I  have  found  it  quite  incompatible  with  my  engagements
and  health,  to  methodize  the  thoughts,  which  have  crowded  on
my  mind  in  the  prospect  of  meeting  you  to-day,  into  anything
like  elaborate  or  extended  discourse ;  but  I  have  certainly
wished,  —  instead  of  mere  topics  of  congratulation  ;  or  in-
stead of  diffusing  myself  exclusively  on  the  easy  and  obvious
commonplaces  of  the  utility  of  knowledge,  and  the  beauty  of
virtue ;  or  instead  of  the  mere  indulgence  of  those  trains  of
memory  and  sensibility,  to  which  the  spectacle  of  old  friends,
and  of  the  children  and  grandchildren  of  other  friends,  "whom
my  dim  eyes  in  vain  explore,"  almost  irrepressively  impels  me,
—  instead  of  this,  to  submit  a  practical  suggestion  or  two  in
regard  to  the  true  modes  of  turning  the  Lyceum  to  its  utmost
account ;  and  then,  in  regard  to  the  motives  you  are  under  to
do  so.  These  suggestions  I  make  diffidently;  and,  therefore,
I  would  not  make  them  at  all,  but  from  the  conviction  that  in
your  hands  they  may  come  to  assume  some  little  value.
I  take  it  for  granted  that  the  declared  wishes  of  Mr.  Pea-
body  will  be  considered  as  determining,  quite  peremptorily,  the
general  mode  of  administering  this  fund.  Better  educational
instrumentalities,  indeed,  no  man's  wisdom,  in  the  circum-
stances, could  have  devised.  Courses  of  lectures,  then,  and
a  library  of  good  books,  these  are  to  form  the  means  of  the
Lyceum  ;  and  the  problem  is,  in  what  way  can  you  make  the
most  of  them.
