Excerpt from Oration, Delivered at the Independent Academy, Manchester, Maryland, July 4, 1857

The positive benefit of Culture, in its relation to Patriotisin, is, then, in its education; in the wise direction of its else untutored and wasted energy; in the instruction of it in its intrinsic capacities; in the enlarge ment of its practical efficiency; in refining and intensifying it to a prompt exactitude and concentration of action; in the gladiatorial disci pline of its entire being. There would be peril, however, to the State, in the expansion and training of this sentiment, without some chastening influences to moderate its ardor, - some prudent limitations which should be laws to its activity and keep it within due bounds. Otherwise, it might break forth into anarchy, and defeat the very objects it proposed. But Culture has its restraining government, no less than its impelling inspirations. If its judicious guidance be obeyed, there need be no dangers to the State; unless, indeed, the State be founded on a lie, and repudiate the rights of man. Then, Culture and Patriotism, both of them, are full of hazards. Neither of them can have any sympathy for despotism. If not utterly exiled, they must hide in corners, and Speak only hypocrisy and falsehood. For Culture is, in its true character, of necessity, humane. It cannot hesitate to exclaim with Terence: Nihil humani a me aliemtm puto. I speak not of a merely elegant and superficial scholarship, which revels in trifles, and deals with nothing nobler than polite learning and fine art; but of that hardier, manlier Culture, which acknowledges the authority of thought; which pays homage to eternal principles; which finds its aliment in the teachings of Philosophy and Ethics. This, the only genuine Culture is the friend of individual man. It can never strike hands with tyran ny, and become the minister of its purposes; it can never urge a de frauded people to submission. And so with Patriotism, this, too, is essentially popular in its sympathies; and reaches out with eagerness toward democracy as its proper sphere.

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