4 
ings, as well as classical temples of the age of Pericles., and all the beau- 
tiful forms of Ionic and Corinthian elegance. 
It would require no high degree of skill to decide which of these em- 
ployments of the mind, in respect to Science, is most elevated and de- 
sirable, where the condition of society is such as to yield no peculiar 
preponderance to one over the other. For, independent of that, we 
could not hesitate, when directing our efforts to one branch alone, to 
concentrate them on the arrangement of facts, and the deduction of ele- 
mentary laws from ample materials already gathered, or even in labor- 
ing to apply them to new designs ; though, by offering this opinion, I 
would not be understood as thinking that the mere collection of facts is 
not best suited to some conditions of society, and that he who furnishes 
them for scientific labor, however acting a humbler part than he who 
learns their qualities, or he who moulds and directs them to new dis- 
coveries and profitable ends, is not a necessary co-laborer in the field of 
knowledge, and does not perform a valuable service in the great search 
after truth. 
How we and those around us are situated in relation to these employ- 
ments, should be ascertained with care, in order to apply our energies in 
the manner most promising and appropriate. Rightly to understand, 
and rightly to “ define our position ” as to this subject, may also, as is the 
case at times with politicians, help the Institute, and even our common 
country, to escape some unmerited censure, and will tend to procure more 
readily any assistance towards further progress which our condition and 
exertions may seem to deserve. 
It is proper, then, to remember, in the outset, that the anglo- American 
mind has never been in the uncultivated condition in which our ances- 
tors found the soil of this country. The intellect, morals, manners, and 
general acquirements were, at the very first, those of the old world, as it 
stood two hundred years ago, rather than those discovered among the 
new races here. Many, considering only our youth as a nation, have 
overlooked this, and forgotten the old age that belongs to our people — not 
coming here as barbarians, living on acorns and clad in skins — or being, 
as to intelligence and arts, in the hunter, or even pastoral state, but cross- 
ing the Atlantic as adults in mind and civilization, with advanced ac- 
quirements, derived from the treasures of near forty centuries of science, 
as well as of arts and letters, all open to their gaze, and daily mas- 
tered by industry and talent. As a people we have lived as long as 
those of England, France, Germany, and Spain, whence we came. We 
possessed, from the start, all the improvements which they possessed at 
OSJ 
