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 opy 1 HE C ^USE OF EDUCATION^IN TENNESSEE. 
 
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 DELIVERED TO THE YOUNG GENTLEMEN 
 
 ADMITTED TO THE DEGREE OF 
 
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 AT THE 
 
 FIRST COMMENCEMENT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 TFWrTlRSXEY OP MAg^TXLLl 
 
 OCTOBER 4, 1826, 
 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 
 JfcashfotUe: 
 
 HUXT, TAItDTFF AND CO, PKINTEK3 
 
 2833. 
 

ADVERTISEMENT. 
 
 Cumberland College was incorporated in 1806. It was re- 
 organized and put in operation in the autumn of 1824. During 
 the following year, another Cumberland College was established 
 at Princeton in Kentucky. To prevent the inconveniences likely 
 to result from this identity of names, the Legislature enacted, in 
 November 1828, that the corporate style of this institution should 
 thenceforward be "The University of Nashville." As this alter- 
 ation however took place a month after the delivery and first pub- 
 lication of the ensuing address, the ancient name is still retained 
 wherever it was then used, except in the title page. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 Young Gentlemen: 
 
 Your academical career is now ended; and you have just 
 received the usual honors and testimonials of this institution. 
 According to the opinion which too generally prevails, you 
 have completed your studies. This, I am persuaded, is not 
 your own opinion. You have already made a juster estimate 
 of your attainments; and of.the vast and variegated field for 
 future investigation which still lies before you, and which 
 invites your assiduous cultivation. If you have learned 
 how to study, and have acquired a thirst for knowledge, you 
 will continue to study and to learn while you live. This, 
 indeed, is the grand aim and object of all elementary educa- 
 tion. It is to discipline the mind, to develop faculty, to ma- 
 ture the judgment, to refine the taste, to chasten the moral 
 sense, to awaken and invigorate intellectual energy; and 
 to furnish the requisite materials upon which to erect 'the 
 noblest superstructure. Hitherto, you have been laying 
 the foundation; and serving that kind of apprenticeship which 
 may enable you to march forward by your own diligent and 
 persevering efforts, Do not imagine, therefore, that your 
 work is done. You have only commenced your studies. — 
 Whatever may be your future profession, pursuit, business 
 or destination, let books, science, literature, be your constant 
 companions. 
 
 Every man, who intends to do the greatest possible good 
 in his day and generation, will, every day, seek to acquire 
 additional information. He will gather it from every source 
 within his reach. His experience, his observation, his 
 intercourse with the world, with men and things, his daily 
 occupations, his incidental associations, the great volume of 
 nature, ever open and spread out to his view, the intellec- 
 tual treasures of a hundred generations which have passed 
 away, the records of heavenly truth and wisdom — all will 
 conspire to increase his stores, and to qualify him for a 
 greater and a wider sphere of useful and virtuous exertion. 
 
a 
 
 All the great and good men, who have enlightened, 
 adorned and purified the world by their labours and their 
 counsels, have been indefatigable in the pursuit of know- 
 ledge, up to the last moment of their existence. No matter 
 how exalted any man's genius may be — history demon- 
 strates, that, genius has never achieved great things with- 
 out industry. 
 
 The lawyer, physician or divine, who limits his range 
 of thought and study to the mere mechanical rules, or pre- 
 cedents, or forms, or prescriptions of his professional di- 
 rectory, will never become eminent in his own particular 
 profession, nor will he ever be distinguished as a man. He 
 may pass along with tolerable respectability, countenanced 
 by the multitude of his brethren who are like himself, among 
 a people not wise enough to distinguish noise from sense, or 
 technical jargon and pedantry from learning and argument. 
 But bring him into the presence of the master-spirits of the 
 land or of the age, and he instantly shrinks into his native 
 insignificance. Mere professional business of any kind, 
 when a man never makes an excursion or voyage of dis- 
 covery beyond it, always tends to narrow and contract the 
 mind. He may be expert in small things, in petty official 
 details, like an artisan in his workshop; but take him out of 
 his daily routine, from off the beaten track, and he is bewil- 
 dered and confused, or opinionated, obstinate and illiberal. 
 He cannot grasp a great subject, nor comprehend a new 
 moral theorem or proposition. He will discuss the inter- 
 ests of an empire as he would treat the cause of a client, 
 or the case of a patient, or a point in theology. Now all 
 these may be important matters; and so is the manufacture 
 of a nail and of a pin. But a man of intellect ought to 
 aspire after higher objects, and nobler attainments, and more 
 expanded views. 
 
 In England, even the humblest artificers and mechanics, 
 tradesmen and farmers, in almost every town, are beginning 
 to form associations for mental improvement. They have 
 procured libraries — they read literary and scientific jour- 
 nals — attend lectures on chemistry, political economy, me- 
 chanics, natural philosophy, history, mathematics — they 
 study and converse with each other at every spare moment 
 
 
or leisure hour. In a few years, they will take the lead of 
 half the professional men in the kingdom, unless the latter 
 condescend to follow their example. A similar spirit of 
 enterprise and improvement has already appeared in our 
 larger cities, and its march will be rapid, and its effects most 
 salutary. Our youthful candidates for the learned profes- 
 sions, therefore, must prepare to enter the lists of honoura- 
 ble competition with a new and vigorous race of rival com- 
 batants for the prize of intellectual supremacy. 
 
 I know not what are to be your future professions or 
 occupations. Every honest calling ought to be esteemed 
 honorable. I address you "as moral and intellectual beings — 
 as the patriot citizens of a great republic. You may be mer- 
 chants, mechanics, farmers, manufacturers — and yet be emi- 
 nently distinguished and eminently useful, if you will per- 
 severe in seeking after knowledge and in making a proper 
 use of it. The Medici — Necker — Ricardo — were mer- 
 chants or bankers: Franklin was a mechanic: Washington 
 was a farmer. By far the greater part of our countrymen 
 are and must be farmers. They must be educated; or, 
 what is the same thing, educated men must become farmers, 
 if they would maintain their just influence and ascendency 
 in the state. I cannot wish for the alumni of Cumberland 
 College, a more healthful, independent, useful, virtuous, ho- 
 norable, patriotic employment, than that ofjgricultu re. Nor 
 is there any condition in life more favourable to the calm pur- 
 suits of science, philosophy and religion; and to all that 
 previous training which ultimately constitutes wisdom and 
 inflexible integrity. Should our college eventually become 
 the grand nursery of intelligent, virtuous farmers, I shall 
 esteem it the most highly favoured institution in our coun- 
 try. I have long thought that our college graduates often 
 mistake their true path to honour and usefulness, in making 
 choice of a learned profession, instead of converting agricul- 
 ture into a learned profession, as it ought to be, and thereby 
 obtaining an honest livelihood in the tranquil shades of the 
 country. 
 
 I mean not, however, on the present occasion, to offer 
 any advice as to the choice of a profession. Whatever 
 station you may occupy, or whatever be your pursuits, 
 
8 
 
 never cease to gain knowledge and to do good, as God, in 
 his providence, shall give you opportunity. 
 
 But, in the second place, as you have yourselves enjoyed 
 superior advantages of education, it is reasonable to expect 
 that you will be the steady, enlightened, zealous friends and 
 advocates of education, in every degree, and to the utmost 
 extent, which the welfare of the community may require. 
 
 I present to your patronage and support the grand cause 
 of education, in all its purity and excellence, and without 
 restriction as to its objects. 
 
 That learning has been often abused and perverted — 
 that many systems of education have proved ineffectual, 
 useless or pernicious — that most existing seminaries might 
 be greatly improved — 1 freely admit. Still, these admissions 
 detract nothing from the intrinsic value of knowledge, nor 
 from the paramount importance of education. The native 
 character, tendency and genuine effects of any principle, 
 system or institution, must decide its utility, and its claims 
 to general adoption and support; and not the partial evils 
 which human artifice, or folly, or wickedness may render it 
 the instrument or the occasion of introducing and propa- 
 gating. Under the plea and sanction of religion and liberty, 
 our world has been filled with tumult, convulsion, crime 
 and suffering. Are religion and liberty therefore worthless, 
 or injurious to mankind? Would you banish religion and 
 liberty from the earth, because both religion and liberty 
 have been most grossly profaned; and employed, in ten thou- 
 sand ways, to deceive, oppress, and degrade mankind? Then 
 oppose not — condemn not education. The want of it has 
 occasioned most of the misery and crime which have been 
 inflicted on our world under the specious names and impos- 
 ing authority of religion and liberty. When or where did 
 crafty ecclesiastics or politicians ever succeed, under the 
 guise of religion or liberty, in cheating the people out of 
 both, except where the people were so ignorant that they 
 could comprehend neither the one nor the other? Without 
 competent knowledge, or without education, there can be 
 neither religion nor liberty. Religion implies knowledge. 
 Its simplest principles and dictates — its plainest duties and 
 requirements cannot be understood or performed, without 
 
9 
 
 previous instruction. This is true of every religion yet 
 known — and of every religion that can be conceived — ol 
 paganism and theism — as well as of Christianity. Nor can 
 liberty be appreciated, acquired, defended or maintained, 
 except by those who have learned what liberty means. If 
 religion and liberty, therefore, be$ in any degree, desirable; 
 if they be indispensable to the happiness and perfection of 
 our nature; if they be justly prized above all other bless- 
 ings which bountiful Heaven has placed within the reach 
 of the human family; then is the cause of education suffi- 
 ciently established. 
 
