Vermont watchman and State journal. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1836-1883, 1847-01-14

class in society the least distinguished for
wealth or patronage. Here they find the
means of distinction and usefulness, which
their poverty and want of influential friends
denied them. They enter on a scene of
where rank is alone determined
by the talents which God has given and the
achievements of ones own industry so that
our Colleges, instead Of Grating iuvidious
only furnish the means of ocu-
coming such distinctions, by enabling the
youth, who is destitute of wealth or powerful
friends, successfully to compete with those
who are supplied with both. In the true
sense OF the word, they are ocling institute
tions; but they seek to equalize, however,
notify bringing one class dorm but by raising
another up. Thousands of the present day
in our country, have, by this means, been
enabled to surmount the barriers which 9TH
erwise would have hemmed them in for life,
and rise so the highest Responsibility and
usefulness. We do not hesitate, then, to az
firm, that of all the civil Institutions of the
land, there is not one that embodies more
decidedly Democratic element, than do our
Colleges; not one that is less tolerant of the
fictitious distinctions in society; not one
that serves more effectively to keep the paths
to honor and usefulness open and free to all,
or that offers to the minds of Ingenious
youth of all classes more heathlul or power
full incentives to enterprise aud industry -
Literary institutions may be safely Judged of
by their fruits: & and if there has been,
in all ages, class of men distinguished for =.
their opposition to the arrogance and tyran-
ny of those in poWer-assertors of the COM
mon liberties of mankind, and jealous lab
orers in the cause of general improvement
and happiness-it is the learned class men
who have been nourished i'll the highest lite
rary institutions of their age and at the deep
est fountains Of knowledge Originating,
for the most part, among the common people,
they have continued to cherish a sympathy
with their sufferings and wrongs, and sought
to lessen, where they could not extnguish
them. Occupying a position midway be-
tween the highest and the lowest ranks of
society, their influence has been steadily ex-
erted to draw the extremes nearer together,
by depressing on the one hand while they
elevated on the other. The individual ex-
ceptions, that may be cited, will not affect
the truth of the general statement From
the first dawn of civilization to the present
day, it is hardly possible to fix on one great
movement in favor Of human rights and the
improvement Of the condition of the people
at large, but what originated in and was
guided forward by men of learning-and not
unirequently in opposition to the people
themselves BY their hands the thrones of
despots have been overthrow, aud the pride
of an arrogant nobility restrained. Nay, the
last struggle for the expiring liberties Of the
people has been sustained by men nurtused
among books and in Academic Halls. From
the lips, not of the people or their dema-
gogues, but of their most accomplished
Statesmen and Orators, were the last shouts
for liberty heard in, the Athenian assembly.
1t was the Roman Patriciate-a class, which
to their princely wealth united an uncom-
mon devotion to liberal studies and which
was adorned by splendor Of mind and schol-
arship unsurpassed in any age-who put to
hazard their fortunes and lives in fruitless
attempt to prevent the people from surren-
dering their liberties to a despot. In the
great conflict for popular rights in the sew
enteenth century-a conflict waged not on
ly through the Press, and in the Pulpit, and
on the floor of the House Of Commons, but
IN the tower of London, in all the dungeons
and on all the gibbets of England-in the
court Of the Kings Bench, in the Star
Chamber and the h-Commission court,
and, finally, in fields of civil carnage in ev-
cry part of the kingdom--we recognize as
its leaders and champions, the students and
prime scholars Of the English Universities.
Nay, it is noticeable, that so long as men
were guided by the promptings of their own
minds, untempered with by the batteries and
promises of a heartless monarch, there was
scarcely scholar of note in the House of
Commons that did not espouse the cause of
the people. The Petition of Right came
from the hand of Coke; and Wentworth,
and Hyde, and Falkland, stood, shoulder to
shoulder, with Hampden, and Pym, and ST.
John, and Hollis, and Vane, in demanding
liberty for the people of England. And in
the breasts of our own countrymen, the Adj
amses and Hancocks, the Otises, the GUM
cys, and Warrens, of revolutionary fame, a
zeal in the cause of human rights was not
extinguished within the halls of College;
otherwise, Washington himself might have
grown dim with age, before an oppressed
people had found occasion for his services.
But the labors of this class have not been
confined to the assertion of the common
rights OF man; to them are we indebted for
most that has been accomplished in elevating
the general mind, and diffusing the spirit of
Improvement through society Even Com
mon Schools, together with those of an in
termediate rank, can be regarded in no 9th -.
err light than as oll-shoots from Colleges.-@-
Such schools never did, and probably they
never can, independently and spontaneously
vegetate in any form of human society they
must be preceded by institutions of higher
order. = : The first dollar appropriated by
law in New England, for the purposes of ed
ucaton, was to endow College; and the
next step, in order, was to create by law her
noble system of Common Schools: system
which, for period of two hundred years,
like the springs of our mountains, has been
dilfusing health and freshness over the whole
aspect Of society, Meanwhile, on our nor
thern.border, an elder race and from goody
stock has barely oegetated in the twilight of
that SIM which has illuminated our soil
The influence of no College has pervaded
society, and hence the people have been with
out schools and to the absence of schools
among them may we well ascribe Che fact,
which stands reported-That on a certain