And in directing you to the domestic altar as the means of effecting this proud distinction, I would say that it is an altar of such high and sacred character, that it can be reared and successfully sustained by no nation, unless that nation be eminent in its encouragement of enlightenment and religion. I do not mean by this declaration that the Roman and Grecian boys wanted fathers to point them to the senate and to the field, and mothers to teach them patriotism at the fire-side. There was scarcely a father among them but had rather had his son a corpse than a coward. And but few of the mothers of the age were unlike that noble Grecian who told her son, when he went to battle, to return _with_ his shield, or _upon_ it. But I mean that the Grecian and Roman youth were taught patriotism in the neglect of domestic virtues. They were taught to encourage a thirst for eminence in the state, and for military renown at the expense of the social affections. We have an example in the noble heroism of Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchii. She infused into the souls of her illustrous sons the fire of patriotic devotion, which made them jewels for the state, but which lost them to her in the domestic circle for ever. But the American youth live in a very different age, and their system of instruction, in nearly all its departments, is of a very different character. In their education, the love for eminence in the state is not neglected, and they are taught to cherish the patriotism that burned in the bosoms of the Greek and Roman youth. And with this patriotic interest is mingled the training of the social affections, under the benign rays of religious enlightenment. And this is the sort of education which rears its subjects, not only for the domestic circle, but for their country and their God. And this should be the great purpose of American teaching in the developement of American character in the use and for the sustaining of American institutions. And what we have to regret is that it is not carried out more thoroughly, and rendered more efficient in practice.