
ates all excitement; and which, to feed the depraved appetite 
which it excites, panders to the basest instincts of men, by pub- 
lishing abroad novels and tales which stimulate the suggestions 
of an impure imagination, accounts of prize fights with humam 
pictures of inhuman brutality, and by parading before the public 
eye details of lust and crime, which cast shame upon humanity 
and bring the blush to every virtuous cheek; how far such ef- 
fects are due to the influence of such causes, I do not under- 
take to say-but I do ask, and it behooves every man to con- 
sider before it be too late. Folly and recklessness unheeded 
may arm the demon off ruin, and light the fires of hell; but 
where is then the wisdom that shall quench the burning, or 
the physician that shall " minister to the mind" of a people 
infected and diseased ? 
To correct this evil, to stay this mighty tempest of moral 
ruin that is sweeping over our land, we must look alone to the 
influence of a wholesome public sentiment, which, educated to 
truth, moderation, patriotism, shall frown down these appeals to 
ignorance, prejudice and passion ; to an enlightened, purified 
public taste, which, true to the instincts of virtue, shall reject 
these offerings to Moloch, and cast this putrid offal to the dogs. 
By all the agencies of morality, good taste, education, religion, 
we must fight against these things ; but especially, and most 
directly, through the counter influence of a virtuous press, 
which, meeting them on their own ground, shall anticipate and 
beat back their pernicious influence, and which, fulfilling its 
own high mission, as the vested guardian of truth and liberty, 
of purity and religion, shall by its high ministry exalt the 
public mind above all sympathy with what is'false and vile and 
filthy, so that the public appetite shall no longer crave such 
carrion food; such a press as, I am proud to say, Virginia still, 
in great measure, possesses.. 
What a grand field is here open for the ambition of the 
youthful patriot; what a noble effort this, to elevate the tone 
of our public press, to check its degeneracy, and resist its cor- 
ruption ; to exalt it by the teachings of a sound philosophy into ADDRESS. 
25 
a noble organ of truth and light, fit io instruct, and by the 
standards of a pure taste, to a chaste literature, worthy to form 
and to exalt the sentiments and sympathies of a great and free 
people. Whether as an editor, in its true conception one of 
the highest offices that can dignify a freeman,-a profession to 
which Hugh Miller was proud to belong,-or as a contributor 
to columns which are ever open to those who, by good sense 
and pertinent thought, can prove their right to address the 
public, or simply as an individual, bringing to bear by a clear 
judgment,an^ enlightened criticism, and a discriminating pat- 
ronage, the weight of your own influence in disseminating what 
is good, and resisting what is evil, every educated man can con- 
tribute more or less to this great end. But to do even this, you 
must have that disciplined mind and that educated taste which 
shall make you a competent judge; as a writer, to instruct others, 
you must have that power of thought, that wealth of know- 
ledge, and that command of language, in a word, that excellence 
of style which shall first attract and secure their attention. 
These powers, the right use of your Library, with the constant 
exercise of your Pen, can alone develope ; and this discipline 
your Literary Society by its exercises at once demands, encour- 
ages, and facilitates. 
Yet this is not all. To this high office, to these noble ends 
of patriotism and virtue, belongs a moral as well as an intel- 
lectual discipline, which your literary society may indeed assist 
but cannot entirely supply. For this you must look to the 
moral power within yourselves, and, without and above your- 
selves, to other and higher sources of influence. But of this, 
I must not speak here. 
