Wm^Sim^^ -sg^'S> THE PEOFESSIONS: AN OEATION, DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES iHat0()all College, MERCERSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, AT THEIR ANNIVERSARY. SEPTEMBER 27. 1812. BY GEORGE W. BTTEWAP. MHO BALTIMORE: PRINTED BY JOHN MURPHY, 146 MARKET STREET. '9^l»-^^ THE PROFESSIONS: AN ORATION, DELIVERED BEFORE THE LITERARY SOCIETIES i7 4War0l)all College, ERCERSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA, iT TMIB ANNITEESlEf, SEPTEMBER 2?, 1812. BY GEORGE W. BURNAP, BALTIMORE: PRINTED BY JOHN MURPHY, 146 MARKET STREET. ! S41 vV m Marshall College, Sept. 27th, 1842. Worthy Sir: Permit us in behalf of the respective Societies we represent, to tender you our unfeigned thanks for the very pertinent and excellent Address with which you favored us this afternoon, and to request a copy of the same for publication. Yours, veiy truly, I. Edgar Moore, N. S. Strassburger, H. D. MOTTER, Committee of the Diagnothian L. Society. A. J. W. R. Hudson, H. HOCKERMAN, P. SWIGERT, Committee of the Goethean L. Society. Rev. G. W. BuRNAP. Mercersburg, Sept. 28, 1842. Gentleme7i, I am happy to recognize in your request of this morning, a testimony that you found in my address of yesterday some sentiments not inappropriate to your pursuits as students and as candidates for the liberal professions. In giving my assent to the publication you ask, I cannot neglect this opportunity of expressing the gratification I have received in my visit to Marshall College, and the village of Mercersburg. I am, gentlemen, with much respect. Yours, G. W. BuRNAP. Messrs. Moore, Hudson, ' Strassburger, Hockerman, Motteb, Swigert. E A T I N. Gentlemen : In obedience to your call, I appear before you to-day, to offer my contribution to the entertainment of your literary festival. The sight of these acade- mic walls, the manifest enthusiasm of so many young men looking forth from these walks of study and accomplishment upon the world, where they hope to reap honor and success, most vividly recall to my memory the emotions, which at the most susceptible period of life were roused in my bosom, when from the midst of embowering trees the spires of a Uni- versity first rose upon my sight. There had trod the good and the great of former generations. There they had amassed those treasures and formed those habits of honorable exertion, all unconsciously it is true, which made them the lights of the succeeding age. The same path is open to all, and ignorance of the future, of which w^e so much complain, then at least stands our friend, inasmuch as it opens to all the boundlessness of hope. The scenes of that most interesting and eventful period of life were passed through, with its various alternations of success and b ORATION. defeat,, and now at the distance of fifteen years, I come back from that world, which you are so soon to enter, to offer you the counsels which the lessons of those fifteen years have taught me. The subject, which I am to present to your consid- eration on this occasion, is the appropriate education and the peculiar duties and responsibilities of profes- sional men in America. I have chosen this subject as most interesting to young men, the object of whose residence here is, in most cases, to fit themselves for some sphere of professional life. It is not necessary, I take it for granted, to prove to such an audience as this, that the professional men of America exert, as a class, the most controlling influence over its destiny. It is so from the stern republicanism of our institutions, which has decreed the total absence of every thing like hereditary castes in society. In other countries, by the institutions which secure to a few a larger division of property, and the hereditary right of legislation, a class is created which from position alone exerts a controlling sway over the masses. Few though they be in num- bers, they contrive to monopolize nearly the whole power to themselves. Pride prompts them, and wealth enables them, to obtain the most finished education that their natural indolence will allow. Their manners have the irresistible sway of fashion, ORATION. 7 and their opinions and prejudices have a currency, of which in a republican country it is impossible to conceive. Original talent and professional eminence are overshadowed and overborne by the hereditary aristocracy, lose their independence, and are led to cultivate those arts and habits, which will make them acceptable to the few, rather than form that charac- ter which will enable them to win the respect and guide the destiny of the masses. Here, in this land of absolute freedom, native talent and laudable ambi- tion have no such impediment in their path. Every man has precisely that amount of influence to which he is entitled by his capacities, his education, his cha- racter and position. The members of the professions necessarily exert the widest influence, not because their original endowments are greater, nor because they are disposed to usurp a control not readily con- ceded by the community to