INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. 
677 
brought in contact with the living frame, it engenders the 
like by catalytic or dynamic action, because the same ele- 
ments are there to form it ; and thus disease is propagated. 
So it is with morals. “He that walketh with wise men shall 
be wise; and the companion of fools shall be destroyed.” 
Now, if on the one hand I w T ould not have you debase your- 
selves by simulating the ignoble; so, I would not, on the 
other hand, have you affect what you are not. Nevertheless, 
there is an aristocracy I wish you to aspire to — the aristo- 
cracy of intellect. Let aesthetic culture be yours. Advance 
in this as far and as high as you can, for it ennobles man 
and proves his god-like nature. Set your standard high. 
Although it is not likely ever to be yours to wear 
“ The round and top of sovereignty.” 
Yet there is a nobler coronal wherewith to bind your brows, 
— the laurel- wreath that marks the triumph of the mind. In 
the words of Lord Carlisle : “ Be yours a higher and more 
real ambition. It is not who you are, or what you are, that 
really signifies anything. The situations you may fill in life 
are beyond your control, and though they should be as exalted 
and as splendid as your most soaring dreams could paint, 
they might leave you mean, unhonored, and unloved. But 
the characters you may make for yourselves, in humble 
dependence on the blessing from above, are in your own 
power, and can never disappoint or fail you.” With this I 
agree, believing that morally we are in a great measure 
what we choose or desire to be. The idler makes no progress, 
and is justly despised. The industrious man, on the con- 
trary, gets rich, and is commended. The drunkard riots 
in excess of sensuality, and becomes enfeebled both in mind 
and body ; while the temperate man, who is moderate in all 
things, rejoices in his strength, and is contented and happy. 
There yet remains another weighty reason to be advanced 
— possibly the weightiest — why you should exercise all dili- 
gence in the acquirement of knowledge ; and this I have 
purposely reserved until now; namely, the hold the educa- 
tional question has on the public mind at the present day. 
The truth has at last forced itself on our legislators that, as a 
people, we are among the worst educated in Europe. 
Further, that if the children of the working-classes are not 
passed through the fire to Moloch, they are sacrificed to a no 
less rapacious tyrant, Mammon. They have, therefore, 
resolved that this state of things shall no longer exist ; — the 
people shall be educated. To accomplish this, which is in 
every way so desirable, you may remember that a conference 
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