But not for these purposes alone, however noble in themselves, 
would I commend you to your Library and to your Pen. The 
pursuit of literature has its own self-sufficient value, independ- 
ent of all the great ends to which it may be made subservient; 
and in its own pure pleasures, exalted and inexhaustible beyond 
all the pleasures of sense; in its ennobling and refining influ- 
ences upon the mind and the soul, it has its own reward and 
self-sufficient end. A cultivated taste is a moral sensibility- 
a spiritual attribute of infinite value as a moral power. As 
there is a "beauty of holiness," so there is a holiness in beauty 26 
ADDRESS 
to him who understands aright its divine spirit. He who 
preached from the Lilies of the Valley, recognized Beauty as the 
handmaid of Truth, and appealed to the taste to interpret the 
teachings of divine wisdom. He who created the world so 
full of beauty- 
'•The air 
So living with its spirit, and the waves 
All dancing to the music of its melody, 
And sparkling in its brightness"- 
meant to consecrate the Beautiful for His creatures by the seal 
of His own love. Beauty is in all truth, as truth is in all 
beauty ; and indeed in their highest type and most perfect 
conception, in the divine mind, as even in the last aspirations 
of the human soul, they are one-beauty and truth, the moral 
harmony of the divine perfections. The love of truth and the 
love of beauty are the two things that are divine yet in the 
human soul-perennial flowers of Paradise, blooming in the 
wilderness of sin, links that bind us to our primeval Eden, at 
once the memorials of our fall, and the instincts of our aspira- 
tion after better things. The sense of the beautiful mediates 
between our sensuous and moral nature, imparting to the soul 
as do the bodily senses to the mind, the impulses of its life, and 
exalting the senses to the perception of spiritual things. The 
man who has retained this instinct pure and uncorrupted can 
never be wholly lost to noble motives, and many a time in 
minds closed against every appeal to reason, and hardened 
against every touch of conscience, the appeal of the Beautiful, 
through sense or through memory, has raised a swell of deep 
emotion in the soul, arousing conscience from its sleep, and 
awakening to new life the moral powers. It was the sound of 
music sacred from the associations of childhood, that dashed 
the poisoned cup from the lips of Faust. 
This divine instinct is in its very nature pure and exalting. 
It has no sympathy with evil, no fellowship with impurity. 
Corrupted it is lost; then the soul is poisoned at the very 
source of its purest emotions ; the senses and the imagination 
are made to pander to its depraved appetites, and the ordained 
ministers of its glory become the polluted instruments of its ADDRESS. 
27 
shame. This instinct of the beautiful, this divine sympathy- 
needs then to be guarded as the very eye of the soul, to be 
shielded from every corrupting influence, to be trained and per- 
fected by exalted standards and pure associations, lest like 
every moral instinct, it becomes, when perverted, a curse to 
that soul which it was given to bless ; for " if the light that is 
in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness." Its culture, 
therefore, and right development is for those who, whether as 
parents or as teachers, have the training of others, or for you 
and for all, who, in the universal school of life, are engaged in 
the endless work of self-education, a matter of the last impor- 
tance, and of the highest moral responsibility. Without this 
the highest development is impossible, the purest joys are un- 
attainable. Yet how much neglected, nay, even ignored is this 
divine instinct of our nature, by those who profess to educate 
the noblest powers, as if the soul had no spiritual sympathies, 
and the senses no nobler use than to minister to the service of 
the body. 
With this sense of the Beautiful, disciplined and developed 
by the highest standards of Beauty in literature and art, with 
this love of the Beautiful chastened and exalted by right 
teachings and pure associations, the soul would be in sympathy 
only with what is beautiful and pure and good ; the imagina- 
tion would roam enchanted only in the pure fields of innocence 
and beauty; the senses would delight only in objects of chaste 
enjoyment; the mind would attain clearer perceptions, and be 
inspired with a nobler love for truth; the conscience, enlight- 
ened and purified by such exalted communion, would mould the 
will into harmony with those pure impulses, and the whole 
character, transfigured into the image of its own ideal, would 
mirror forth that beauty which was treasured in the soul. A 
pure and cultivated taste affords to the mind at once its highest 
enjoyments, and its own best protection against evil; for where 
there is no sympathy there can be no contact and no contami- 
nation. Such a taste in literature would lead the mind to de- 
light only in the pure and healthful streams that flow from the 
perennial fountains of Truth and Beauty, and would banish for- 
ever from your libraries, and from your eyes, all that is false, 
unnatural, or degrading, in matter or in style, however her- 28 
ADDRESS. 
aided by high titles, or sanctioned even by responsible names. 
How much of that light literature, which now fills our book- 
stores, would cease to be read, and therefore to be written, if 
the taste of the reading public were only educated and exalted 
by worthy standards to the appreciation of what is really noble, 
beautiful and good. 