which they belong, but because devoting themselves to the acquisition of knowledge, and the cultivation of the intellectual powers, the position they assume in society, and their extensive intercourse with their fellow men, enable them to act on wider circles, and with greater force than any other class. Such being the case, it is of the highest importance that they should receive the best education which the country can afford. And, paradoxical as it may seem, I believe they do receive ORATION. as good an education, that is, as well calculated to attain its objects, as the profe.ssional men of any other country. I mean of course, those who are educated at all. This leads me to speak of the ends and objects of a liberal education. I count it no small part of the advantages of our condition, as a new and original people, that our lite- rary institutions are the native offspring of the soil, and not offshoots from the antiquated stocks of Euro- pean institutions. They have grown out of the wants of the people, and are therefore calculated to meet those wants. They are swathed and cramped by none of those outworn forms and prejudices which mar and disable similar institutions in the old world. There, the scholastic usages of the middle ages still linger, and consume the most precious years of life^ and exhaust the energies of the mind in learn- ing what after all is almost entirely useless. There, is still committed the egregious folly of pursuing educa- tion as an end instead of a means. There, years are sacrificed to gain the useless accomplishment of being able to dispute in Latin, or the still more useless faculty of writing that language with the elegance of Cicero. As well might a man practise with bow and arrows in order to gain expertness in the use of fire-arms. With them, across the Atlantic, he is a great man at college who has gained a given quantum ORATION, of dry mathematical knowledge, while perhaps in obtaining it his mental vision has become so contract- ed that he is incapable of observing either man or nature. Hence, there is with them a thing utterly- unknown among us, a generation of mere scholars, mere abstractions in the world, men who know Greek and Latin and mathematics and nothing else — Do- minie Sampsons, who can tell you all the minutiae of the Attic and Ionic dialects, and solve any problem in the differential calculus, and at the same time can hardly tell you whether they have on the same clothes they wore yesterday, and when pushed out into the world, are found as helpless, except in their peculiar province, as a man from the moon dropt suddenly among sublunary beings. From these great follies, thanks to our"youth and ignorance of the past, we are happily delivered. The rigid utilitarianism of our countrymen inquires, what are these things worth ? The public, on whom the professional man is to act, speak the English and not the Latin language. His power over them will depend on his skill in the English and not the Latin tongue. Common sense then dictates, that the ancient languages are to be pursued as a means and not an end ; either for the knowledge that is locked up in them, or the discipline which their study affords to the mind, or for the entire mastery which the 2 10 ORATION. acquisition of a foreign language compels us to obtain of the whole compass of our. own. For these purposes I yield to no man in my esteem for the ancient languages. My advice to the young student would be that of Horace to the Pisos : Vos exemplaria Grseca Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna. Let classic authors be your chief delight, Read them by day — read them again by night. It is only by grappling with those intellectual giants, those Titans of earth, of which she produces only two or three in a century, that the mind can grow to strength and greatness. But I think our colleges judge wisely in forbearing to exact from their pupils, at the expense of a large portion of the most precious part of life, such useless accomplishments as making Greek and Latin verses. Just so it is with mathematics and metaphysics. Their legitimate office is to discipline and strengthen the intellectual powers. For this purpose they are invaluable. Indeed they are indispensable to a tho- rough education. Yet the actual knowledge they communicate, does not often find employment in after life. No theory of metaphysics, which has ever been contrived, has commanded universal assent, or promised 4o be satisfactory to coming ages. Human ORATION. 