personal character are impeded or cramped in their free expansion by the stupid interference of inflexible labor laws, which may be reasonably applicable to one description of human exertion, and yet wholly unadapted for others; beneficial to one man, hurtful to another; a benefit to one class, a curse to another; repressing activity, discouraging energy and enterprise, and tending only to establish a standard of dull and hopeless mediocrity? I can imagine no more unhappy fate than for a man to be chained to an occupation below the natural level of his capacities cruelly cramped in his aspirations, and forbidden to rise to his full intellectual and moral stature. And vain and irreverent are all such attempts to establish a dead level in human faculties of body or mind— a bed of Procrustes, on which the bodies and minds of men are to be stretched or maimed, but never to rest in peace.

Who will not admit that the individual discoveries and labors of such men as Caxton, Watt, Arkwright, Stephenson, Nasmyth, Wedgewood, Bessemer, Whitworth, and Whitney, Ericsson, Bell, or Edison, have been productive of infinitely greater, steady, happy, prosperous, and beneficial industry and employment giving comfort and occupation to countless members of the human race, and an upward impetus to the cause of humanity and civilization, far beyond all that statutes and societies for the avowed protection of labor can ever pretend to accomplish? Not France alone, but the entire civilized world mourns the death of Louis Pasteur, whose discoveries of the origin of disease are of such value to humanity at large. The list of such individual benefactions is, happily, too long to attempt its repetition here, and their names crowd our memories and swell our hearts with gratitude and admiration - but it may be confidently asserted that each of the inventions which have so blessed mankind and promoted its progress, has originated in the mind of an individual, the sole channel through which it has been introduced for the general welfare.

The pathway to invention is not broad, and its narrow defile admits the entrance of no two minds abreast-the pursuit requires segregation and concentration of the faculties and often to escape unfriendly obstruction, interference, and antici

pation, the secret of the discovery must be sheltered and concealed in the solitary bosom of the inventor, until the propitious moment for its announcement arrives.

"

The garment hem of cause" can be touched only by the hand of the individual student

"Trying, with uncertain key,
Door by door of mystery:"

and in solitude he must patiently pursue his object-watching the opportunity to gather the golden grains as they fall slowly from the store-house of Nature's secrets.

Such reflections increase respect for individual freedom, and consideration for the rights and duties of others; selfishness is lessened, and the habitual recognition of others' rights broadens the scope of observation and quickens the perception of altruistic duty. With the freedom of the individual grows his dignity, and public spirit here has its truest genesis, for it becomes visibly the common cause of all- not a single act or measure, but a rule of action, a principle which is the necessary accompaniment of every act and a standard is thus erected, around which all can rally, in the sense of security, for the rights of each- for it is the common interest made evident.

If this can be made the ruling force of a nation, its elevation, progress, and permanence are assured for justice is the permanent foundation of a State - and public laws, founded and regulated upon such a principle, will connect all classes and occupations of society, by preventing undue advantage to any at the cost of the rest.

Laws touched with such a high public spirit would meet with public honor and respect suggestions of revolution would be deprived of their chief stimulant - and the occupation of the agitator and demagogue would be gone.

And to what audience, and in what spot on the green earth, could a plea for respect and freedom for individual genius be so confidently urged as in the City of Edinburgh?

What country has greater cause than yours for love and pride in her children, and can more forcibly illustrate, by a long catalogue of illustrious names, the value to the whole world of each

true soul, conscious of its powers and fearlessly faithful in their expression?

In philosophy, science, and art, in every department of intellectual acquirement and education, Scotland's rank is second to none, and in some names leads the world.

It is not fitting that I should, in this presence, leave unspoken the name of Adam Smith, and I pronounce it with profound respect for the great individual whose clear mind first taught men the true philosophy of liberated commerce and freedom of exchanges, and induced the longest step yet taken in the path of political economy.

Well might David Hume declare, as Buckle has recorded, that "The Wealth of Nations" was the most valuable production of the human mind.