To cultivate such a taste, to furnish you with the standards 
for its discipline, and with the food for its enjoyment, your lit- 
erary society offers you its library and demands of you those 
exercises which shall test, discipline, and perfect your own in- 
dependent powers of thought and of criticism. Ara I not right, 
then, in exalting this institution ? Am I not right in saying 
that it is, for your true education, not only the peer of any de- 
partment of science, but that it is above and beyond them all, 
as comprehending all knowledge and every discipline ? Am I 
not right in saying that when it is known that your library has 
been consumed by fire, this appeal will give you a claim upon 
your Alumni, your friends and the public, which cannot and 
will not be resisted. Eloquence, literature, the discipline of 
thought and language, and the cultivation of the taste, for all 
the ends of ambition, for all the services of patriotism and vir- 
tue, for all the pure enjoyments and exalting influences of liter- 
ature and art, how noble these objects ; these powers, how 
magnificent! Yet these arc the objects which your literary so- 
ciety sets before you ; these are the powers which, by appro- 
priate exercises, it proposes to develop within you. Were not 
this enough, if I should say no more ? But this is not all, nor 
yet the greatest. Eloquence, literature, knowledge, the utmost 
discipline of mind, with the utmost perfection of taste, do not 
yet compass humanity, nor make a man. To be a Man is, af- 
ter all, the best thing, that which most becomes a Man: to be 
a Man in the moral image of his Maker ; a Man with all the 
noble attributes of a Man, developed and trained to the high 
purposes of life; a Man in character and in action ; a Man in 
thought and in word ; a Man in all the strength and truth and 
gentleness of ft'ue manhood. This is the highest, this is the 
best, this is the end of every discipline, and includes every am- 
bition. Whatever may be your especial pursuit in life, whatever 
stand you may take in your own profession, you are at least ADDRESS. 
29 
called upon to be a man ; to bear a man's part in life's great 
battle ; to acquit yourself as becomes a man, in all the sacred 
relations which you shall sustain to your fellow men, and in all 
the responsibilities which shall be imposed upon you. And to 
be a man means, in this country, to be a man with high pre- 
rogatives and great privileges ; to be a citizen of a free coun- 
try, vested with all the rights, and entrusted with all the 
interests of liberty ; an individual, constituent member of a 
free society, in all the dignity, and sovereignty, and responsi- 
bility of a freeman. Whatever may be our several vocations, 
this one includes us all. Whatever- our individual interests, in 
this we all meet; and no man can, without treason, turn his 
back upon it. 
This true manhood, gentleman, this true citizenship compre- 
hends everything ; it is above every profession and every ac- 
complishment. It is the development of all the powers, moral 
as well as intellectual; of all the sentiments, of virtue as well 
as of taste; the exercise of all the noblest attributes ; the ex- 
emplification of every virtue, in all the relations of life; at 
home and abroad: in public and in private. This is the true 
object of life, above all the aspirations of fame. This is the 
true ambition, the ambition to be, and not to seem; the ambition 
to deserve, not to enjoy. Honor, fame, wealth-all these are 
the ornaments and the instruments of life; but manhood is the 
soul and end, without which all these are but as the ornaments 
that gild the whited sepulchre. With this the humblest man is 
a hero ; without this the highest position has no nobleness. 
This is the true virtus. This alone gives a man true value; for 
it is not in your power, not in your wealth, not in your learning, 
but in your manhood, in your truth, in your purity, in your af- 
fection that are garnered the hopes of those that shall love you, 
and the sacred interests of society and of country that shall be 
entrusted to your keeping. 
To this manhood, gentlemen, to this citizenship no teacher 
can instruct you. It is included in no science, in no pursuit, 
and no Faculty of Professors can confer its high diploma. To 
this you must train yourselves. This is the work of self-educa- 
tion, which is indeed the great work of life. This is the highest 
discipline, for it comprehends all discipline; the discipline not 30 
ADDRESS. 
only of the intellect, but of the will; not only of the taste, hut 
of the conscience and of the heart; not only of all those pow- 
ers which give strength to the man, but of those courtesies 
which distinguish the gentleman, and of those virtues which 
adorn the Christian. 
