the monuments of our ancestors. They stand immutable and immortal, in the social, moral, and intellectual condition of their descendants. They exist in the spirit, which their precepts instilled, and their example implanted.

Let no man think that to analyze, and place in a just light, the virtues of the first settlers of New England, is a departure from the purpose of this celebration; or deem so meanly of our duties, as to conceive that merely local relations, the circumstances which have given celebrity and character to this single city, are the only, or the most appropriate topics for the occasion. It was to this spot, during twelve successive years, that the great body of those first settlers emigrated. In this place, they either fixed permanently their abode, or took their departure from it for the coast, or the interiour.

Whatever honour devolves on this metropolis from the events connected with its first settlement, is not solitary or exclusive; it is shared with Massachusetts; with New England; in some sense, with the whole United States. For what part of this wide empire, be it sea or shore, lake or river, mountain or valley, have the descendants of the first settlers of New England not traversed? what depth of forest, not penetrated? what danger of nature or man, not defied? Where is the cultivated field, in redeeming which from the wilderness, their vigour has not been displayed? Where, amid unsubdued nature, by the side of the first log hut of the settler, does the school-house stand and the church-spire rise, unless the sons of New England are there? Where does improvement advance, under the active energy of willing hearts and ready hands, prostrating the moss-covered monarchs of the wood, and from their ashes, amid their charred roots, bidding the greensward and the waving harvest to upspring, and the spirit of the fathers of New England is not seen, hovering, and shedding around the benign influences of sound social, moral, and religious institutions, stronger and more enduring than knotted oak or tempered steel?

The swelling tide of their descendants has spread upon our coasts; ascended our rivers; taken possession of our plains. Already it encircles our lakes. At this hour the rushing noise of the advancing wave startles the wild beast in his lair among the prairies of the West. Soon it shall be seen climbing the Rocky Mountains, and, as it dashes

over their cliffs, shall be hailed by the dwellers on the Pacific, as the harbinger of the coming blessings of safety, liberty, and truth.

DECISIVE INTEGRITY.

Extract from Mr Wirt's Address to the Students of Rutgers College.

THE man who is so conscious of the rectitude of his intentions, as to be willing to open his bosom to the inspection of the world, is in possession of one of the strongest pillars of a decided character. The course of such a man will be firm and steady, because he has nothing to fear from the world, and is sure of the approbation and support of Heaven. While he, who is conscious of secret and dark designs which, if known, would blast him, is perpetually shrinking and dodging from public observation, and is afraid of all around, and much more of all above him.

Such a man may, indeed, pursue his iniquitous plans, steadily; he may waste himself to a skeleton in the guilty pursuit; but it is impossible that he can pursue them with the same health-inspiring confidence, and exulting alacrity, with him who feels, at every step, that he is in the pursuit of honest ends, by honest means. The clear, unclouded brow, the open countenance, the brilliant eye which can look an honest man steadfastly, yet courteously in the face, the healthfully beating heart, and the firm elastic step, belong to him whose bosom is free from guile, and who knows that all his motives and purposes are pure and right. Why should such a man faulter in his course? He may be slandered; he may be deserted by the world: but he has that within which will keep him erect, and enable him to move onward in his course with his eyes fixed on Heaven, which he knows will not desert him.

Let your first step, then, in that discipline which is to give you decision of character, be the heroic determination to be honest men, and to preserve this character through every vicissitude of fortune, and in every relation which connects you with society. I do not use this phrase, 'honest men,' in the narrow sense, merely, of meeting your pecuniary engagements, and paying your debts; for this the common pride of gentlemen will constrain you to do. I use it in its larger sense of discharging all your dues, both public and private, both open and secret, with

the most scrupulous, Heaven-attesting integrity in that sense, farther, which drives from the bosom all little, dark, crooked, sordid, debasing considerations of self, and substitutes in their place a bolder, loftier, and nobler spirit: one that will dispose you to consider yourselves as born, not so much for yourselves, as for your country, and your fellowcreatures, and which will lead you to act on every occasion sincerely, justly, generously, magnanimously.

There is a morality on a larger scale, perfectly consistent with a just attention to your own affairs, which it would be the height of folly to neglect: a generous expansion, a proud elevation, and conscious greatness of character, which is the best preparation for a decided course, in every situation into which you can be thrown; and, it is to this high and noble tone of character that I would not have you to aspire. I would not have you to resemble those weak and meagre streamlets, which lose their direction at every petty impediment that presents itself, and stop, and turn back, and creep around, and search out every little channel through which they may wind their feeble and sickly course. Nor yet would I have you to resemble the headlong torrent that carries havoc in its mad career. But I would have you like the ocean, that noblest emblem of majestic Decision, which, in the calmest hour, still heaves its resistless might of waters to the shore, filling the heavens, day and night, with the echoes of its sublime Declaration of Independence, and tossing and sporting, on its bed, with an imperial consciousness of strength that laughs at opposition. It is this depth, and weight, and power, and purity of character, that I would have you to resemble; and I would have you, like the waters of the ocean, to become the purer by your own action.

THE END.

Being extensively engaged in the publication and sale of

SCHOOL BOOKS,

would respectfully invite the correspondence of persons preparing works for publication in any department of Education. They have just published the following.

THE POLITICAL CLASS BOOK.

Intended to instruct the higher classes in schools in the origin, nature and use of Political Power. By WILLIAM SULLIVAN, Counsellor at Law. With an Appendix, upon Studies for Practical Men, with notices of Books suited to their use. By GEORGE B. EMERSON.

The object of the Political Class Book is to point out to the youths, who are in the course of education, their relation to each other, to society, and to their country; and to show, in a plain and simple way, the excellence and value, beyond all price, of the political condition in which they exist. The further purpose is to give some information of the social system of which they are to become active members, and on which their own happiness, in common with that of all around them, absolutely depends. The plan is-First, to sketch the principles on which society is formed. Secondly, to show the fitness of the State Government to accomplish the intended object of it. Thirdly, to do the like as to the National Government. Fourthly, to notice some subjects which concern those who are approaching manhood, and those who have risen to be citizens.

The Appendix contains a short account of the most approved books in arts, sciences, literature, history and morals, with introductory remarks.

The publishers believe there has never been a work on Education published in this country which has met with such universal and unqualified applause, as this work of Mr. Sullivan's. Every one feels the importance of the subject of which it treats, and all are astonished that it has never before been taken up in this manner. Before the work had been published three weeks, it was introduced into a great proportion of the highest schools in the neighbourhood of Boston, and as fast as it become known to others more remote, it has been adopted in them; so that the first edition of 2000 copies was sold in less than three months. The following are extracts from some notices which have been made of the work.

Letter from Pres. Humphrey of Amherst College to the Publishers. 'Having examined the Political Class Book, intended for the higher classes in our Schools, by William Sullivan, Esq., I have no hesitation in saying, that in drawing up this rich and comprehensive manual, the author has entitled himself to the thanks of an enlightened public. It contains just that kind of information which every American citizen ought to possess, before entering upon the active duties of life; and I know not how it can be in any other way so conveniently acquired as in the manner here proposed. The Appendix, by Mr. Emerson, adds to the value of the book. H. HUMPHREY.'»

Amherst College, Oct. 10, 1830.

A gentleman (Mr J. Furbush) over an institution of high character in Portland, wrote to the publishers, a few weeks after the first publication of the work, as follows:-'The Political Class Book has already been introduced into several schools in this place, and I think will soon find its way into every school in the United States. I am disposed to regard it as the most important addition that has been recently made to our national text books. The contents of it are indispensably necessary to Female education is not complete without a knowledge of

both sexes.