 By education, we mean, such a thorough cultivation of all 
 the faculties of our youth, as will best prepare them for the 
 greatest usefulness and happiness. Let this definition be 
 kept in view during the whole progress of our argument 
 and illustrations. Those of my hearers who have reflected 
 much on this subject, will not expect any benefit or infor- 
 mation from the discussion. They will patiently bear with 
 me, however, while I endeavor, in a plain popular way, to 
 secure the good-will of this audience, generally, to a cause 
 which maybe emphatically styled the cause of the people 
 
 Schools or Seminaries of education maybe classed as fol- 
 lows: namely, 
 
 1. Primary or Infant Schools. 2. Common Schools. 3. 
 Academies, or Classical or Intermediate Schools. 4. Col- 
 leges or Universities. 5. Special or Professional Schools: 
 Such as those for Law, Divinity, Medicine, Military or 
 Naval Science, Agriculture, Architecture, or any of the 
 useful or liberal arts. 
 
 My remarks will be limited chiefly to Common Schools 
 and Colleges. 
 
 But, in the outset, I beg leave to state distinctly, that, I 
 do not ascribe omnipotence, or any uncontrollable sway to 
 education. I do not go the length of asserting that man is 
 absolutely and invincibly the creature of circumstances or 
 of education. That he may be made an angel or a demon, 
 or something between both, by any discipline or accidental 
 associations. Still, to a certain extent, and with certain 
 qualifications, this is true; and it is a truth of revelation, no 
 less than a deduction from reason and experience. To ex- 
 
10 
 
 hibit at once, and in pretty bold relief, the natural province, 
 and legitimate power of education, I refer you to an extreme 
 case or two, and to others of every day's occurrence. Sup- 
 pose a person were to grow up, from infancy to manhood, in 
 a desert or forest, without ever seeing a human being or 
 hearing a human voice — in what respects would such a wild 
 man differ from other wild animals? Would he speak, or 
 think, or reason, or discriminate between good and evil, 
 virtue and vice, happiness and misery? Would he not re- 
 semble the bears and the wolves of which he had been the 
 nursling, the pupil and the companion — and, like them, 
 shun the presence and the abodes of men? Again, were 
 the son of a Solomon or a Bacon to be trained from his 
 birth among savages — would he not become a savage in 
 sentiment, manners, and habits? Indeed, it requires but a 
 rapid glance at the nations of the earth, to perceive that 
 the great mass of the people are every where formed by 
 the circumstances, associations and instruction to which they 
 are subjected. Where these are most auspicious, human 
 nature assumes its most attractive and dignified character. 
 Where these are most unfavourable, human nature appears 
 in its most abject and degraded form. This, as a general 
 truth or fact, none will dispute. If we pass from the ten 
 thousand varieties of national character, and the ten thou- 
 sand gradations of national excellence or depravity, to indi- 
 viduals of the most enlightened and most highly favoured 
 country in Christendom, we shall behold similar effects 
 continually resulting from similar causes. 
 
 It requires a good deal of patient investigation and mi- 
 nute analysis to ascertain how much of good and evil may 
 be instilled into the mind of every child, by the means just 
 specified, even when most destitute of regular and formal 
 education. Thus, a child could never learn to speak, or to 
 utter articulate sounds, without instruction; or, what is the 
 same thing, without an opportunity of imitating others. 
 Yet every child, not destitute of the proper organs in a 
 sound state, does learn to speak, and that too, without being 
 sent to school for the purpose. Thus, then, the first and 
 most important of all arts is insensibly acquired at an age 
 when it is usually thought superfluous or useless to com- 
 
11 
 
 mence the work of instruction. Further, of the many hun- 
 dreds or thousands of dialects actually spoken by mankind, 
 the child always learns the language of its parents and 
 companions: and he learns it more or less perfectly accord- 
 ing to their habitual use of it. If they pronounce it correct- 
 ly, and speak it with grammatical accuracy, purity and ele- 
 gance, he will speak it agreeably to the best rules of or- 
 thoepy, grammar and rhetoric, without an effort, and previ- 
 ously to the knowledge of any rule whatever. In the same 
 manner, and with the same facility, a child might acquire a 
 number of languages, as experience has fully demonstrated. 
 Now, this simple fact proves, first, that much, very much 
 is actually learned by every child in infancy: and secondly, 
 that the amount and perfection of this knowledge depend 
 entirely on the opportunities and advantages possessed. 
 Were we to extend this analysis to other particulars or de- 
 partments; to principles and habits, moral, economical, 
 physical, intellectual, religious, we should find the infant 
 mind yielding to a daily and almost invisible influence, 
 which may mark its character and destiny through life. 
 
 How important then to human happiness is it, that, the 
 first school — the infant school — the parental school — should 
 be a good one? Here is the great nursery of human weal 
 or wo. Now, I care not whether children ever go to a 
 public school or not, if parents will keep a better school at 
 home, and do their duty to their offspring. I care not 
 whether our youth go to college or not, if parents can and 
 will teach them more effectually by their own firesides. But, 
 unfortunately, the great mass of parents have shown them- 
 selves but sorry instructors and faithless guides to those who 
 ought to be dearer to them than their own life. They are 
 themselves, in general, too ignorant, to say no more, to do 
 much. Hence, in our day, Infant Schools have been 
 established in many places, to supply this radical defect. 
 And report speaks well of them wherever they have been 
 tried. How far it may be practicable or beneficial to intro- 
 duce them into our country, except in large towns or manu- 
 factories, I shall not stop to inquire. 
 
 In order to furnish the community at large with the next 
 (>es( aid to parental instruction, and as a substitute for it, 
 
12 . 
 
 alter the first period of infancy, Common Schools prefei 
 the strongest claims to our regard. We hear a great deal, 
 at the present day, about common schools: and one would 
 imagine that they had already become the favorites of the 
 people. If so, then the cause of liberty and virtue has 
 gained much in our land, and we need not despair of the 
 republic. Upon this ground we can all meet and harmoni- 
 ously co-operate. In this grand enterprise, all the advo- 
 cates of colleges in our country will go hand in hand with 
 the humblest of the people, not merely in declaiming about 
 the necessity and importance of common schools, but in 
 organizing and putting into practical operation the best sys- 
 tem that can be devised. I have no fears that any of the 
 alumni of Cumberland College will ever prove recreant or 
 backward in this good work. 
 
 Common Schools, then, are needed in Tennessee. How 
 shall they be established? Let the people decide. What 
 character and form shall they assume? Let every county 
 be divided into such a number of school districts or depart- 
 ments as will conveniently accommodate all the inhabitants. 
 Erect comfortable and commodious school-houses. Attach 
 to each school-house a lot of ten acres of land, for the pur- 
 pose of healthful exercise, gardening, farming and the me- 
 chanical arts. For the body requires training as well as 
 the mind. Besides, as multitudes must live by manual la- 
 bour, they ought betimes to acquire habits of industry, eco- 
 nomy, temperance, hardihood, muscular strength, skill and 
 dexterity. Employ teachers qualified to govern and in- 
 struct children in the best possible manner. Pay them ac- 
 cording to their merit. Pay any sum necessary to command 
 the services of the best and most accomplished teachers. 
 Parsimony in this particular is not only impolitic; it is mean, 
 it is absurd, it is ruinous. Better have no teachers, than 
 to have incompetent, immoral, lazy, passionate or indiscreet 
 ones; however cheaply they may be procured. Their in- 
 fluence will not be merely negative: it will be positive and 
 most powerful. I have often looked with horror upon the 
 kind of common schools and teachers to which thousands of 
 children, during several of their best years, are cruelly and 
 wantonly subjected in the older states. But it is or was 
 
13 
 
 the fashion, in many places, to hire a blockhead or a vaga- 
 bond, because he would teach a child for a dollar and twen- 
 ty, five cents per quarter! Now, if there be any thing on 
 earth for which a parent ought to feel disposed to pay lib- 
 erally, it is for the faithful instruction of his children. Com- 
 pared with this, every other interest vanishes like chaff 
 before the wind — it is less than nothing. And yet, unless 
 the world has suddenly grown much wiser, there is no ser- 
 vice so grudgingly and so pitifully rewarded. The conse- 
 quence is what might have been expected. Every man of 
 cleverness and ambition will turn his back with scorn upon 
 the country school. He will become a lawyer, a physician, 
 a merchant, a mechanic, a farmer, or a farmer's overseer, 
 in preference. Until school keeping be made an honorable 
 and a lucrative profession, suitable teachers will never be 
 forthcoming in this free country. 
 
 But what is meant by a common school education? This 
 question has never been answered; and it cannot be very 
 satisfactorily answered. Some may think it enough that 
 their children learn to read: others will insist on writing: 
 many will be content with reading, writing and arithmetic. 
 Others will add to the list, grammar, geography, history — 
 perhaps, practical mathematics, physics, astronomy, me- 
 chanics, rural economy — with several other branches of sci- 
 ence and literature, as ethics, rhetoric, political economy, 
 geology, chemistry, mineralogy, botany: — in short, where 
 shall the limit be fixed? Who shall prescribe the bounda- 
 ries beyond which a common school education shall never 
 extend? It is evident, upon the slightest reflection, that 
 the phrase common school education is a very indefinite 
 one. How far beyond the alphabet it may be carried, has 
 never been ascertained. Experiments are now making in 
 Europe, and in several sections of our own country, which 
 are calculated to give a totally different aspect to this whole 
 concern. It has been discovered at length, what indeed 
 was always sufficiently obvious, that a boy need not be kept 
 at school eight or ten years to learn to read his primer, 
 write his name, cipher to the rule of three, — and to hate 
 books and learning for the rest of his life. It has been dis- 
 covered that boys may, in three or four years, be taught o 
 
14 
 
 hundred fold more, by skilful teachers, in a skilful way, than 
 their fathers ever dreamt of learning at all. This is the 
 grandest discovery of our age. It will do more to melio- 
 rate the moral, physical and political condition of mankind 
 generally, than all other means ever yet devised. 
 
