40 



MR. BRAMAN S ADDRESS. 



viduals wene drawn thither b)?^ the dignified associations which 

 in their view, science and education had thrown around their 

 employments, and in other circumstances would have disdain- 

 ed such menial offices, as they would deem them, and have 

 ■crowded into more elevated and congenial pursuits. 



Another desirable effect would follow. When commercial 

 men in our large cities have acquired opulent fortunes, and are 

 possessed of taste and fondness for display, they seek often to 

 gratify their inclinations in costly equipages, works of art, and 

 magnificent architecture. There is no objection to such ex- 

 penditure, when properly directed and bounded by reasonable 

 limits. When men of great n??eans divert a portion of their 

 resources to the patronage of the arts of statuary and painting, 

 and other products of genius and taste, they are devoting 

 wealth to soime of its noblest uses. They are counteracting 

 the tendency which a close application to commercial occupa- 

 >tions, has io foster contracted and sordid propensities. They 

 are imparting refinement and elfevation to their own feelings, 

 and contributing, to diffuse through a community sufficiently 

 devoted to the love of gain, a healthful and liberalizing influ- 

 •ence. But the taste for fine arts and magnificent display may 

 ■become excessive and misdirected. 



If some men of wealth, who now expend a hundred thous- 

 and dollars on the erection and fitting up of a dwelling, would 

 limit the outlay to fifty thousand, and reserve the remaining 

 'half to purchase some unproductive and waste land, whose tillagti 

 lis too difficult and costly for persons of small means to under- 

 take, on which to gratify their taste, and cover it with the 

 beauty of a luxuriant and ornamental vegetation, they would 

 -contribute to the promotion of agricultural improvement, and 

 at the same time indulge a taste as much nobler than that 

 Avhich they gratify now, as the beauties of nature transcend 

 those of human device. Why is not a fine landscape as 

 worthy an object of admiration as the painting which exhibits 

 its imitation to the eye ? And why has not the divine skill 

 which exhibits its wonders in the exquisite structure of plants, 

 and the ornaments with which it gilds the flowers of the 

 field and the rich forms and foliage with which it invests the trees 



