348 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 



few commonly distance their competitors in the paths of emolument 

 and honor. Aye, and beyond this they feel do we not all feel ? that 

 we are not in temper, in habits, in feelings, or in intelligence what we 

 ought to be, or what we might have been; that our nature was better 

 than our education. They feel has not the most careless among us 

 felt it, too ? that there are springs of virtue within us that have seldom 

 been touched; generous aspirings that have scarcely been called into 

 action; capabilities of improvement that have hardly been awakened; 

 capabilities of enjoyment that have been turned to fountains of bitter- 

 ness. If we might now reeducate ourselves, even from the cradle 

 upward, developing each mental power and moral faculty, checking 

 the rising vice and cultivating the nascent virtue; bending the pliant 

 habit to reason and mastering the evil passions at its birth, how gladly 

 would we grasp at the offer; how dearly value the privilege. And 

 what selfishness would do for itself, think you not that parental affec- 

 tion desires for its offspring? Yes; vice itself desires it. Stronger 

 than the thirst after riches, deeper than the craving for power, spring- 

 ing from the best and most enduring of human instincts, is the parent's 

 longing for the welfare of his child. Criminal he may be; ignorant 

 he may be; reckless even of his own character; hopeless of a reputable 

 standing for himself; but his children if brutish excesses have not 

 utterly quenched the principle of good within him for them there is 

 still a redeeming virtue in his soul; a striving after better things; a 

 hope that they may escape the vices which have degraded him; that 

 they may emerge from the ignorance in which he is benighted, if not 

 to wealth and honor, at least to fair fame and honest reputation a 

 credit to his blighted name and a comfort to his declining years. 



Such are the sentiments that spring up to meet us from among the 

 people, shared by the bad as well as the good; universal in their preva- 

 lence. And it is to such sentiments, the best earnest of progressive 

 improvement in man, that the provisions of this bill ought, so far as 

 the amount of the legacy and the terms of the will permit, to respond. 



Such views are in accordance with the spirit of the age and the 

 wants of the times. It is not a world all of flowers and sunshine, this 

 we live in. It is a world where thousands are starving; where tens 

 of thousands toil to live live only to die! It is a world where cruel 

 suffering exists, where shameful crimes are committed, where terrible 

 oppression is endured, where dark ignorance is found. It has scenes 

 of wrong, and outrage, and guilt, and woe. They rise before us. 

 They thrust themselves on our attention. Not to gild, not to 

 embellish; a graver, a sadder duty is his who would aid in such a 

 world's improvement. 



To effect permanent good in such a world, we must reach the minds 

 and the hearts of the masses; we must diffuse knowledge among men; 

 we must not deal it out to scholars and students alone, but even to 



