Exhibition—Annual addresses. 
109 
Aside from Alaska, there remain nearly 1,000,000,000 acres of 
land, and it is for the people to say what shall be done with it. 
A cry has gone out through the country, “ homes for the home¬ 
less and lands for the landless ”—it has the ring of benevolence, 
but is prompted by a greedy spirit of speculation. 
Our country does not need the rapid settlement of its now unoc¬ 
cupied lands, but a just balance of social forces, a proper distribu¬ 
tion of the profits of labor. 
Recently it has been proposed to devote the proceeds of all the 
sales of public lands to the common schools—but let it be distinct¬ 
ly remembered, that whatever general plan may be adopted for 
disposing of the income from the sales of public lands, congress 
can at any time, give millions or hundreds of millions of acres to 
influential corporations. 
Do any urge that educated men are not practical? They have 
been called to fill all the highest positions in the gift of the people. 
When our country was on the verge of bankruptcy, a college grad¬ 
uate was appointed secretary of the treasury, and from 1787 to 
1814 a college graduate held this secretary-ship. Chase, Fes¬ 
senden and McCullough, who have rendered such signal service 
in the department of national finance, were graduates. Chancel¬ 
lor Livingston, a graduate of Columbia College, induced Fulton to 
return from France and renew his experiments, secured for him 
state aid, and furnished money for the building of his first boat, 
and thus gave the steamboat to America. 
Junius Smith was the projector and President of the British 
and American Steam Navigation Company, the first company ever 
formed for the navigation of the ocean. 
DeWiti Clinton projected and carried forward the great canal 
uniting the lakes, through the Hudson, with the Atlantic ocean. 
Prof. Morse gave to civilization the telegraph, and Field has 
bound the continents with the cable. 
Of the 9,000,000 of adult males in the country, only about 
70,000 are graduates; yet from this number comes at least one- 
half of the occupants of the highest positions in the gift of the 
people. Says Macauley: “ Take the Cambridge calendar, the 
Oxford calendar, for 200 years—look at the church, the parlia¬ 
ment, the bar, and it has always been the case that the men who 