 The excellence and the extent of a common school ed- 
 ucation, therefore, will ever depend on the qualifications of 
 the teacher and the system which he pursues. No man 
 can teach more than he knows himself. Every man can 
 teach all that he does know. The more he knows, the 
 more useful will he be. In the humblest school in the 
 country, he will find some pupils to be benefited to the ut- 
 most extent of his ability to instruct them. And upon the 
 Monitorial or Lancasterian plan, he can teach any number. 
 
 Let us then speedily have common or elementary schools 
 so abundant and so wisely conducted, that, every son ( I say 
 nothing now of the daughters) of the commonwealth maj 
 be well and amply instructed. Let him acquire a taste fo] 
 knowledge, and he will never cease to be a learner whik 
 he lives. He will then be fitted for usefulness and honor. 
 He will always have resources within himself. He will be 
 conscious that he is an intellectual being; and that intel- 
 lectual pleasures are among the purest, noblest and least 
 expensive that can be enjoyed. 
 
 But we must not stop here. Common schools are not 
 enough. They will not satisfy the public necessities. — 
 The better and more efficient the common schools be- 
 come, the greater will be the demand for institutions of a 
 higher order. Multitudes of aspiring youth will pant for 
 more intellectual treasures. They will look out for other 
 seats of learning where they may advance still further. 
 Will you drive them to neighboring or distant states, and 
 compel them to expend abroad the thousands of dollars 
 which sound policy, to say no more, ought to induce you 
 to keep in circulation at home? You must then establish, 
 m every county, one or more first rate Classical Schools or 
 Academies, where the languages and sciences may be more 
 extensively and systematically taught. Let some twenty 
 or fifty acres of land be attached to each of these semina- 
 ries, for the same purposes that we have already assigned 
 
15 
 
 them, to the common schools. Here again I must avoid de 
 tails. Merely adding, however, that all this will not be 
 sufficient. Learning is like wealth; — the more we get, the 
 more we covet. No laws can prescribe the limit to mental, 
 any more than to pecuniary acquisitions. 
 
 We must have one or more Colleges to receive the nu- 
 merous candidates for the highest literary honors and at- 
 tainments. Our sister states have them: and if our youth 
 cannot be accommodated at home, they will go where they 
 can be better served. Now, a great College or University 
 cannot be reared except at a great expense. It is not like 
 an ordinary school or academy, which any enterprising in- 
 dividual, with moderate resources, may establish any 
 where. The aid of government — the wealth of the state — 
 or else the combined efforts and contributions of many lib- 
 eral individuals — will be necessary to build up a college. — 
 Upon the University of Virginia, nearly half a million of 
 dollars were expended before a pupil was admitted: and 
 fifteen thousand dollars have been appropriated annually 
 for ever to the support of Professors. And this was the work 
 of the people's long tried champion and greatest favorite — 
 the very oracle of orthodox republicanism — the immor- 
 tal author of the Declaration of our National Independence. 
 
 I do not say that Tennessee should forthwith vote half 
 a million of dollars, or any other sum, to a college. But she 
 ought to make ample provision for the intellectual wants of 
 her citizens. And she is able to do this, cost what it may. 
 Were a judicious system of common schools and academies 
 put into operation immediately: within half a dozen years, 
 there would be five hundred youths in West Tennessee 
 alone, eager to avail themselves of the benefits of a college. 
 And should there be no college in West Tennessee, adapt- 
 ed to their wants and wishes, they . will cross the Moun- 
 tains or the Ocean in search of knowledge, and carry along 
 with them from two to five hundred thousand dollars a year, 
 as a tribute to the superior wisdom and intelligence of dis- 
 tant or foreign states. Thus, in a single year, might be 
 withdrawn from the state more money than would suffice, 
 to create a Cambridge at our very doors. This is a consid- 
 eration which every political economist ought to appreciate, 
 
16 
 
 and which the legal guardians of the people's welfare and 
 prosperity ought gravely to ponder. It is assuredly no light 
 evil to any community, when capital or income shall seek 
 a foreign market without producing an equivalent return. 
 Every dollar thus forced away is a dollar lost to the state. 
 
 I am well aware of the popular prejudices and apprehen- 
 sions which are cherished in regard to colleges and college 
 graduates. I know that they are frequently represented 
 as the enemies of general improvement — as having no sym- 
 pathy, or community of feeling or interest with the great 
 mass of the people. That they constitute a class or party 
 by themselves, and that they ought to be viewed with jeal- 
 ousy and suspicion by all the vigilant patriotic guardians of 
 our liberties. If there has ever been any plausible pretext 
 for such an opinion, it certainly exists not in our country. 
 I have never yet heard of one liberally educated American 
 who was not a decided friend to every well devised plan 
 and measure calculated to diffuse the blessings of know- 
 ledge universally. He is from experience, from convic- 
 tion, from principle, from patriotism, from philanthropy, the 
 firm, persevering and zealous advocate and promoter of ed- 
 ucation among the people. He ardently desires that every 
 son and daughter of the Republic may be well educated. 
 And that his deeds have nobly corresponded with his pro- 
 fessions, let facts speak for themselves. This is logic not 
 easily to be encountered. 
 
 And if there be any friends of popular instruction, of lib- 
 erty and the rights of man, in the old world, they are to 
 be found exclusively among the best educated. The de- 
 molition of despotism in France, and the establishment of a 
 free representative government in its stead, were first 
 thought of, canvassed and attempted by the most enlightened 
 men in the kingdom: and long before the ignorant millions 
 of that ill-fated country had ever heard the name of liber- 
 ty. And it was precisely because the millions could not 
 comprehend its import, much less appreciate its value, that, 
 when once excited, they became ungovernable, furious, 
 brutal, ferocious: and the consequences need no recital or 
 comment. Had the people, however, been previously in- 
 structed in the first elements o£ letters and politics; had 
 
17 
 
 they learned how to reflect, to reason and to judge, a very 
 different result would have been witnessed. Similar at- 
 tempts have been made, by a few enlightened patriots in 
 other parts of Europe, to meliorate the political condition 
 of the people, which, from a similar cause, have proved 
 equally abortive. 
 
 From the Colleges and Universities of Europe have 
 emanated those rays of light which have caused despots to 
 tremble on their thrones. And, at this day, those great 
 nurseries of truth and liberty are more dreaded by the em- 
 perors, kings and princes of Russia, Austria, Prussia and 
 Germany, than any and all other enemies put together. — 
 Hence the rigid system of police and jealous espionage ex- 
 ercised towards them. Strange that republicans should 
 represent colleges as hostile to liberty, when tyrants per- 
 secute them because they are friendly to liberty. Youth 
 cannot long be familiar with the history and institutions of 
 Greece and Rome, without imbibing something of that en- 
 thusiasm for liberty which inspired a Demosthenes, an 
 Epaminondas, a Phocion, a Cicero, a Brutus and a Cato. By 
 the way, the friends of liberty ought to be the last men on 
 earth to decry classical learning. 
 
 It was from the newly instituted colleges of Scio and 
 Bucharest, that, the first champions of liberty and indepen- 
 dence issued, to animate their fellow bondmen of Modern 
 Greece to break the chains of Mohammedan oppressors. 
 And they have made every effort to establish schools, 
 throughout their degraded country, to teach lessons of li- 
 berty to the people. God grant them success in their glori- 
 ous struggle; and a generous, high-minded, patriotic, vir- 
 tuous, enlightened Washington, to direct their energies in 
 the cabinet and in the field! 
 
 Now there can be no better or stronger evidence in fa- 
 vour of the general beneficial tendency of learning, however 
 obtained, than the fact, that, whenever, in ancient or modern 
 times, endeavours have been made to procure liberty to a 
 people, and wherever it has been acquired, those endea- 
 vours were made, and that acquisition secured, by men of 
 superior knowledge. Such is the language of history from 
 Moses to Bolivar. And among the most enlightened phi- 
 
18 
 
 lanthropists on the continent of Europe at this moment, the 
 grand cause of their discouragement and despair in regard to 
 liberty, is, that the people are too ignorant to be intrusted 
 with liberty; and hence they feel constrained to remain in- 
 active. They fain would give instruction to the people, in 
 order to prepare and qualify them for free and liberal insti- 
 tutions, would their masters permit them. 
 
 When our fathers commenced their almost hopeless con- 
 troversy with the mother country; who were the kindred 
 spirits attracted to our shores and to our aid by the native 
 charms and legitimate claims of liberty? Not the degraded 
 serf or feudal slave — not the illiterate farmer or mechanic — 
 but such men as might have adorned the proudest court in 
 Christendom — men of whom their own country was un- 
 worthy — men who understood the full import of the glori- 
 ous cause to which they were ready to sacrifice titles, and 
 honours, and fortune and life: — they were Pulaski, Steuben, 
 De Kalb, Kosciusko, La Fayette. 
 
 And who, allow me to ask my republican auditors, or, if 
 they please, to remind them of what, perchance, they may 
 have forgotten — who were the prompters, the mainsprings, 
 the leaders of our memorable revolution? The answer to 
 the question is upon every schoolboy's tongue. He will 
 recount a catalogue of patriots, who, for profound know- 
 ledge and practical wisdom, were never surpassed in any 
 age or country. Such were the friends of our own liber- 
 ties, at a time too, when they were not only stigmatized as 
 rebels, but were in hourly danger of being hanged as rebels. 
 They were the master-spirits who aroused the people to 
 resistance. They were honest men, and they united in 
 promoting the permanent welfare of their country. Hap- 
 pily, the people, having been generally educated at com- 
 mon schools, were sufficiently informed to comprehend 
 their rights, when those rights were ably explained to them, 
 and wise enough to be guided by their superiors in wisdom. 
 But had the intelligent, the learned colonists of those days 
 combined with the English aristocracy in maintaining the 
 ancient government in all its plans of oppression, the peo- 
 ple would never have thought of a revolution. Had they 
 been enlisted on the side of the British ministry, we had 
 
19 
 
 fcMs day been the loyal subjects of his majesty, George the 
 Fourth. 
 
