Clinton's introductory discourse. 47 



young as it Is, would be the great Atlas remaining to support the dig- 

 nity of the world : and perhaps our mingled descent from various na- 

 tions may have a benign influence upon genius. We perceive the 

 improving effects of an analogous state upon vegetables and inferior 

 animals. The extraordinary characters which the United States have 

 produced may be, in some measure, ascribed to the mixed blood of so 

 many nations flowing in our veins ; and it may be confidently predicted, 

 that the operation of causes, acting with irresistible effect, will carry, in 

 this country, all the improvable faculties of human nature to the 

 highest state of perfection. 



Taking it for granted that the United States afford every reasonable 

 facility and inducement for the cultivation of letters, it cannot be doubted 

 but that this city is the proper site for a great literary and scientific 

 institution. When we view the magnitude of its population, the ex- 

 tent of its commerce, the number of its manufactures, and the greatness 

 of its opulence ; when we contemplate its position near the Atlantic, 

 its numerous channels of communication by land and by water with 

 every part of the United States, and the constant and easy intercourse 

 it can maintain with all parts of the civilized world ; when we consider 

 the vast fund of talent, information, enterprise, and industry which it 

 contains ; and when we take a prospective view of the rank which it is 

 destined to occupy as the greatest commercial emporium in the world, 

 we must acknowledge that no position could be selected better adapted 

 for acquiring information, concentrating knowledge, improving litera- 

 ture, and extending science : and we may say of this place as Sprat, in 

 his History of the Royal Society, said of London : " It has a large 

 intercourse with all the earth ; it is, as the poets describe their house of 

 fame, a city where all the noises and business in the world do meet, and 

 therefore this honour is justly due to it, to be the constant place of 



