Washington telegraph., 1856-10-08

teries of the temple, by the war-whoop of
the savage, or clash of contending hosts.
The ruddy CLEAN Of the campfire, too of
ten fickered over the spot where the schol-
ar should have trimmed his midnight lamp,
and the tramp of armed men was heard in
those secluded courts, whose silence should
have been broken only by the light foot
fall of the seeker after truth. The voice
of inspiration was hushed in the clamOr OF
the fends of war. The utterances of wis
dom died away upon the winds that were
burdened with the complaints of a down
trodden and oppressed people.
But men who were fashioned in the lof-
ty mould of our ancestors, forgot not in the
hour of danger, that they were struggling
to attain boon which it would be folly to
bequeath to their posterity, if they failed,
with it, to impart the influence of the ex-
ample of their devotion, to the great cause
to the service of which this edifce is dedi-
ca tied, and to whose pursuit so many of
those whom | see around me to night are
about to devote themselves.
The Father of his country, looking with
what we may, not irrevel emily, deem al
most inspired prescience, through the dim
vista of coming years his great soul full
to overhowing, with solicitude for the wei
fare of the future of the land, for the good
of which. he had periled his life, his for
tune and his sacred honor, gave the long
result of the observation and experience
of his eventful life, In an address. in which
he bade farewell to the busy scenes, where
in he had himself been the chief actor,
and besought his countrymen, to heed the
monitions of the past and be warned of the
future. Especially did -counselling
them as they valued the priceless boon of
freedom, to preserve intact the institutions
which he had so nightly helped to mould,
urge them in direct terms, to foster that
powerful element of free peoples great
ness in behalf of which, l appear before
you tonight
promote then-f'are the words of the
reverend sage as an object of primary
importance, institutions for the diffusion
of knowledge In proportion as the struc-
ture of a government gives force to public
opinion, it is essential that public opinion
should be enlightened
Worthy indeed of the careful considera-
tiOn of every human being, are these words
of the greatest man the tide of time has
ever borne upon Its mighty BOSOM All
power in this government being by the
terms of our federal compact originally
delegated to the people and in turn derived
from them again by the different but Co
operative branches of the system whereby
our laws are framed and executed, we are
at once led to recognize the necessity which
exists for the requirement of liberal Ed
ucation by the people, without which,
their voice, which should be, and which
indeed is, by law, constituted the direc-
ting power in the land, becomes not the
enlightened expression of their will, but an
unmeaning clamor, sygnifying, nothing,
unstable in Its character, purposeless in
its operation, and liable at any moment,
through caprice, or the influence of the
designing arts of the demagogue and char
latan, to be made the instrument of the
overthrow, of the existent forms of gov
ernment and the substitution of some
crude theory or wild vagary in lieu of the
carefully elaborated system which has re-
ceived the sanction of successful operation
through ages, and been justified by its in
fuence for good upon the destinies of the
people of the land.
Operating thus, therefore, as Education
does, upon the entire body polite, giving
into the possession Of the masses, the pow
er rightly to discriminate between good
and evil, forming as it does, safeguard
against the encroachment Of the foes to
public peace, constituting each and every
individual coordinate part of the State,
interposing barrier to licentious excess,
elevating man from the condition of mere
instrument in the hands of his superior
by nature, overcoming the natural obsta
cles of birth and fortune, accidental on the
one part and perishable on the other.-
raising by virtue of its renewing power all
men who partake of its advantages to the
place of the only true and real temporal
equality,-the equality of intellect,-it
stands forth eonfessedly and pre-eminent-
ly, the paramount good, the chief excel
lence, the crowning glory, the primary and
most powerful adjunct, the real source of
nations power and glory, and the foster
mother of Liberty, that exalted privilege,
that inestimable prerogative of every Amer
lean, to the maintenance of which, we can
in no way more powsrfully contribute,
"A