But we have not confined our attention to the immediate application of science to the useful arts.  We have entered the field of original research, and have enlarged the bounds of scientific knowledge.

Sixty years ago, besides the brilliant discoveries of Franklin in electricity, scarcely any thing had been done among us in the way of original discovery.  Our men of science were content with repeating the experiments and diffusing a knowledge of the discoveries of the learned of the Old World, without attempting to add a single new fact or principle to the existing stock.  Within the last twenty-five or thirty years a remarkable improvement has taken place in this respect.  Our natural history has been explored in all its branches; our geology has been investigated with results of the highest interest to practical and theoretical science.  Discoveries have been made in pure chemistry and electricity, which have received the approbation of the world.  The advance which has been made in meteorology in this country, within the last twenty years, is equal to that made during the same period in all the world besides.

In 1793 there was not in the United States an instrument with which a good observation of the heavenly bodies could be made.  There are now instruments at Washington, Cambridge, and Cincinnati equal to those at the best European observatories, and the original discoveries in astronomy within the last five years, in this country, are among the most brilliant of the age.  I can hardly refrain from saying, in this connection, that the “Celestial Mechanics” of La Place has been translated and commented upon by Bowditch.

Our knowledge of the geography and topography of the American continent has been rapidly extended by the labor and science of the officers of the United States army, and discoveries of much interest in distant seas have resulted from the enterprise of the navy.

In 1807, a survey of the coast of the United States was commenced, which at that time it was supposed no American was competent to direct.  The work has, however, grown within the last few years, under a native superintendent, in importance and extent, beyond any enterprise of the kind ever before attempted.

These facts conclusively prove that a great advance has been made among us, not only in the application of science to the wants of ordinary life, but in science itself, in its highest branches, in its adaptation to satisfy the cravings of the immortal mind.

In respect to literature, with the exception of some books of elementary education, and some theological treatises, of which scarcely any but those of Jonathan Edwards have any permanent value, and some works on local history and politics, like Hutchinson’s Massachusetts, Jefferson’s Notes on Virginia, the Federalist, Belknap’s New Hampshire, and Morse’s Geography, and a few others, America had not produced a single work of any repute in literature.  We were almost wholly dependent on imported books.  Even our Bibles and Testaments were, for the most part, printed abroad.  The book trade is now one of the greatest branches of business, and many works of standard value, and of high reputation in Europe as well as at home, have been produced by American authors in every department of literary composition.