the vast importance attached to the establishment and support of schools in New England and in our sister States, who have followed our example in this respect.

About twenty centuries ago, with the exception of the very small country of Greece, which lay in the eastern extremity of Europe, nearly the whole of that continent was in a state of barbarism. The enlightenment of Rome then commencing, the mysterious culture of the Etruscans, of which, all but a few doubtful traces have perished, and the feeble reflection of the literature of the Greeks in the colonies established by them in the south of Europe, furnish the only exception to this remark. The rest of Italy, the greater part of Gaul and the Spanish peninsula, all Germany and the Netherlands, the entire north of Europe, with the British islands, were wrapt in thick mental darkness; their inhabitants being but little if at all superior to our savages in intellectual improvement. Twenty centuries have produced the change we witness; and have carried the arts of life and every branch of culture, in almost all parts of Europe, to their present wonderful state of perfection. But twenty centuries are so vast a period, so far beyond the grasp of individual experience, the change wrought has been so gradual, that it requires some effort to comprehend its nature, and to do justice to the causes which have produced it.

Now a similar change has taken place on our American continent, but in a much shorter time. In the comparatively brief period of about two hundred years, substantially the same transformation has been brought about in a considerable part of our Western continent, which has been the work of fifteen or twenty centuries in Europe. Within two hundred years the barbarous native races have disappeared, and the children of civilized Europe and their descendants have succeeded to them; and have introduced, as far as circumstances admitted, the culture of the old world, with all the improvements which have sprung from the novel and peculiar state of things here existing. This, indeed, has been accomplished in much less than two centuries. Last Tuesday I descended the banks of the Connecticut River by railway.

Less than a hundred years ago, the peaceful and prosperous villages on that beautiful river were invaded by bands of French and Indians, and their inhabitants carried captive into Canada. The traces of the native population are not yet obliterated at their favorite resorts; sonorous Indian names yet designate some of the noble streams, the sparkling lakes, the cloud-capt hills of New England, (may they never give way to the simpering affectations of modern taste!) and recent traditions of the red man still hover, like spirits loath to depart, around the waterfalls and carrying places.

Here they had lived and possessed the land from time immemorial. We call them Aborigines as the Athenians called themselves Autocthones. We know nothing older. We cannot go beyond them in the history of our continent, nor assign any date to their occupation of it. But all their traditions, the size of the enormous trees which have grown upon the mounds erected by them, their physiological peculiarities, the highly artificial structure of their languages, which, without being sentimentally expressive, are grammatically complicated, and the silence of general history as to their immigration to America, all lead to the inference that the red races have been in possession of this continent as long as the white races have been in possession of Europe. Yet, for want of intellectual culture, for want of those instruments and means by which it is perpetuated and diffused, for want of the alphabet, the arts of writing, of reading, and printing, (whether this be regarded as cause or effect,) in a word, for want of that which our schools spread throughout the community, and hand down from generation to generation, no great progress was made in mental improvement by the aboriginal tribes of North America. It is scarcely an exaggeration to say that, from their first appearance in this continent to the date of the landing at Jamestown and Plymouth,- a period which I take to be fully as long as that which has elapsed since the landing of the first Egyptian or Phoenician colonists in Greece, —not one effectual step had been taken by the northern tribes towards the rational enjoyment of the great heritage which Providence had placed in their hands. Nothing, compara

tively, had been done by them to subdue the wilderness, to open the soil to the sun, to substitute the broad expanse of corn-fields and gardens which surrounds us, for the dismal, unfertile waste; and still less, if possible, for the higher arts of life. I do not now refer to the semi-civilization of the Aztecs, if it may be so called, which, if carefully weighed, furnishes no qualification to these remarks. What miracles of beneficence might have been wrought by an overruling Providence, in coming times, to guide the red man on the path of intellectual and spiritual progress, it would be as presumptuous as unavailing to conjecture; but up to the time of the European colonization, it may be truly said that, in all America now occupied by the United States and the British Provinces, not even a commencement of civilization, as we understand it, had been made by the native tribes.

