s a preparatory
school for the revolutionary contest; and, therefore, the major part of
the enterprise, ambition, and patriotism, of the country, was given to
the training, studies, and pursuits, calculated to fit men for so stern
a struggle. But now that other avenues are inviting in themselves, and
promise political preferment, we are liable to the criticism that our
young men, well educated in the schools and in a knowledge of the world,
are not well grounded in political history and constitutional law,
without which there can be no thorough and comprehensive statesmanship.
And, as I pass from this branch of my subject, I may properly say that I
do not seek to limit the number of candidates for public office; for
every office is a school, and the public itself is a great and wise
teacher. Nor do I ask any to abandon the employments and duties, or to
neglect the claims of business and of social life; but I seek to impress
upon our youth a sense of the importance of adding something thereto.
The knowledge of which I have spoken is valuable in the ordinary course
of public business, and absolutely essential in the exigences of
political and national life. And it is with an eye single to the
happiness of individuals, and the welfare of the public, that I invite
my fellow-citizens, and especially the young men of the state, to take
something from the hours of labor, where labor is excessive; or
something from amusement, where amusement has ceased to be recreation;
or something from light reading, which often is neither true, nor
reasonable, nor useful; or something from indolence and dissipation;
and, in the minutes and hours thus gained, treasure up valuable
knowledge for the circumstances and exigences of citizenship and public
office.

II. _The claims of business and society are unfavorable to political
learning._--I assume it to be true of Massachusetts that the proportion
of freehold farmers to the whole population is gradually diminishing,
and that the amount of labor performed by each is gradually increasing.
From the settlement of the country to the commencement of the present
century, there was a great deal of privation, hardship, and positive
suffering; but the claim for continuous labor was not exacting.

The necessary articles of food and clothing were chiefly supplied from
the land, and the majority did not contemplate any great accumulation of
worldly goods, but sought rather to place their political and re