nd worthy of the thought and
care, by which it has been nurtured and moulded into its present
auspicious form.--The union you thus form, is a union of minds. It is a
band of brotherhood, but a brotherhood of letters. It is a confederacy
of tribes, but a literary confederacy. It is an assemblage of warriors,
but the labor to be pursued is exclusively of an intellectual character.
The plumes with which you aim to pledge your literary arrows, are to be
plucked from the wings of science. It is a council of clans, not to
consult on the best means of advancing historical research; of promoting
antiquarian knowledge; and of cultivating polite literature. The field
of inquiry is broad, and it is to be trodden in various ways. You seek
to advance in the paths of useful knowledge, but neglect not the flowers
that bedeck the way. You aim at general objects and results, but pursue
them, through the theme and story of that proud and noble race of the
sons of the Forest, whose name, whose costume and whose principles of
association you assume. Symbolically, you re-create the race. Thus
aiming, and thus symbolizing your labors, your objects to resuscitate
and exhume from the dust of by-gone years, some of those deeds of valor
and renown which marked this hardy and vigorous race. There is in the
idea of your association, one of the elements of a peculiar and national
literature. And whatever may be the degree of success, which
characterizes your labors, it is hoped they will bear the impress of
American heads and American hearts. We have drawn our intellectual
sustenance, it is true, from noble fountains and crystal streams. We
have all England, and all Europe for our fountain head. But when this
has been said, we must add, that they have been off-sets from foreign
fountains and foreign streams. And nurtured as we have been, from such
ample sources, it is time, in the course of our national developments,
that we begin to produce something characteristic of the land that gave
us birth. No people can bear a true nationality, which does not
exfoliate, as it were, from its bosom, something that expresses the
peculiarities of its own soil and climate. In building its intellectual
edifice, we must have not only suitable decorations, but there must come
from the broad and deep quarries of its own mountains, foundation
stones, and columns and capitals, which bear the impress of an
indigenous mental geognosy.

And where! when we survey the leng