But a foreign race, with the Bible and the spelling-book in their hands, the manuals of divine and human learning,makes its appearance on these shores, and a marvellous change at once begins. Few they were and feeble; they sowed in weakness, but they soon raised in power. Vastly outnumbered they were by the native races, and surpassed by them in most of the elements of physical strength; but the arts of cultivated life gave them an early foothold, and before long an exclusive possession of the soil. Deeds of violence and oppression no doubt accompanied the change, which humanity deplores and justice execrates. That I am in no degree insensible to their atrocity, I need not say after one of the declamations to which you have listened this morning." But there were deeds of violence and cruelty on both sides, and unless we adopt the wild and extravagant idea, that Providence never intended the American continent for the abode of a civilized race of European origin, we must set down the deplorable acts to which I have alluded to the account of human frailty; taking care, while we justly rebuke our ancestors for the wrongs which they committed, and

* An extract from an address by Mr. Everett, in which the cruel treatment, at the close of King Philip's war, of his wife and child, are described.

which were incidental to their age, and their unenlightened views of social duty, that we do not ourselves countenance wrongs of equal magnitude, that beset and stain our own more favored times.

But my present purpose is not to discuss this great and painful topic. I wish to point out to you the wonderful effect produced in a couple of centuries, through the action direct or indirect of cultivated mind, as a peculiar reason why the people of America should cherish that system of popular education, by which this culture is universally diffused and transmitted from generation to generation. What words can do justice to the transformation! How much of the native forest, with the ferocious animals that filled it, has disappeared; what hundreds and thousands of villages have been scattered through the land; what a network of roads, and canals, and railways has been thrown over its surface, penetrating its furthest recesses, now climbing the faces of steep hills, now bridging pathless swamps, now coquetting with sinuous streams; what forests of masts have been transferred from the mountain side to the shores of the sea, thence to be wafted to the remotest haunts of commerce; what crowded cities have been built, filled with the accumulated bounties of nature, products of art, and creations of mind; what institutions for objects of education, philanthropy, public spirit, and religion, all called into being within two hundred years in what had been for uncounted ages an untrodden wilderness, and all by the application of those elements of mental culture, which are imparted in our public schools to each successive generation! With this great fact woven into and running through their whole history, is it to be wondered at that the American people have ever regarded the cause of education and the support of the schools as of paramount importance?

There is one other idea connected with this subject, which I will just allude to, without attempting now to illustrate it. It is this, that the same difference which exists between a barbarous and civilized community exists between those members of the latter who are, and those who are not, educated. The wholly untutored white man is little better than

the wholly untutored red man. It is true his condition is benefited by living in an enlightened community, but as far as his individual progress and mental growth are concerned, I do not know that the unhappy being who, by his own fault or the fault of others, grows up in a civilized community without partaking of the advantages which it holds out for mental and moral improvement, presents a better specimen of our common humanity, than the benighted native of the wilderness.

But it is fully time to close these remarks; let me do it with a single word of counsel to our young friends, who are still to enjoy the advantages of this institution, — a bit of advice suggested by one of the laws of our nature. The force of habit is very great. I remember hearing an anecdote of one of the members of the Massachusetts Convention of 1820, who was so regular in his daily attendance, that he went up to the State house the day after the convention was dissolved, and wondered his colleagues did not appear. Now I hardly suppose any of you will actually go down to the school-house in vacation, but if you should be tempted to continue in the holidays, your habit of studying six, eight, or ten hours a day, as you do in term time, let me caution you against it. Such uninterrupted exertion all the year round will not be good for your health. Give yourselves a little repose as a matter of duty. If your parents propose to you some little excursion do not churlishly refuse. Take the times and seasons as they come along, enjoy term time as much as you please, but do not murmur at vacation. Make it a season of relaxation, and if possible, of pleasure, in order that when it is over, you may rush back to your duties with a keener zest. With this parting counsel, I bid you, my young friends, an affectionate farewell, and tender to you, Mr. Smith, and you, gentlemen of the committee, my best wishes for the continued prosperity of the Cambridge High School.