 They too, be it remembered, zealously espoused the 
 cause of education; well assured that the goodly fabric of 
 liberty, which they had succeeded in rearing, would speed- 
 ily tumble into ruins, or become the citadel of some future 
 Caesar or Catiline, unless the rising and each successive 
 generation should be taught to maintain their rights by fully 
 comprehending them. Hence, whenever they had oppor- 
 tunity, in the legislative councils of the States or of the Na- 
 tion, they endeavored to secure a legal provision for 
 schools and colleges, either by the appropriation of public 
 lands, or by gradually accumulating an adequate pecuniary 
 fund for the purpose. To the general truth of this repre- 
 sentation, I am not acquainted with a single exception 
 among our revolutionary heroes and statesmen. All the 
 Presidents of the United States have uniformly agreed in 
 sentiment on this subject. And who, of the long list of 
 worthies whom the people have delighted to honour as pa- 
 triots, has ever ventured to advocate a contrary doctrine ? 
 
 Franklin laboured, during his whole life, in the cause 
 of schools, from the humblest to the highest, and finally suc- 
 ceeded in founding the University of Pennsylvania: al- 
 though his example has been often cited to prove the in- 
 utility of all such institutions. He had himself conquered 
 difficulties in the acquisition of science, which not one of a 
 million would ever think of encountering. And he possess- 
 ed too much good sense, and too much benevolence to wish 
 others to be left to the mere chance of creating for them- 
 selves a path to eminence, when a great public highway 
 might be so easily constructed for their convenience. He 
 knew that an extraordinary exception to a general rule or 
 law ought never to be urged against the rule itself. 
 
 Washington devoted much of his time and all the weight 
 of his influence to the same object. And he, at last, lib- 
 erally endowed a college in his native State, which still 
 bears his name. 
 
 Jefferson, besides promoting the same great cause during 
 the long period of his public career, consecrated the last se- 
 venteen years of his valuable life to the establishment of a 
 
20 
 
 University, upon the most permanent basis and of the 
 most enlarged dimensions. And centuries hence, probably, 
 the name of Jefferson will be more revered and distinguish- 
 ed as the father of the University of Virginia, than as a phi- 
 losopher or statesman. 
 
 No man, it is presumed, will, at the present day, accuse 
 a Franklin, a Washington, or a Jefferson of any lack of pa- 
 triotism or republicanism. And no man need be ashamed 
 to follow their example. May their spirit rest upon some 
 favoured son of Tennessee; and may she have the honour 
 of perpetuating upon the page of history, a name worthy, 
 in all respects, to be associated with our immortal Franklin, 
 Washington and Jefferson! This honour, I doubt not, she 
 will have; and that our Academic Halls will hail him as a 
 patron and benefactor, while virtue and science and liberty 
 shall exist in our land. 
 
 As I am dealing altogether with facts, and not with theo- 
 ries; and as I do not wish to go a hair's breadth beyond 
 the simple truth, I take leave distinctly to announce to you, 
 that, I do not affirm that all men of learning have, every 
 where and under all circumstances, been the friends of lib- 
 erty and human happiness. Far from it. The position 
 which I maintain is simply this; — that liberty and the best 
 interests of humanity, have ever been ably and successfully 
 advocated and promoted only by men well informed; and by 
 the best informed too of the age and country in which they 
 flourished. And, that, among ourselves, the most enlight- 
 ened citizens have ever approved themselves the most 
 effectual guardians of the people's rights. I admit also, 
 that so far as this argument is concerned, it matters not 
 where or how they acquire the requisite knowledge — 
 whether in common schools or high schools — in colleges or 
 universities — at home or abroad — by their own unassisted 
 efforts and enterprise, or from public institutions established 
 by the government or by individual munificence. But un- 
 til a better mode of arriving at the object can be devised, 
 we shall continue to regard schools and colleges as indis- 
 pensable. So long as the republic shall need learned men, 
 we shall expect schools and colleges to furnish them. — 
 They have already done the state some service: and they 
 are destined, we trust, to do it a great deal more. 
 
21 
 
 I am no blind admirer of colleges and universities. There 
 exists not one, in Europe or America, which might not be 
 greatly improved. The same may be said of common 
 schools, and of all human institutions. Shall we, therefore, 
 put an end to every system of education, because none has 
 hitherto been faultless? Will those who denounce colleges, 
 pretend that common schools are less obnoxious to censure; 
 or that they are as good as they need to be? Reformation 
 — improvement — is the order of the age — and it must be 
 obeyed. The work must be commenced and continued si- 
 multaneously in all our seminaries, great and small. The 
 cause is one and indivisible. Colleges exert an important 
 influence on the character of common schools: and these 
 again constitute the foundation of colleges. Unless com- 
 mon schools be good, our colleges will not be good. The 
 intermediate schools or academies will not remedy the de- 
 fects of the one or the other. It is all important to begin 
 well. If boys enter college with idle and vicious habits, 
 they will probably continue idle and vicious. If they have 
 been well trained at home and at school, they will be or- 
 derly, virtuous and diligent in college. The graduates of 
 our colleges generally will be found to have received their 
 bias to virtue or vice, under the parental roof, and from 
 their earliest instructers and associates. If parents neglect 
 their sons, or leave them to ignorant or profligate preceptors 
 or companions, during childhood and early youth, they need 
 not expect that the discipline of any college on earth will op- 
 erate upon them any miraculous regenerating influence. — 
 Such boys are ruined before they enter college: although 
 parents are generally charitable enough to blame the col- 
 lege for their own inexcusable folly and cruel indulgence, 
 when their hopeless sons disappoint their unreasonable ex- 
 pectations. Colleges have enough to answer for: let them 
 not be charged with sins of which they are innocent. Nor 
 let them be required to accomplish impossibilities. Supply 
 them with pupils, who have been thoroughly disciplined at 
 home and at school — of a suitable age to act with reason- 
 able discretion, and who are really desirous to acquire 
 knowledge — and the public will hear very little of the fol- 
 lies and dissipation of a college life. No real friend of col- 
 
leges, therefore, can ever be hostile or indifferent to good 
 common schools. 
 
 It were well for the community, if the professed advo- 
 cates of common schools were equally well disposed to- 
 wards colleges. Their grand objection to them, besides 
 those already hinted at, is briefly this: — That colleges are 
 designed exclusively for the rich — that the poor cannot be 
 benefited by them — and, therefore, that the poor ought not 
 to be taxed for their support, or that the people's purse 
 ought not to be burdened on their account. 
 
 This specious and very sage objection contains several 
 sophisms and several falsehoods. 
 
 In the first place: Colleges, in our country, are not, never 
 were, and never can be designed exclusively for the rich. 
 For, in fact, many poor youths have been educated in every 
 college of the Union during every year of their existence. 
 But then, such poor youths must usually belong to the vi- 
 cinity, or at least to the state, in which the college is situat- 
 ed. Neither Connecticut nor New- Jersey would ever think 
 of educating at their colleges a poor youth of Tennessee: 
 but many hundreds of poor, very poor young men of their 
 own states have been thus educated. Without a college at 
 home, every poor youth is necessarily cut off from all hope 
 or chance of any such privilege. 
 
 Again, between the rich and the poor, there is in the 
 community another class of citizens vastly larger than both 
 of them put together — the middling class, and the best class 
 — all of whom might educate one or more sons at college, at 
 an expense of from fifty to a hundred and fifty dollars per 
 year, who could never send their sons abroad at an expense 
 of from five hundred to a thousand dollars a year. Will the 
 state do nothing for this large and respectable body of her 
 citizens? The merest trifle contributed by each would 
 place advantages within the reach of the whole, which no 
 individual could otherwise possibly command. 
 
 But, in the second place, grant that colleges are designed 
 exclusively for the rich. What does a wise policy dictate 
 as the proper course to be pursued? The question is not, 
 whether the rich shall, or shall not educate their sons at a 
 college; but whether they may do it at home, or must do 
 
23 
 
 it abroad? For with money, they can do what they please. 
 They can send their sons to Philadelphia or Paris, to Ox- 
 ford or Edinburgh. Would it not be good policy then to 
 require these rich men to build up a college, suited to their 
 own purposes, and at their own expense; and thereby con- 
 strain or induce them to employ their funds, and to disburse 
 their ample revenues within the state, to the unspeakable 
 benefit of all classes of citizens, and especially of the mid- 
 dling and poorest, by encouraging every species of indus- 
 try and enhancing the value of every description of pro- 
 perty, to the full amount of the money thus prevented from 
 going into the hands of foreigners? Were this matter rightly 
 understood by the people, they woald presently perceive, 
 that, the main scope of the pretext so artfully employed to 
 mislead them, was, after all, at bottom, nothing more than 
 to spare the purses of the rich, to the manifest detriment of 
 the whole community — of the rich as well as the poor — for 
 the rich deceive themselves if they imagine that they will 
 be the gainers in any way by such a course. It will cost a 
 rich man ten times as much to educate one son at a distant 
 seminary as he would be required to contribute, during his 
 whole life, for the erection of a college, according to any 
 equitable plan of assessment or taxation which might be 
 adopted for the purpose. 
 
