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INAUGURAL ADDRESS.

Gentlemen, Trustees and Overseers; and Gentlemen, Professors and Tutors:

SUCCEEDING, in a highly responsible office, to a man unusually qualified for it by natural and acquired talents, and by the full possession of public confidence, it is impossible to conceal the anxiety with which I address you-an anxiety the more oppressive, as it operates on a system constitutionally feeble, and now scarcely recovered from wasting disease.

Speaking under these disadvantages, I solicit your favorable attention.

The interest you have taken in the establishment and superintendence of this seminary demonstrates your conviction of the utility of public literary institutions. Any observations in proof of this point would be therefore superfluous.

It is well known to be an infelicity attending all human establishments that they are liable to perversion. That which is designed as a powerful instrument of good, may contribute to extensive ruin. The evil resulting from the abuse of power, is generally commensurate with the good which would be effected by a right use of it. Colleges afford no exception to these general remarks. Such has evidently been the judgment of all by whom they have been established or cherished.

Were indolence, for example, tolerated among youth who resort to public seminaries, the most inactive of our species. would be allured thither; and if any of a different character should by chance, or the imprudence of their guardians, mingle with them, they would soon become assimilated to the general

mass. Were no care exercised by the government of colleges, to preserve, or correct the morals of literary youth, there would be few conditions perhaps, in which the growth of moral depravity would be more rapid or more luxuriant. He whose vices are moderate in solitude, would become intolerable if connected with numbers, whose dispositions to offend were as great, and whose habits of offending were more inveterate than his own. Besides, learning gives power to its possessor; those persons, therefore, who become learned at the expense of moral principles and moral habits, acquire at once the ability and disposition to injure society.

To secure the benefits of literary establishments to the exclusion of their disadvantages, government has been instituted. It has not been thought sufficient, that the means of knowledge should be afforded, but that a disposition should likewise be cultivated to apply this knowledge to a right use. Without this colleges could not exist; or if they could, they ought not, as they would only be the instruments of arming the wicked to distress the good.

In this view of the subject, we clearly perceive the high value of good government; and we see that the object of such government always is, and always must be, to promote the literary and moral character of those who acknowledge it.

Laws, whether those of a college or of a civil community, should be few in number, easily understood, reasonable in themselves, and punctually executed. Laws which are not worth executing were never worth enacting; and when they exist, should be erased from the code to which they belong. If it be a known case, that some are violated with impunity, it is neither difficult nor unreasonable to presume the same of others; hence the authority of the whole becomes enfeebled; and for the same reason that laws should be repealed, rather than suffered to become obsolete, those which are designed for execution, should be executed with uniform punctuality. On entering college, a student does in fact, form a contract with the governors of the institution. They promise to instruct and guard him with parental

care; he, on his part, stipulates obedience to the laws, docility, application, and correct habits. When "every transgression and disobedience receives a just recompense of reward," there is no cause of complaint-nothing takes place but what, at the time of entering into the agreement, it was understood should take place. The offender receives the punishment specified by those regulations to which he consented, and under which he placed himself. When determined to commit a crime, he does it in the distinct view of its consequences. Not so, should facts render it uncertain whether strict obedience will be uniformly required. In this case, there would be a language in the administration indefinite, to be sure, but certainly different from that of the written code; and he who was disposed to transgress would consider it problematical, whether, in case of detection, he should suffer, or be acquitted-whether he should be judged by the law, or by some unknown modification of it. It appears then, not only that the steady enforcement of established laws is necessary to preserve subordination, and secure authority from contempt, but that it is likewise most fair and honorable as it respects the party stipulating obedience.

That the morals of students ought to be a matter of primary attention does not admit of a moment's debate. If we be the subjects of moral government, and responsible to that Lawgiver and Judge, who is able to save or destroy, literary acquirements, however splendid, but poorly compensate for increasing degeneracy of heart; and the case is still worse, if in proportion as the life becomes profligate, there be a contemptuous neglect of literary pursuits. No one can reflect, without mortification and extreme regret, that any serious parent should ever withhold from his sons the benefits of a public education, from a well grounded fear that their minds would be corrupted. This reflection is the more distressing, if we consider that the churches of our land are expecting, and have a right to expect from colleges their future supply.

Figure to yourselves a youth of promising, perhaps of brilliant talents, of engaging deportment, and strict morality, leaving

his father's house for a four years' residence at some seat of learning. Who can wonder at those high hopes, which are mingled with parental prayers and benedictions? Who can wonder that a father's, or a mother's fondness sometimes anticipates the future usefulness and elevation of their son ? Suppose this amiable lad unhappily becomes acquainted with individuals of dissipated life. By intimacy, and perhaps by flattery on their part, he contracts a fondness for their society and their vices. Adopting himself, what he is pleased with in them, he attends on college exercises without constancy or pleasure, and after having been the instrument of diffusing among others the same corruption which he has received, returns to his anxious parents, intemperate, profane, debauched, and a despiser of God!

I well know it is not within human power to change the heart. Instructors can, by no efforts, communicate to their pupils a conformity to the divine image. But surely there are restraints. which may be imposed-there are means which may be used, and which are commonly in a greater or smaller degree, accompanied with success; and I tremble under the solemn conviction, of the high accountability of that office on which I am entering -a conviction, that the usefulness of the students in time, and their character through eternity, may be affected, greatly affected, by the manner in which the executive officers of college discharge their duty.

To remark that there is an important connexion between good government and good morals, would be asserting what no one disbelieves. He therefore, who is hostile to wholesome restraint, in literary or civil communities, commences a warfare with moral obligation. Now if such be the importance of government, surely they who oppose it are worthy of dishonor. But, in order to their being distinguished with merited dishonor, they must be known; and in order to this, they who are acquainted with their offences must, when called on to give testimony, come forward with honorable frankness-with unshrink-' ing integrity. There is nothing more inconsistent, not only with the gospel of Christ, but with a just sense of honor, with

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