11 language, which is the instrument of metaphysical discussion, is inadequate to grasp, define and express, the nature, the functions, and the faculties of the human soul, running into each other as they do, like the colors of the rainbow. As well might you think with chain and staff to measure and mete out the unfathomable depths and heaving plains of ocean. Different minds make different divisions, accommodat- ed rather to the nomenclature which they happen to adopt, than the real phenomena of our spiritual nature. Each successive theorist, with another no- menclature, obliterates the old distinctions and makes new ones of his own, again to be superseded by the next inquirer. Those who pursue either of these studies as a pas- sion or an accomplishment, do not thereby give pro- mise of excellence as practical men. It would seem by the arrangement of nature, that the powers which these studies call into exercise should be the last to be cultivated, and should be postponed till the perceptive faculties are well developed and well disciplined. Those who prematurely turn the intellectual eye from the observation of the outward to that of the inward world, are more likely to dwarf the mind than expand its powers and perfect its faculties. The fact is, that our country asks for scholars, not scholastics, men whose minds have been strengthened, not over- 12 ORATION. whelmed and enfeebled by learning; men who are not accoutred in the mere finery of a militia review, but disciplined to the skill and efficiency of the trained soldier; — men whose tastes have been refined to the appreciation of all that is exquisite in literature, without being made too fastidious for the homely affairs of common life. Our countrymen are prepared to welcome into the walks of public life, and into the circles of private intimacy, a truly liberal, enlightened and enlarged mind. They feel in it a substantial ac- cession of strength and enjoyment. Such men ought it to be the ambition of our colleges to form and send forth into the world; and when they do so, they accomplish the very purpose of their existence. They thus become the choicest blevssings of God to a free people. They are the perennial fountains, the streams whereof make glad the city of our God. It is to her two universities, and to the constant efflux of know- ledge, which for five hundred years has continually been pouring forth from them, and overspreading the whole land, that England may attribute, more than to any other cause, her supremacy among the nations. Her destinies for centuries have been under the control of statesmen, trained at those seats of learning and sci- ence, to that massive wisdom, which can result only from the union of sound education and wide expe- rience. The guardians of her youth and the minis- ORATION. 13 ters at her altars have drank deeply at the same fountains, and thus carried the vital influence of those venerable institutions to every village and hamlet over the whole island. Thus it is that England has become the wonder of the world, clarum et venera- bile nomen gentibus. Let us then suppose the young man accomplished with that practical education which our colleges are so well calculated to give, and to have chosen the profession of the law — what are the prospects which in this country open before him ? What is the rela- tion which he is to sustain to society? what are his social duties ? and what are the dangers to which he is exposed ? I do not deny that there is a strong prejudice ex- isting in this country against the profession of the law. It is often spoken of as a needless and un- healthy excrescence of the body politic, itself a greater evil than those which it pretends to cure. On the individual, its influence is thought to be still more pernicious. It is thought to chili the heart, narrow the understanding and corrupt the moral faculties. The lawyer is thought to live by the moral obliquities of his fellow-citizens, and to be engaged by the strong force of interest in fomenting the social evils which afflict mankind. The inference 14 ORATION. from all this would seem to be, that the lawyer is by profession, a bad member of society. But is not this, let me ask, an illiberal and unjust view of the profession 1 Is not this visiting upon the whole, the misconduct of a few? Is it just for men to cast the blame of their own evil passions on the mere instruments they use to wreak them upon their fellow-men ? Were these same men who cast the censure what they should be, the very profession which they declaim against would be deprived of the power of doing mischief I do not deny that it is in the power of any man, who devotes himself to the law, to realize the worst conceptions that have ever been formed of the pro- fession. He may enter it with low ideas of its dig- nity and its duties. He may regard the law, not as a peaceful remedy for social ills, but as the means of turning the collisions of interest and the ebullitions of passion to the advantage of the selfish and unprinci- pled. He may regard its professors as not linked into the common brotherhood of humanity, not bound to aid their fellows in the struggles of life, but privi- leged to live like beasts or rather insects of prey, upon the weak and defenceless. He may think that it is allowable for him to spread the meshes of the law in some dark corner, and there like some bloated spider sit and watch the entrance of the unwary as ORATION. 