This attention to the wants of the intellect and of the soul, as manifested by the voluntary support of schools and colleges, of churches and benevolent institutions, is one of the most remarkable characteristics of the American people, not less strikingly exhibited in the new than in the older settlements of the country.  On the spot where the first trees of the forest were felled, near the log cabins of the pioneers, are to be seen rising together the church and the school-house.  So has it been from the beginning, and God grant that it may thus continue!

    “On other shores, above their mouldering towns,
    In sullen pomp, the tall cathedral frowns;
    Simple and frail, our lowly temples throw
    Their slender shadows on the paths below;
    Scarce steal the winds, that sweep the woodland tracks,
    The larch’s perfume from the settler’s axe,
    Ere, like a vision of the morning air,
    His slight-framed steeple marks the house of prayer. 
    Yet Faith’s pure hymn, beneath its shelter rude,
    Breathes out as sweetly to the tangled wood,
    As where the rays through blazing oriels pour
    On marble shaft and tessellated floor.”

Who does not admit that this unparalleled growth in prosperity and renown is the result, under Providence, of the union of these States under a general Constitution, which guarantees to each State a republican form of government, and to every man the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, free from civil tyranny or ecclesiastical domination?

And, to bring home this idea to the present occasion, who does not feel that, when President Washington laid his hand on the foundation of the first Capitol, he performed a great work of perpetuation of the Union and the Constitution?  Who does not feel that this seat of the general government, healthful in its situation, central in its position, near the mountains whence gush springs of wonderful virtue, teeming with Nature’s richest products, and yet not far from the bays and the great estuaries of the sea, easily accessible and generally agreeable in climate and association, does give strength to the union of these States? that this city, bearing an immortal name, with its broad streets and avenues, its public squares and magnificent edifices of the general government, erected for the purpose of carrying on within them the important business of the several departments, for the reception of wonderful and curious inventions, for the preservation of the records of American learning and genius, of extensive collections of the products of nature and art, brought hither for study and comparison from all parts of the world,—­adorned with numerous churches, and sprinkled over, I am happy to say, with many public schools, where all the children of the city, without distinction, have the means of obtaining a good education, and with academies and colleges, professional schools and public libraries,—­should continue to