ence no longer hold a high hand over her ministering servants? and can our sacred teachers go forth to assail the world's wisdom, without a knowledge of all its devices? and did Burke stand in the house of legislation a monument of wasted energy? and did old Milton crown his years with blindness all in vain? Not so, says Attica, repentant of her poisoned Socrates; not so, says Italy with tears, and yet with exultation, from the tombs of Tully and of Galileo; not so, utters in stifled accents the cloistered Abelard, from beneath the pall of the funeral centuries; not so, thunders England, mourning her host of martyred minds. And what say they all? That learning is dignity, and the life of empire. Such is the burthen of all history-that learning may be the arbiter of national destiny, and under the guidance of morality the invincible protector of national glory. Such then is the power of which you this day stand in a measure possessed. Oh, cherish it nobly! Let it be the first lesson we shall learn from this hour forth, to comprehend the responsibilities of educated mind to itself, and to the nation. And are there those here proudly conscious of the power they hold, yet mindless of that independence, which, without avoiding, should rise above public opinion; that consistency, not measured by precedent or men, but by the unchanging standard of Right? Are there those here, who in the tumultuous career of ambition, will forget that they this day stood before this sacred altar-the appointed guardians of Truth? Heaven forbid !

But do not suppose, that in my assertion of the Dignity of Learning, and its elevating pursuits, I overlook its bearings upon, or connection with common mind. Vast responsibility to the uneducated rests upon such as are before me; and upon proper action under that responsibility depends the Dignity of your Learning. The farmer has not fed us, the mechanic has not sheltered, in the expectancy

of receiving nothing at our hands. And as we sever the bond of union to-day, it is this sentiment in furtherance of which I would utter my heartiest God speed you-live for your fellow-men. It is the noblest principle of an enlightened humanity-that of the wandering fishermen in the country that bordered the Jordan-"Love thy neighbor as thyself." And I urge this consideration the more, because, though I may be wrong, I have imagined that an education like the one we have been pursuing, particularly the details of science, bind up one's feelings too much in self; and as year after year, treasure accumulates in the store-house of the mind, there grows a pride in the possession that grudges any outflowing of its treasures. Use your learning, for the day is short. Be not like the lone column of the Tropic desert, with its capital bathing in floods of meridian light, while the surface of its proud shaft is shrouded in gloom. Let your knowledge, whatever it may be, accomplish its full work; and to this end permit me to urge on you the importance of Practical aims.

For four years separated as it were from the world, as we have wrought out for ourselves that "linked armor of the soul' 199 which is to sustain amid the toils and duties of life, it is but natural to suppose, that our first efforts should evince ignorance of those relations by which men stand connected in active life. Fully to understand those relations, and diligently to apply knowledge, in view of the circumstances of men around us, is practical efficiency; and suffer me to add, it is the only effectual way by which American learning can be thoroughly applied to the necessities of the country. Speculations in science and speculations in letters, (for of late even this dangerous kind of speculation has appeared,) will never advantage American learning in its present condition.

Practical aims moreover give vigor and determination to character; they present truth clearly and forcibly to the mind— since truth must be clear, where the mind witnesses its practical development. They constitute no half man—a reasoner at home, but blind abroad; a scholar among his books, but a dunce in the world. Common sense is the guide in practice; and let Common sense be your guide. Common sense, be assured, my Classmates, however much you may be engross ed with the richness of letters, and the sublimity of science, is the golden item in the catalogue of mental endowments. And as you value the manliness and dignity of your own characters, never barter it away ;—never lift a finger against its slightest monitions! The literary dreams, the visionary madness, which may in the minds of some of you, resolve the world and all its duties, life and all its cares, into a code of nice laws, which your refined faculties are to dispense, without the aid of a constantly expanding, and strongly tasked judgment, I implore you, fling to the winds. Your high hopes, and extravagant wishes, will leave you dependent on yourself. Trust them not-trust them not! Believe not that life is a picture, in which your place is already designed by any other than the Designer of all; or at best the original of the picture we form-nothing can be more delusive. You who have beguiled yourselves with the sweets of Classic learning, or rioted amid the more enervating delicacies of later days, remember that such pursuits are but secondary; that you are not to spend your lives over those rich pages. No, not even if you prove a Cicero, are you to tread Grecian groves for Philosophy, or discourse as did Tully of oratory and art. The educated American must be his own Vitruvius and Cato, as well as Crassus. It may seem unnecessary to urge these views upon any about to take their place among a people, so proverbially practical as the Americans; but I am also conscious that literary pursuits such as we this day leave behind us, provoke but a poor relish for those duties

