The commune vinculum, as applied by the great orator of Rome to the liberal arts and sciences, may be properly extended to their votaries and cultivators, who, whenever they appear and wherever they exist, are combined by kindred ties and congenial pursuits, into one great intellectual community, denominated by the Republic of Letters. If this alliance is cultivated with so much zeal and with such distinguished honor to its members, with how much ardor must its principles be cherished, on a more limited scale and with more concentrated power, by those disciples of the same great seminary, who have derived their intellectual aliment from a common parent, and who have received their education from the same source; all who are assembled at this place, and on this occasion must feel the full force and bow to the controlling ascendancy of this sentiment; and I know of no assemblage which is better calculated to awaken the enthusiasm of our youthful days, and to brighten the rays of our setting sun, than a convention of the members of three generations, constituted like the present, and called to sacrifice under the protecting roof of our Alma Mater, at the altar of science and literature, to recall to our recollection the transporting scenes of our Collegiate lives, and to realize and renew those friendships which were formed in youth, and will last as long as the pulsations of the heart and the operations of memory.

In making my appearance before this enlightened and respectable audience, I might with great truth find ample room for apology in suggesting the little time which my public avocations have left for suitable preparation, but I shall rely on your kind consideration, and I trust that you will judge of me by my motives, not by my performance; and when I assure you that nothing but an ardent desire to evince my respect and devotion to our Alma Mater could have induced me to comply with your request, I feel persuaded that you will overlook every deficiency, and that, in recognizing those delightful recollections and brilliant anticipations which surround her, I shall not be deemed in what I say, entirely undeserving of your regard.

The germ of our Alma Mater is noticed by William Smith in his interesting continuation of our Colonial History, which the public spirit of our Historical Society has given to the world. "This year" (1732), says the historian, "was the first of our public attention to the education of youth; provision was then made for the first time to support a Free School, for teaching the Latin and Greek tongues and the practical branches of the Mathematics, under the care of Mr. Alexander Malcolm, of Aberdeen, the author of a treatise upon Book-keeping. The measure was patronized by the Morris family, Mr. Alexander, and Mr. Smith, who presented a petition to the Assembly for that object. Such has the negligence of the day, that an instructor could not find bread from the voluntary contributions of the inhabitants, though our eastern neighbors had set us an example of erecting and endowing colleges early in the last century."

The Bill for this school, drafted by Mr. Philipse, the speaker, and brought in by Mr. Delancey, had this singular preamble: "Whereas, the youth of this Colony are found, by manifold experience, to be not inferior in their natural geniuses to the youth of any other country in the world, therefore be it enacted, &c." It appears that at that early period, it was thought necessary to vindicate our country against the degenerating and debasing qualities which have been since so liberally imparted to it by Buffum, and De Rue, Raynal, and Robertson. A legislative declaration, however anomalous, was certainly a sufficient refutation of the flimsy philosophy that brought forward the accusation; and as manifold experience was opposed to visionary speculation, the capacity of the inhabitants of New York for education was put into a train of high probation, which has terminated in the most pleasing results. Permit me to say, that I cannot reconcile the sensibility which we have manifested under such vituperations with the respect which we owe to our country. Charges so unfounded are beneath the dignity of refutation; and the country which has been called the land of swamps, of yellow fever, and universal suffrage, requires no advocate but truth, and no friend but justice, to place it on the highest elevation of triumphant vindication.

This praiseworthy measure was the harbinger of more enlarged views and more elevated establishments after many struggles. After much controversy about the site and the organization of a college, involving sectional and local considerations, and referring to party combinations, a charter for King’s College in this city, was granted in 1754, upon a liberal franchise. In four years afterwards, it was sufficiently matured for the conferring of degrees. The city of New York did not contain at that period, then thousand inhabitants, and the population of the whole colony did not exceed half the present population of this city. The Faculty of Arts was composed of very able men, and we find among the names of the medical profession, persons who would even in the present improved and exalted state of that profession, rank amongst its most distinguished members. The civil war, which terminated in American Independence, broke up this institution after a brief existence of eighteen years, during which time about one hundred initiatory degrees were conferred, and on a rapid inspection of the printed catalogue with a very limited knowledge of the persons mentioned in it, I am persuaded that the truth of the legislative act is irresistibly established, and that in no period of time, nor in any country has an institution existed so fertile of enlightened, able, and talented men, within so small a portion of time and in such a small population.

