It is because of these things that
I look upon mechanics' institutions and athenaeums as vitally
important to the well-being of society. It is because the
rudiments of education may there be turned to good account in the
acquisition of sound principles, and of the great virtues, hope,
faith, and charity, to which all our knowledge tends; it is because
of that, I take it, that you have met in education's name to-night.
It is a great satisfaction to me to occupy the place I do in behalf
of an infant institution; a remarkably fine child enough, of a
vigorous constitution, but an infant still. I esteem myself
singularly fortunate in knowing it before its prime, in the hope
that I may have the pleasure of remembering in its prime, and when
it has attained to its lusty maturity, that I was a friend of its
youth. It has already passed through some of the disorders to
which children are liable; it succeeded to an elder brother of a
very meritorious character, but of rather a weak constitution, and
which expired when about twelve months old, from, it is said, a
destructive habit of getting up early in the morning: it succeeded
this elder brother, and has fought manfully through a sea of
troubles. Its friends have often been much concerned for it; its
pulse has been exceedingly low, being only 1250, when it was
expected to have been 10,000; several relations and friends have
even gone so far as to walk off once or twice in the melancholy
belief that it was dead.
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