A Discourse on the Prospects of Letters and Taste in Virginia: Pronounced Before the Literary and Philosophical Society of Hampden-Sydney College, at Their Fourth Anniversary, in September, 1827, Volume 148 |
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A Discourse on the Prospects of Letters and Taste in Virginia: Pronounced ... J. B. Harrison No preview available - 2017 |
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Page 22 - Existence is slowly rising, in many-coloured splendour and gloom: and the auroral light of first love is gilding his horizon, and the music of song is on his path; and so he walks ' in glory and in joy, Behind his plough, upon the mountain side!
Page 16 - Go through, go through the gates ; prepare ye the way of the people ; cast up, cast up the highway ; gather out the stones ; lift up a standard for the people.
Page 17 - It is good also not to try experiments in states, except the necessity be urgent or the utility evident ; and well to beware that it be the reformation that draweth on the change, and not 30 the desire of change that pretendeth the reformation.
Page 15 - The human imagination can picture no semblance of the destructive potency of the ballot-box in the hands of an ignorant and corrupt people. The Roman cohorts were terrible ; the Turkish janizaries were incarnate fiends : but each was powerless as a child for harm compared with universal suffrage without mental illumination and moral principle.
Page 21 - ... peculiar pursuit from these neglected studies, either in the way of knowledge directly useful, collateral information, or graceful ornament? Is not the fault in ourselves ? We have laid a foundation which we neglect to build upon, and we complain that the foundation is useless. We learn the elements, and, neglecting to pursue them, we querulously repeat that the elements are little worth. We pass years at school and college in the study of languages, till we are just able to begin to use them...
Page 21 - ... yielded no fruit. But the true ground of complaint ought generally, I suspect, to be rather a matter of self-reproach. It is not that the studies pursued at the university are of no use in life, but that we make no use of them. The Latin and Greek — to instance in these branches — are indeed often thrown aside as useless ; but is the lawyer, the statesman, the preacher, the medical practitioner or teacher, quite sure that there is no advantage to be derived in his peculiar pursuit from these...
Page 21 - ... teacher, quite sure that there is no advantage to be derived in his peculiar pursuit from these neglected studies, either in the way of knowledge directly useful, collateral information, or graceful ornament? Is not the fault in ourselves? We have laid a foundation which we neglect to build upon, and we complain that the foundation is useless. We learn the elements, and neglecting to pursue them, we querulously repeat that the elements are little worth. We pass years at school and college in...
Page 13 - While other States are becoming powerful by the liberal support they give public education, Virginia is impotent to everything that pertains to national greatness. Develop the intellects of the rising generation and they will develop the natural resources of the state. In short, it is useless to try to conceal the miserable, rickety system of Public Education in this Commonwealth by flaming reports and abstracts of its condition.
Page 33 - Amid that vestal light severe, Our colder spirits leap to hear Like echoes from a fairy hill. Yet deem not so. The Power of Spells Still lingers on the earth, but dwells In deeper folds of close disguise, That baffle Reason's searching eyes : Nor shall that mystic Power resign To Truth's cold sway his webs of guile, Till woman's eyes have ceased to shine, And woman's lips have ceased to smile, And woman's voice has ceased to be The earthly soul of melody.
Page 32 - Spirit of Life, impalpable, transcendental, direct from God, is the only real cause. ' It bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, or whither it goeth.