Among the celebrated Divines, we perceive the names of Samuel Provost, Samuel Seabury, Benjamin Moore, Isaac Wilkins, and John Verdill. The first three have attained the honors of the miter, and have always ranked high as profound scholars. Wilkins was a distinguished writer at the commencement of the Revolution, and the publications ascribed to his pen have the stamp of genius and capacity. Verdill was a professor of Natural Law, History, and Languages in the college in which he was educated, and was also noted for his witty effusions on the side of royalty. The best imitator of Butler has incorporated their names in his McFingall, as fit subjects for retaliation.

Among the enlightened Jurists sprung from this Seminary, we recognise with pride and pleasure, John Jay, Robert R. Livingston, Governeur Morris, Richard Harrison, Peter Van Schaick, and Robert Troup. The first three were distinguished in the public councils at the commencement of the Revolution. Livingston was one of the committee that drafted the Declaration of Independence, and a man of various knowledge and splendid eloquence. Jay took a leading part in the celebrated State Papers which emanated from the first Congress, and which drew forth the following panegyric from the great Chatham: "When your lordships look at the papers transmitted to us from America, when you consider their decency, firmness, and wisdom, you cannot but respect their cause and wish to make it your own. For myself, I must declare and avow, that in all my reading and observation, and it has been my favorite study (I have read Thucydides and have studied and admired the master States of the world), that for solidity of reasoning, force of sagacity, and wisdom of conclusion, under such a complication of difficult circumstances, no nation or body of men can stand in preference to the general Congress at Philadelphia." [Dr. Samuel Johnson, the Colossus of British Literature and a man of gigantic mind, undertook to answer the address of Congress. Compare this work entitled "Taxation no Tyranny" with the publications it pretended to answer -- how great the contrast -- the Giant dwindles into a dwarf, and American talent shines with proud superiority above.] Jay, Livingston, and Morris, were among the most active and enlightened members that formed the first State Constitution. The former was our first Chief-Justice, and a charge of his in that character to a Grand Jury of Ulster County is, perhaps, one of the most able and impressive papers published in those eventful times. Morris’s intellectual character was distinguished by versatile and great qualities -- his colloquial powers were unrivalled -- at the Bar or in the Senate he was pre-eminent -- he united wit, logic, pathos, and intelligence, and he wielded the passions and feelings of his audience at pleasure. Harrison and Van Schaick are still with us; and as I despise flattery of the living as much as I do gilding over the tombs of the departed, I shall say nothing that can subject me to the former imputation when I say, that no country can produce two men more deeply versed in classic lore or more profoundly acquainted with law. Troup was a meritorious soldier of the Revolution, and his transition from the camp to the bar has detracted nothing from his well-earned claims to respect. Alexander Hamilton, so well known for his great talents, was also a student of this college before the Revolution, and before he could attain his honors it was broken up. Although greatly attached to the learned President, Dr. Cooper, yet he had at that, as at all other times, the independence to think and act for himself. And he differed from his friend and wrote an article in favor of American Liberty. At that time the peace of the city was troubled by the conflicts of contending parties, and when an assemblage, greatly enraged at the anti-revolutionary course of President Cooper, collected before this building and had marked him out as an object of aggression, Hamilton placed himself in the gap between the people and his preceptor, addressed the former from the vestibule of this building, and delayed their measures until the latter had time to escape from their fury. The poetical effusion ascribed to the President on this occasion, reflects great honor on his sensibility and genius, and commends, in appropriate strains, the merits of his friend and pupil.

