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but desolation and destitution to our descendants, so far, at least, as our own agriculture is concerned.

Our commerce may continue to extend itself, and to spread its wings over every sea; our manufactures and mechanic arts may flourish and thrive; our population may have bread enough and to spare purchased in exchange for the profits of other pursuits. But if we mean to retain within our borders a prosperous and numerous agricultural class, an intelligent, independent, and virtuous rural population—

"A bold yeomanry, their country's pride,

Which once destroyed, can never be supplied,"

(and Heaven forbid that we should ever be without one!) we must take good care to hand down our soil as well as our institutions to transmit our lands as well as our liberties — unimpaired to posterity.

It is in view of considerations like these, Mr. President, that I rejoice to observe that the attention of our Legislature, and of our people, has recently been awakened to the subject of agricultural education. We have already a noble system of public schools, of which the farmers enjoy their full share of the advantages, and which is amply adequate to the primary preparation of our children for all the various professions and pursuits of life. Forever blessed be the memory of our Fathers for this inestimable legacy!

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Other nations may boast of their magnificent gems and monster diamonds. Our Kohinoor is our Common School System. This is our " Mountain of Light," not snatched, indeed, as a prize from a barbarous foe, nor destined to deck a royal brow, or to irradiate a Crystal Palace; but whose pure and penetrating ray illumines every brow, and enlightens every mind, and cheers every heart and every hearthstone in the land, and which supplies, from its exhaustless mines, "ornaments of grace unto the head, and chains upon the neck," of every son and daughter of Massachusetts!

But while we cherish our common schools, as now established, as our proudest and richest heritage, it cannot be doubted that our young farmers may be, and should be, provided, in some

other and supplementary way, with the opportunity of acquiring knowledge and science more immediately pertaining to their particular sphere of labor; though whether this is to be done by independent agricultural schools and colleges, like those existing in many parts of Europe, and recently described to us by your own accomplished Hitchcock, or by ingrafting a system of agricultural education upon the schools and colleges which we already have, it is for those wiser than myself to decide.

Mr. President, I may not pursue this topic further. I may not trespass longer on the attention of this most intelligent and agreeable company. I said, in rising to address you, that I was glad to meet here to-day, so many of my old friends of the River Counties. I cannot forget, in concluding, that there are some of them whom I do not meet, and whom I shall meet no more on earth. There are two of them especially, whose familiar forms have presented themselves to my mind's eye more than once on this occasion, and whose memories, in all our hearts, are as green as the sod which covers them.

The one, in the prime of life, with the purple light of youth still lingering upon his cheek, "the expectancy and rose of the fair State," who left no superior at the bar of his own County, and who would have found few equals in the halls of Congress, to which he had been summoned. The other, on the verge of old age, but whose eye was not yet dimmed, nor his natural strength abated, whose cordial grasp and sunny smile will never be forgotten by those who have shared them, and whose hoary locks, so long the ornament of the Senate Chamber, only lent a deeper impressiveness to the words of sober wisdom and of ardent patriotism, to which he so often and so eloquently gave utterance.

Allow me, in taking my seat, to propose to you,
The memory of JAMES C. ALVORD, and of ISAAC C. BATES.

MASSACHUSETTS IN 1775.

A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE CELEBRATION OF THE COMPLETION OF A
MONUMENT, ·
ERECTED BY ORDER OF THE LEGISLATURE OF MASSACHU-
SETTS, TO ISAAC DAVIS, ABNER HOSMER, AND JAMES HAYWARD, AT
ACTON, OCTOBER 29, 1851.

[In reply to a complimentary call from the President of the day, Rev. James T. Woodbury.]

I COULD have wished, Mr. President, that this call might have been postponed to a later period of the festival, or that, at least, I might have been spared from attempting to speak, until the clatter of plates within, and the noise of drums without, had in some measure subsided. But I suppose that one who has just looked on the bones of Isaac Davis, must not permit himself to shrink from any service which may be assigned him. And indeed, Sir, I am deeply indebted to your Committee of Arrangements for the privilege of being present at all on this occasion, and for the opportunity they have afforded me of witnessing the impressive ceremonies of this morning, and of listening to the instructive and eloquent address of His Excellency the Governor.

