There is even a great deal of labor requisite on your part to place yourselves on the intellectual level of the age in which you live. In the beautiful language of one of the ablest writers of our country, we can truly say, “it is not with us as it was in former times, when science belonged to solitary studies, or philosophical ease, or antiquarian curiosity. It has escaped from the closet, and become an habitual accompaniment of every department of life. It accosts us equally in the highways and byways. We meet it in the idle walk, and in the crowded street; in the very atmosphere we breathe, in the earth we tread on, in the ocean we traverse, and on the rivers we navigate. It visits the workshop of the mechanic, the laboratory of the apothecary, the chambers of the engraver, the vats of the dyer, the noisy haunts of the spinning-jenny, and the noiseless retreats of the bleachery. It crosses our paths in the long-winding canal, in the busy rail-road, in the flying steamboat, and in the gay and gallant merchant-ship, wafting its products to every clime. It enters our houses, sits down at our firesides, lights up our conversations and revels at our banquets. One is almost tempted to say that the whole world seems in a blaze, and that the professors in science, and the dealers in the arts surround us by their magical circles, and compel us to remain captives in the spells of their witchcraft.” And can you consent to waste your time in inglorious repose and idleness, while the whole world is blazing with philosophy? No, gentlemen, you cannot. Arouse all your energies, waken up your faculties, enter on your career like the combatant at the Olympic Games, resolved to win the prize, and in advance I tell you, the victory will be yours.