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 external familiar fancy favor favorite feel fortune gained genius Godolphin habits happier 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 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN veneration wealth whilst whole wholly wisdom worldly youth zeal
Popular passages
Page 25 - ... devout prayer to that eternal Spirit who can enrich with all utterance and knowledge, and sends out his seraphim, with the hallowed fire of his altar, to touch and purify the lips of whom he pleases...
Page 40 - 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 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...
Page 25 - ... 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 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 34 - Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters, to be wise; There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
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 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.
Page 6 - Lockes of former times- ; the reaction of our political system upon our social and domestic concerns, bringing the influence of popular feeling and public opinion to bear upon all the affairs of life in a degree hitherto wholly unprecedented ; the unconstrained range of freedom of opinion, of speech, and of the press, and the habitual and daring exercise of that liberty upon the highest subjects ; the absence of all serious inequality of fortune and rank in the condition of our citizens ; our divisions...
Page 50 - He cuts himself off from the best delights of the heart — its endearing charities and its 7 elevating sympathies. He paralyzes his own intellect by suffering it to become half dead through inaction, and that in its nobler parts. The mighty ladder of thought and reason, reaching from the visible to the invisible — from the crude knowledge gained through the senses to the sublimest inferences of the pure reason — from the earth to the very footstool of God's own throne — is before him and invites...