CORRESPONDENCE. TO THE HON. WM. C. PRESTON. SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE, At a meeting of the Students in the College Chapel this evening, the following resolution was unanimously adopted: “Resolved, That a Committee be appointed to request of our Hon. President, a copy of his eloquent and appropriate Inaugural for publication." Believing that your Address will be read by the public, with as much interest as was manifested during its delivery; and under the sure conviction that an address, abounding as it does, with so many able and instructive precepts, should not only be perused by every Student of College, but treasured up as a lasting memorial of the relation in which we stand to our President, we earnestly solicit your compliance with the above. Very respectfully, yours, R. H. REID, JNO. RATCHFORD, WM. LOGUE, F. W. MCMASTER, F. GAMEWELL. Committee. Gentlemen:-I do not hesitate to comply SOUTH CAROLINA COLLEGE, } January 8, with the request of the Students, Although their kindness places an which you have just communicated to me. estimate on the Address which my own judgment does not sanction, I am not the less grateful for it. I beg you, gentlemen, to accept my thanks for the flattering terms in which you have discharged your office, and am, ADDRESS. Young Gentlemen of the College : Entering upon the office to which the Trustees have appointed me, I have thought it not inappropriate to present myself to you, in a somewhat formal way, and to make a few remarks which the occasion seems to justify. The intimate relations which are hereafter to subsist between us, involving very grave responsibilities on my part, and the deepest interests of life on yours, will be the more readily and efficiently established by an exposition of my understanding of our most prominent, respective duties, and of the feelings and purposes with which I now assume mine. It has been the pleasure of the Trustees to call me from walks of life very remote from those I now enter upon. For many years, I have been busy amidst the active pursuits of men, taking some part in affairs where the conflict of interest, the collision of intellect, and the tumult of strenuous and stormy passions left but little leisure for those calm and meditative employments which are the occupation within these walls. After thirty years absence from them, I return, but in a new and trying condition, with sympathies in all your pursuits, to be sure, and tastes not entirely alienated from science and literature, but with a deep and fearful anxiety, that I may, indeed must be, unqualified to discharge the trust as it ought to be. Under a conscious deficiency, I would have shrunk from this office, but that I yielded my own opinion to that of those for whose judgment, experience, and knowledge of the Institution, I have an entire deference. Of that Board of Trustees, whose command I obey, I can safely affirm, that having in the chances of life, been occasionally thrown with men, distinguished by the consent of the whole country, I have not found anywhere, even in those exalted stations to which a nation's interests call its most conspicuous citizens, a wiser, graver, or more highly endowed body. To its discretion and intelligence, the destinies of this cherished Institution are well confided, and I hold myself ready to conform to its wishes with the same implicit confidence, whenever it may think fit to remit me to the pursuits of private life, as now, that I relinquish those pursuits in compliance with them. I have the more willingly acquiesced in their judgment, as it has been in favor of one who had differed with the State, on some important and exciting questions. To be made its trusted agent under such circumstances, to be put without solicitation, in this place of confidence and honour, in which the interests, the hopes, and the affections of the State are so deeply implicated, fills me with gratitude, and oppresses me with a painful sense of responsibility. In the swell of strong emotions which fill my heart, all vanity is quenched in the consciousness of inadequacy to make a suitable return. What I bring, gentlemen, to my station, and what I trust may in some sort make amends for my deficiencies, in other respects is, a deep and reverential love for this my Alma Mater, -a solemn sense of my duties, and I may be permitted to say, a love of letters, not altogether extinguished by contact with the world. Nor am I insensible in adopting this course of life, to the pleasing satisfaction (as Cicero says,) of seeing myself surrounded by a circle of ingenuous youths, and conciliating by laudable means their esteem and affection. There certainly cannot be a more important or honorable occupation than to instruct the rising generation in the duties to which they may hereafter be called,*—and I hope I may, without the imputation of arrogance, be allowed to adopt another sentiment of that illustrious Roman:~ "Ac fuit quidem quam mihi quoque initium acquiescendi, * De Senectute. atque animum ad utriusque nostrum præclara studia referendi, fore justum et prope ab omnibus concessum arbitrare-si infinitus forensium rerum labor, et ambitionis occupatio, decursu honorem, etiam ætatis flexu, constitisset."* In the pleasing task to which I now address myself, it will be my constant effort to promote your studies, and to prepare you for the duties of life, (more important than life itself,) with, such stores of learning as may be acquired here, but more especially with ardent and virtuous aspirations to acquit yourselves with honor hereafter. The immediate and ostensible object of our association is the pursuit of learning, and this might seem to be our sole purpose; but in truth, learning is only a means to the great end we have in view. It is an instrument which is prepared and fashioned here, with some instruction as to the mode of using it. It is but the armour, but a part of the armour to be worn in the battle field of life for the atchievment of honorable and glorious victories, for the triumph of truth over error, of virtue over vice, of right over wrong. And although I cherish the conviction that there is a natural and intimate connection between knowledge and virtue, yet I know that they are not inseparable. There have been melancholy instances of great intellectual powers, united to acquisitions from the whole circle of learning, without a corresponding moral elevation. These however, I regard as anomalies; I rejoice to believe that in the general order of Providence, whatever enlarges and exalts the intellect, promotes, purifies, and invigorates the virtues of the heart. If I did not believe in such a connexion, I would abandon myself to indolence and despair. But the noble and distinctive faculties of man, whose combination constitutes his dignity and glory, are harmonized by his Creator into a concerted action * I have always soothed myself with the hope that there would come a time of quiet and repose, when I might return to the noble studies that occupy us here. I have fondly looked forward to the day, when having finished my career of active life, I might have the right to enjoy a lettered repose, freed from the toils of the bar and the painful pursuits of politics.-De Oratore. |