opinion; the still, small voice of the newspaper speaks to the millions of the nation in the busy mart, and around the fireside at home. Yet few intelligent American citizens pass through life without being called upon to speak, in the local town-meetings, in political conventions, in the legislature, or before some gatherings of their fellow-citizens. A little school instruction which shall enable them to speak in a natural tone of voice, and with self-possession of manner, will certainly not be out of place in American Common Schools. Let elocution be introduced in the public schools, to cultivate a taste for reading, to exercise and strengthen memory, to awaken feeling, to excite imagination, and to train those who are to enter the professions, to become graceful and pleasing speakers. Introduce it as a relief from study, a pleasing recreation, and a source of intellectual enjoyment. Introduce it as a part of the aesthetic education, so peculiarly appropriate for woman. Make it as a part of the education of man as an expressive being. COMMON SCHOOL READINGS. DUTIES OF AMERICAN CITIZENS.-DANIEL WEBSTER. WE have indulged in gratifying recollections of the past, in the prosperity and pleasures of the present, and in high hopes for the future. But let us remember that we have duties and obligations to perform, corresponding to the blessings which we enjoy. Let us remember the trust, the sacred trust, attaching to the rich inheritance which we have received from our fathers. Let us feel our personal responsibility, to the full extent of our power and influence, for the preservation of the principles of civil and religious liberty. And let us remember that it is only religion, and morals, and knowledge, that can make men respectable and happy, under any form of government. Let us hold fast the great truth, that communities are responsible, as well as individuals; that no government is respectable, which is not just; that without unspotted purity of public faith, without sacred public principle, fidelity, and honor, no mere forms of government, no machinery of laws, can give dignity to political society. In our day and generation let us seek to raise and improve the moral sentiment, so that we may look, not for a degraded, but for an elevated and improved future. And when both we and our children shall have been consigned to the house appointed for all living, may love of country and pride of country glow with equal fervor among those to whom our names and our blood shall have descended! And then, when honored and decrepit age shall lean against the base of this monument, and troops of ingenuous youth shall be gathered round it, and when the one shall speak to the other of its objects, the purposes of its construction, and the great and glorious events with which it is connected, there shall rise from every youthful breast the ejaculation, “Thank God, I—I also-am an American!" NOT YET.-WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. Он, country, marvel of the earth! Oh, realm to sudden greatness grown! Shall it behold thee overthrown? Shall traitors lay that greatness low? And we who wear thy glorious name,* The death-blow at thy generous heart? Forth goes the battle-cry, and lo! And they who founded, in our land, The power that rules from sea to sea, To leave their country great and free? Our humming marts, our iron ways, Our wind-tossed woods on mountain crest, The hoarse Atlantic, with his bays, The calm, broad ocean of the West, And Mississippi's torrent flow, And loud Niagara, answer, No! For now, behold, the Arm that gave That mighty Arm which none can stay On clouds above, and fields below, Writes, in men's sight, the answer, No! THE EVE OF ELECTION. 17 LIBERTY OF THE PRESS.-E. D. BAKER. THE liberty of the Press is the highest safeguard to all free government. Ours could not exist without it. It is like a great, exulting and abounding river. It is fed by the dews of heaven, which distill their sweetest drops to form it. It gushes from the rill, as it breaks from the deep caverns of the earth. It is augmented by a thousand affluents, that dash from the mountain top, to separate again into a thousand bounteous and irrigating streams around. On its broad bosom it bears a thousand barks. There genius spreads its purpling sail. There poetry dips its silver oar. There art, invention, discovery, science, morality, religion, may safely and securely float. It wanders through every land. It is a genial, cordial source of thought and inspiration, wherever it touches, whatever it surrounds. Upon its borders, there grows every flower of grace, and every fruit of truth. Sir, I am not here to deny that that river sometimes oversteps its bounds. I am not here to deny that that stream sometimes becomes a dangerous torrent, and destroys towns and cities upon its bank. But I am here to say that, without it, civilization, humanity, government, all that makes society itself, would disappear, and the world would return to its ancient barbarism. We will not risk these consequences, even for slavery; we will not risk these consequences even for union; we will not risk these consequences to avoid that civil war with which you threaten us;-that war which you announce as deadly, and which you declare to be inevitable. THE EVE OF ELECTION.-JOHN G. WHITTIER. FROM gold to gray our mild sweet day Of Indian Summer fades too soon; But tenderly above the sea Hangs, white and calm, the Hunter's moon. Along the street the shadows meet Of Destiny, whose hands conceal The moulds of fate that shape the State, Around I see the powers that be; And hear the tread of uncrowned kings! Not lightly fall beyond recall The written scrolls a breath can float; The crowning fact, the kingliest act Of Freedom is the freeman's vote! For pearls that gem a diadem The diver in the deep sea dies ; The blood of Vane, his prison pain Who traced the path the Pilgrim trod, And hers whose faith drew strength from death, And prayed her Russell up to God! Our hearts grow cold, we lightly hold The shadow rend, and o'er us bend, O martyrs, with your crowns and palms,— Breathe through these throngs your battle-songs, Your scaffold prayers and dungeon psalms! Look from the sky, like God's great eye, Till in the sight of thy pure light Our mean self-seekings meaner seem. Shame from our hearts unworthy arts, To party claims, and private aims, |