15 his legitimate prey. Such unworthy members, I grant, merit all the reproach which has ever been cast upon the profession. But notwithstanding all these prejudices, the law, in itself considered, is a noble and an elevated pur- suit. It is the triumph of civilization. It is the enthronement of reason and justice in the place of passion and violence in the intercourse of mankind. It is the best remedy which man can provide for the imperfections of his nature; itself imperfect only because it shares the common imperfection, which is inseparable from all human things. Legal tribunals have existed wherever man has attained to a state of civilization. Infinite Wisdom saw, that revealed religion itself could not subsist unless sustained by civil institutions, and the same prophet, who from the solitudes of Sinai proclaimed to all ages the eternal truths of religion, was commissioned likewise to pre- scribe for a nation the municipal laws, which should regulate all their social relations. The profession of the law then, grows out of the necessities of man in society. It is impossible for so- ciety to exist without laws, and it is natural that their interpretation should grow into a profession. Men, so long as they maintain the intercourse of business, will differ as to their rights and duties. Blinded by interest and passion, they will diverge more and 16 ORATION. more, instead of approaching an agreement. Some third party then must come in to adjust their difficul- ties. The decisions of that third party naturally grow into precedents, to be referred to in future con- troversies. Hence law would grow up, and the pro- fession of the law, without any special enactments ; and the principle of the division of labor, if nothing else, would appropriate the business of settling dis- putes to a particular class of men. The profession of the law then, being necessary to the existence of civilized society, may be entered on with the most honorable motives and the purest intentions. Its true end is justice, not wrong. The guilty must be defended, not indeed that he may es- cape, but that the bounds of justice may not be exceeded in his punishment. The merits of the wrong side, as well as the right, must be brought forward, not only because it is difficult to find a case in which the right is all on one side, but lest the penalty should be disproportioned to the offence. The de- fender of the side that is on the whole wrong, does not necessarily task his ingenuity to make the worse appear the better reason, but only to make the wrong appear no worse than it really is. And though every benevolent mind must look with sorrow at the immense expense, and often ruinous consequences of law-suits, there is this consolation ORATION. 17 about them, that the litigants are martyrs as well as victims, the means of keeping alive the forms of jus- tice and a knowledge of social rights, — the sacrifices which from time to time are thrown into the gulf of ruin for the salvation of the state. Is it objected that the profession of the law has a tendency to blunt the moral sensibilities? That po- sition I utterly deny. The distinctions of the law do not kill or paralyze the moral faculties. On the con- trary, no man knows better what is morally right than the lawyer. No man perceives more keenly than he the point where legal award diverges from absolute rectitude, and if he sins and makes himself the instrument of wrong, no human being is more sensible of his guilt, for no man sins against greater light. The unprincipled lawyer, it follows from this, must be a self-condemned and a wretched man. To the intellectual man the study and practice of the law is the most propitious pursuit. Nothing could be devised more calculated to secure a complete intellectual development. What does the scholar want to round the full circle of human attainment, but the knowledge of men and things superadded to literary and scientific accomplishment? This know- ledge of men and things is the necessary consequence of the practice of the law. The habit too of public speaking, which this profession involves, gives the law- 3 18 ORATION. yer the power of wielding at will whatever knowledge he may have amassed, and advances him to the high- est point of social influence. If he add to these intel- lectual accomplishments, that moral worth which commands the confidence of his fellow-citizens, the lawyer assumes the most commanding position in society. He becomes a radiating point of intellectual light, and his daily conversation widely influences the opinions and the conduct of those around him ; and in this country, in the absence of all other title to command than that which every man bears in his intellectual and moral attainments, he wields the most important power in the state. Hence it is, that the profession of the law leads so directly into the arena of politics. The lawyer be- comes the political leader simply because he is gene- rally better qualified than any other individual to as- sume that position. His extensive intercourse with his fellow-citizens enables him to know more of the inte- rests of the community to which he belongs than any other man, and his education and pursuits give him a wider acquaintance with the condition of public afiairs. Business habits and the discipline of public speaking, fit him better than any other man to represent a con- stituency in the legislative assembly. If he has maintained, as he ought, the studious habits of early life, there have been some hours of the busiest week ORATION. 