ncerning the future. Hence the labors of philanthropists, reformers,
and Christians, as well as of teachers, are devoted to the culture and
improvement of the rising generation, as the chief security possible for
the prevalence of better ideas in the state and in the world.

Massachusetts has been peculiarly favored in the means of education; and
we ought ever to recognize the divine influence in the wisdom which led
our fathers to lay the foundations of a system that contemplated the
education of the whole people. The power of this great idea, universal
education, has not been limited to Massachusetts; the states of the
West, the states of the South, receive it as the basis of a wise public
policy; and had our ancestors contributed nothing else to the glory of
the republic, they would yet be entitled to the distinguished
consideration of every age and people. The vigor of our culture and the
hardihood of our institutions are more manifest out of Massachusetts
than in it. The immigrant in his new home in the great valley of
prairies, on the northern shores of the American lakes, in Oregon,
California, or the islands of the Pacific, invokes the spirit of New
England in the establishment of a free church and a free school. And in
the spirit and discipline of New England, the thoughts of her sons are
turned homeward in adversity, seeking consolation at the sources of
early, vigorous, and happy life; or, in prosperity, that they may offer,
in gratitude to man and to God, some tribute, always noble, however
humble, to the principles and institutions that first formed their
characters, and then controlled their destiny; or, in old age, the
wanderer, like Jacob in Egypt, with his blessing upon the tribes and
families of men, says, "I am to be gathered unto my people; bury me with
my fathers." This occasion and its honors are due to the memory of him
whose name this institution bears; and his last will and testament is an
illustration, or rather the cause, of these prefatory remarks. As the
reasonably extended and eminently prosperous life of your wise
benefactor approached its close, he, in the principles of Old England
and of New England, ordered and directed the payment of all his just
debts; and then, secondly, expressed the wish, "if practicable, to be
buried by the side of his parents in the cemetery at Bernardston." First
justice, and then affection for parents, kindred, and home, animated the
vital, never-dying soul, as