Mr Pres. & Fellow Mem. of the D.S.
It is now just 30 years, I believe since I had the honour of taking my seat as a
member of this body, I will not say on this floor. Now the times are changed
— & the fortunes of your body have, I am happy to say, grown
& expanded with the other improvements of our
University & of the age in which we live. It was in your old
chapel!, that the
Dialectics of my day used to carry on their
comfortless sessions, on a naked dirty floor & seated upon hard coarse
benches — & doomed, in the winter time, there to shiver out
the long cold nights, without a fire — not like my more favored
fellow members of the present age, seated on luxurious chairs, the laborers of
the looms softening their tread on Brussels a gilded ceiling echoing to their
voice, while their Pres. like a monarch occupies a throne. The order of ages is
here reversed. The Poets tell us that in old times
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the golden age came first, & the age of iron afterwards. But in the
fortunes of this body the sires saw the hardships of the age of iron while the
sons are tasting the sweets of the age of gold.
Augustus used to boast that he found
Rome built of brick
& he left it of marble. Surely, if we may venture to compare small
things with great, a change not much less auspicious has taken place in the
comforts & external splendour of the
Dialectic society. I hope
the revolution may be no less great in the more valuable & solid
improvements of talent & virtue, & that the sons may be far
brighter & worthier than their sires.