19 kept sacred to the delights of classical literature and philosophical investigation. He does not forget that Bacon and Hale, Sir Wm. Jones and Lord Brougham, were laborious lawyers as well as philosophers and literary men, and the lightest effort that ever fell from their pens was all the more valuable from the fact, that it combined the wisdom of experience with the exquisite polish of literary beauty. He remembers that many of the fathers of our republic were law- yers, those minds which have exerted the most con- trolling influence over its destiny were trained to the bar — Jefferson, and Adams, and Hamilton, and Mad- ison, and in our own times, the second Adams, Web- ster, Calhoun and Clay, whose wisdom and eloquence have travelled as far as the accents of our mother tongue, and awaken the thrill of patriotism and lib- erty in the bosoms of the sons of freedom from the equator to either pole. No career of honorable ambition was ever pre- sented to the mind of man, not even in the republics of Greece and Rome, more glorious than is opened to the young lawyer by the free institutions of our vast and growing country. Not a few, it is to be presumed, of those whom I now address, have already chosen the law as the pursuit of your lives. I have spoken in vain if I have failed to persuade you that it is not that narrow, 20 ORATION. selfish, cold-blooded profession, which it is too often considered by the world, at least not necessarily so. You, I hope, are resolved that in becoming lawyers you will not cease to be men, that you will never suffer its dry technicalities to wean you from the study and admiration of elegant and classical litera- ture, nor its practical imperfections to induce you to lose sight of the great principles of truth, integrity and honor. Above all, scorn the mean arts of the demagogue and the politician. And if your country calls you to serve her in the sphere of political life, enter upon it with the pure and lofty principles of a statesman, a patriot and an honest man. Others of you have chosen to devote your lives to the study and the practice of the healing art. To the physician, though in another way, the same re- sponsibility attaches of being a public man. The good or evil he does is by no means confined to the diseases he cures or aggravates. His action is not restricted to the mortal part of his patients. By his daily intercourse he acts morally and intellectually on multitudes, and either alleviates or confirms their moral and intellectual maladies. Of the duty of making yourselves thoroughly acquainted with all that can be known of medical science, I shall here say nothing. A wise regard to your own comfort in after life will prompt you to do this. There will be ORATION. 21 exigencies in your future experience, when nothing but this can save you from the most bitter and ago- nizing self-reproach. There will be times when you will be brought to grapple with disease in its most appalling forms, when the anxious eyes of the suffer- ing patient, and the beseeching looks of surrounding affection will be turned on you. No tongue can tell the anguish of that moment, if you cannot return that gaze with the full consciousness that you have done all that man could do, to prepare yourself to meet the exigencies of such a crisis. But it is not of mere professional skill that I now speak. I speak of the qualities of mind and heart, which ought ever to accompany the skill of the phy- sician. Doubly is he a physician, who is likewise a wise and good man. If he be such a man, such is his access to the intimacy of the domestic circle, such the nearness of his approach to the heart when it is softened by suffering or sorrow, that a few years establishes him as the endeared friend as well as the medical adviser of the family. In this capacity no human accomplishment will be lost. He will have opportunities to probe and heal domestic wounds which have rankled in secret for years, and caused perhaps more unhappiness than any bodily malady. No stores of accurate and extensive information will be useless. Eloquence even will be as useful to the 22 ORATION. physician in his daily walks, as it is at the bar or in the pulpit. His audiences, it is true, are not so large, but he meets them more frequently, and they listen to him with greater confidence and less reserve. This union of social influence with professional skill is by no means impossible ; nor is classical and literary accomplishment by any means excluded by a successful practice of the healing art. It is gene- rally found, I believe, that he, who finds time to study his cases most thoroughly, will also create opportu- nities to keep alive that general culture, which is. after all the legitimate solace of professional life. Science and literature should ever walk hand in hand. To whom shall the community look for the maintenance of a tone of intelligence and cultivation, if not to her professional men, whose lives have been set apart for the pursuit of useful knowledge, and whose daily occupations bring them largely in con- tact with the world? Who can so well help forward every good work as he, whose acquaintance is most extensive, and who knows most intimately the wants of society 7 The physician has the opportunity to become a wise and an accomplished man, and he must be espe- cially wanting to himself if he do not become a good man. His daily employment is a school of benevo- lence, and the best means of augmenting the vir- ORATION. 