1856.] Dedication of Polyteclmic Hall — Address. 543 



great man too — than does Agriculture. Not one separately, nor all 

 three combined, of the so-called learned professions, can surpass it 

 in richness, extent or variety; for in its amplitude, it is the embodi- 

 ment of all science. Indeed, there is something in this pursuit to 

 which the largest portion of society seem destined to follow — pre- 

 eminently favorable, instead of unfavorable, to the growth of mind 

 and of manhood. The pride of caste and worldly ambition, of 

 pedantry and of power, of bigotry and of tyranny in all ages, have 

 turned awa}^ from, and against this and all other industrial pursuits. 

 and those engaged in these pursuits have been uncultured, neglected 

 and enslaved — and now too often complacently fold their hands and 

 hug their chains — while rebels who would not obey God and cat 

 their bread by the sweat of their brow, have by one pretext or anoth- 

 er, continued to rule the world — so far as its outward forms and 

 superstitions are concerned — with an iron scepter. Yet God in all 

 ages has abundantly vindicated the wisdom of his own providence, 

 and evinced the certainty of its future triumph over the ambition 

 and folly of man, by humbling the pride of the oppressor, and 

 bringing almost all the true light which now irradiates the world, 

 out of the very bosom of these despised and neglected industrial 

 pursuits, insomuch that it would be hard to find a score of men 

 who have been of the highest real worth to manhood, in the entire 

 past of the world's history, who were not either through life — or at 

 least through all the earlier part of it — trained and innured to these 

 very pursuits and toils. And this brings to our view the true prin- 

 ciples of a sound mental and healthy physical development. As 

 well might we attempt to rear one of those majestic oaks of yonder 

 forest in a hot bed, as to develop a truly great man from his infancy 

 in schools, and professional and literary pursuits exclusively. How 

 it has happened, that institutions have been almost exclusively pre- 

 occupied for the training of youths for some two or three of the 

 most narrow and limited professions of human life, and these de- 

 riving their very existence from the depravity and death— and not 

 from the virtue and the life of the race— and how it has happened 

 that such institutions have dubbed themselves Universities, can be 

 accounted for, only on the same principle which has compelled a 

 score of men to declare " We are the State," We are the Church," 

 ''lam France." But we trust that it is the mission of American 

 Institutions, as developed in these United States, to enlarge the idea 

 of a University, until it shall embrace the education of men for 

 every honorable calling and pursuit. 



