atical of the man and of his works. Such a monument will be a perpetual remembrance of Clinton's name, and of his inappreciable services; and will stand for ages, the fit expression of your gratitude and of his glory. EXERCISE XLV. DEATH OF ADAMS AND JEFFERSON. THE jubilee of America is turned into mourning. Its joy is mingled with sadness; its silver trumpet must breathe a mingled strain. Henceforward and forever, while America exists among the nations of the earth, the first emotion on the fourth of July shall be of joy and triumph in the great event which immortalizes the day; the second shall be one of chastised and tender recollection of the venerable men who departed on the morning of the jubilee. This mingled emotion of triumph and sadness has sealed the moral beauty and sublimity of our great anniversary. In the simple commemoration of a victorious political achievement, there seems not enough to occupy all our purest and best feelings. The fourth of July was before a day of unshaded triumph, exultation, and national pride; but the Angel of Death has mingled in the all-glorious pageant, to teach us we are men. Had our venerated fathers left us on any other day, the day of the united departure of two such men would henceforward have been remembered but as a day of mourning. But now, while their decease has gently chastened the exultations of the triumphant festival, the glad banner of our independence will wave cheerfully over the spot where their dust reposes. The whole nation feels, as with one heart, that since it must sooner or later have been bereaved of its revered fathers, it could not have wished that any other had been the day of their decease. Our anniversary festival was before triumphant; it is now triumphant and sacred. It before called out the young and ardent to join in the public rejoicings; it now also speaks, in a touching voice, to the retired, to the gray-headed, to the mild and peaceful spirits, to the whole family of sober free men. With some appeal of joy, of admiration, of tenderness, it henceforth addresses every American heart. It is henceforward, what the dying Adams pronounced it, a great and a good day. It is full of greatness and full of goodness. It is absolute and complete. The death of the men who declared our independence, their death on the day of the jubilee, was all that was wanting to the fourth of July. To die on that day, and to die together, was all that was wanting to Jefferson and Adams. EXERCISE XLVI. THE INDIANS. WHEN We were few and they were many, we were weak and they were strong, instead of driving us back into the sea, as they might have done at any time, they cherished our perilous infancy, and tendered to us the sacred emblems of peace. They gave us land, as much as we wanted, or sold it to us for the merest trifle. They permitted us quietly to clear up the wilderness, and to build habitations, and schoolhouses, and churches. And when everything began to smile around us, under the combined influence of industry, education, and religion, these savages did not come to us and say, "We want your houses; we want your fine cultivated farms; you must move off. There is room enough for you beyond the western rivers, where you may settle down on a better soil, and begin anew." Nor, when we were strongly attached to our firesides, and to our fathers' sepulchres, did they say, "You are mere tenants at will: we own all the land; and if you insist upon staying longer, you must dissolve your government, and submit to such laws as we choose to make for you." No, the Indian tribes of the seventeenth century knew nothing of these modern refinements; they were no such adepts in the law of nature and nations. They allowed us to abide by our own council-fires, and to govern ourselves as we chose, when they could either have dispossessed or subjugated us at pleasure. We did remain, and we gradually waxed rich and strong. We wanted more land, and they sold it to us at our own price. Still we were not satisfied. There was room enough to the west, and we advised them to move further back. If they took our advice, well. If not, we knew how to enforce it. And where are those once terrible nations now? Driven, alternately, by purchase and by conquest, from river to river, and from mountain to mountain, they have disappeared with their own gigantic forests; and we, their enlightened heirs at law and the sword, now plough up their bones with as much indifference as we do their arrows. Shall I name the Mohegans, the Pequots, the Iroquois, and the Mohawks? What has become of them, and of a hundred other independent nations which dwelt on this side of the Mississippi, when we landed at Plymouth and at Jamestown? Here and there, as at Penobscot, and Marshpee, and Oneida, you may see a diminutive and downcast remnant, wandering like troubled ghosts among the graves of their mighty progenitors. Our trinkets, our threats, our arms, our whiskey, our bribes, and our vices, have all but annihilated those vast physical and intellectual energies of a native population, which, for more than a hundred and fifty years, could make us quake and flee at pleasure, throughout all our northern, western, and southern borders. * * * * Gone is the mighty warrior, the terrible avenger, the heart-bursting orator! Gone is the terror and glory of his nation; and gone forever, from our elder states, are the red men, who, like Saul and Jonathan, "were swifter than eagles, and stronger than lions;" and who, with the light and advantages which we enjoy, might have rivalled us in wealth and power, in the senate and forum, as I am sure that they would have surpassed us in magnanimity and justice. EXERCISE XLVII. AN INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. RESPECTED friends: - The occasion which has called us together, at this time, is one of no ordinary interest. Again we have the pleasure of meeting those who are dear to us, not in the halls of mirth and gayety, not at the festive board, not where political strife has a ruling sway over the passions of man, but where youth, in all their simplicity and tenderness, meet to unfold the intellect, and cherish those virtues that sustain a nation's glory and a nation's prosperity. Expect not, kind friends, that we have invited you here to charm you with strains of eloquence, or to exhibit ourselves as masters of the art of speaking, but merely to witness the efforts of children. Long and hard have we labored, under the guidance of our teacher, to acquire a store of knowledge that shall fit us for usefulness in after life. Much is due to the kind and persevering efforts of him who has so earnestly labored to bring before you so many who are willing to take an active part in this evening's entertainment, and we sincerely hope that our exercises will not be wholly void of interest. We feel that our privileges have been great, and, if we have not made improvement, we shall be obliged to confess that we have been negligent of our duties, and inattentive to the instructions of our teacher, for we are sure that every reasonable effort has been made to advance us in the path of usefulness and knowledge. But, we humbly trust, our time and our advantages have not been wholly misimproved, and that we shall on this occasion furnish some evidence to show that we have accomplished something. We would not, at this time, forget that kind Providence which has watched over us during the past year, and which has so highly favored us and our dear friends. While our hearts are truly grateful for the continuance of life, and so many of life's blessings, let us not forget that We shall fade in our beauty, the fair and bright, Passing away!" sing the breeze and rill, And man, at last, like his fathers gray, Writes in his own dust- 66 Passing away." EXERCISE XLVIII. THE EFFECTS OF DIVERSIFIED EMPLOYMENTS. In a country of few occupations, employments go down by an arbitrary, hereditary, coercive designation, without regard to peculiarities of individual character. The son of a priest is a priest; the son of a barber is a barber; a man raises onions and garlic, because a certain other person did so when the Pyramids were building, centuries ago. But a diversified, advanced, and refined mechanical and manufacturing industry, coöperating with these other numerous employments of civilization which always surround it, offers the widest choice, detects the slightest shade of individuality, quickens into existence and trains to perfection the largest conceivable amount and the utmost possible variety of national mind. It goes abroad with its handmaid labors, not like the elegiac poet, into the churchyard, but among the bright tribes of living childhood and manhood, and finds there, in more than a figurative sense, some mute, inglorious Milton," to whom it gives a tongue and the opportunity of fame; the dauntless breast of some Hampden, still at play, yet born to strive with the tyrant of more than a village; infant hands that may one day sway the rod of empire; hearts already "pregnant with celestial fire;" future Arkwrights, and Watts, and Whitneys, and Fultons, whom it leads forth to a discipline and a career that may work a revolution in the arts and commerce of the world. 66 Here are five sons in a family. In some communities they would all become hedgers and ditchers; in others, shore fishermen; in others, hired mer. in the fields, or porters or servants in noblemen's families. But see what |