As you have conferred on me the honor of delivering this first public address under your joint resolution, I hope you will permit me before I sit down to say a few words upon a subject connected with the usefulness of your Societies and the interests of the University. I speak to you in the spirit of fellowship, and a long acquaintance with your Societies enables me to speak with confidence. I well know the influence which your Societies can exercise in maintaining the good order of this Institution, in sustaining the authority of the faculty, in suppressing vice and promoting a gentlemanly deportment among the students. Every respectable student of proper age is a member of one or the other of your Societies, and feels more mortification at incurring its censure than that of the faculty. This feeling is the fulcrum on which the power of the Societies ought to be exerted. Let me entreat you then, more particularly as you propose hereafter to occupy a higher ground than you have heretofore done, to exert that power in sustaining the discipline of the University, in encouraging industry and good manners, and in suppressing vice. The united efforts of the two Societies can do more in effecting these objects than the authority of the Trustees or faculty. A high responsibility rests upon you; your honor and the welfare of the University demand its faithful discharge. In a short time you will complete your course of studies at this place and bid adieu to these halls, to act your parts upon the great theatre of active life. Your friends and your country have much to hope, much to expect from you. Devote yourselves with diligence to your studies. When you shall have finished your course here, remember that your education is just commencing; I mean that education which is to fit you for acting a distinguished part upon the theatre of your country. The pursuits and the honors of literature lie in the same road with those of ambition; and he who aspires to fame or distinction must rest his hopes upon the improvement of his intellect. Julius Caesar was one of the most accomplished scholars of Rome, and Napoleon Bonaparte of France. In our own country we lately have seen one of our most eminent scholars raised to the chief magistracy of the nation, and the greatest orator of the age made his prime minister. I speak not here of politics: literature has no factions; good taste no parties. Remember, my young friends, that most of the men who thus far have shed a lustre upon our country had not one-half the opportunities of education which you have enjoyed. They had to rely upon their genius and industry. Genius delights to toil with difficulties: they discipline its powers and animate its courage; it contemns the honors which can be obtained without labor, and prizes only those which are purchased by noble exertion. Wish not, therefore, for a life of ease; but go forth with stout hearts and determined resolution.