It may be said of learning as of law, "Inter arma, leges silent," -- in the clash of contending armies and amid the groans of the wounded and the dying, the interests of education are sacrificed -- the pacific virtues take their flight from the earth -- the olive is stained with human blood, and the sanguinary laurel is the emblem and the reward of imputed greatness. This edifice was for many years a hospital for the British army; and when for the first time I visited the venerable building, it was just abandoned in that state. The genius of calamity and desolation appeared to have taken possession of its apartments; its floors were strewed with medical prescriptions, its walls were tinged with blood, and every echo of your passing footsteps sounded to the perturbed imagination like the murmurs of the dying or the complaints of departed spirits. During the Revolutionary War, education was almost totally lost sight of. An academy at Kingston was, I believe, the only seminary in the State, and almost all the young men desirous of classical education resorted to that useful institution.

Having thus, like Grey the poet, taken a distant view of our Alma Mater, we are able, as we approach the times in which we live, and can refer to events and scenes within our recollection, to institute a more accurate inspection, and to develop the characters and measures connected with its history, gratifying at once to our pride and filial affection. And I trust that whether we look at the qualities of our parent, in the aggregate or in detail, at a distance or at near approach, we will have reason to say --

As soon as the War of Independence terminated, the attention of the statesmen and patriots, who had conducted us triumphantly through the storms of the revolution, was turned to the revival of letters, the restoration of the lights of education, and the establishment of the Temple of Liberty upon the foundation of knowledge. In 1784, a Board was instituted, denominated the Regents of the University, with a superintending and visitorial power over Columbia College, and all future colleges and academies incorporated by that body. This Board was composed of the principal officers of the Government and various distinguished citizens. On the 17^th of May of that year, the first student was admitted into Columbia College, under the new order of things. The Regents of the University attended the examination in person, so important at that period did the Fathers of the Republic consider it, to countenance the incipient efforts in favor of intellectual improvement. I may say, I trust without the imputation of egotism, that I was the first student and among the first graduates of this our Alma Mater on its revival; and I shall never forget the reverential impression made on my youthful mind, by the condescension and devotion to education of the great men who, at that time, presided over the interests of the University. In the course of a few months our numbers were increased. Instructors were appointed, and apartments in the old City Hall were provided for the temporary accommodation of the College, until it was rendered fit for our reception. No President was appointed for some years afterwards; and in the meantime it was thought expedient to resort to Europe, and William Cochran, a native of Ireland, and an Alumnus of Trinity College, was appointed a professor of the Greek and Latin languages; and John Kemp, a graduate of Aberdeen College, professor of Mathematics, and afterwards of Natural Philosophy. Cochran, although an admirable scholar, was at first disliked for hauteur of demeanor, which, in course of time, was softened down into the courteous behavior of an accomplished gentleman. Kemp was suddenly transferred from the monastic seclusions of a college life to the busy and arduous engagements of professor; and he was called upon to act with little experience of the world, with a total ignorance of the American character, and before the angular points and rough protuberances of a scholar were smoothed down by an intercourse with the world. His great science sustained him under this load of difficulties, and his popularity and usefulness increased with the progress of time. The Rev. Dr., afterwards Bishop Moore, was appointed professor of Rhetoric and Logic; and the composition and delivery of his lectures were received with more than usual interest, and with the most respectful attention. All who approached him were enchanted with the sincerity of his manners and with the dignity of his conduct. And few men ever possessed a more controling ascendency over the hearts of his pupils. The Rev. Dr. Gross, a native of Germany, who had received a finished education in her celebrated schools, was a professor of the German language and Geography, and afterwards a professor of Moral Philosophy. He had migrated to this country before the Revolution and settled near the banks of the Mohawk, in a frontier country, peculiarly exposed to irruptions from Canada and the hostile Indians. When war commenced, he took the side of America; and, enthroned in the hearts of his countrymen, and distinguished for the courage which marks the German character, he rallied the desponding, animated the wavering, confirmed the doubtful, and encouraged the brave to more than ordinary exertion. With the Bible in one hand and the sword in the other, he stood forth in the united character of patriot and Christian, vindicating the liberties of mankind; and amidst the most appalling dangers and the most awful vicissitudes, like the red cross Knight of the Fairy Queen,

