Spirit of Jefferson. [volume] (Charles Town, Va. [W. Va.]) 1844-1948, 1869-07-20
rFrom .,be Ricbmond Dispatch. I
[From the Richmond Dispatch.I
Address of M. F. Maury, L, L. D.,
Oxon., Professor Of Physics in the
Virginia Military Institute, to the
Graduating Glass of 1869.



And Hluckle they may grieve ye.'
You requested mo, gentlemen of the grad
uating class, to give you few parting words
of advice. Considering the people to which
you belong; the Christian principles and
moral virtues which have been instilled into
you at home the precepts that have been
taught you here; and the examples that have
been set before by your teachers and profess
scrs in the daily walks of life; 1 might con
tent myself by simply reading the advice
given by Burns to YOuRg friend, from which
have snatched a couplet to attract your at
tention, with the hope that you will read it at
leisure, and profit by it also.
But you desire something fresher than that
and agree with you in this; for I think
that the time, the occasion, and the circum-
| stances By which we are surrounded, all call
for something special.
You are about to turn over 4 new leaf in
! liros history, and tc commence, each one Of
you, upon stage az wide as the world, to
enact your part in the great drama. What
that part shall be depends mainly upon your
own choice As to the brlliaucy of the per-
formancc, depends not q little upon opuortu-
| nity but for its real merits it will depend
| chiefly upon the resolves which you may write
upon that newly-turned leaf aud upon the
fidelity with which you may carry them out.
What these resolves should be are suggested
by the cardinal virtues and dictated by the
golden rule. 1t is needless for ne to repeat
them to you.
The course of training through which you
have just passed is peculiar and eminently
practical 1t is admirably adapted to fit you
for the duties of life, and like men in real
earnest, you want to know how best to turn
it to account and reap to the full all the ad-
vantagcs Of it.
First, then, that you may have a proper
conception Of those advantages, and know ex-
acsy where you are, let me ask you, my young
friends, what have you been doing here these
three or four years?
| fancy. tho answer is instinctively upon
the lips of some, to be seDtentiously y expressed
in three words: diminishing our education"
Pardon me, gentlemen, you hGvs been no
more EHjShimY yo;sr o.ucation here than you
have been fighting battles on dress parade
You have been laying the foundations ior ed
ucation and so far, like those soldierly bear
ings. drills, and exercises, which have go
much excited our admiration, and won our
kiudest sympathy for you, and which redouud
so much to your credit and the homer of your
Alma Mater. your work has been done well.
Iour educational foundations have been laid
broad aud deep, and under the supervision
and the guiding hand Of slillful masters
They have cost you much labor tine, and
study, and unless you build upon them they
will surely, in few years be like other foun-
datOns that have been neglected. They will
he filed with the rubbish Of time and chukGL
as the garden OF the slug@ard, with the weeds
of idleness so that in few years the mate
rials-thc very princip!es-aud even the
names Of the Textbooks and the fashion of
the quarries from which YOU gathered them
will be lost to memory. This will surely
happen unless you continue to work and build
upon what you have done here.
What, then. some may be ready to ask,
"Are our studies never to end? We were
disposed to do with our books as Macbeth
would do with the physic"
Are the labors of the husbandman at an end
when he puts his seed into the ground ? or
the builders when the cornerstone of the
house is laid ? And why should you expect,
after planting or placing corner-stones, to be
exempt from the labOrs OF supcstructurc or of
culture and tiIlage? Because you have laid
2 cornerstone of polished marble is your task
done? VIII the superstructure grow On
the contrary, it is just ready for the real work.
The character of your studies as you engage
in the battle Of life will be changed but you
no relaxation as to intensity Of application;
for whatever be the specially you may fancy
most, You can neither excel nor shine in your
calling, or even win the respect of the good,
unless YOU master il in all its details for re-
member, that the mental activity of the world
is such that all the arts, all the departments
of human knowledge, all the ayocations of hui
man life, in which tho forces of matter are
brought to bear upon practical Affairs al arc
progressive. Among the Industrial pursuits
of ran there is not a single calling that has
not. since the date of recorded history, re-
ccived from the hand of progress the marks
of improvenent The crow builds her nest,
the beaver his dam, and the elk its yard, no,g.
precisely as they did when Adam first called
them by name. But, saving only the potter
at his wheel there is ITO human art or calling
that is practiced now as it was in the days Of
old The potter's wheel of the prescntday is
the potters wheel of Biblical times. The ex-
ception proves the rule. The potter's art has
improved though his simple wheel has not
and so it is with every thing-al other i'm
plements and machinery employed in the af-
fairs of men, from the nail to the ship
from the pot to the steam-boIlcr and engine,
show improvement and indicate progress
These improvements and this progress are
simply the results OF an increase OF mans
knowledge as to the forces of nature and the
properties of matter That sort Of knowledge
is accommodating daily, for the discovery of
every new fact in physics, the developments
of every new principle ia nature, the de-
lection of every new property in matter, is
fresh clue placed in our hands It leads into
chambers Of knowledge; it guides Is through
Iabvripths into which our fathers could not
find their way, and about the doors of which
tbev proped in the dark but it brings as out