23 tues is their constant exercise. Those of you whose tastes have led you to prefer this calling, have chosen a good part, an occupation which will never suffer the mind to stagnate, nor the heart to grow cold, and which, with all its fatigues and privations, fills up life as pleasantly perhaps as any other employment. You yourselves have lived long enough to have felt the healing and comforting influence of the presence of the good physician ; you have seen him moving in society the solace of the suffering, the counsellor of the ignorant, the mediator of peace, the delight of friendship, and the ornament of the social circle. And you have said to yourself, that with such a com- panion you would choose to walk the pilgrimage of life, and with him at your side to encounter the onset of the last dread enemy, from whose grasp no human arm can deliver. The idea of the good physician rises up clear and vivid to your mental eye. Go forth, and realize it in your future career. It remains that I say something of the position and duties of the clerical profession in this country. Circumstances have thrown into the hands of the religious teachers of these United States an intellec- tual and moral influence, wliich transcends all esti- mate. There are annually delivered in this country not less than a million of religious discourses, listened to in a greater or less extent, by the whole popula- 24 ORATION. tioiij — ranging over the whole surface of speculation and life, embracing almost every topic of morals, meta- physics and devotion, touching almost every point of abstract opinion and social duty. Other influences are occasional and interrupted, they operate with great- er or less intensity with the various vicissitudes of human aflfairs. But here is a subject, more vital and commanding than any other, periodically and inevi- tably brought before the mind by the stillness of the Sabbath and the suspension of the common occupa- tions of life. That stillness, reigning over all, sus- pending alike the hum of the city and the labors of the field, stretching from sea to mountain, over valley and hill, itself pays a silent homage to the subject which the ministers of religion go to the house of God to discuss. No speaker addresses the public under so many advantages. The multitudes of the Chris- tian world resort to their public altars with minds prepared, and hearts laid open to receive the deepest impressions and the best of influences. There are their neighbors, with whom ihey have passed through the lights and shadows which fall upon the pilgrim- age of life, viewed for a time not in the cold and worldly relations of business or interest, but as be- longing to the great brotherhood of humanity, sharers in all that is best and noblest in our nature, and heirs together of the same immortal hope. There are their ORATION. 25 children in their beautiful prime, their present solace and their future stay, in whom they have already learned to live almost as much as in themselves. There the minister stands up as the organ of their communion with heaven, awakening by appropriate expression their reverence, their gratitude, their peni- tence, their confidence, their aspirations after a bet- ter life. There he speaks to them, not in the feeble tones of human genius, but in the divine and soul elevating inspiration of the Psalms. He addresses to them not the ftillible counsels of human pru- dence, but the awful warnings of prophecy, in lan- guage taught by the Holy Ghost. He discourses not of the philosophies of man's invention, which are fading, or are destined to fade from human belief, but of the word of eternal life, which liveth and abideth forever. He stands there, not as the advocate of any worldly interest, which partakes of the littleness of this diurnal sphere, but as the ambassador of Christ, to proclaim to man the offer of pardon and eternal happiness, which he sealed on Calvary with his blood. What a scope is here given to the best powers which God ever bestowed on man, or that man ever cultivated and perfected by his own endeavors ! Not a lineament of the character of the Saviour, which he l*eflects in his own, that does not tell in his weekly ministrations, that does not add force to the truths 4 26 ORATION. which he sends home to the conscience and the heart. And while he regards as first and