I am deeply sensible, that I have left untouched many topics, even more important and more pertinent to the main theme of my remarks, than some which I have discussed. Indeed, so wide and so varied is that main theme, that I have found myself greatly embarrassed in selecting from the numerous particulars which solicited my regard on every hand. I have not presumed to offer any fully rounded plan, of that legislative action which is so imperiously demanded by the public weal, and soon will be, I trust, by the public voice. A few hints, are all that seemed to become me, or indeed that could well be crowded into my brief share of this day's time. For a plan, both in outline and in detail, I point to our sister states and to the European countries, that have taken the lead of us: and to the virtues and wisdom, by which our statesmen will be able to supply the defects, avoid the errors, and even, I trust, surpass the excellences, of those states and countries. That the Legislature may be wrought up to act, individual influence, and the more powerful influence of associations for the purpose--of whom I deem you, gentlemen, the chief, because the first--must be exerted. You must draw the minds of the constituent body forcibly to the subject. It must be held up in every light; supported by every argument; until the people shall be persuaded but to _consider_ it. Then, half the work will have been done. And in its further progress towards consummation--when the illuminating process shall have fairly begun--still it will be for you, gentlemen, and for those whom your example shall call into this field of usefulness with and after you, to exert, with no slumbering energy, the endowments wherewith you and they, are entrusted. You, and they, must become authors, and the prompters of authors. Books, for use in the schools, and cheap, simplifying tracts as well as books for circulation among the people, must be composed, compiled, and selected. Lectures, plain and cheap, and suitably illustrated, must be delivered through town and country. After the example of the good Watts, and of our own many illustrious contemporaries in Britain and America, learned men must oblige Science to lay aside the starched dignity and grand attire, by which hitherto she has awed away the vulgar; and to render herself universally amiable, by being humbly useful: as the wisest[17] of heathens is said to have "brought Philosophy down from the skies, placed her in human haunts, and made her discourse on the daily concerns of human life." [Footnote 17: Socrates. "Primus ille Philosophiam devocavit e coelo, et in urbibus collocavit, et in domus introduxit; et coegit de vita et moribus, rebusque bonis et malis quærere." _Cic. Tuscul. 5_.]