My friends, it is not strange that the wealth and the conscience of New England should arouse itself to the opportunities which God has held out to you in the present age. There are persons within the sound of my voice within whose lifetime twenty new states will be admitted to this Union from territory which now is scarcely settled. That “ancient, primitive and heroical work,” as Lord Bacon calls it, which he ranks as the highest work which is vouchsafed to man to take part in, is being performed in your day and by your hands, if you choose, in a manner unparalleled in human history; and the sixteen states now reconstructed, within which, until lately, slavery had bolted the door against every form of popular education, now, thank God, have their doors unfolded and afford a field of scarcely less interest than the other. How can the manufacturer, how can the merchant of Massachusetts fail to respond to the appeal of these good men and these good women for help in the great work of educating these communities? Combined, they are very soon to be the majority, both in states and in population, they are to determine every question of peace and war, every policy of finance or of tariff; they are to enact, they are to furnish the men who expound and the men who execute the laws under which you and I and our children are to live, and upon which depends the value of all property and the prosperity of all labor. Will the manufacturer or the merchant, who gladly taxes himself to insure his property against fire or against crime, hesitate a moment when you ask him to insure it against being governed by laws which are to be made by and rest upon ignorance? But there is a better reason even than this. I think the opportunity to take part in such a great benefaction is enough to stimulate every ingenuous soul. I think there is no more beautiful memorial among men than to have your name remembered or your picture hang on the walls of an institution of learning as one of its founders or benefactors. What gratitude is there like that which men feel for the college or the founder of the college where they were bred and educated? Now you have an opportunity to attach to you the coming generations of the South by this tie, a tie which will be far stronger than all the hatreds or the passions engendered by civil war, or which have grown up under years of misunderstanding and hatred.