 But, in the third place, — why all this clamour and affec- 
 tation of zeal in behalf of the poor? Do men legislate only 
 for the poor? Does the government exist solely for the 
 poor? Are the poor, and they only, elected to office? Is 
 not some pecuniary or landed qualification indispensable to 
 any man's eligibility to office? Is the public money — ay, 
 the people's money — paid out in salaries to the poor — to 
 poor governors, poor judges, poor senators? Are banking., 
 insurance, manufacturing, turnpike, bridge, or canal compa- 
 nies incorporated from among the poor, and chiefly for the 
 benefit of the poor? One might imagine from the noise 
 made on the subject, that the poor were all in all to the 
 state; that they were the precious objects of the govern- 
 ment's special care and protection: Since their self-consti- 
 tuted patrons virtually maintain, that, if they cannot all go 
 to college, there shall be no college. Why not decree, that 
 
24 
 
 if the poor man cannot ride in a coach, there shall be no 
 coaches; or that the rich shall not use them? 
 
 Now the plain simple truth is, that the poor are nevci 
 taxed in our country for any purpose whatever. All taxes 
 are levied on property. Were twenty colleges to be com- 
 menced to-morrow, the poor would not be burdened a far- 
 thing. They would, on the contrary, be immediately bene- 
 fited by the demand thus created for their labour, and by 
 the liberal wages which would be paid them. 
 
 But, in the fourth place, strictly speaking, there are no 
 poor in our country. Among the white population there is 
 no degraded caste. We have no class of poor, like the poor 
 of Europe. We impose on ourselves by the imported terms 
 and phraseology of transatlantic society. And hence we 
 talk as currently about the poor, as would an English lord 
 or German baron. Forgetting that the poorest man in the 
 republic may become rich. The richest of our citizens 
 have been poor. The rich and the poor are frequently re- 
 lated to each other. The rich man may have a poor father 
 or brother. And the poorest individual may be nearly al- 
 lied to the most distinguished families in the land. Our 
 state of society is constantly fluctuating. Eich families dai- 
 ly decline: poor ones daily advance. Wealth and poverty 
 are mere accidents. They are not hereditary in particular 
 lines, or perpetuated in particular families. It is absurd 
 therefore to declaim or to speculate about the poor as if 
 they were an oppressed, miserable, helpless class, like the 
 Russian or Polish peasantry. We have all been poor. We 
 may be poor again. When poor, we were obliged to deny 
 ourselves many comforts, luxuries and privileges which we 
 now enjoy; and it was mainly by this self-denial that we 
 were enabled to improve our condition. And such must 
 ever be the case. If the poor wish to rise above their pre- 
 sent condition, they can do so, every where in our country, 
 by industry, prudence and economy: and they will con- 
 tinue, to do so, as long as they shall be left to their own free 
 energies. I trust the time is far distant, when our govern- 
 ment shall think it worth while to perpetuate pauperism 
 amongst us by legal encouragement — by premiums in the 
 shape of poor rates. 
 
»>r* 
 
 The only distinction which exists among our citizens, 
 worthy of notice, is between the educated and the unedu- 
 cated. The former engross all the wealth, offices, and in- 
 fluence in the nation; while the latter remain the victims 
 of want, of crime, of infamy, and of punishment. I here 
 use the term educated in a very wide and comprehensive 
 sense. That individual who has learned how to labour at 
 any honest occupation, and who knows how to manage his 
 earnings skilfully, is educated, and well educated, compared 
 with those who have been brought up to no business; or who 
 are destitute of sobriety, prudence and economy. He may 
 become rich and honourable; while they are necessarily 
 doomed to poverty and wretchedness. Between these two 
 descriptions of persons there is an impassable gulf. They 
 are further removed from each other than the lord and his 
 vassal: and the longer they live the wider will be the dis- 
 tance between them. Whoever has grown up in total 
 ignorance of the means of acquiring an honest livelihood, 
 and with vicious habits, may be regarded, in general, as 
 helpless and hopeless. Gross ignorance, at least of every 
 thing good and useful, is the cause of all the degradation in 
 our country. Now although there may be no' effectual 
 remedy for the evil which actually exists, yet there is a pre- 
 ventive — its further progress may be checked — its recur- 
 rence may be prevented. This preventive remedy is in- 
 struction, moral, intellectual, physical, religious. It is not 
 only the cheapest — it is the only remedy. If inveterate 
 habits cannot be changed; take care that the children form 
 better habits, and imbibe better principles than their fathers. 
 
 Our country has expended, and continues to expend,, on 
 courts of justice and criminal prosecutions — on prisons and 
 penitentiaries — for the punishment and safe keeping of a 
 few veteran and incorrigible villains, vastly more money 
 than would be required to give a suitable education to all 
 the absolutely indigent youth in the nation. If government, 
 therefore, instead of wasting millions in the hopeless endea- 
 vour to reform the hardened offender, would cause such 
 children as would otherwise be neglected, to be properly 
 disciplined and brought up, there would soon be little ne- 
 cessity for prisons or penitentiaries. Here is the right end 
 
m 
 
 to begin at — the proper starting point — the first step in the 
 work of general reformation, without which every other 
 will be taken in vain. Happily, wherever the experiment 
 has been made, it has fully succeeded. Among the thou- 
 sands of poor children recently trained in the free schools 
 of the city of New- York, not one has been sentenced to 
 bridewell. Thus far then, at least, the rich might be fairly 
 taxed for the benefit of the poor. This would not only be 
 real benevolence — it would be the wisest policy — the least 
 expensive course that could be adopted. And if the state 
 should choose to do more; let a certain proportion of the 
 most promising boys in the common schools be annually ad- 
 vanced to the academy; and the best of these again to the 
 college, at the public expense. 
 
 It is worse than idle to object to colleges because they 
 do not educate the poor, and yet to refuse them the means 
 of doing it. If the state please, she can organize and en- 
 dow a college, so that the poor and the rich may enjoy its 
 privileges gratis. Or she may make such provision only 
 for the poor, and compel the rich to pay. She has it in her 
 power to confer on the poor, in this respect, whatever fa- 
 vours she chooses. If any honest friend of the poor and the 
 ignorant can devise a more liberal or judicious system for 
 their elevation in society, it shall receive my hearty appro- 
 bation and support. 
 
 Let it not be inferred from any thing just said, that I am 
 an enemy to the penitentiary system. It is, when judi- 
 ciously administered, a good and necessary system, in the 
 existing state of our society. But it may, and I doubt not, 
 will be, in a great measure, superseded by the proper train- 
 ing of our youth, who would otherwise become its pitiable 
 subjects. 
 
 Having thus, at greater length than I intended, disposed 
 of some of the popular objections to colleges — objections 
 which I have frequently heard advanced in Tennessee — I 
 might proceed to show what a college ought to be. But as 
 I have, on a former occasion, expressed my views pretty 
 fully on this subject, I shall not now repeat them. 
 
 I must be permitted, however, to say a word in behalf of 
 Cumberland College; especially to my young friends, who 
 
27 
 
 have just been adorned with her laurel, and who will be 
 regarded as her representatives before the public, and whom 
 she will regard as her natural and most warmly devoted 
 friends and advocates. 
 
 You have been told, or you have witnessed the various 
 fortune of this institution — its many and well sustained 
 struggles for existence — its decline and failure after a few 
 bright days of sunshine and prosperity — its recent resusci- 
 tation under circumstances which would have discouraged 
 and appalled men of ordinary capacity and enterprise — its 
 conduct, character and progress during the period of nearly 
 two years since its re-organization; and you cannot be in- 
 sensible to the numerous difficulties and obstacles, which it 
 must still encounter, before it can attain that pre-eminent 
 rank to which she aspires. For she will not be content 
 with humble mediocrity, nor with a mere equality with her 
 sister institutions. She aims at vastly greater eminence 
 and usefulness than has yet been reached by any of them.. 
 This aim will be pronounced visionary by those who do not 
 know what constitutes the real excellence of a college, and 
 by those who are ever disposed to predict a failure where 
 they do not wish success. 
 
 Men frequently, too, labour under an unfortunate preju- 
 dice on this subject. They presume that colleges must be 
 growing better as they grow older; and distance of situation 
 greatly increases their reverence. Hence, a venerable 
 monastic establishment, a hundred years old, and a thousand 
 miles off, is conceived to possess advantages which young 
 Tennessee cannot hope for in a century. Now I venture 
 to assert, that, our infant university might be made, in five 
 years, superior to any and to all the colleges in our country 
 — -if the people will but decree it. Let us not be imposed 
 on by mere names. Buildings, books, apparatus, teachers, 
 constitute the principal expensive ingredients of a univer- 
 sity: and money can command them all, in as great abun- 
 dance and perfection here as in Europe or old America 
 We have the full benefit of all past experience to begin 
 with. Whatever is excellent in existing institutions, wc 
 may adopt: whatever is superfluous, or antiquated, or faulty, 
 wo may reject ]' is much easier to create a good institu- 
 
28 
 
 tion than to mend a bad one. Ancient usage naturally be- 
 comes prescriptive, and ordinarily prevents innovation or 
 improvement. 
 
