of them in one respect: and that is, it is to be confined to the young. In this point of view it is peculiarly interesting. Even we who are older and somewhat experienced in the cares, and know somewhat of the emptiness and vanity of worldly honors, even we I say are gratified if the efforts which we have made have commended themselves to the approbation of our fellow citizens. The rewards in the shape of diplomas, or medals bestowed by the Franklin Institute upon the meritorious artizan carrying with them a vast amount of satisfaction to the recipient. Yet we all know from personal experience that the honors gained in youth are peculiarly grateful, the Chaplets that rest upon the fair young head are not often lined with thorns. What money ever gave a tithe of the pleasure that the first dollar received as the reward of early toil, when thrown with glistening eye and a palpitating bosom into a fond mother's lap. So that we feel to night that the rewards bestowed upon the youthful aspirants for honor in works of talent and skill, convey about as much pleasure as it is possible for such rewards to give. Nor is it only pleasure that is bestowed, there is a world of wisdom exhibited in the conception of this Institute.

We live in a most extraordinary age, marked by great activity and independence of mind. One which is marked by the aristocracy of birth giving place to that of talent. In whose great movements men of large thought, and not men of high birth are the Master Spirits. Not only is this eminently characteristic of our own country, but it has already begun to overturn the great social fabric of the ancient monarchies of Europe. For what do we see at the present day? The great Northern Autocrat doing honor to an officer of inferior rank and humble parentage, because, amidst the turmoils and perils of the Crimean warfare, he, by his superior sagacity, contrived a system of fortification that baffled for a time the combined powers of England and France, the name of Todleben standing out amidst the din of war with greater prominence, than that of even the crowned heads, whose disputes were shaking three several thrones. Upon whom now, too, more than upon any single mind, do great national enterprises hang? Why upon a son of that race universally despised and persecuted in times past; against whom the most cruel and sanguinary edicts were promulgated the great Jewish Banker, Rothschild. Amongst the deaths of the great and titled,-who has caused equal emotion, betokening the grief of the whole scientific world, with that of Hugh Miller :-the

once humble stone-cutter of Cromarty: but whose latter days saw him exalted to the position of the greatest Geologist of England? So that you see, my friends: without the necessity of multiplying examples, that those barriers that once were thrown around the mechanic and hedged his way on the road to honor and influence, are now removed. And the skilful mechanic is in public estimation, regarded as of equal if not greater value to the great social system, than the man of elegant education and illustrious ancestry. Men have learned great facts with regard to the phenomena of mind. And instead of regarding the great intellects of the age as found only in what are termed the learned professions, they have discovered that the same native intelligence that will make an eminent merchant, a successful farmer, or a skilful mechanic, is all that is requisite to elevate its possessor to a high rank at the Bar, in the Pulpit, or in the practice of medicine. Learning, too, is requisite in our day to secure eminence in almost every pursuit. This is the day of Books. Ours is the period when men embalm in the printed page their knowledge for the benefit of others. So that if you look around you, upon the eminent, intelligent, influential and wealthy citizens of Philadelphia, you will find in the fore-front, mechanics. Men whose youth was passed in the workship, and whose hands were early hardened by using the iron tool. To be a mechanic, skilful, inventive and successful, is an honor that I would covet more than a Baronetcy. And I would rather stand at the head of some great machine-shop directing with my mind the hundreds of men, than be a lord of a princely estate, holding in vassalage a thousand tenants who labor only to feed and enrich me.

Another feature in the history of the times that has tended to elevate the mechanic, is the benefits conferred by the Mechanic Arts. The traveller as he stands beneath the crumbling porticos of ancient temples, or walks amid the monuments of the sculptor's skill in the galleries of decrepid Italy, or gazes upon the thousand compositions of the pencil as they adorn every palace, in these, sees the estimation in which the world hold men of genius. As he stands at the foot of the lofty statue of brass or of marble, he beholds too the honor which grateful posterity pays to men of mere military greatness. But just as the memorial erected to the wisdom, virtue and selfsacrifice of the Father of his Country, the immortal Washington, is written in the universal prosperity and grand stretch of the United States, in letters of light-that are growing daily more brilliant

