INAUGURAL ADDRESS. Gentlemen, Trustees and Overseers; and Gentlemen, Professors and Tutors: SUCCEEDING, in a highly responsible office, to a man unusually qualified for it, by natural and acquired talents, and by the full possession of publio confidence, it is impossible to conceal the anxiety, with which I address you: an anxiety the more oppressive, as it operates, on a system constitutionally feeble, and now scarcely recovered from wasting dis ease. Speaking under these disadvantages, I solicit your favourable attention. The interest you have taken in the establishment and superintendence of this seminary demonstrates your conviction of the utility of public literary institutions. Any observations in proof of this point would be, therefore, superfluous. It is well known to be an infelicity attending all human establishments that they are liable to perversion. That, which is designed as a powerful instrument of good, may contribute to extensive ruin. The evil resulting from the abuse of power is generally commensurate with the good, which would be effected by a right use of it. Colleges afford no exception to these general remarks. Such has evidently been the judgment of all, by whom they have been established or cherished. Were indolence, for example, tolerated among youth, who resort to public seminaries, the most inactive of our species would be allured thither; and, if any of a different character should by chance or the imprudence of their guardians, mingle with them, they would soon become assimilated to the general mass. Were no care exercised by the government of colleges to preserve, or correct the morals of literary youth, there would be few conditions, perhaps, in which, the growth of moral depravity would be more rapid or more luxuriant. He, whose vices are moderate in solitude, would become intolerable, if connected with numbers, whose dispositions to offend were as great, and whose habits of offending were more inveterate than his own. Besides; learning gives power to its possessor; those persons, therefore, who become learned at the expense of moral principles and moral habits, acquire at once the ability and disposition to injure society. To secure the benefits of literary establishments to the exclusion of their disadvantages, government has been instituted. It has not been thought sufficient, that the means of knowledge should, be afforded, but that a disposition should likewise be cultivated to apply this knowledge to a right use. Without this, colleges could not exist; or if they could, they ought not, as they would only be the instruments of arming the wicked to distress the good. In this view of the subject, we clearly perceive the high value of good government; and we see, that the object of such government always is, and always must be to promote the literary and moral character of those, who acknowledge it. Laws, whether those of a college or of a civil community should be few in number, easily understood, reasonable in themselves, and punctually executed. Laws, which are not worth executing were never worth enacting; and when they exist, should be erased from the code, to which they belong. If it be a known case, that some are violated with impunity, it is neither difficult nor unreasonable to presume the same of others: hence the authority of the whole becomes enfeebled: and for the same reason, that laws should be repealed, rather than suf fered to become obsolete, those, which are designed for execution, should be executed with uniform punctuality. On entering college, a student does, in fact, form a contract with the governours of the institution. They promise to instruct and guard him with parental care: he, on his part, stipulates obe◄ dience to the laws, docility, application, and correct habits. When every transgression and disobedience receives a just recompense of reward, there is no cause of complaint: nothing takes place, but what, at the time of entering into the agreement, it was understood, should take place. The offender receives the punishment specified by those regulations, to which he consented, and under which he placed himself. When determined to commit a crime, he does it, in the distinct view of its consequences. Not so, should facts render it uncertain, whether strict obedience will be uniformly required. In this case, there would be a language in the administration, indefinite, to be sure, but certainly different from that of the written code and he, who was disposed to transgress would consider it problematical, whether, in case of detection, he should suffer, or be acquitted,― whether he should be judged by the law, or by some unknown modification of it. It appears, then, not only that the steady enforcement of established laws is necessary to preserve subordination, and se : |