 Upon the virgin soil of Tennessee, then, may be reared 
 a seminary, which shall eclipse, in grandeur of design and 
 felicity of execution, and in the wisdom of its arrangements 
 and combinations, all other institutions — if her sons will 
 but prove true to themselves and faithful to future genera- 
 tions. A more eligible or healthful site for such an esta- 
 blishment cannot be found in the Western country. Here 
 is the place, and now is the time for generous enterprise. 
 Here let us erect a university, so decidedly and confessedly 
 superior in every department, that a rival or competitor 
 need not be feared. Let us make ample provision for 
 every species of instruction — scientific, literary, profes- 
 sional — which our country demands. Let education be 
 extended to the physical and moral, as well as to the mental 
 faculties. Let agriculture, horticulture, civil and military 
 engineering, gymnastics, the liberal and the mechanical 
 arts — whatever may tend to impart vigour, dignity, grace, 
 activity, health, to the body — whatever may tend to purify 
 the heart, improve the morals and manners, discipline the 
 intellect, and to furnish it with copious stores of useful 
 elementary knowledge, — obtain their appropriate place and 
 rank, and receive merited attention in our seminary; so 
 that parents may, with confidence, commit their sons to our 
 care. Assured that they will be in safe and skilful hands — 
 under a government, equitable, paternal, mild, firm, vigilant 
 and faithful — where their every interest will be consulted, 
 their every faculty be duly cultivated, and where every 
 effort will be made to render them intelligent, virtuous, 
 accomplished citizens. Does any man doubt that such an 
 institution will ever want patronage? Make it the best in 
 the country; and will it not command the patronage of the 
 country? Such an establishment as we contemplate, the 
 public mind is already prepared for, and has begun to call 
 for. This call is imperative — it will be heard — it will be 
 answered. We must meet it or others will. 
 
 Our college is already as good and respectable as most 
 others; certainly inferior to none in the West. It has re- 
 
29 
 
 ceived the most flattering encouragement. No college, in 
 any part of our country, has, with the same means, effected 
 as much, or numbered as many students, in so short a pe- 
 riod. I may add, too, without exaggeration or compliment, 
 that, the orderly, moral, gentlemanly deportment of our 
 students, during the past session especially, and of most of 
 them from the beginning, would have done credit to any 
 seminary. And that they have made extraordinary pro- 
 ficiency in the languages and sciences, taught by our labo- 
 rious and accomplished professors, has been fully acknow- 
 ledged by all who have attended their public examinations 
 or ordinary recitations. The friends of the college, there- 
 fore, have no ground for despondency on the one hand; 
 and we trust thai they will not be so far satisfied with its 
 actual condition on the other, as to relax their zealous 
 efforts for its future improvement. 
 
 In this great work, there is no resting place — no point to 
 stop at. With the increase of population, with the march 
 of mind and the progress of universal improvement, we 
 must keep pace. We must daily advance. Perfection 
 should be our motto and our aim, however much we may 
 ultimately fail of attaining it. Every successful step should 
 prompt to another and a greater. When we have gained 
 one eminence, we shall be able to descry a still higher and 
 a mere inviting; which, when reached, must serve only to 
 enlarge our horizon, and extend our vision, and brighten 
 our hopes, and animate our efforts, and cheer us in our la- 
 bours, for the welfare of mankind. 
 
 The Trustees of Cumberland College have purchased 
 one hundred and twenty acres of land to meet the various 
 purposes of their contemplated university. It is proposed 
 immediately to commence the erection of a series of build- 
 ings for the accommodation of students, instructers and 
 stewards; consisting of five additional colleges, each suffi- 
 ciently commodious for a hundred students and three assis- 
 tant professors or tutors, and of seven houses for as many 
 principal or head professors. We shall then have six col- 
 leges, and twenty-five instructers, and accommodations for 
 six hundred pupils. To each college will be attached a 
 refectory or boarding house, with eight or ten acres of land 
 
30 
 
 for gardening and exercise. The colleges will be erected 
 at such distances from each other as to prevent the usual 
 evils resulting from the congregation of large numbers of 
 youth at the same place. Professors will occupy houses on 
 the intervening lots: and there will be at least three officers 
 resident within the walls of each college. We shall thus 
 have six distinct and separate families, so far as regards 
 domestic economy, internal police, and social order; while 
 one Senatus Academicus will superintend and control the 
 whole. 
 
 Gardens and mechanics' shops will be interspersed among 
 the various edifices, in such manner as to be easily accessi- 
 ble to all the youth for improvement and recreation. — 
 Whenever the present ground shall be thus occupied, it 
 will be necessary to procure fifty or a hundred acres more, 
 for a model or experimental farm; that agriculture, the 
 noblest of sciences and the most important of the useful arts, 
 may be thoroughly studied and practised. At a future 
 period, or as soon as the means can be obtained, other suit- 
 able edifices, both useful and ornamental, may be erected. 
 The plan admits of indefinite extension; and in proportion 
 to its enlargement, its advantages will be increased, while 
 the expense of its maintenance will be diminished. 
 
 In order to execute our present design, only about 
 $ 200,000 will be required. This sum might be furnished 
 by the State at once; or in two, four, eight or ten years. 
 Or it may be obtained partly hy donations, and partly by 
 loan, Any individual, for instance, bestowing $ 20,000 
 may give his name to a college or to a professorship: or 
 any number of individuals, subscribing that sum, may give 
 any name they please to a college or professorship. Sup- 
 pose Davidson county, or even Nashville were disposed 
 to erect a monument to the memory of her most honoured 
 citizen; what could she do more grateful to him, more 
 worthy of herself, more beneficial to the republic, than to 
 contribute the sum of $ 20,000 to build an edifice, on yonder 
 hill, to be known among all future generations as Jackson 
 College, founded and endowed by the citizens of Davidson 
 
 county or of Nashville, in the year what year shall 
 
 he designated? If the appeal were made to her generosity, 
 
31 
 
 her public spirit, her gratitude, her just pride and magna- 
 nimity, I cannot deem so lightly of her present citizens as to 
 anticipate a refusal, which would prove her alike unworthy 
 of a great University and of the Hero of New Orleans. 
 
 Let us calculate — we have, within the limits of our city 
 corporation alone, not less than four thousand free white 
 inhabitants. Were each to give five dollars, or were two 
 thousand to give each ten dollars, or were one thousand to 
 give twenty dollars apiece, the object would be accomplished 
 without the aid of the county at large: and who could feel 
 the burthen? Thus, then, one college, at least, is provided 
 for;. Some others might possibly be erected by similar 
 means, and in honor of other meritorious individuals. 
 
 The little town of Amherst, in Massachusetts, which does 
 not contain one half of the population, nor one twentieth 
 part of the wealth of Nashville, raised, by private subscrip- 
 tion in 1821, the sum of fifty thousand dollars to commence 
 a college within its limits.* And several other towns in our 
 country have been equally munificent. 
 
 Let no man imagine, that, in giving money to a college, 
 he is doling out alms to an importunate or worthless beggar. 
 He does honour to himself by the aet; and the institution 
 honours him by accepting his bounty; and is able to confer 
 on him and his family a greater and more durable honour 
 than mere selfish wealth can ever procure. The otherwise 
 obscure names of Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Bowdoin, 
 Williams, Brown, Bartlett, Phillips, Dickinson, Rutgers, 
 will be immortalized by the seminaries to which they have 
 been benefactors, and which will bear their names for ever. 
 If honour, real honour, lasting honour, be worth seeking; 
 here is the road to it. 
 
 If, however, nothing can be obtained from our legislature, 
 or from our good city or county, or from individuals, we 
 may borrow the whole sum of two hundred thousand dol- 
 lars, at an interest not exceeding six per cent — creating a 
 transferable six per cent stock — and, in twenty years, we 
 could easily pay off both principal and interest, at the pre- 
 
 *Another sum of $50,000 was added to the funds of Amherst College by 
 the private subscription of its friends, during the last year (1832.) And the 
 sum of $100,000 was raised for the benefit of Yale College by her alumni 
 during the same year. 
 
32 
 
 sent rate of charges for tuition and room-rent. It would be 
 merely necessary, in order to procure the loan, that the 
 state should guaranty the payment, or that responsible in- 
 dividuals should underwrite for us. And we can pledge 
 ample means either to the state or to individuals, to secure 
 the one or the other, from all hazard of eventual loss; as I 
 am prepared to demonstrate, at the proper time to all com- 
 petent judges. Now it would be vastly preferable that the 
 money should be gratuitously furnished, because ( to specify 
 no other advantages) the expenses of an education at our 
 university might be diminished one half immediately; and 
 thus would the portals of science be opened wide to the 
 great majority of our people. 
 
 But the funds must and will be forthcoming from some 
 quarter. We are not to be deterred or frightened from our 
 purpose by any obstacles, real or imaginary. We have 
 very deliberately counted the cost: and onward is engraven 
 upon our banners and upon our hearts. 
 
 Who, let me ask — I put the question to this assembly — to 
 the good people of Tennessee — who will oppose our pro- 
 jected institution, designed, as it is, exclusively for the be- 
 nefit of this people? I will tell you. It will be opposed by 
 the faint-hearted, the cowardly, the ignorant, the c6vetous; 
 and by all the enemies of light, truth, virtue and human 
 happiness. It will be opposed by that description of selfish, 
 arrogant, self-sufficient, would he lords and Solomons, who 
 exist in every petty village, and who always oppose what- 
 ever does not originate from themselves, or which is not sub- 
 mitted to their own wise management and control. It will 
 be opposed by those who can, by any artifice or misrepresen- 
 tation, convert the scheme into a political hobby to ride into 
 office. It will be opposed by those who despair of getting 
 out of it a job — a bargain — a money-making speculation — 
 some paltry private gain or advantage. But it will never 
 be opposed by one honest man, by one honourable man, by 
 one enlightened man, by one patriotic man, by one benevo- 
 lent man, by one great or good man. 
 
 Here then, before the venerable fathers, who first planted 
 the standard of civilization and Christianity in this recent 
 wilderness, shall have left the scene of their early toils and 
 
33 
 
 sufferings for ever, let the banks of (he Cumberland be 
 adorned with the majestic temples of science and with the 
 academic groves, which may proudly vie with those which 
 have conferred immortality on the Cam and the Isis. 
 