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which lie before us all as practical men. Throw down then, throw down to-day your gilded helmet; fling away the painted spear with which you have here tilted; put on a harness of mail, it may be homely, but it is safe—an iron helmet, it is not dazzling, but a sure defense; and in your fight with the great noisy world, and in your struggles with your final conqueror, Death, may your shield ever burnished, and your cuishes alway glittering, throw back in glad and full streams, the sunshine of Eternal hope!

Permit me to urge upon you farther, in concluding, the benefit of carrying somewhat of the warmth of early feeling into the active duties of life. Let a young heart ever burn in your breasts; it cannot mislead a mature mind. Put not on the mask of worldly selfishness. The heart was made to soften the asperities of life-was made for the yearnings of affection, was made to unite mankind in an unbroken harmony of feeling; and it is only by a studied perversion that its outflowings are repressed. A glad heart makes a glad mind; and one that "leaps when it beholds a bow upon the sky," will find a hand ever ready to commit those iris tints to the canvass, or throw a halo on the page of poesy. A warm heart enlivens the sensibilities, and makes a free and ready mind. Its pulsations can be felt in letters; and if there lies the path of your ambition, contrast for a moment the ages of Elizabeth and Anne, and say if Shakspeare wrote not a better Essay on Man, than Pope and Bolingbroke together? If the sacred ministrations of the altar are to be your office, warmth of feeling will add fervor to sincerity, and earnestness to truth. If you are to heal the diseases of the body, it will sustain you under deprivation and stimulate to charitable offices. If you are to defend the high principles of justice, enthusiasm more than all beside will give success; and if the duties of the bench are before you, where seemingly it is least needed, it will give you such a burning love of virtue,

and such a detestation of vice, as shall crown your judgments with honor, and your life with blessings.

Let then the generous flow of early feeling live with you. Learn to cherish-learn, for your books have not taught you it-feeling for others. Fling not away the buoyancy of youth, as unbecoming the gravity of manhood;—it will garland your brow. Check not the feelings of to-day, as they commingle healthily over the grave of four years of brotherhood. Let it not be the grave of affection-affect all men. And as you come back over this future fairy ground, and trace with memory's mystic finger sad vestiges of one and another of us— dead! oh, treasure the tear that falls in that hour! It may be sentiment-but 'tis noble, manly sentiment that weeps at a brother's grave! And as we say farewell to this parent in letters, let the gush of youthful feeling attend the utterance; and, Sir, (to the President,) may it gladden your spirit in the vale of your declining years. And we say farewell-meaningly. For though the frequent recurrence of this gathering and parting hour may have chilled the ardor with which you first felt a hundred hearts' farewell, remember, I beg, Sir, that this is a new time for us-a time not soon to be forgotten—not all a mocking ceremony! Here we part, to meet never again perhaps but in another world-oh, 'tis not all a mockery! How soon you may be in that future world, even thine aged countenance tells not; nor how soon we may be there, these youthful forms tell not-no, nor this sacred altar can reveal the thronging shadows or the bright visions of futurity. But, Sir, long as we do live, or one of these now familiar names shall rob the gravestone of its story, your kindness shall dwell in our hearts. And as we, one by one, drop into the great charnel-house of Time, will you not give a way-side tear to our memory? However this may be, be assured, Sir, that many and bitter ones will fall, when the

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