Not thus the schoolmaster in his peaceful vocation.... His is a progress not to be compared with anything like a march; but it leads to a far more brilliant triumph, and to laurels more imperishable than the destroyer of his species, the scourge of the world, ever won. Such men--men deserving the glorious title of Teachers of Mankind--I have found laboring conscientiously, though perhaps obscurely, in their blessed vocation.... Their calling is high and holy; their fame is the property of nations; their renown will fill the earth in after ages, in proportion as it sounds not far off in their own times.--LORD BROUGHAM, _Speech at Liverpool, July 20, 1835_. Lieutenant-Colonel Wheeler, in his despatch (Camp Cudjah, August 24, 1840) to Captain Douglas, describing the storming of an Afghanistan fort, says: "I directed Lieutenant Paterson to concentrate as heavy a volley as he could close to the gate: this had the desired effect, shook the gate, and enabled the Grenadiers of the Forty-Eighth, under that officer, to force it, and carry the fort _in beautiful style, bayoneting all within it_!"--HAYDON, _Lectures on Painting and Design_, Vol. II. p. 262. ORATION. The literary festival which we are assembled to commemorate is called Commencement. To an interesting portion of my hearers it is the commencement of a new life. The ingenuous student, having completed his term of years--a classical Olympiad--amidst the restraints of the academy, in the daily pursuits of the lecture-room, observant of forms, obsequious to the college curfew, at length renounces these restraints, heeds no longer the summoning bell, throws off the youthful gown, and now, under the auspices of Alma Mater, assumes the robe of manhood. At such a change, the mind and heart open to impressions which may send an influence through remaining life. A seasonable word to-day may, peradventure, like the acorn dropped into propitious soil, shoot upward its invigorating growth, till its stately trunk, its multitudinous branches, and sheltering foliage become an ornament and protection of unspeakable beauty.