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those acorns, that does not carry within itself the germ of a perfect oak, as lofty and as wide-spreading as the parent stock; which does not enfold the rudiments of a tree, that would strike its roots in the soil, and lift its branches toward the heavens, and brave the storms of a hundred Winters. It needs, for this, but a handful of soil, to receive the acorn as it falls, a little moisture to nourish it, and protection from violence till the root is struck. It needs but these; and these it does need, and these it must have; and for want of them, trifling as they seem, there is not one out of a thousand, of those innumerable acorns, which is destined to become a tree.

Look abroad, through the cities, the towns, the villages, of our beloved Country, and think of what materials their population, in many parts already dense, and every where rapidly growing, is, for the most part, made up. It is not made up of lifeless enginery, of animated machines, of brute beasts, trained to subdue the earth: but of rational, intellectual beings. There is not a mind, of the hundreds of thousands in our community, that is not capable of making large progress in useful knowledge; and no one can presume to tell, or limit, the number of those, who are gifted with all the talent required for the noblest discoveries. They have naturally all the senses and all the faculties,-I do not say, in as high a degree, but who shall say in no degree?-possessed by Newton, or Franklin, or Fulton. It is but a little, which is wanted, to awaken every one of these minds to the conscious possession and the active exercise of its wonderful powers. But this little, generally speaking, is indispensable. How much more wonderful an instrument is an eye than a telescope ! Providence has furnished this eye; but art must contribute the telescope, or the wonders of the heavens remain unnoticed. It is for want of the little, that human means must add to the wonderful capacity for improvement born in man, that by far the greatest part of the intellect, innate in our race, perishes undevel

oped and unknown. When an acorn falls upon an unfavorable spot, and decays there, we know the extent of the loss, it is that of a tree, like the one from which it fell; but when the intellect of a rational being, for want of culture, is lost to the great ends for which it was created, it is a loss, which no one can measure, either for time or for eternity.

LECTURE ON THE WORKINGMEN'S PARTY.*

MAN is, by nature, an active being. He is made to labor. His whole organization, mental and physical, is that of a hard-working being. Of his mental powers, we have no conception, but as certain capacities of intellectual action. His corporeal faculties are contrived for the same end, with astonishing variety of adaptation. Who can look only at the muscles of the hand, and doubt that man was made to work? Who can be conscious of judgement, memory, and reflection, and doubt that man was made to act? He requires rest, but it is in order to invigorate him for new efforts; to recruit his exhausted powers; and, as if to show him, by the very nature of rest, that it is Means, not End: that form of rest, which is most essential and most grateful, sleep, is attended with the temporary suspension of the conscious and active powers, an image of death. Nature is so ordered, as both to require and encourage man to work. He is created with wants, which cannot be satisfied without labor; at the same time, that ample provision is made by Providence, to satisfy them with labor. The plant springs up, and grows on the spot, where the seed was cast by accident. It is fed by the moisture, which saturates the earth, or is held suspended in the air; and it brings with it a sufficient covering to protect its delicate internal structure. It toils not, neither doth it spin, for clothing or food. But man is so created, that, let his wants be as simple as they will, he must labor to supply them. If, as is supposed to have been the case, in primitive ages, he lives upon acorns and water, he must draw the water from the spring; and, in many places, he must dig a well in the soil; and he must gather the acorns from beneath

* Delivered before the Charlestown Lyceum, October, 1830.

the oak, and lay up a store of them, for Winter. He must, in most climates, contrive himself some kind of clothing, of barks or skins; must construct some rude shelter; prepare some kind of bed, and keep up a fire. In short, it is well known, that those tribes of our race, which are the least advanced in civilization, and whose wants are the fewest, have to labor the hardest for their support; but, at the same time, it is equally true, that, in the most civilized countries, by far the greatest amount and variety of work are done; so that the improvement, which takes place in the condition of man, consists, not in diminishing the amount of labor performed, but in enabling men to work more, or more efficiently, in the same time. A horde of savages will pass a week in the most laborious kinds of hunting; following the chase, day after day; their women, if in company with them, carrying their tents and their infant children on their backs; and all be worn down, by fatigue and famine; and, in the end, they will, perhaps, kill a buffalo.

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same number of civilized men and women would, probably, on an average, have kept more steadily at work, in their various trades and occupations, but with much less exhaustion; and the products of their industry would have been vastly greater; or, what is the same thing, much more work would have been done.

It is true, as man rises in improvement, he would be enabled, by his arts and machinery, to satisfy the primary wants of life, with less labor; and this may be thought to show, at first glance, that man was not intended to be a working being; because, in proportion as he advances in improvement, less work would be required to get a mere livelihood. But here we see a curious provision of Nature. In proportion as our bare natural wants are satisfied, artificial wants, or civilized wants, show themselves. And, in the very highest state of improvement, it requires as constant an exertion to satisfy the new wants, which grow out of the habits and tastes of civilized life, as it requires, in savage life, to satisfy hunger and thirst, and keep from freezing. In

other words, the innate desire of improving our condition keeps us all in a state of want. We cannot be so well off that we do not feel obliged to work, either to insure the continuance of what we now have, or to increase it. The man, whose honest industry just gives him a competence, exerts himself, that he may have something against a rainy day;-and how often do we hear an affectionate father say, he is determined to spare no pains, to work in season and out of season, in order that his children may enjoy advantages denied to himself!

In this way, it is pretty plain, that Man, whether viewed in his primitive and savage state, or in a highly improved condition, is a working being. It is his destiny, the law of his nature, to labor. He is made for it, and he cannot live without it; and the Apostle Paul summed up the matter, with equal correctness and point, when he said, that "if any would not work, neither should he eat."

It is a good test of principles, like these, to bring them to the standard of general approbation or disapprobation. There are, in all countries, too many persons, who, from mistaken ideas of the nature of happiness, or other less reputable causes, pass their time in idleness, or in indolent pleasures. But I believe no state of society ever existed, in which the energy and capacity of labor were not commended and admired, or in which a taste for indolent pleasure was commended or admired, by the intelligent part of the community. When we read the lives of distinguished men, in any department, we find them almost always celebrated for the amount of labor they could perform. Demosthenes, Julius Cæsar, Henry the Fourth of France, Lord Bacon, Sir Isaac Newton, Franklin, Washington, Napoleon,—different as they were in their intellectual and moral qualities, were all renowned, as hard workers. We read, how many days they could support the fatigues of a march; how early they rose, how late they watched; how many hours they spent in the field, in

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