268 ** [ASSEMBIT 



which domestic skill may call into being, in application to agricul- 

 ture, commerce, manufactures and the arts, by bestowing rewards 

 and other benefits on those who shall make any such improvements, 

 or excel in any of these branches of industry and skill. That is, 

 your purpose is to elevate and dignify American labor; to bring out 

 the latent energy and skill of American minds, and to make the de- 

 votion of genius and time to industrial and useful employment and 

 invention, as honorable as it justly deserves to be, and as exalted in 

 the opinion of surrounding society, as the combination of such an 

 array of men and minds as compose your Institute, to approve and 

 applaud, are able to make it. It is not a condescending effort of the 

 high to exalt the low, or of the peculiarly cultivated to elevate and 

 benefit the less refined and privileged of men. But it is a mu- 

 tual agreement, to honor that imperishable element in man, which 

 the power of his Creator has implanted within him; and to excite 

 and cultivate to the highest possible degree, by an honorable compe- 

 tition, the skill and effort of man for the improvement and elevation 

 of his present condition of being — not for the mere attainment of 

 the means of luxurious indulgence, but for the widest disposal ot 

 benefits upon mankind; for the utmost melioration of the difficul- 

 ties, and enlargement of the advantages which the wisdom of the 

 Creator has appended to the human station. No object beneath the 

 effort to secure and bless the future immortality of man, can be con- 

 sidered greater or of more importance. To enter upon any fair 

 consideration of this subject in its details of application, or in its 

 minuter calculations of present advantage and gain, is utterly im- 

 possible for me. I cannot undertake, nor can I suppose it expected 

 of me, to give a learned lecture upon the statistics of agriculture or 

 the arts; or to attempt to harangue such an association as this, upon 

 the principles of political economy, or the various schemes for polit- 

 ical advancement. I must be content with a view entirely superfi- 

 cial, and which, to the mass of educated minds around me, can 

 have no other merit than the cheerfulness of spirit with which it is 

 offered. 



It is this moral dignity of human labor which forms the rightful 

 connection of the present occasion with the more peculiar habits and 

 duties of the christian teacher, and opens a door through which he 

 may enter, to mingle his congratulations, and express his delight, 

 over the amazing and multiplied products of human skill, and evi- 

 dences of the mighty and still undeveloped power of the human 

 mind, which your annual exhibitions present. "What is the great 

 purpose and the real result of Christianity among men, but the ut- 



