nhood and age the
culture and society which learning only can give, and to childhood and
youth, over and above the training of the best schools, healthful moral
influences, and elements of physical growth and vigor, which ever
distinguish life in the country and among the mountains from life in the
city or on the plain. And over a broader field and upon a larger sphere
shall the benignant influence of this system of public instruction be
felt. In the affairs of this great republic, the power of a state is not
to be measured by the number of its votes in Congress. Public opinion is
mightier than Congress; and they who wield or control that do, in
reality, bear rule. Power in the world, upon a large view, and in the
light of history, has not been confided to the majorities of men.
Greece, unimportant in extent of territory, a peninsula and archipelago
in the sea, led the way in the civilization of the west, and, through
her eloquence, poetry, history and art, became the model of modern
culture. Rome, a single city in Italy, that stretches itself into the
sea as though it would gaze upon three continents, subjugated to her
sway the savage and civilized world, and impressed her arms and
jurisprudence upon all succeeding times; then Venice, without a single
foot of solid land, guarded inviolate the treasure of her sovereignty
for thirteen hundred years against the armies of the East and the West;
while, in our own time, England, unimportant in the extent of her
insular territory, has been able, by the intelligence and enterprise of
her people, to make herself mistress of the seas, arbiter of the
fortunes of Europe, and the ruler of a hundred millions of people in
Asia.

These things have happened in obedience to a law which knows no change.
Power in America is with those who can bring the greatest intellectual
and moral force to bear upon a given point. And Massachusetts, limited
in the extent of her territory, without salubrity of climate, fertility
of soil, or wealth of mines, will have influence, through her people at
home and her people abroad, proportionate to her fidelity to the cause
of universal public education.

NORMAL SCHOOL TRAINING.

[An Address delivered at the Dedication of the State Normal School, at
Salem.]

The human race may be divided into two classes. One has no ideal of a
future different from the present; or, if it is not always satisfied
with this view, it has yet had no clear conception