And it is as an aid in this work of self-education, in this dis- 
cipline to manhood and to citizenship, that the literary society 
plays its most important part. Of all its objects, this is that 
one to which it is most peculiarly adapted, and which gives to 
it for you its pre-eminent value. While yet young men in the 
youth and health of all your powers, untrammelled by the obli- 
gations of society, unrestricted by those especial interests which 
engross the thoughts and often narrow down the development 
of men, you meet here upon the arena of a mimic life. Con- 
stituted into a sovereign society, self-organized, self-governed, 
you come here freed from every restraint, to bear your parts 
upon an experimental stage of action. Everywhere else you 
are under constraint; at home, by the obligations of relation- 
ship, and by that reverence for authority which is the best les- 
son of parental discipline;-in the lecture room, by that defer- 
ence for your professor, which is due to one who is appointed 
to be your teacher, and whose teachings, in his own sphere 
at least, have for you the weight of authority; in society, by 
that modesty which is the ornament of youth, and which teaches 
the young man to listen with deference to the opinion of his 
elders, that he may hereafter be able himself to deserve that 
respect which is due to a man; everywhere else you feel the 
restraint of authority, of form, or of public opinion, and this 
restraint itself is discipline. But here you are free ; here you 
are among your equals ; here you acknowledge no higher power, 
and bow before the presence of no authority. The motto of the 
Literary Society is, " in nullius verba jurare." Under no re- 
strictions except the self-imposed forms of parliamentary law; 
under no constraint except the presence of your fellows; with 
no one to molest or make you afraid, you here take your 
place in council and in action, as members of an independent 
society, with all the rights and duties of sovereigns. You are 
here called upon to bear your part on the arena of debate ; eye 
to eye, and face to face, to measure your strength in fair and ADDRESS. 
31 
open combat, and to take that place in the estimaton of your 
fellow-members, the " public opinion" of your Society, to 
which your own ability and your own merit may entitle you. 
As men and equals in your own strength alone, you stand in 
fair competition before a jury of your peers, whose impartial 
decision shall award to you victory or defeat, and whose opinion 
is your law. 
In this school, by these contests, hand to hand, besides all 
the discipline of intellect, you acquire that due estimate of your 
own powers, which is the measure of real strength, and learn 
that deference for the opinions of others, which is itself the test 
of sincere conviction. The formalities of debate educate to that 
courtesy of mutual intercourse, to that dignity and propriety 
in speech and in action which mark the educated gentleman ; 
and the practice of these imparts that self-control, that self- 
possession and ease, in language and in manner, which are at 
once the accomplishments of life and the instruments of power. 
The conduct of parliamentary forms-themselves valuable even 
as a mere routine-instructs you in that precision, that atten- 
tion to the minutiae of form, that order and system, in plan and 
in detail, that facility and accuracy in the despatch of business, 
w'hich are the true economy of the mind. The various questions 
which arise in the administration of your affairs, the decisions 
which you must make, whether officially or for the guidance of 
your own opinions, the discharge of your several duties, in de- 
bate, in office, in committee; all these discipline the power of 
independent thought and action, and develop those qualities of 
self-reliance, tact, and experimental common sense, which are 
so essential to success in the practical business of life. 
The very constitution of your society is a school for liberty 
and sovereignty. It is founded upon that principle of free as- 
sociation, which, in society and in governments, is the basis at 
once of individuality and of union. You constitute a republican 
government, by the authority and under the limitations of a 
written constitution; representing at once all the functions of 
legislative, judicial, and executive government you make, inter- 
pret, and administer your own laws. You participate, as leg- 
islators and as actors, in those conflicts of opinion and of policy 
which free government calls forth, and which test the strength 32 
ADDRESS. 
of principles and of men. One after another you fill high 
offices of dignity and trust, to which the suffrages of your fel- 
lows have elected you, and for which they hold you responsible 
to themselves. Clothed with all the privileges of freemen in 
society, you sit yourselves in parliamentary sovereignty, exer- 
cising the highest functions of self-government, and training 
yourself, by the discipline of parlimentary forms, for the highest 
duties of the legislator and the statesman. 