and clear. So the monuments that bear the inscription of the greatness, the skill and the usefulness of the American mechanic, are as broad as our common country, and as clearly defined as our railroads, canals and public and private buildings. When I seek for evidence of the estimation in which the skilful mechanic is held, in the works that he has wrought. The great difficulty is not to find the evidences thereof, but rather to select the few and striking from the countless number. The memorials of his greatness and might are so universal that the record thereof might be written as was that of the great architect, who buried in the crypt of his great cathedral, merely sought his honor in the surrounding magnificence and proportion. The monumental marble securing testimony to his greatness, commanding those who would hunt up his memorial to look around. "Circumspice." So he that would desire to estimate the greatness of the mechanic, has merely to look around. He sees it in every building that by the hand of skill has been erected for the great purposes of manufacture, trade, commerce, or luxury: adorned as it is by the hand of genius. Mere genius herself would never leave the imperishable mementoes of her conceptions, if it were not for the mallet and chisel of the artisan, the pencil of the artist, and the tool of the engraver. We see it at home, in that wondrous fascination that has curbed the wildness of Schuylkill's streams and taught that river, that for thousands of years only played and frollicked in the sunshine ;· -or reclined beneath the shades of the woods that gather along the banks, stealthily listening to the breathing of the Young Brave's words of love to his dusky mistress,-or lifting up her mirrored surface that her beautiful features might be reflected therein, as she dressed herself for her bridal :-that there was something more for rivers to live and flow for than this, (poetical and beautiful as it was). So that we see her educated and trained by the hands of mechanical skill, now ministering health, cleanliness, and life to a great metropolis. Freely giving her waters, to the great industrial enterprises of the day. Entering our homes to provide us with food and means of refreshment and cleanliness. Stirring up her native strength to combat with and overcome the devouring fire. Sitting with us at our social boards; affording the only native wine of our great county that can be drank with safety. Even with her cool ice drops affording refreshment to the lips of the fevered and dying. This!-a greater triumph than even Demosthenes accomplished, when he swayed a Grecian auditory: the

Philadelphia mechanic has accomplished! See with what skill he has distilled from the dark coal of the mountains the illuminating gas. Conveying it to every corner of our cities. Until that which had its birth in the dark caverns of the mountain, shines with the lustre of one of those stars that give brilliancy and beauty to the night. When the early discoverers of our continent stood upon its inland heights, they could but see as its future destiny the homes of many nations, separated and divided into little principalities and kingdoms, like the Old World, and, in its unwritten history, records of wars and contest.

"For mountains interposed

"Make enemies of nations,--who had else"

"Like kindred drops, been mingled into one."

But not so has been its history. Simply because the American mechanic has here assumed the sceptre of power, and tunnelling the mountains, bridging rivers, and finding his way over lonely plains, has bound this vast republic in an iron net work of railroads. Pressing too into his service the very power that for ages has made Etna and Vesuvius at once the wonder and terror of the fairest lands of Europe; has bound them to his chariot of iron, to bear his goods and person from one end to the other of our great and growing confederacy. And, as if this were not a sufficient manifestation of his power, to the American mechanic belongs the honor of bringing into practical use that great discovery, that to use the language uttered by me on a previous public occasion, "Has caught the very lightning of heaven in its rapid flight, tamed its ferocity and trained it in the school of art, (until that which shook Mount Sinai to its base, when God published his law,) with all the gentleness of a dove submits to be controlled by the hand of wisdom, and flies with the rapidity of thought to bear his messages," whose way is soon to be traced beneath the deep waters of the great sea, to bind distant and formerly hostile countries in the bond of a common brotherhood. When this great work shall be achieved, and the kingdom of peace be thus established, upon the brow of the mechanic, (sooty or embrowned as it may be,) will deservedly rest the laurels of this great victory. The fulfilment, in fact, as far as intercourse is concerned, of that prophecy that declares, "There shall be no more sea."

In every valley, beside every water course, in every town, in each city, we see the foot-prints of this great living mastodon. To it all castes, trades, and professions of men are indebted. Without your skill the astronomer would lack the instrument with which he sweeps the heavens and searches out and numbers the planets. Without your handiwork to the eye of the microscopist, the world that peoples a leaf would have been undiscovered, and the ten thousand exquisite details of vegetable creation unknown. Without your aid, the glorious conceptions of science would die in the brain that produced them, or else only be borne down the turbid waters of tradition; so speedily evaporating. For your hands weave the canvass, compound the paints, make the chisel, and form the presses by which in our day, mind speaks to kindred mind. Without your existence, millions of the industrial and laboring classes would sit in idleness, and die because there "was no work or labor, nor device" on earth more than "in the grave." To you monarchs are indebted for their power and grandeur. For it is by your skill that the very wool of the sheep becomes the rich and costly clothing of men. By your hands the very thread of the misshapen and disgusting worm becomes the garment of elegance and splendor fit for the adornment of the palaces of nobles. By your hand the beautiful dyes that lie concealed in the hard wood and dull earth, are extracted until they rival the beauty of, and claim the palm with,—that glorious color that adorns the curtains that veil the palace of the King of day. Your chemistry compounds his ammunition, and your strong and brawny arms forge and temper his deadliest weapons. Without the skill of modern mechanics, modern royalty itself would be but a delusion. Oh! my friends, there was nothing that the great Autocrat of Russia did, which evidenced his superiority over his fellow monarchs, more than that, when their time was wasted in courtly ceremonies, parades and childish amusements, he put on his workman's garb, and in the ship-yard at Potsdam, learned how to be king by first learning how to be a mechanic, and prepared his head for the crown by first inuring his hand to clutch the hammer. The glory of our city too, is not, that we have "fields of the cloth gold" upon which to lavish the ransom of a province : but that we can point to those great manufactories, where victories are gained over the inert masses of nature, and those great machines