This venerable man has long since descended to the tomb. He was almost idolized by his pupils while living, and he is now embalmed in their hearts. His lectures on Moral Philosophy were substantially sound and useful, although tinctured with the metaphysical subtleties of Leibnitz and Wolfe, from whom he derived the substratum of his system. If my memory serves me, it was deduced from two principles: one denominated the principle of sufficient reason, and the other the principle of contradiction. The foundation was perhaps too feeble for the edifice, and the conclusions more solid that the premises. And when the lecturer undertook to inculcate the comfortable doctrine, that this is the best possible world -- a doctrine borrowed from Leibnitz, recognized by Pope in his Essay on Man, and referred to by Voltaire in his Optimist -- we can, at this distance of time, distinctly recollect, that although not received with implicit acquiescence, it did not derogate from the profound respect of his audience.

Dr. Samuel Bard, an eminent physician, and who had been professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine under the Royal Charter, undertook to fill, temporarily, the office of professor of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy. His professional engagements were numerous and arduous, and years had elapsed since he had been conversant in these sciences; he, therefore, commenced under peculiar disadvantages, and solely and exclusively to aid the interests of education. The abstractions of a mind thus deeply engaged, were frequently misunderstood; and it was some time before his amiable character was fully developed, and before he occupied that place to which he was entitled in the love and esteem of his disciples. But as long as literature has a friend, and science an advocate, the name of Samuel Bard will be identified with some of the best and wisest measures to spread the benefits of the healing art, to diffuse the lights of knowledge, and to subserve the essential interests of our country.

Under the guidance of these eminent professors, our Alma Mater lifted up her head and flourished. In course of time, Peter Wilson was installed as professor of the Greek and Latin languages. His abilities as a teacher, his profound and critical knowledge of classical literature, his revered character, were the accompaniments of great prosperity to the College; and the improvements engrafted into this important department, have furnished perhaps the best school for a knowledge of the learned languages on this side of the Atlantic.

It would perhaps be an unpardonable omission, not to state that Dr. Henry Moyes was also appointed professor of Natural History and Chemistry, although he never officiated in the College. As a lecturer, he was exceedingly popular, and although blind from birth, his manipulations were wonderfully accurate. He came to this country with the new lights of Chemistry, discovered by Black, Priestly, Cavendish, and Lavosière.

He adhered, however, to the nomenclature of Chemistry in its imperfect state, as originally adopted by Priestly. But he has the singular merit of sowing the first seeds of this science in this country, redeemed from the follies of alchemy, the visions of elixirs and transmutations, and founded on the experimental science of Bacon, the chief of modern philosophers.

In 1787, an important change took place in the organization of the University. The Regents were divested of the immediate government of the colleges and academies, which was intrusted to distinct Boards of Trustees, and this arrangement enabled the latter Boards to devote their particular attention to the institutions under their care. On the 11^th of April, 1786, the first commencement was held, and the first degrees conferred. At that time, the population of this city did not amount to 24,000 persons. In the course of forty years it has increased to 180,000. And the population of the whole State has augmented in the usual ratio of ten to one, which by a singular coincidence, has also occurred in the cities of London and Philadelphia. Our Alma Mater has been increasing in numbers and extending in usefulness; and although three colleges, and perhaps forty academies, have since been constituted, as true and faithful Alumni, we are bound to maintain, that ours, like the Julian star,

