Why, The Very Name Of The Institution That Brings
Us Together Illustrates The Fact - I Can Recall, And I Think I See More
Than One Gentleman Around Me Who Equally Can Recall, The Hours In Which
We Wandered Amid
"Fields that cool Ilyssus laves.
At least, there is my honorable friend the member for Stockport (Mr.
Cobden), who has a lively recollection of that classic stream, for I
remember one of the most effective allusions he made to it in one of
the most admirable speeches I ever listened to. But, notwithstanding
that allusion, I would still appeal to the poetry of his constitution,
and I know it abounds in that quality. I am sure that he could not have
looked without emotion on that immortal scene. I still can remember
that olive-covered plain, that sunset crag, that citadel fane of
ineffable beauty! That was a brilliant civilization, developed by a
gifted race more than two thousand years ago, at a time when the
ancestors of the manufacturers of Manchester, who now clothe the world,
were themselves covered with skins, and tattooed like the red men of
the wilderness. But influences more powerful even than the awful lapse
of time separate and distinguish you from that race. They were the
children of the sun; you live in a distant, a rugged, and northern
clime. They bowed before different altars; they followed different
customs; they were modified by different manners. Votaries of the
Beautiful, they sought in Art the means of embodying their passionate
conceptions: you have devoted your energies to Utility; and by the
means of a power almost unknown to antiquity, by its miraculous
agencies, you have applied its creative force to every combination of
human circumstances that could produce your objects. Yet, amid the toil
and triumphs of your scientific industry, upon you there comes the
undefinable, the irresistible yearning for intellectual refinement - you
build an edifice consecrated to those beautiful emotions and to those
civilizing studies in which they excelled, and you impress upon its
front a name taken from -
"Where on AEgean shores a city rose,
Built nobly, dear the air, and light the soil,
Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts
And eloquence."
Beautiful triumph of immortal genius! Sublime incentive to eternal
fame! Then, when the feeling is so universal, when it is one which
modern civilization is nurturing and developing, who does not feel that
it is not only the most benevolent, but the most politic thing you can
do to avail yourselves of its influence, and to direct in every way the
formation of that character upon which intellect must necessarily now
exercise an irresistible influence? We cannot shut our eyes any longer
to the immense revolution. Knowledge is no longer a lonely eremite,
affording a chance and captivating hospitality to some wandering
pilgrim; knowledge is now found in the market-place, a citizen, and a
leader of citizens. The spirit has touched the multitude; it has
impregnated the mass -
" - - Totamque infusa per artus,
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.
"I would yet say one word to those for whom this institution is not
entirely but principally formed. I would address myself to that youth
on whom the hopes of all societies repose and depend. I doubt not that
they feel conscious of the position which they occupy - a position
which, under all circumstances, at all periods, in every clime and
country, is one replete with duty. The youth of a nation are the
trustees of posterity; but the youth I address have duties peculiar to
the position which they occupy. They are the rising generation of a
society unprecedented in the history of the world; that is at once
powerful and new. In other parts of the kingdom the remains of an
ancient civilization are prepared ever to guide, to cultivate, to
influence, the rising mind; but they are born in a miraculous creation
of novel powers, and it is rather a providential instinct that has
developed the necessary means of maintaining the order of your new
civilization than the matured foresight of man. This is their
inheritance. They will be called on to perform duties - great duties. I,
for one, wish, for their sakes and for the sake of my country, that
they may be performed greatly. I give to them that counsel which I have
ever given to youth, and which I believe to be the wisest and the best
- I tell them to aspire. I believe that the man who does not look up
will look down; and that the spirit that does not dare to soar is
destined perhaps to grovel. Every individual is entitled to aspire to
that position which he believes his faculties qualify him to occupy. I
know there are some who look with what I believe is short-sighted
timidity and false prudence upon such views. They are apt to tell us -
'Beware of filling the youthful mind with an impetuous tumult of
turbulent fancies; teach youth, rather, to be content with his
position - do not induce him to fancy that he is that which he is not,
or to aspire to that which he cannot achieve.' In my mind these are
superficial delusions. He who enters the world finds his level. It is
the solitary being, the isolated individual, alone in his solitude, who
may be apt to miscalculate his powers, and misunderstand his character.
But action teaches him the truth, even if it be a stern one.
Association affords him the best criticism in the world, and I will
venture to say, that if he belong to the Athenaeum, though when he
enters it he may think himself a genius, if nature has not given him a
passionate and creative soul, before a week has elapsed he will become
a very sober-minded individual. I wish to damp no youthful ardour. I
can conceive what such an institution would have afforded to the
suggestive mind of a youthful Arkwright.
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