The Advantages and the Dangers of the American Scholar: A Discourse Delivered on the Day Preceding the Annual Commencement of Union College, July 26, 1836Wiley and Long, 1836 - 62 pages |
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action ambition American scholar antiquity arts and affairs arts of taste become beneficence cause character cheer citizen conscience crowd danger degrading degree doctrine doomed duties effect eloquence eminently enjoyment equally evils excitement experience familiar fancy favor favorite feel fortune gained genius Godolphin habits happiness hireling honest honor hope human independence indus institutions intel intellectual interests jurisprudence knowledge land lect liberty literary literature living look Louis XIV manly martyrs mental Milton mind moral nation native natural never nity nobler object old world opinions Paradise Lost party patriot patron philosophy poet political popular prejudices principles regular religious republic republican rewards selfish social society solitary speculations spirit statesman steady strong studies sublime success Sydney sympathy talent temptations thing thor thought tion toil torpid truth tyranny of power veneration wealth whilst whole wholly wisdom worldly YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY youth zeal
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Page 52 - This, however, is but an extreme case, to be pointed out as a beacon to mark the covert peril. That such grovelling materiality, such mean selfishness, is not the necessary, nor the constant, no, nor the frequent result of our ardent industry in the affairs of life, let the discoveries of Franklin, and the magnificent far-drawn speculations of Edwards — let the grand philosophy, and the poetic thought, flashing quick and thick through the cloudy atmosphere of political discussion in our senate-house...
Page 25 - I am now indebted, as being a work not to be raised from the heat of youth, or the vapors of wine, like that which flows at waste from the pen of some vulgar amorist, or the trencher fury of a rhyming parasite, nor to be obtained by the invocation of dame Memory and her siren daughters, but by devout prayer to that eternal Spirit, who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed...
Page 40 - ... enlarged principles, and with energies which no state that is not in some degree republican can supply. How forcibly must the contemplation of these men in such opposite situations teach persons engaged in political life, that a free and popular government is desirable, not only for the public good, but for their own greatness and consideration, for every object of generous ambition.
Page 39 - ... life to raise, at the expense of every sentiment of tenderness to his subjects, and of justice and good faith to foreign nations! It is with difficulty the reader can persuade himself that the Godolphin and Churchill here mentioned are the same persons who were afterwards one in the cabinet, one in the field, the great conductors of the war of the succession.
Page 12 - ... Under that strong and contagious stimulus, the faculties are awakened, the capacity enlarged, the genius roused, excited, inspired. The mind is not suffered to brood undisturbed over its own little stock of favorite thoughts, treading the same unceasing round of habitual associations, until it becomes quite incapable of fixing its attention upon any new object, and its whole existence is but a dull, drowsy dream. On the contrary, it is forced to sympathize with the living world around, to enter...
Page 15 - The character, knowledge and happiness of that future and distant multitude, are now in our hands. They are to be moulded by our beneficent labors, our example, our studies, our philanthropic enterprise. Thus the
Page 19 - ... the business of life, or to minister in any way to the increased power or enjoyment of man, will soon find ready attention for their claims. Here no prejudices in favor of time-honored usages are strong enough long to resist the advance of scientific improvement or wise innovation. Society is not divided into castes, each one of them watching with jealous vigilance against any encroachment of their several exclusive walks by any rude intruder from another class, themselves clinging to the settled...
Page 5 - Our immense extent of fertile territory opening an inexhaustible field for successful enterprise, thus assuring to industry a certain reward for its labors, and preserving the lands for centuries to come from the manifold evils of an overcrowded, and consequently degraded population ; our magnificent system of federated republics, carrying out and applying the principles of representative democracy to an extent never hoped or imagined in the boldest theories of the old speculative...
Page 39 - Did they enjoy, in a greater degree, her favour and confidence ? The very reverse is the fact. But, in one case, they were the tools of a king plotting against his people; in the other, the ministers of a free government acting upon enlarged principles, and wnh enemies which no state that is not in sume degree republican can supply.