Our alma mater has, since her origin, been embarrassed by many difficulties, and has had to contend with the most serious opposition. At the first institution, she had to enter the lists with two excellent and pre-established colleges -- Yale on the one side, and Nassau Hall on the other. Her endowments were disproportioned to her exigencies. The controversies about our independence entered into her walls, and the horn of civil discord was even sounded in the retreats of science and the temples of education. From the first period of her existence, she was viewed with apprehension by the prying eyes of sectarian jealousy -- how improperly, we can all testify; and we also know with what shameful illiberality this spirit was exerted in late years, to defeat the contemplated bounty of the State. And permit me to add, and to add with a most perfect contempt of unworthy prejudices against foreigners, that since our professors have been of native growth, our institution has experienced her present fullness of prosperity. And this must not be understood as proceeding from any defects of character or education, but from ignorance of the American character, which, like our language, is difficult to be comprehended by strangers. This knowledge is essential to persons engaged in education; and men, not without great claims to talent and perspicacity, have resided for years among us, and have remained as ignorant of our national character, as on the day of their arrival. The sturdy spirit of liberty which distinguishes our youth, and the precocity of manly demeanor which marks them from their first advent into our schools, will not tolerate the stern infliction of exotic discipline. The spirit of education must be bent to the spirit of its objects, or the paths of instruction will be strewed with thorns and briars. The son of an American citizen will not submit to the same rigor of treatment, that is inflicted on the sons of vassals and subjects. Like the American lawyers described by Burke, he augurs misgovernment at a distance, and snuffs in the approach of tyranny in every tainted breeze.

All our professors and our most respectable President are indigenous plants, and their fostering superintendence and powers of instruction are felt in the flourishing state of our Alma Mater. Never did she stand on higher ground, with a more commanding aspect, and on a firmer foundation. Her prospects are brilliant, and her numbers are increasing, and will increase with the augmented population of the State. In the midst of a populous city, she can derive sufficient support from it alone. During the last year she had under her care 127 students. The three other Colleges embraced 310.

Situated at the confluence of all the great navigable communications of the State, from the shores of the Atlantic to the northern and western lakes, she presents every facility of economical and rapid access. Placed in the very focus of all the great moneyed and commercial operations of America, where agriculture pours forth her stores of plenty, where manufactures transmit their fabrics, where internal trade and foreign commerce delight to dwell and accumulate riches, where, in short, every man that wishes to buy or to sell to advantage, will naturally resort, what site can furnish a stronger invitation to a participation in education? Here, too, you will have the most distinguished divines, the most able jurists, the most skilful physicians. Here will men of science and ingenious artists fix their abode, -- and also talented men who will devote themselves to vernacular literature. Whoever wealth can tempt, knowledge allure, or the delights of polished and refined society attract, will occasionally visit or permanently reside in this great emporium. Every inducement that an institution can present, whether for the acquisition of knowledge, the refinement of manners, or the exaltation of character, is here furnished with unsparing liberality.

Unless some extraordinary visitation of calamity, distracts and deranges the natural current of events, and blights the purest prospects of greatness, this city will, ere the lapse of a century, extend itself over the whole island, and cover the shores of the adjacent rivers and bays with an exuberant population of more than a million, and alone will furnish a correspondent number of students; and with immense means of patronage and endowments, we may fondly anticipate, that before the expiration of a century, Columbia College will stand upon an equal footing with the most celebrated Universities of the Old World.

By the last returns, the four Colleges of the State contained 437 students; thirty-three incorporated academies, 2,440; and 8,144 common schools, 431,601. Add to this last the number taught in private institutions, and we may calculate, without the charge of exaggeration, that 460,000 human beings are at this hour, in this State, enjoying the benefits of education. From the apex to the base of this glorious pyramid of intellectual improvement, we perceive an intimacy of connection, and identity of interest, a community of action and reaction, a system of reciprocated benefits, that cannot but fill us with joy and make us proud of our country.

The National School Society of Great Britain, educates but 330,000 children annually; and there is no state or country that can vie with our common school establishment, and the number of its pupils -- I wish I could add, in the merits of its teaching. We want an extension of the system, to higher and other objects of instruction. We want a corps of educated instructors -- we want gratuitous instruction in our academies and colleges. The dii minorum of learning ought to be elevated in the scale of public estimation and intellectual endowment. For from their hands the rude materials of the mind must receive their first polish of usefulness and improvement; and our depôts of general instruction, like the speaking-bird of Asiatic fiction, which gathered around it all the singing-birds of the land, ought to contain all the youth of the country that are fit for improvement. Like the Indicator of Ornithology, that leads the way to the collected tenantry of the forest, they must and will conduct us to the higher enjoyments of knowledge; they will act to us as pioneers to delights, which nothing but intellectual pursuits can communicate.

