Such a course, generally adopted, would give the ever-lasting quietus to
all improvement. It would be a practical adoption of the philosophy of
the Dutchman, who was content to carry his grist in one end of the sack
and a stone to balance it in the other, assigning for a reason, that his
honored father had always done so before him. Who would be content to
adopt the astrology of the ancients, in preferance to astronomy as now
taught, because the latter is more modern? Who would spend three years
in transcribing a copy of the Bible, when a better could be obtained
for one dollar, because manuscripts were thus procured in former times?
What lady would prefer to take her cards, wheel, and loom, and spend a
month or two in manufacturing for herself a dress, when a better could
be earned in half the time, merely because her respected grandmother did
so before her? Who would go back a thousand years to find a model for
society, rejecting all improvements in the arts and sciences, because
they are innovations, encroachments upon the opinions and practices of
learned and honorable men?

I can not believe there is a person in this respected audience whose
mind is in such voluntary slavery as to induce the adoption of such a
course. I see before me minds which sparkle in every look, and thoughts
which are ever active, to acquire what is true, and adopt what is
useful. And I flatter myself that the time spent in the investigation of
the science of language will not be unpleasant or unprofitable.

I feel the greater confidence from the consideration that your minds are
yet untrammeled; not but what many, probably most of you, have already
studied the popular systems of grammar, and understood them; if such a
thing is possible; but because you have shown a disposition to learn, by
becoming members of this Institute, the object of which is the