e upon us devolves the higher responsibility of so
educating the people that they may become not only good _subjects_, but
good SOVEREIGNS--all power originating in and returning to the
_sovereign people_.

Only seventy-four years ago, our fathers of the ever-memorable
Revolution pledged "fortune, life, and sacred honor" to establish the
independence of these United States. Under the fostering care of
republican institutions, the tide of population rolled rapidly inland,
crossing the Alleganies, sweeping over the vast Valley of the
Mississippi, nor resting in its onward course until it settled on the
waters of the Columbia and the shores of the Pacific. Previous to the
Revolutionary war, the English settlements were confined to the Atlantic
coast; now the tide of immigration seems to be to the shores of the
Pacific, where states are multiplying and cities springing up as by
magic. In a little more than half a century, the states of the Union
have increased in number from thirteen to thirty, and in population in
a ratio hitherto unprecedented, from three millions to twenty-five
millions of souls.

We stand in the same relation to posterity that our ancestors do to us.
Each generation has duties of its own to perform; and our duties, though
widely different from those of our forefathers, are not less important
in their character or less binding in their obligations. It was their
duty to found or establish our institutions, and nobly did they perform
it. It is our especial and appropriate duty to perfect and perpetuate
the institutions we have received at their hands. The boon they would
bequeath to the latest posterity can never reach and bless them except
through our instrumentality. Upon each present generation rest the duty
and the obligation of educating and qualifying for usefulness that which
immediately succeeds, upon which, in turn, will devolve a like
responsibility. Each succeeding generation will, in the main, be what
the preceding has made it. From this responsible agency there is, there
can be, no escape.

Trusts, responsibilities, and interests, vaster in amount and more
sacred in character than have ever, in the providence of God, been
committed to any people, are now intrusted to us. The great experiment
of the capacity of man for self-government is being tried anew--an
experiment which, wherever it has been tried, has failed, through an
incapacity in the people to enjoy liberty without abusing it. We a