While these events are passing in the Old World, a tide of emigration, which has no parallel in history is pouring westward, across the Atlantic, and eastward, across the Pacific to our shores. The real political vitality of the world seems moving to the new hemisphere, whose condition and fortune it devolves upon us and our children to mould and regulate. It is a grand,--let me say, a solemn thought,--well calculated to still the passions of the day and to elevate us above the paltry strife of parties. It teaches us that we are called to the highest, and, I do verily believe, the most momentous trust that ever devolved upon one generation of men. Let us meet it with a corresponding temper and purpose,--with the wisdom of a well-instructed experience, and with the foresight and preparation of a glorious future; not on the narrow platforms of party policy and temporary expediency, but in the broad and comprehensive spirit of Seventy-six. E. Everett. LXXXIX. OUR COMMON SCHOOLS. Sir, it is our common schools which gives the keys of knowledge to the mass of the people. Our common schools are important in the same way as the common air, the common sunshine, the common rain,--invaluable for their commonness. They are the corner-stone of that municipal organization which is the characteristic feature of our social system; they are the fountain of that widespread intelligence which, like a moral life pervades the country. From the humblest village-school there may go forth a teacher who, like Newton, shall bind his temples with the stars of Orion's belt; with Herschel, light up his cell with the beams of before-undiscovered planets; with Franklin, grasp the lightning. Columbus, fortified with a few sound geographical principles, was, on the deck of his crazy caravel, more truly the monarch of Castile and Aragon, than Ferdinand and Isabella, enthroned beneath the golden vaults of the conquered Alhambra. And Robinson, with the simple training of a rural pastor in England, when he knelt on the shores of Delft Haven, and sent his little flock upon their Gospel errantry beyond the world of waters, exercised an influence over the destinies of the civilized world, which will last to the end of time.