From this point of view ; as a school for life, for the discip- 
line of those qualities and powers which make the free man and 
the good citizen, the literary society is supremely important. It 
is above every other school. Its honors are higher than any 
we can confer. Its discipline is moral as well as intellectual; 
social as well as personal. Its lessons are practical and expe- 
rimental ; it stands in immediate contact with life, and is the 
very threshold and try sting-place of that great arena of action 
whereon you are so soon to stand, alone in your own strength 
or in your own weakness, cither to bear away the prizes of 
honor, or to be soiled with the inglorious dust of defeat. 
This pre-eminent moral value of the literary society is uni- 
versally, though it may be unconsciously, recognized by young 
men. The literary society, as the freest arena of college life, 
gives tone to, and in a great measure controls, the public opin- 
ion of the students. I have observed that the relative stand- 
ing of individuals in the estimation of their fellowr-students is 
generally determined by their standing in the literary society; 
and that that controlling influence which one student some- 
times exerts over his fellows, is generally the acknowledgment 
of that superiority of mind and character which the literary 
society haj tested and confirmed. The honors most anxiously 
coveted are those which th? literary society confers by its free 
suffrages. The hero of the lecture-room, who passes his exam- 
inations, and bears away the college honors, has, it is true, his 
merit, and receives his reward ; but it is the-dteir of the deba- 
ting society upon whom his fellow-students look with most ad- 
miration, and of whom they most confidently predict success 
and fame. And why? Because they recognize the literary 
society as the arena of independent thought, and of personal 
action, which tests the manhood as well as the memory, and ADDRESS. 
33 
which developes not only those talents which make the success- 
ful learner, but those moral and intellectual powers also which 
make the strong man, and ensure success in every sphere of ac- 
tion. 
Such is the institution which we here celebrate, such its high 
objects, such its profound and varied discipline. Let me hope 
that you will yourselves rise to this worthy conception of the 
dignity and value of your literary society; that according to 
this high standard, you will be true in your relations to it; so 
that you may be worthy of its privileges, and reap for your- 
selves the fruits of its high discipline, in all the varied accom- 
plishments of intellect, and in all the qualities of true and 
noble manhood. 
In view, then, of these high considerations, in the name of 
these high objects, to these noble purposes, now delegated by 
your authority, I dedicate this Hall. I dedicate it to those 
pursuits which form the youthful mind, and fit the man for the 
duties of life. I dedicate it to Eloquence, to Literature, to 
Patriotism, to Brotherhood, and the fellowship of noble Emula- 
tion ; not only to the discipline of those faculties which make 
the man, and arm him in the panoply of his powers, but to the 
cultivation of those sweet courtesies which adorn his life, and 
of those pure sensibilities which beautify and exalt his soul. 
Let it be a temple, sacred to the Virtues and the Grraces. Let 
Minerva, calm goddess of wisdom, sit enthroned upon its shrine, 
symbol of that sleepless virtue which is proof against every im- 
pulse of passion, and of that wise moderation in all things 
which triumphs over every temptation to excess. Beneath her 
calm and watchful eyes let Apollo, god of Eloquence and the 
Arts, lead the choir of attendant Muses, each in her sphere, 
while the triple sisterhood of Graces attend to charm the lin- 
gering hours. Better still, by a sanction unknown to the im- 
aginations of heathen mythology, let the " blessed Spirit of 
Peace" rule within its walls. Let brotherly love prevail. Let 
your moderation be known to all men. Let the high standard 
of Christian manhood control all your proceedings and direct 
all bj your aspirations. Then, indeed, shall this Hall be not 
a temple only, but a sanctuary, where the indwelling of a 
Christian Spirit shall consecrate every noble pursuit and every 34 
ADDRESS. 
manly ambition ; wherein " whatsoever things are true, what- 
soever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever 
things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things 
are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any 
praise," they shall all dwell and work together, spiritual min- 
isters, ordained to that noble discipline for life, which is itself 
a discipline for eternity.