Wilmington journal. [volume] (Wilmington, N.C.) 1844-1895, 1847-09-10
"--- the ear is all unstrung,
"StiIl, still, it loves the lowland tongue"

pursuits,
"-- the ear Is all unstrung,
"StiIl, still, it loves the lowland tongue"
But time, which natures and ripens, also
destroys; and as our eyes wander over this
assembly, we mourn the absence OF many a
familiar cOuntenance and many beloved form.
While we acknowledge new and welcome &C.
cessOns TO our number from the youthful grad
yates of the year, we are compelled to remem-
Der that they occupy the seat of earlier COM
panions, who have been swept away III the
lapse of years, and who repose now in the ST.
lent shadows of the grave. To those of US
who were together here thirty years ago,
& rdri nantes IN gurgitc raSto,'' these mourn
full recollections come home with peculiar
power Like dim voices of the dead, they
speak to US from the chair of the instructor as
we'll as from the bench of the pulpit.
&c Now kindred merit fills the sable bier;
Now Iacerated friendship claims a tear;
Year chases year; decay pursues decay
Still drops some JOY from whitening life away"
And here should DO injustice 10 the occa-
sion and to my own feelings if Ibid not pur-
sue this painful theme for a moment, to pay
the tribute of my affectionate regard to the
memory of him who for many years, often I'M
der most adverse circumstances, but still with
signal success, administered the affairs of the
University as its presiding officer. No one, |
am sure, who has ever shared his counsels or
proftcd by his mild reproOfs, can easily for
get the wisdom and the virtues OF President
Caldwell. Uniting extended learning with
sound Judgment, he possessed the rare and Diff
ticult art to temper aImonition with kindness,
and to render discipline more etlectual by ma
king it less repulSive.
His life was gentle; and the clements
SO mixed in him, that Nature rnight stand up
Ard say to all the world, this was man.
His character and his usefuIness-what he
was, and what he was enabled to do-suggest
a theme, which in this theatre of his labors
and among these witnesses of his fame, it
would be a grateful task under other circum-
stances to pursue. But his own example
would rebuke US, if we should allow even his
merits 10 turn us aside from contemplating
the great objects of his toll. Let us seek rath-
er to understand and to do homage to those
vast interests of enlightened culture in oul
own country, which he lived, and, had al
most said, he died 10 promote.
To this general subject we are invited, not
only by the proprieties of the occasion, but by
its own intrinsic dignity and worth. In its
broad and comprehensive sense, the work OF
education is the grand business of human life
and in these United States, need hardly say
it can never be neglected, but at the hazard OF
consequences which 10 patriot can contcm-
plate without alarm.
This belief was present with America at its
very birth, and stamped upon its rising insti-
tutions the great impress of freedom and per
petuity. In the history of other nations, learn
ing has been the slow growth of society al.
ready formed, and has existed, at last, only as
tie ornament of wealth or the champion OF
power Blu: with the Fathers of our Repub
lie, next to religion, it was the first thing
thought of {; not as a luxury, but as necessl
ty; not as the handmade of privilege, but as
the nurse of equality not as the child of en-
dowment or the accident of place, but as the
surest basis OF public prosperity and OF private
happiness. They planted knowledge, there
fore in the wilderness established schools
as soon as they builded habitations; and lait
the foundations of a University, while yet they
were struggling with the ravages of disease
and the apprehension of want. More than {
century ago the charter governments were eel
ebratel for g promoting letters by free schools
and colleges"-and to this feature of thei
character has been traced the secret of the
great success. Every child born into TIT
world was lifted from the earth by the genius
| of its country, and in the statutes of the lant
received, as its political birthrght, pledge o
the public care for its morals and its mind"
1t has been said that, under Government
like ours, whatever is gained in politics is los
in learning, and that nation becomes les
truly intelligent by becoming more thorough,
Republican. Yet no country has done 81
much for learning in so short a time as Amen
ca Unexampled as has been its growth IL
all the elements of physical power. its mean
OF education have multiplied with its advan
cling population, and gone hand in hand wit
It's increasing wealth. When this institution
was founded in 1889, it had not more thai
ten associate colleges in the whole Union; an
many OF these, in every thing but the name
were hardly on alevel with our modern acade
mics. There are now in the United States a
least ten times that number, with an aggregat
of nearly eight hundred instructors, an atten
dance of twelve thousand students, and L
brary of six hundred and fifty thousand yo
umes. Independent of these, but laboring
the same field of usefulness, are thirty-foU
schools of theology, thirty-two of medicin
and eight of law, all of them in successful OF
Grafton, and some of them munifcently prov
ded with the most costly apparatus and mo
valuable works. The true glory, however,
) republican culture is found in those less an
bilious nurseries of learning which, scattert
broadcast over the Union, extend the opport'
! mites of free instruction to almost every fam
y IN America From the imperfect returns