This glorious era has begun to dawn. Over a line of coast, of nearly one thousand miles in extent, the purple streaks of the morning are beginning to appear; and

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops."

From the extreme north of the British territory of Sierra Leone, southward to the Cape of Palmas, the entire coast, with one or two exceptions, has thrown off the curse of the slave trade. Many, I know, who hear me, have seen the numbers of the Liberia Herald, a respectable newspaper, printed at Monrovia, and edited by a colored emigrant, regularly educated at one of the colleges of the United States.* You and I, sir, and many gentlemen around me, have listened, in the committee rooms of this Capitol, to the animated and intelligent accounts of the prosperity of this colony, the fertility of the soil, the salubrity of the climate, the freedom and happiness of the mode of life in Liberia, given by an emigrant from the United States, a descendant of African slaves, who had amassed a fortune, by honest and successful industry, in the land of his fathers.

Sir, when men have a great, benevolent, and holy object in view, of permanent interest, obstacles are nothing. If it fails in the hands of one, it will be taken up by another. If it exceeds the powers of an individual, society will unite towards the desired end. If the force of public opinion in one country is insufficient, the kindred spirits of foreign countries will lend their aid. If it remain unachieved by one generation, it goes down, as a heritage of duty and honor, to the next; and, through the long chain of counsels and efforts, from the first conception of the benevolent mind that planned the great work, to its final and glorious accomplishment, there is a steady and unseen, but irresistible coöperation of that divine influence which orders all things for good.

Am I told that the work we have in hand is too great to be done? Too great, I ask, to be done when? too great to be

* At Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine,

done by whom? Too great, I admit, to be done at once; too great to be done by this society; too great to be done by this generation, perhaps; but not too great to be done. Nothing is too great to be done, which is founded on truth and justice, and which is pursued with the meek and gentle spirit of Christian love. When this objection was suggested, in the British House of Commons, to the measures proposed for the regeneration of the children of Africa, Mr Pitt, in reply to it, exclaimed, "We Britons were once as obscure among the nations of the earth, as savage in our manners, as debased in our morals, as degraded in our understandings, as these unhappy Africans are at present." The work is doubtless too great to be entirely effected by this society, by the most ardent and zealous of its friends, perhaps, for the present and the next succeeding generation. But is it too great for the enlightened public opinion of the world? Is it too great for the joint efforts of the United States, of Great Britain, and of France, and the other Christian countries, already pledged to the cause? Is it too great for the transmitted purpose, the perpetuated concert of generations succeeding generations, for centuries to come? Sir, I may ask, without irreverence, in a case like this, though it be too great for man, is it too great for that AUGUST PROVIDENCE, whose counsels run along the line of ages, and to whom a thousand years are as one day?

EDUCATION IN THE WESTERN STATES.*

THE lucid exposition which has been made of the object of the meeting by the right reverend bishop (McIlvaine) lightens the task of recommending it to an audience like this. I do not know but I should act more advisedly to leave his cogent and persuasive statement to produce its natural effect, without any attempt on my part to enforce it. But as we have assembled to communicate our mutual impressions on the subject, - to consult with each other whether we can do any thing, and whether we will do any thing, to promote the object in view, (which, I own, seems to me one of high moment,) I will, with the indulgence of the meeting, and at the request of those by whom it is called, briefly state the aspect in which the matter presents itself to my mind.

I understand the object of the meeting to be, to aid the funds of a rising seminary of learning in the interior of the state of Ohio, particularly with a view to the training up of a well-educated ministry of the gospel in that part of the United States; and to consider the claims of such an object on this community.

As to the general question of the establishment and support of places of education, there are principally two courses which have been pursued in the practice of nations. One is, to leave them, so to say, as an after-thought, the last thing provided for; to let the community grow up, become populous, rich, powerful; an immense body of unenlightened peasants, artisans, traders, soldiers, subjected to a small

Speech at a public meeting held in St Paul's Church, Boston, 21st May, 1833, on behalf of Kenyon College, Ohio.

privileged class; and then let learning creep in with luxury; be itself esteemed a luxury, endowed out of the surplus of vast private fortunes, or endowed by the state; and instead of diffusing a wholesome general influence, of which all partake, and by which the entire character of the people is softened and elevated, forming itself but another of those circumstances of disparity and jealous contrast of condition, of which too many were in existence before; adding the aristocracy of learning, acquired at expensive seats of science, to that of rank and wealth. This is, in general, the course which has been pursued with respect to the establishment of places of education in some countries of Europe. The other method is that introduced by our forefathers, namely, to lay the foundations of the commonwealth on the corner-stone of religion and education; to make the means of enlightening the community go hand in hand with the means for protecting it against its enemies, extending its commerce, and increasing its numbers; to make the care of the mind, from the outset, a part of its public economy; the growth of knowledge, a portion of its public wealth.

This, sir, is the New England system. It is the system on which the colony of Massachusetts was led, in 1647, to order that a school should be supported in every town; and in every town containing a hundred families, the school was required to be one where youth could "be fitted for the university." On the same system, eleven years earlier, the foundations of Harvard College were laid, by an appropriation out of the scanty means of the country, and at a period of great public distress, of a sum equal to the whole amount raised during the year for all the other public charges. I do not know in what words I can so well describe this system, as in those used by our fathers themselves. Quoted as they have been, times innumerable, they will bear quoting again, and seem to me peculiarly apposite to this occasion: "After God had carried us safe to New England, and we had builded our houses, provided necessaries for our livelihood, reared convenient places for God's worship, and settled the civil government, one of the next things we longed for and looked

after was to advance learning, and perpetuate it to posterity; dreading to leave an illiterate ministry to the churches, when the present ministers shall be in the dust."

Now, sir, it is proposed to assist our brethren in Ohio to lay the foundations of their commonwealth on this good old New England basis; and if ever there was a region where it was peculiarly expedient that this should be done, most assuredly the western part of America-and the state of Ohio as much as any other portion of it—is that region. It is two centuries since New England was founded, and its population by the last census fell short of two millions. Forty years ago, Ohio was a wilderness, and, by the same enumeration, its population was little less than a million. At this moment, the population of Ohio (the settlement of which was commenced in 1788, by a small party from our counties of Essex and Middlesex) is almost twice as large as that of our ancient and venerable Massachusetts. I have seen this wonderful state, and the terraqueous globe does not contain a spot more favorably situated. Linked to New Orleans on one side by its own beautiful river and the father of waters, and united to New York on the other side by the lake and the Erie Canal, she has, by a stupendous exertion of her own youthful resources, completed the vast circuit of communication between them. The face of the country is unusually favorable to settlement. There is little waste or broken land. The soil is fertile, the climate salubrious; it is settled by as truehearted and substantial a race as ever founded a republic; and there they now stand, a million of souls, gathered into a political community in a single generation!

Now, it is plain that this extraordinary rapidity of increase requires extraordinary means to keep the moral and intellectual growth of the people on an equality with their advancement in numbers and prosperity. These last take care of themselves. They require nothing but protection from foreign countries, and security of property, under the ordinary administration of justice. But a system of institutions for education-schools and colleges requires extra effort and

means.

The individual settler can fell the forest, build his