indispensable, true and unfeigned piety in himself, there is scarcely an accomplishment he can cultivate, which will not widen and deepen the influence he exerts in elevat- ing the character and condition of man. Even per- sonal peculiarities are capable of being consecrated to the cause of Christ. The zeal and boldness of Peter, fitted him to confront and convince the Jewish multitude on the day of Pentecost, while the deep and contemplative mind of John adapted him to re- ceive, to comprehend, and transmit to all ages the profound spiritual truths of the teaching of Jesus. And Paul, with his secular as well as Jewish learning and eloquence, was a valuable accession to the com- pany of the apostles when the Gospel was to be pro- claimed and defended before councils and senators, kings and emperors. Just so at the present day, every individual endowment, and every personal ac- quisition may be made to increase the value and efficiency of the minister of Christ. Deep learning, elegant literature, sound logic, as well as true zeal and fervid eloquence, all may be made subservient to spread the influence of Christian truth and pure reli- gion. The preacher, of all men, should be the last to abandon the walks of classical learning, and the gene- ral cultivation of the mind. Since the days of mira- ORATION. 27 cles are gone by, the successors of the apostles are left with the assisting grace of God to human means, to prepare them for their great work. According to the apostolic admonition, they must "give them- selves to reading," to study, and mental culture. And where shall they look for the means of literary ac- complishment, if not to those immortal models of composition which have commanded the admiration of ages, and which as long as man continues to be what he now is, will take the deepest hold on the human mind and heart ? There is another calling, which is fast assuming the dignity and importance of a profession, and which I should leave the .subject imperfect if I failed to notice, and that is the profession of literature. The Americans are now the most reading nation on earth. There are more newspapers and periodi- cals annually issued from the press in this country than in all the rest of the world. Where there are more readers, there must ultimately be more waiters than any where else. Who is to supply the matter which is to be impressed on the hundred millions of sheets that yearly issue from the press in the United States ? Americans, let me tell you, those who thus obtain access to the public mind are at this moment exerting a greater influence upon the character and destiny of our country than any other class, except 28 ORATION. that which ministers at the altars of religion. Will these most important stations continue to be filled by men from the ordinary pursuits of life, without aca- demic education and classical culture, however great their natural endowments? By no means. The sharp competition of these establishments will gradually enlist a higher grade of talent and acquisition in their service, talent and acquisition, not which have failed in other pursuits, but which could any where command success. Multitudes, who are now laying the foundation of a thorough education at our literary institutions, are destined to this sphere of action, and there is scarcely any more elevated and enlarged. There are those now treading the quiet walks of academic life, who are destined before they close their earthly career to see the seventeen millions of our population swelled to sixty millions, all accessible as one man to the voice of truth and eloquence emanating from a single mind through the press. To the successful author in any department, a career of ambition and usefulness is opened in this country, such as never entered into the dreams of the literary men of other times. America by her prodi- gious increase on every side, and England by her colonies, her commerce, and her conquests, are spread- ing the English language and literature in every part ORATION. 29 of the world. The successful English authors of the present age address an audience of which it never entered into the imagination of man to conceive. Scott and Byron, and Moore and Dickens, are simul- taneously read on the banks of the Thames, in the valley of the Mississippi, at the mouth of the Oregon and on the shores of the Ganges, and scarcely an island in the ocean that has not been visited and illu- minated by the emanations of British learning and genius. America is following in the same bright path. Already the voice of her statesmen is heard in other lands. The names of her Irvings, her Chan- nings, her Bryants and her Coopers, are becoming familiar as household words in the mother country. Their thoughts too are flying with the wings of wind and fire to visit every shore, and are every where treasured up to minister wisdom and delight to gene- rations yet unborn. Some among those whom I now address are des- tined, it is to be hoped, to achieve fame and power and usefulness by literary pursuits. To minister to the wants of