 AiaiA Mater confidently appeals to her own ingenuous 
 alumni; and claims of them chivalrous fealty, and honoura- 
 ble service, and lasting attachment, and generous support. 
 She will not appeal to them in vain. And may she, as I 
 doubt not she will, a thousand generations after all her ene- 
 mies shall be forgotten, be the ornament, the pride, and the 
 glory of Tennessee! 
 
 Having thus earnestly pressed upon your notice the great 
 cause of education, and the cause of our own infant univer- 
 sity in particular, as worthy of peculiar regard and benefi- 
 cence; I may briefly add, in this connexion, that every 
 scheme and enterprise, calculated, in any degree, to pro- 
 mote human happiness, will also claim your countenance 
 and support. You must be the leaders — where others bet- 
 ter qualified do not offer — in every good work. I do not 
 recommend to you merely those magnificent and imposing 
 projects for the melioration of the condition of mankind, 
 which are sufficiently popular to command general respect; 
 but, besides these, I recommend to you those humbler, less 
 dazzling, less conspicuous, and, frequently, more disinterest- 
 ed modes of doing good, which occur every day, in every 
 village, and in almost every family. Now, to be able to do 
 good, in any of the modes suggested or contemplated, re- 
 member, that, industry in acquiring knowledge or wealth 
 will not alone suffice. Nor will it be sufficient to abstain 
 from degrading vice — from intemperance and gambling — 
 from every species of youthful irregularity and ruinous dis- 
 sipation. You must study prudence and economy in the 
 management of both time and money. A man, extravagant 
 in his ordinary expenses, fond of show and ostentation, ea- 
 ger to be at the head of the fashionable world or in the 
 pursuit of fashionable pleasures and follies, is not likely to 
 be generous. He will never become a Howard or a Frank- 
 lin. The man of plain and simple habits, who avoids all 
 needless display and luxury, who is content with what is 
 
34 
 
 useful and comfortable, is the man who has the most to be- 
 stow on objects of charity, benevolence and public utility. 
 
 Go then, Young Gentlemen, and prosecute with perse- 
 vering ardour, the new course of study and discipline, which 
 is to qualify you to enter, in due time, upon the great the- 
 atre of active, useful, honourable life. Be not in haste to 
 engage in those various liberal professions, to which most 
 or all of you, perhaps, intend hereafter to devote your fa- 
 culties. Wait, with patience, the full development of your 
 mental powers; and continue long to collect, with untiring 
 assiduity, from every source, the treasures of knowledge 
 which are necessary to fit you for eminence in any profes- 
 sion; and for the noblest career of usefulness to your coun- 
 try, and for the most exalted stations within her gift. De- 
 spise not — neglect not any department of human learning, 
 whenever and wherever it can be consistently cultivated. 
 No man ever denounces, as useless or superfluous, any sci- 
 ence or language with which he is himself acquainted. 
 The ignorant only, condemn: and they condemn what they 
 do not understand, and because they do not understand it. 
 Whenever, therefore, you hear a man declaiming against 
 any literary or scientific pursuit, you may rest assured that 
 he knows nothing of the matter: and you will need no bet- 
 ter evidence of his total incompetency to sit in judgment 
 upon the case. Of all the learned men of whatever age, 
 country or profession, who have benefited our world by 
 their labours — who have been most distinguished and most 
 successful? Precisely those who have judiciously put un- 
 der contribution, to the greatest extent, every corner and 
 recess of the grand temple of science, which it was possible 
 for them to explore. There is such an intimate connexion 
 between the sciences, such a perfect harmony of parts in 
 the great whole of human knowledge, that all may frequent- 
 ly, like the rays of the sun, be brought to bear intensely on 
 a single point; or, at pleasure, be spread over an immense 
 surface, diffusing light and heat and joy to the utmost verge 
 of civilized society. 
 
 Study, then, to improve all your time in the most profit- 
 able manner. Let your amusements be rational, virtuous, 
 seasonable, manly, and invigorating to body and mind. Let 
 
35 
 
 order, and method, and system be adopted and rigorously 
 maintained. Study hard while you profess to study. Relax 
 at suitable intervals, only to return with redoubled ardor 
 to your books. Thus, health, serenity of mind, elasticity 
 of spirits, present enjoyment, future usefulness and honour 
 will all be promoted and secured. 
 
 Be not, however, the blind idolaters of genius or of sci- 
 ence. Both may exist where not one lovely or commend- 
 able trait of character can be found. The loftiest intellect, 
 without virtue, is but archangel ruined. In God only, do 
 we behold the perfection of understanding, of wisdom, of 
 knowledge, of holiness. And he is that perfect standard 
 which we are commanded to aim at. Religion, which re- 
 quires us to be like God, constitutes the whole of moral ex- 
 cellence. And in proportion as religion influences the heart 
 and life, will be the moral worth of any individual. There 
 can be no principle of integrity, of truth, of kindness, of 
 justice, independently of religion. No human laws, usages, 
 institutions or opinions can, of themselves, ever render any 
 man perfectly honest in all his dealings and transactions 
 with his fellow-men. He has it continually in his power, 
 with a fair reputation too, to mislead, deceive, defraud— 
 and, in a thousand ways, to practise imposition. And he is 
 continually tempted to do this, in a country where influence, 
 office, money are the objects of universal desire and ambi- 
 tion, and where success is regarded as the criterion of merit 
 and talent. He may not be a thief or a robber in the eye 
 of the law, or according to the ordinary judgment of men; 
 and yet he may be habitually more criminal than either, in 
 the eye of infinite purity and justice; and would be so pro 
 nounced by any tribunal of perfectly honest men, who 
 could take cognizance of all the motives, facts and circum- 
 stances. That man, who will take any undue advantage 
 of another in a bargain, or in any mode whatever, would 
 steal or rob just as soon, if he could do it with equal hrnipui 
 and safety. Nothing does, nothing can, nothing ever will 
 restrain any mortal from any indulgence, pursuit, gain 01 
 abomination which he covets, and to which no disgrace is 
 attached, except the fear of God — or, what is the same 
 'hing, religious principle. The most ignorant pagans. 
 
3tf> 
 
 as well as the most enlightened sages on earth, are restrained 
 by this fear, or by this principle, whether they are con- 
 scious of it or not. I mean so far as they act from principle 
 at all — and without reference to human laws or opinions. 
 The salutary and restraining influence of religion extends, 
 in fact, throughout the world. It is daily felt in all the re- 
 lations of life. It is apparent in the whole texture and 
 organization of human society. All the peace, comfort, 
 virtue and felicity in the world, or which have ever been 
 in the world, flow, and have flowed, from religion. In pro- 
 portion as pure religion prevails, in the same proportion do 
 we behold human nature approximating the purity, happi- 
 ness, dignity and glory of angels. And in proportion as it 
 is any where neglected, opposed, despised, in the same 
 degree do vice, ignorance and misery abound. This is a 
 fact obvious to every man's observation. 
 
 It is absurd for any man to pretend to reject religion 
 altogether, because he is, in spite of himself, religious or 
 superstitious, in some form or other, whether his views be 
 right or wrong. It is madness and cruelty, because, were 
 it possible for him to banish religion from our world, he 
 would put an end to civil government, to social order and 
 to social existence. 
 
 I shall not attempt to tell you what religion implies or 
 inculcates; nor, of the many religions in the world, which 
 is the best. The worst is better than none. I have no fear 
 that any religion whatever will be preferred to the christian. 
 I have no fear that any man, who honestly and soberly ex- 
 amines the records and the charter of our religion, will ever 
 fail to acknowledge its paramount claims, and to practise, at 
 least to approve, its precepts. And this is all that I now 
 urge. Study the Bible faithfully and prayerfully, and you 
 will learn what true religion is. All who do this, with a 
 proper temper and spirit, will agree in essential points of 
 doctrine, as well as in the essential rules of conduct. All 
 who diligently study the Bible — from the Roman Catholic 
 to the Quaker — will think and act alike in all things which 
 are important, and they will never contend about unimpor- 
 tant forms or questions. Were the Bible resorted to for 
 our theology and our ethics, instead of human teachers 01 
 
37 
 
 systems, all bigotry, fanaticism, uneharitableness and per 
 secution would disappear from the christian world. Igno- 
 rance of the Bible is the prolific source, not only of error 
 and superstition, but of all that demon spirit of party and 
 sectarism which rages among those who profess the same 
 faith, and which keeps asunder brethren of the same family. 
 
 It assuredly ill becomes those who are liberally educated 
 to be illiberal and intolerant on the subject of religion, or 
 to manifest illiberal hostility against it. Nor would such 
 an anomaly ever be witnessed, were our scholars to study 
 the Bible as carefully and profoundly as they study, or pro- 
 fess to study human science and philosophy. Simply as an 
 integral part of a liberal education, it demands the most 
 thorough investigation. What right have men to dispute 
 and dogmatize about religion, when, in truth, they know 
 little or nothing of the Bible, which alone can teach it ? 
 Who is the self-sufficient bigot, that deals out anathemas 
 against all who do not adopt the same peculiar phraseology 
 and the same ceremonial with himself? Who is the sneer- 
 ing captious skeptic, who is ever railing at the hypocrisy, 
 the credulity, the superstition, the weakness, or the incon- 
 sistency of christians — as if these were the genuine fruits 
 of Christianity, or constituted any part of its character? 
 Who is it that deliberately intrenches himself within the 
 strong holds of his own understanding, and affects to yield 
 to the dictates and discoveries of reason, and to do homage 
 to the dignity of human nature at the expense of revela- 
 tion ? Who is it that denounces the Bible as containing 
 unintelligible mysteries and dogmas — as imposing rules and 
 precepts too strict and severe for frail humanity — as pre- 
 senting sanctions, and threatening penalties, revolting to 
 infinite justice and goodness ? They are to a man, ignorant 
 of the Bible, and of the heavenly spirit which pervades it. 
 They must be sent to school, before they can be reasoned 
 with. 
 
