chusetts, whose mind had the point of the diamond, and the clearness of its waters; Pliny Merrick, who graces the bench on which I have the honor to sit. A quarter of a century has passed since I left these walls with your blessing. I have seen something of men and of the world since. I esteem it the happiest event of my life that I was permitted for three years to sit at the feet of your instruction.

"Others may speak and think of the writer and the scholar: my tribute is to the great teacher; and he is not the great teacher who fills the mind of his pupil from the affluence of his learning, or works much for him, but who has the rare faculty of drawing out and developing the mind of another, and making him work for himself, the rarest of all God's gifts to men. Great statesmen, great orators, great jurists, are successful and useful in the degree that they are great teachers. Office of unequalled dignity and worth! Even our divine Lord and Master we call the Great Teacher.' Mr. Pres

ident, if I have acquired any consideration in my own beloved Commonwealth; if I have worthily won any honor, I can, and do, with a grateful heart, bring them to-day and lay them at your feet; Teucro duce et auspice Teucro."

When, I say, a scene like this was exhibited at the close of a public life-work, it was, to a virtuous

mind, far more impressive than any, or all, of the three hundred triumphs of the Eternal City.

It is fit for us to recall and record these characters and events which have shed imperishable glory upon our profession; it is more than fit: it is obligatory. These men have labored, and we have entered into their labors. And while we are surrounded with the din and dust of the conflict; while we encounter persecution and contempt, obloquy and scorn, as some of us have within the past year, we may turn to the bright examples of those who have fought a good fight, and finished their course, and are now ascended into the pure empyrean of fame, "above the smoke and stir of this dim spot."

Especially is it our duty, as members of the American Institute of Instruction, to record the virtues and the professional success of those who founded it. Soon, too soon, alas! will the places that have known them, know them no more forever. Their well-carned fame is a large part of the influence that we have with this generation.

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Gentlemen, you have chosen a noble profession. What though it do not confer upon us wealth,it confers upon us a higher boon, the privilege of being useful. What though it lead not to the falsely-named heights of political eminence, it leads us to what is far better, the sources of real power;

for it renders intellectual ability necessary to our means. I DO VERILY BELIEVE THAT NOTHING SO CULTIVATES THE POWERS OF A MAN'S OWN MIND AS THOROUGH, GENEROUS, LIBERAL, AND INDEFATI

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GABLE TEACHING. But our profession has rewards, rich rewards, peculiar to itself. What can be more delightful to a philanthropic mind, than to behold intellectual power increased a hundred-fold by our exertions, talent developed by our assiduity, passions eradicated by our counsel, and a multitude of men pouring abroad over society, the lustre of a virtuous example, and becoming meet to be inheritors with the saints in light: and all in consequence of the direction which we have given to them in youth. I ask again what profession has any higher rewards? Again: we, at this day, are in a manner the pioneers in this work in this country. Education as a science has scarcely yet been naturalized among us. Radical improvement in the means of education is an idea that seems but just to have entered into men's minds. It becomes us to act worthily of our station. Let us by all the means in our power, second the efforts and the wishes of the public. Let us see that the first steps in this course are taken wisely. This country ought to be the best educated on the face of the earth. By the blessing of Heaven we can do much towards the making of it so.

God helping us, then, let us make our mark on the rising generation."

With

These, gentlemen, were the winged words which thirty-seven years ago, launched into existence the organization whose anniversary we now celebrate. They fell upon the fathers, then, from one radiant with promise and fired with Christian ardor. what added power do they come to us, enforced by the example of a life that has indeed made its mark upon its age, and changed in large measure the character of American education! They were spoken, then, in behalf of a band of earnest men, striving in the spirit of faith and hope to organize the educational life of the nation; they seem now to come from the same spirit, amid the assembly of the just, where faith is turned to sight. Let us heed the encouraging exhortation: and when difficulties thicken, and friends fail; when the whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint, turn to the bright examples of our early history, -to the Moses and the prophets of our educational dispensation, — and read in their triumph the assurance of our own

success.

APPENDIX.

NOTE A.

THE honor of having originated the "Lyceum Lecture System" is claimed for three men, whose names are mentioned in the text; viz., Edward Everett, Josiah Holbrook, and Timothy Claxton. It is not, perhaps, a question of great importance, but is one of some interest. It was very likely quite as much the demand of the age as the creation of any one individual. But the claims of Mr. Everett to priority in this great movement, seem to be so well founded that I deem them worthy of notice; the more so, because of the absurd notion entertained by many, that Mr. Everett was not popular in his tastes and sympathies. Prof. Felton, in his admirable article on the educational services of Mr. Everett, in the seventh volume of Barnard's Journal of Education, makes the following quotation from a lecture by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“But a new field for eloquence has been opened in the Lyceum, - an institution not yet a quarter of a century old, yet singularly agreeable to the taste and habits of the NewEngland people, and extending every year to the South and West. It is of so recent origin that, although it is beginning already, like the invention of railways, to make a new profession, we have, most of us, seen all the steps of its progress. In New England, it had its origin in as marked a manner as such things admit of being marked, from the genius of one distinguished person, who, after his connection