Come from what land he may, who can tread the soil or breathe the air of Caledonia without pausing with love and gratitude to bless the name and memory of Walter Scott? He has not only peopled lake and glen with the creations of his imagination, but has bound history fast in the flowery chains of his fiction; every mountain, stream, and valley of his native land he has bedecked with his exquisite fancy; he has instilled in human hearts everywhere respect and sympathy for the virtues that make homes happy and refined, and nations honored and beloved.

Scotland without Sir Walter! It cannot be imagined. Such divorce can never be. He was the gift of God to his country, and through his country to humanity at large. No other such record, save that of the one and only Shakespeare, is in the literature of his race, and when he is forgotten it will be a sign of national decay.

Years ago an American poet asked:

"But who his human heart hath laid

To Nature's bosom nearer,

Who sweetened toil like him, or paid
To love a tribute dearer?"

And when each of us essays to answer Whittier's question, I am sure that one and all will pronounce the name of Robert Burns, the marvelous Scottish peasant who, as Wordsworth said,

"6

"Shames the schools." And this poor inhabitant below" was born and lived and died in narrow poverty, from whose chilling grasp he was only released by death, with none of the advantages supposed to be essential for the humblest grade of literature and poesy. But the "living soul" within him soared above his homely surroundings, and as he sang he took the human heart by storm, and in the realm of humanity his state is kingly. From that early and humble grave in Dumfriesshire the music of his soul comes to our ears; he has become a political, religious, and educational force, and

"Deep in the general heart of men
His power survives."

Burns alone is plenary and unanswerable proof that the free individual is the true seed of progress in civilization.

The trend of modern invention towards equalizing human opportunity for intellectual advance is marvelous. Look for an instant at some of the highest triumphs of invention: not merely the saving of exhausting, cheerless labor; not merely rest for the toil-worn body; but refreshment and delight to the minds and souls of men.

The art conservative of all the arts, printing, is flooding the world with the light of literature; the food of thought, the nutriment of ideas, are distributed broadcast and imperishably, widening the perception of the common brotherhood of men.

Curran called the twenty-six letters of our alphabet "the natural enemies of folly and slavery," and the line of Byron is even more striking:

* * The drop of ink

That, falling, may make thousands, even millions, think."

To-day the smallest coin of the realm will suffice to procure copies of the masterpieces of thought and composition, and the humblest and the poorest individual can summon to his companionship the kings of thought, the master minds of the world.

Ten years ago I sent to London for copies of the New Testament, clearly printed on good paper and protected by substantial binding, for which I paid one penny each. This audience will,

I believe, acquit me of emotional extravagance when I confess that I felt a thrill when I took these volumes in my hand and realized the capabilities of such cheap and boundless acquisition. The strength of Scotland assuredly is found in the education that has been secured to all classes of her people. And in this cultivation of the brain not less has been assisted the cultivation of the heart, which makes the brotherhood and helping hand of Scottish people to each other so known and admired the wide world over.

The cold crust of class and personal selfishness is penetrated by these roots of intellectual fellowship in the commonwealth of letters, and a tide has set in which, with increasing volume, is drawing men from every class of occupation into a co-operative sympathetic understanding with each other for the advancement and diffusion of learning, which in this country and in the United States has thrown wide open the doors of scholarship, and is bringing the best education practically within the reach of any frugal citizen of average intelligence, expanding the force of modern thought and opening paths to new discovery.

A picture was lately drawn, and by a master hand, in a simple story of Scottish life, which to me was most attractive, and an extract from which, in closing, I will here reproduce, as illustrative of the brotherhood of the human mind, and a touch of nature that makes the whole world kin-the Davids and the Jonathans of actual life.

"It was a low-roofed room, with a box bed and some pieces of humble furniture fit only for a laboring man. But the choice treasures of Greece and Rome lay on the table, and on a shelf beside the bed the college prizes and medals, and everywhere the roses that he loved.

"His peasant mother stood beside the body of her scholar son, whose hopes and thoughts she had shared, and through the window came the bleating of distant sheep.

"It was the idyll of Scottish university life."

And the words of the high-born and high-bred Gordon to the peasant mother:

"Your son was the finest scholar of my time, and a very perfect gentleman. He was also my true friend, and I pray God to