AMERICAN INSTITUTE. 43 



The political position of every man, and the social position of 

 every man, how lofty or how humble soever it may be, is indis- 

 solubly linked with his ultimate and permanent position as a 

 moral being. A man is a good man or a bad man — in greater or 

 less degree, he is either a taint upon his country's mind, or he is 

 a throb of hope in its great heart. And, if it be upon the vigor 

 and soundness of that spirit — upon the moral sum of the casting 

 of this great account that the well-being ot a State depends; how 

 can it comport with the security of the whole, that any great or 

 essential portion of the people should remain untaught, unlifted 

 from the daily drudgery of the life-scuffle for food ? 



Away then with the idle fear, and more emphatically away 

 with it here, in this country, this resting place for the weary foot 

 of the wanderer, who, in the spirit of the Pilgrim fathers, asks for 

 the unfettered exercise of his birthright. Away with the appre- 

 hension that knowledge will become degraded, dishonored and 

 absolutely perverted if the portals of her temple be flung wide for 

 the multitude. Fortunately even the most laggard nations of the 

 old world are beginning not very dimly to discern the fallacy of 

 the assumption that the masses will only secure an imperfect and 

 therefore useless amount of information which they will inevitably 

 apply to bad purposes. Do not believe it. It is one of the most 

 gratifying features of American intelligence and greatness that 

 you do not believe if. Already we hear the distant roll of the 

 chariot wheels, the railway train is but the material and tangible 

 ■type of what is present as a significant emblem of the pregnant 

 future — already the dawn of that day is breaking — already a 

 bright and parting spot is seen in the murky sky — the clouds of 

 ignorance are rolling away, and soon the tear will be wiped from 

 the smiling face of oppressed humanity. Even now, no longer 

 can a privileged class arrogate the exclusive right to the Tree of 

 Knowledge, or monopolize rest under the shadow of those wide 

 spreading branches whose " leaves were for the healing of the 

 Nations." Mind, glorious, emancipated mind, while it reverently 

 bows at the footstool of rational rather than authoritative proof of 

 the existence of a revelation from God to man, interprets it under 

 His guidance rather than that of beings equally fallible with him- 



