472 [Assemblt 



aristocratic. However, it cannot be denied, but that dissipation may 

 be found in these consecrated seats, but we maintain it is not the 

 tendency of academical supervision, or the course of scholastic in- 

 struction. At the altar of literature and science, an ingenuous ardor 

 is infused into the youthful breast, a taste imbibed to express the 

 most subtle conceptions, and to please the most refined ear, reason 

 exercised to attain the unclouded heights of demonstration, mental 

 contact inspiring a generous emulation, and a hearty and frank inter- 

 course polishing the rude mass, into a lovely form, surely strike at 

 the very foundations of moral aberrations. 



We deem a profligate and dissolute band of reckless blades, the 

 direst calamity that can befal the temple of learning, yet we know 

 that it is the lot of humanity for evil to defile the most sacred pla- 

 ces, and that noxious weeds often grow within the odour of the fair- 

 est flowers. 



The matriculation or college record bears decisive testimony that 

 a great majority of the young men who frequent its halls, have 

 emerged from parents of humble stations, and are sustained by their 

 self-sacrifices and untiring industry, or choice spirits, who have bro- 

 ken through the difficulties and disadvantages which wall around penu- 

 ry and unfostered genius, borne the highest honors of schools, and 

 have plucked the deathless laurel from the loftiest eminences that 

 soaring genius can attain. 



Within the precincts of these nurseries of learning, ~ all the su- 

 perficial and transitory distinctions of wealth, birth, and place vanish, 

 and they all assume their natural equality, except when the child 

 of orphanage, or destitution, rises higher, or throws into the shade the 

 young scions of aristocracy, or the adventitious plumage, and native 

 imbecility of the sons of opulence show more garish. 



Thanks to those liberal and far sighted statesmen and philanthro- 

 pists, who have planted these beacon lights, to direct their posterity 

 to the haven of priceless commodities, and have shown by their own 

 bright example, that the way to distinction is open to all, and so long 

 as these time-honored and venerated nurseries of knowledge, have 

 their professional chairs filled with men who can impart lustre to 

 letters, worth and dignity to science; libraries are stored with rare 

 and valuable books; museums and laboratories can unfold the pheno- 

 mena of nature, and display the wonders of art — crowds of manlj 

 and sensible youth must resort to them to train and discipline them- 

 selves for the stage of action. 