the mind is no mean calling in any sphere of action, to do so effectually is one of the most difficult of attainments. To wield our mother tongue with the hand of a master, is not the work of a day, a month, or a year, and requires a diligence and a perseverance not infei'ior to that which is necessary 30 ORATION. to attain eminence in any profession. It is tiie slow result of perpetual practice, combined with the study of the best models of composition in all languages and of all times. Above all, a familiarity with the Greek compels us to explore all the riches of our own language to measure its copiousness, its preci- sion, its majesty and its force. To moderate the stateli- ness of classical composition, a frequent recurrence to the early English dramatists will be found the most efficacious expedient. Through them the English Muse spoke her first, untaught and bewitching accents of nature and truth. The combination of these two models of composition from ancient and modern times, is adding the smile and motion of the Graces to the majestic beauty of Minerva; — or rather it is as if, at the touch of Jove, the statue of that goddess of wisdom were to step from her pedestal, changed from her marble stillness to a living form, mantling with warm blood, and thrilling with sensibility. Gentlemen of the Literary Societies of Marshall College, I have given you a few plain and practical ideas upon the appropriate education, and the peculiar duties and responsibilities of professional men in Ame- rica. I have shown you that they occupy a station more commanding and influential than any other class. On them devolves the power widely to bless, to adorn and elevate society, or as widely to wrong. ORATION. 31 corrupt and degrade it. Whatever may be the course that others may take, you, I hope, will always be found on the side of sound morality, thorough educa- tion and pure patriotism ; and in whatever profession you may be called to serve your country, I trust that you will never forget the academic shades in which you have been nurtured, nor lose the conviction that you are bound by your early vows, to add the accom- plishments of the scholar to the solid virtues of the Christian, the citizen and the man. LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 019 615 803 JOHN MURPHY, PRINTER ATs^D PUBLISHER, 146 Market street, Baltimore, Having supplied himself with all the necessary materials, is extensively prepared to execute every description of ghi @0ce ftttb @(.e ^Hitting, IN THE NEATEST MANNER. AND ON THE MOST ACCOMMODATING TERMS. . WORKS PUBLISHED AND FOR SALE AS ABOVE, BURNAP'S LECTURES TO YOUNG MEN, On llie Cultivalion of the Mind, the Formalion of Character, and the Conduct of Life.— 2(1 edition, revised and enlarged. 1 vol. l-2mo., muslin stamped. BUIlI«r AF'S Lectures on the Sphere and Duties of Woman, And Other Subjects. — 1 vol. l:imo., muslin stamped. We take pleasure in recommending it as a work tliat all parents should place in the hands of their daughters, and the husband in that of his wife.— AT. V. Ladies' Companion. We commend the bonk to the attention of every female, whether young or old, and what- ever station she may fill. They will find a true fiiend in the author, and cannot fail to draw improvement from his admonitions. — Boston Courier. The style is sufficiently ornate, without being ambitious— the sentiments pure and elevated. We would recommend the ladies to purchase it, for, unlike the fashionable publications of the day, this work instructs while it amuses.— A^. O. Crescent City. This work should be in the hands of every young lady who is desirous of mental and moral improvement. We are really gratified thai such a book should have issued from a Baltimore press. — Melh. Protestant. BURNAP'S licctiires on the History of Christianity, 1 vol. 12mo., muslin stamped. Mr. Hurnap, in these admirably written Lectures, displays much critical biblical learning, combined, in a remarkable degree, with great candor and fairness. We encounter, in his volume, no sectarian prejudice and exclusiveness. The work may be read with pleasure and profit by persons of all denominations. — New World. GEMS OF IRISH ELOQtJfNCE, WIT AND ANECDOTE. By J. HoBAN, Esq. of the Washington Bar.— 1 vol. 12mo., muslin stamped. A SERIES OF SELECT AIND ORIGINAL. MODERN DESIGNS FOR DWELLING HOUSES, For the use of Carpenters and Builders: adapted to the Style of Building in the United States — with 24 plates. By J. Hall, Architect. A New and Concise Method of Hand-Railing, J Ui'oN Correct Principles— simplified to the capacity of every practical Carpenter; also, a full Development of the Cylindric Sections, ns applied to Niches, Groins, Domes, and the most intricate parts of Carpentry. By J. H.vli,. .Architect. CABir¥ET TTIAKERS' ASSISTAI¥T, Embracing the nio,=t modern style of Cabinet Furniture— exemplified in New Designs, practi- cally arranged on 44 plates, containing 198 fij;ures : to which is prefixed a short Treatise on Linear Perspective, for the use of Practical men. By John Hall, Architect and Draftsman.