Sir, we have had many celebrations and jubilees of late in this part of the country, and it has been my fortune to be present at not a few of them. But, though comparisons are sometimes odious, I can safely and sincerely say that there has been none, none among them all, which has seemed to me so peculiarly congenial to the spirit of our republican institutions, so eminently characteristic of the American people and of American principles, as that in which we are now engaged.

We are here, Mr. President, for what? Not to inaugurate the opening of some magnificent highway of internal communication. Not to display the rich trophies of agricultural or horticultural industry and skill. Not to celebrate the almost miraculous triumphs of modern mechanic art and invention. Not to offer the homage of our hearts, or the hospitalities of our homes, to some popular Chief Magistrate of our own Republic, or of a neighboring Colony. No, Sir; no. All these things have been attended to elsewhere. In the crowded cities, in the larger towns, they have been done, and well done. And it was fit they should be done; and many of them have been attended with a more costly ceremonial, with a more gorgeous pageant, with more of outside pomp and circumstance, than have been witnessed on this occasion.

But these are not the objects which have broken the ordinary stillness of this quiet, rural neighborhood. These are not the objects which have summoned to this retired spot such masses of the people of Middlesex, and of Massachusetts generally, in all their various capacities of magistrate, and citizen, and citizensoldier, and which have engaged and engrossed all our minds and all our hearts to-day. Not for the present, not for the living, not for those who are, or ever have been, high in place, exalted in rank, powerful in influence, have these memorials been prepared, and these libations poured out. We have assembled, on the contrary, to pay a grateful, though a tardy tribute, to the memory of three humble citizens of one of the smallest towns in the State, two of them privates in a militia company, and the third with no higher title than that of a captain, whose simple story is that they laid down their lives, seventy-six years ago, in defence of American Liberty.

I need not say, Sir, that such an example of rendering honor to the memory of the humblest officers and the common soldiers of our Revolutionary Militia, is in beautiful harmony with the spirit of republican equality which pervades our institutions, and is better calculated than all the bounties and bonuses and land scrip, which can be voted by the most liberal or the most prodigal Congress, to raise up defenders for those institutions, where alone they must be looked for in time of need, among the

rank and file of the people. It gives an assurance which will not be forgotten, that, however it may be in the country churchyards of the old world, the "village Hampdens" and village Heroes of our own land will never want a stone to mark their grave, or an inscription to tell the tale of their prowess and their patriotism.

But it would be quite unjust, Mr. President, to limit the intention of this occasion to the precise object which has given rise to it. It has a larger and more comprehensive scope. We are here to commemorate, and to commend afresh to the admiration and imitation of our children, the patriotism and valor and selfdevotion of the whole people of Massachusetts in 1775 — of all her citizens and of all her soldiers - militia-men, minute-men, and volunteers -as exemplified and illustrated on the 19th of April, in the persons of three of their number, to whom so early and so glorious a crown of martyrdom was assigned.

Let me not seem to disparage the individual heroism of Isaac Davis, Abner Hosmer, and James Hayward. Their names are upon yonder granite; they are upon the scroll of history; they are uppermost to-day upon the tablets of all our hearts. Few instances could be selected from the whole range of our Revolutionary records, of greater bravery and daring than those of these three noble men of Acton. But let us not forget the full force and import of that memorable exclamation of the gallant Davis himself," I have n't a man that's afraid to go." Sir, that was a generous and a just exclamation. It was true, not only of his own Acton Company, which led the way so gallantly down to the old North Bridge, but it was true of the great mass of the common soldiers and of the common people of the State, whether in town or country, in cities or in villages. Everywhere, in every county and district alike, throughout the whole length and breadth of the State, there was found the same resolute determination to resist the tyranny of the mother country, even unto death.

There were different manifestations of this spirit in different localities, and different individuals enjoyed different opportunities of displaying it. In Boston, it exhibited itself in words and deeds of defiance towards Commissioners of Stamps and Com

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