GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS°

THE DUTY OF THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

Do you ask me our duty as scholars? Gentlemen thought, which the scholar represents, is life and liberty. There is no intellectual or moral life without liberty. Therefore, as a man must breathe and see before he can 5 study, the scholar must have liberty, first of all; and as the American scholar is a man and has a voice in his own government, so his interest in political affairs must precede all others. He must build his house before he can live in it. He must be a perpetual inspiration of freedom 10 in politics. He must recognize that the intelligent exercise of political rights which is a privilege in a monarchy, is a duty in a republic. If it clash with his ease, his retirement, his taste, his study, let it clash, but let him do his duty. The course of events is incessant, and when the good deed is slighted, the bad deed is done.

15

Young scholars, young Americans, young men, we are all called upon to do a great duty. Nobody is released from it. It is a work to be done by hard strokes, and everywhere. I see a rising enthusiasm, but enthusiasm 20 is not an election; and I hear cheers from the heart, but cheers are not votes. Every man must labor with his neighbor in the street, at the plough, at the bench, early and late, at home and abroad. Generally we are concerned, in elections, with the measures of government. 25 This time it is with the essential principle of government itself. Therefore there must be no doubt about our leader.

He must not prevaricate, or stand in the fog, or use terms to court popular favor, which every demagogue and traitor has always used. If he says he favors the interest of the whole country, let him frankly say whether he thinks the interest of the whole country demands the extension 5 of slavery. If he declares for the Union, let him say whether he means a Union for freedom or for slavery. If he swear by the Constitution, let him state, so that the humblest free laborer can hear and understand, whether he believes the Constitution means to prefer slave labor to free labor in the national representation of the Territories. Ask him as an honest man, in a great crisis, if he be for the Union, the Constitution, and slavery extension, or for "Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable."

ΙΟ

15

Scholars, you would like to loiter in the pleasant paths of study. Every man loves his ease - loves to please his taste. But into how many homes along this lovely valley came the news of Lexington and Bunker Hill eighty years ago; and young men like us, studious, fond of lei- 20 sure, young lovers, young husbands, young brothers, and sons, knew that they must forsake the wooded hillside, the river meadows golden with harvest, the twilight walk along the river, the summer Sunday in the old church, parents, wife, child, mistress, and go away to uncertain 25 war. Putnam heard the call at his plough, and turned to go without waiting. Wooster heard it and obeyed.

Not less lovely in those days was this peaceful valley, not less soft this summer air. Life was as dear, and love as beautiful, to those young men as to us who stand upon 30 their graves. But because they were so dear and beautiful those men went out, bravely to fight for them and fall. Through these very streets they marched, who

IO

never returned. They fell and were buried; but they can never die. Not sweeter are the flowers that make your valley fair, not greener are the pines that give your river its name, than the memory of the brave men who 5 died for freedom. And yet no victim of those days, sleeping under the green sod of Connecticut, is more truly a martyr of Liberty than every murdered man whose bones lie bleaching in the summer sun upon the silent plains of Kansas.

Gentlemen, while we read history, we make history. Because our fathers fought in this great cause, we must not hope to escape fighting. Because two thousand years ago Leonidas stood against Xerxes, we must not suppose that Xerxes was slain, nor, thank God! that Leonidas 15 is not immortal. Every great crisis of human history is a pass of Thermopyla, and there is always a Leonidas and his three hundred to die in it, if they cannot conquer. And so long as Liberty has one martyr, so long as one drop of blood is poured out for her, so long from that 20 single drop of bloody sweat of the agony of humanity shall spring hosts as countless as the forest leaves and mighty as the sea.

Brothers! the call has come upon us. I bring it to you in these calm retreats. I summon you to the great 25 fight of Freedom. I call upon you to say with your voices, whenever the occasion offers, and with your votes when the day comes, that upon these fertile fields of Kansas, in the very heart of the continent, the upas-tree of slavery, dripping death-dews upon national prosperity 30 and upon free labor, shall never be planted. I call upon you to plant there the palm of peace, the vine and the olive of a Christian civilization. I call upon you to determine whether this great experiment of human freedom, which

has been the scorn of despotism, shall, by its failure, be also our sin and shame. I call upon you to defend the hope of the world.

The voice of our brothers who are bleeding, no less than of our fathers who bled, summons us to this battle. Shall 5 the children of unborn generations, clustering over that vast western empire, rise up and call us blessed or cursed? Here are our Marathon and Lexington; here are our heroic fields. The hearts of all good men beat with us. The fight is fierce the issue is with God. But God is 10

good.

5

NATURE has stamped the Indian with a hard and stern physiognomy. Ambition, revenge, envy, jealousy, are his ruling passions; and his cold 'temperament is little exposed to those effeminate vices which are the bane of I milder races. With him revenge is an overpowering instinct; nay, more, it is a point of honor and a duty. His pride sets all language at defiance. He loathes the thought of coercion; and few of his race have ever stooped to discharge a menial office. A wild love of liberty, an 10 utter intolerance of control, lie at the basis of his character, and fire his whole existence. Yet, in spite of his haughty independence, he is a devout hero-worshiper; and high achievement in war or policy touches a chord to which his nature never fails to respond. He looks 15 up with admiring reverence to the sages and heroes of his tribe; and it is this principle, joined to the respect for age springing from the patriarchal element in his social system, which, beyond all others, contributes union and harmony to the erratic members of an Indian community. 20 With him the love of glory kindles into a burning passion; and to allay its cravings, he will dare cold and famine, fire, tempest, torture, and death itself.

These generous traits are overcast by much that is dark, cold, and sinister, by sleepless distrust, and rankling 25 jealousy. Treacherous himself, he is always suspicious of treachery in others. Brave as he is, and few of