With the learning taught in the ancient universities, this seminary has most felicitously adapted its instruction to the improvements and discoveries of modern times, and has embraced the benefits of both within its comprehensive arms. The exact sciences are sedulously attended to, as well as classical literature; Political Economy and Natural Science, are held in merited estimation. And we may feel assured, even if we embark in public life, that sooner or later, we will feel the importance and appreciate the value of our college acquisitions. When the pensioner, John De Witt, who was in his early life an enthusiastic devotee of the Mathematics, was tauntingly asked, of what use they were to him then, as, in the active scenes in which he had been since engaged, he must have lost all his knowledge of them; his reply contained a volume of wisdom. They have passed, said he, from my memory to my judgment. When Hamilton was called on to preside over the finances of the United States, he stood in the same position, and he felt relieved by availing himself, in his calculations, of the great science of Professor Kemp. Besides, these abstract investigations strengthen the general tone of the mind, teach habits of patient and deliberate inquiry, and communicate the same vigor to the understanding, that severe exercise does to the body.

I am well aware that there is a sect in this country, which extends its influence, more or less, into all the ramifications of society, that explodes all kinds of knowledge not founded on personal experience; which inculcates that ignorance is the summum bonum; that the less one reads the more one thinks, and that the less he understands, the better he can act; that education beyond the precincts of common schools is allied to aristocracy, and incompatible with natural equality; and that the youth who spring from our colleges, and who enter into the liberal professions, would be more serviceable to mankind, if they had been confined to those habits and acquisitions which distinguish the quacks, the empirics, and the charlatans of the community -- with them, Giles Jacob, the pest of grammar and the blunderbuss of law, is superior to Blackstone or Kent; and the works of Buchanan or Thompson, to the lucubrations of the great medical men that adorn our country; -- but, above all things, that the true statesman ought to be like the genuine empiric, and rely exclusively upon his own experience and observation for his chart and compass; that he ought to be preferred if his name is "nulla cognicione rerum, nulla scientia ornatus;" and that a liberal education will be a stumbling-block in the way of his progress, by diverting his attention from the weighty concerns of the republic, to the pursuits of scientific investigation. For the honor of the country the advocates of these heresies are diminishing in number, and insignificant in influence; and as our country advances in her career of light, they will be extinguished by the lustre of her radiated and reflected glory. The benefits of education have been gradually rising in human estimation, from those dark days when kings could not write their names, to the present time. There was a period when writing was confined exclusively to the clergy, and when the man who could write his name was exempted from the punishment of death; and the value attached to this acquisition is well illustrated in the Arabian tale, which elevates an unfortunate Prince enchanted into an ape, to the office of a Grand Vizier of an Asiatic Sultan, on account of his chirography.

That knowledge is power -- that education is the citadel of liberty -- that national glory and prosperity consist in the cultivation of the sciences, in the elevation of the liberal arts, in the extension of the powers of productive industry, are now considered as admitted truths and acknowledged axioms. Those vampyres of the mind who derive their aliment from human ignorance, are viewed in their true colors; and as a refulgent light maintains the same splendor when it illumes a wider space, so does intellectual improvement, the fountain of national greatness, enlarge and extend itself, without being displaced; and contrary to the general laws of nature, the wider it spreads the stronger it grows.

The days of delight which sprung from our academic lives, and which may be considered as intercalations of felicity in our varied being of good and evil, have passed away never to return. But they have left us important duties to perform -- duties of indispensible obligation and fertile with momentous results. Let us, then, marshal ourselves, like a Macedonian phalanx, in favor of our schools of instruction, from the highest to the lowest. The smallest effort may produce good; and, like the seed mentioned in the Holy Writ, although the least of all seeds, may grow up among the greatest of herbs and become a tree, so that the birds of the air may lodge in its branches.