 Happily, the reign of atheism has passed away. And 
 the fopperies of infidelity are no longer in fashion. Men 
 of sense are ashamed to avow the one, or to exhibit the 
 other. Multitudes, however, at the present day, — and 
 those too, frequently, among the most intelligent and influ- 
 
38 
 
 cntial members oi' society — appear desirous to stand on 
 neutral ground. Not aware, perhaps, that the thing is im- 
 possible. They neither oppose nor profess the christian 
 religion. They give themselves very little concern about 
 the matter. They live under its general influence, and 
 participate in its general charities, and seem to fancy them- 
 selves exempt from its more immediate and authoritative 
 control; so long as they do not submit to the discipline of 
 any particular church. As if it were at their option to obey 
 or to disobey the divine command — to be religious or irre- 
 ligious — to admit or reject as much or little of religion's 
 precepts as may comport with their inclination or imaginary 
 interest. Now, this is most egregious trifling with reason 
 and duty — with themselves and their Maker. Young per- 
 sons easily yield to these delusions, and are apt to think 
 that religion is not designed for them, and that it ill becomes 
 them. Or that it will render them miserable, or singular, 
 or unfit for the business and concerns of the world. I pass, 
 however, all this sophistry, all these prejudices, misappre- 
 hensions and difficulties, and again refer you to the Bible 
 for instruction. 
 
 If man was made to be religious — and that he was, uni- 
 versal experience proves beyond the possibility of a doubt: 
 if, without religion, he is both worthless and wretched — and 
 that he is, the same experience as fully demonstrates; then 
 is religion necessary, and equally necessary to all men. It 
 is equally binding on all men — on the lawyer, the physician, 
 the statesman, the soldier, the youthful student — as on the 
 clergyman, the saint, or the sage of four score. It does not 
 consist in particular acts or ceremonies, nor is it restricted, 
 in its operations and influence, to particular times, places 
 and occasions. It regulates the temper, reigns in the heart, 
 and keeps alive the spirit of devotion, of purity and love, 
 wherever we go, or whatever may be our worldly vocation. 
 In every human pursuit or station, religion supplies the only 
 true principle of action, and points out the only legitimate 
 ways and means of success. Happy the man, who, in every 
 undertaking, in every purpose, and during all his exertions 
 and trials, can devoutly look to God for direction, for assist- 
 ance, for wisdom, for a paternal blessing. 
 
39 
 
 Finally, be courageous. Dare to be honest, just, mag- 
 nanimous, true to your God, to your country, to yourselves, 
 and to the world. Dare to do to others as you would have 
 them do to you. Most men are cowards. They are afraid 
 to speak and to act, when duty calls, and as duty requires 
 I recommend courage as a great and a rare virtue. Few 
 men will suffer themselves to be called cowards; and yet 
 they betray their cowardice by the very course they take 
 to avenge the insult. A man may intrepidly face the can- 
 non's mouth, and be an arrant coward after all. There is a 
 higher, a nobler courage, than was ever displayed in the 
 heat of battle, or on the field of carnage. 
 
 There is a moral courage, which enables a man to tri- 
 umph over foes more formidable than were ever marshalled 
 by any Csesar. A courage which impels him to do his 
 duty — to hold fast his integrity — to maintain a conscience 
 void of offence toward God and toward men — at every 
 hazard and sacrifice — in defiance of the world, and of the 
 prince of the world. Such was the courage of Moses, of 
 Joseph, of Daniel, of Aristides, of Phocion, of Regulus, of 
 Paul, of Luther, of Washington. Such is the courage 
 which sustains every good man, amidst the temptations, al- 
 lurements, honours, conflicts, opposition, ridicule, malice, 
 cruelty, persecution, which beset and threaten him at every 
 stage of his progress through life. It is not a noisy, obtru- 
 sive, blustering, boastful courage, which pushes itself into 
 notice when there is no real danger, but which shrinks 
 away when the enemy is at the door. It is calm, self-pos- 
 sessed, meek, gentle, peaceful, unostentatious, modest, re- 
 tiring; but when the fearful hour ar-rives, then you shall 
 behold the majesty of genuine christian courage, in all her 
 native energy and grandeur, breathing the spirit of angelic 
 purity, and grasping victory from the fiery furnace or the 
 lions' den; when not one of all the millions of this world's 
 heroes would have ventured to share her fortune. 
 
 I fear God, and I have no other fear — is the sublimes! 
 sentiment ever felt or uttered by mortal man. 
 
 May each of you, beloved youth, living and dying, be 
 enabled, in sincerity, before the Searcher of hearts, to ex- 
 claim, — I fear God, and I have no other fear. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
 The average number of students in the four regular classes of the university has gen- 
 erally been between seventy and eighty. These classes are so divided and subdivided, 
 for the purposes of study and recitation, that every individual is enabled and constrain- 
 ed toadvance according to his actual ability. Such a variety in their studies and pur- 
 suits is provided, as to promote cheerful exertion, without distracting or confusing the 
 mind. There are only two vacations in the year— consisting of five and a half weeks 
 each— the one commencing on the first Wednesday in April, and the other on the first 
 Wednesday in October. There are no intermediate holidays: and no vacation is allowed 
 to theaeniorClass, previously to graduation, as is customary at other colleges. As there 
 are no honours or prizes to animate a few to extraordinary efforts, and to criscourage the 
 majority altogether, so the whole are very desirous to avail themselves of every privi- 
 lege up to the last moment of their collegiate life: and they find no difficulty in prepar- 
 ing appropriate exercises for the public Commencement. 
 
 This is believed to be ihe first college in the Union, and is still probably the only one, 
 which has utterly discarded the old system of honorary premiums and distinctions, as 
 incentives to industry and scholarship. This species of emulation and excitement is 
 here unknown. Each individual is encouraged and assisted in making the best possible 
 use of his time and talents; and in acquiring knowledge for its own sake and for future 
 usefulness. At the close of each session or half year, all the classes are publicly exam- 
 ined on the studies of the previous session. These examinations usually occupy seven 
 or eight days, and are conducted with such rigorous strictness and impartiality that it is 
 impossible for ignorance or idleness to escape detection and exposure. Here is a fair op- 
 portunity for lire exhibition of talent and superior scholarship, and for the attainment of 
 whatever applause or reputation may be spontaneously conferred by those who witness 
 their performances.* This kind and degree of stimulus is both natural and salutary, 
 and may be felt by all. The Faculty are spared the invidious task of awarding honours 
 or of graduating a scale of merit. No aspiring youth is impelled by the hope of a prize 
 to undue and dangerous exertions; and none are subjected to the mortification of disap- 
 pointed ambition or of an inequitable decision. This is not the place to enlarge on these 
 topics. — But from a long experimental acquaintance with the ancient usage in other in- 
 stitutions, and from an eight years' trial of the present system here, 1 do not hesitate to 
 give the latter a most decided preference. A much larger proportion of every class be- 
 come good scholars — and much greater peace, harmony, contentment, order, industry 
 and moral decoium prevail — than it had ever been my lot to remark at seminaries east 
 of the mountains. 
 
 No departments, exclusively for Law, Medicine or Theology, have as yet been estab- 
 lished. Much, however, that is usually considered as peculiar to each of these profes- 
 sions, is taught as part of the college course. The Trustees have wisely consulted the 
 welfare of the great body of their fellow citizens, by making provision, in the first in- 
 stance, for such instruction as would be generally beneficial. They are aware that Ihe 
 learned professions — at least, those of Law and Medicine — are already crowded to ex- 
 cess, and that the eagerness of youth to engage in them ought rather to be checked than 
 encouraged. They are aware also, that, in proportion to the diffusion of knowledge 
 among the people, the necessity for professional services of particular kinds will be di- 
 minished. To the farmers, therefore, they principally direct their regards. To elevate 
 agriculture to the first rank among professions and occupations is their aim. They have 
 already expended twenty thousand dollars in the purchase of a philosophical apparatus — 
 a mineralogical cabinet of ten thousand specrmens— a museum of natural history — arrd 
 in furnishing a well constructed chemical laboratory. Besides employing able prufessors 
 in every branch of physical and experimental science — so that the young farmer, even 
 though he should nut find it convenient to prosecute a regular college course, may at least 
 become an accomplished scientific agriculturist. Here too, in like manner, the youthful 
 mechanic, merchant or manufacturer may have the privilege of learning whatever will 
 be advantageous to their several vocations. Youth then may be amply qualified here 
 either to enter upon the study of a learned profession, or to engage in any useful business 
 or employment. 
 
 It is contemplated however, in' due time, and whenever the pecuniary resources of the 
 institution will justify the measure, to establish Faculties, for the learned professions. — 
 To gentlemen who now do honour to the bar, the bench, the pulpit, and the healing art, 
 iir Tennessee, the university respectfully appeals for that generous patronage which will 
 enable her to train upsuccessors worthy to occupy their places, when they shall be gath- 
 ered to their fathers. 
 
 *Itis not to be understood that any formal opinion of the audience is expressed or pub- 
 licly announced on these occasions. Each individual exeicises his own judgment, and 
 utters it when and where and in such fashion as he pleases. The students appear before 
 the same kind of tribunal and are subjected to the same kind of award as are the lawyer 
 and the preacher, the demagogue and the philosopher, and all other men during life. 
 
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