USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Ipswich > The celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the town of Ipswich, Massachusetts, August 16, 1844 > Part 9
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THE TOWN OF IPSWICHI.
to-day produce about $548,000, the farmers are doing their share of the industry which makes the Ipswich of our day one of the busiest towns in this Commonwealth. The farms here yield a hundred and twenty gallons of milk daily. Seventeen thousand bushels of potatoes and eleven thousand bushels of corn are grown on the one hundred and fifty-eight farms here, whose annual erops are valued at nearly a hun- dred thousand dollars, including four thousand eight hundred tons of hay - the loose hay which almost monopolizes the market in this county. So, when I am told that the agri- culture of Essex County is dying out, I turn to our diversified industries, so well represented in this town, and point to the widespread air of prosperity which marks this community, to the well-painted buildings, the well-cultivated fields, the comfortable homes of our people, and learn what mechanical occupations can do to aid the farmer in exercising the same ingenuity in his calling that the manufacturer does in his. The staple products are indeed abandoned; but the garden- crops have more than filled their places, and have added to the health as well as to the wealth of this community of man- ufacturers and ingenious agriculturists.
Now, sir, I have described the ancient and modern indus- tries of this town, and have endeavored to lay before you the relations they hold to each other. In doing this I have been guided by the precepts of the eloquent orator of the day. I agree with him, that theological discussions are interesting. I agree with him, I trust, that an abiding faith is a source of most profound comfort to the human soul. I agree with him, that philosophical disquisitions on the condition of man, on the doctrines of spiritual and material evolution, are worthy of occupying the attention of the profoundest thinkers in the land. I agree with him also, that, leaving all this behind us, we can contemplate with supreme satisfaction the work of an industrious, independent, and loyal people, whose honorable record has continued from the days of the fathers even until now. If he, as a philosophical historian of the town, can estimate the material interests here as of foremost value, and
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ADDRESS OF HON. GEORGE B. LORING.
turn with pride to the sound foundation of honorable industry upon which a noble social and civil superstructure rests, how much more may I, as the Commissioner of Agriculture, whose mind is constantly occupied with the material welfare of the Republic, rejoice that the industrious habits of the fathers, as well as their abiding faith and their free aspiration, have been preserved to this generation ! That we are a free people, a nation of brave hearts and vigorous minds, the world is con- scious. But let us remember that we rejoice in an even- handed prosperity to be found nowhere else, that we are well fed, well clad, well housed, well supplied with the comforts and luxuries, the necessaries and the adornments, of life for the gratification.of our " sense for conduct and our sense for beauty." And so I, representing the business of the com- munity, commend to all the generations that come after us the ways of our ancestors, the ways of their sons, and the ways of ourselves, in the pursuit of those diversified industries - which for us, as they did for them, give us this great power of self-support, and should teach America to leave other nationalities to carve out their own industrial career for themselves. And may the mental and moral and material record of Ipswich as an exemplary part of this Republic, guide her people in a career of industry and worth which will give the historian of a hundred years hence the opportunity to dwell on annals as noble as those which have been presented to us to-day with so much eloquence and power !
THE TOAST-MASTER. - I think that one of the most significant facts in our town history is, that in 1642 the town voted to establish a free school, and that in 1651 a Latin School was begun, to pre- pare boys for college; and that this school never ceased to perform its functions, until, by the munifi- cent Manning gift, our present admirably equipped Manning School was founded, into which the old
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THE TOWN OF IPSWICH.
Latin School was merged. I give, therefore, as the next sentiment : -
" Our Public School System."
" Yet on her rocks, and on her sands, And wintry hills, the schoolhouse stands, And what her rugged soil denies, The harvest of the mind supplies."
" The riches of the Commonwealth Are free, strong minds, and hearts of health ; And more to her than gold or grain The cunning hand and cultured brain."
I take great pleasure in calling, for a response to this toast, upon R. H. MANNING, Esq., of New York.
ADDRESS OF R. H. MANNING, ESQ.
AFTER the flood of eloquence with which we have been refreshed, I could wish, Mr. President, that some one more competent than I am had been called upon to respond to the toast just proposed : nevertheless, I am glad of an oppor- tunity to say a few words to my fellow-townspeople about our public schools ; not so much in eulogy of their past use- fulness, as to offer some suggestions concerning their future.
What is that public-school system in which we have re- joiced so long ? Upon what principle was it established ? It was, in effect, a voluntary provision made by all, in pro- portion to each one's ability, for the good of all. It was a recognition of the fact that the interests and welfare of each member of the community are bound up with, and dependent on, the intelligence and well-being of every other member of the community. It was more than that prophetically, and is more than that to-day; for it is a constant impulse and a constant leading toward the practical realization of the great Christian doctrine of human brotherhood. For what it has been, and for what it is and is to be, we may well bring, on
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ADDRESS OF R. II. MANNING, ESQ.
such an occasion as this, our offerings of grateful remembrance to the men who laid this corner-stone of a true democracy.
But, while we congratulate ourselves on the enjoyment of this common heritage, we may well remember, that, like every other good thing, it is subject to the law of evolution, and that therefore it must develop into broader and broader use- fulness, and become adapted, from time to time, to the needs of the time. The intention of its originators was to provide for the enlightenment of the whole people, to prepare the
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THE MANNING SCHOOL.
citizen for the faithful, intelligent discharge of his political responsibilities, and to enlarge the capacity of all for their several callings and social duties. Such, doubtless, was their chief purpose, rather than the preparation of a few for what have heretofore been considered more scholarly attainments.
I have no desire, in this presence, to say a word in dispar- agement of that further culture in ancient classic lore which those may seek who have a taste for it and are willing to pay for it; but, as it is doubtful if such culture makes men better or more useful citizens, it is of questionable right to tax the public for such purely private purposes ; and I deem
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TIIE TOWN OF IPSWICHI.
it a misnomer to call that a higher or a more liberal culture than can be had from the study of English literature and the great store of knowledge it contains.
Professor Huxley has well said, " If a man cannot get cul- ture of the highest kind out of his Bible and Chaucer and Shakspeare and Milton and Hobbes and Bishop Berkeley, to name only a few eminent authors - I say, if he cannot get it out of these, he cannot get it out of anything." And we may add, and out of the more modern English and American history and poetry and fiction, and from such philosophers and moralists as Mill and Spencer and Darwin and Emerson, and from the study of the natural sciences, standing rever- ently at the door of the great temple of Nature, if, haply, we may enter in, and see the unfolding of her mightiest and her minutest wonders. Is not this, rather, the liberal culture ? And are not such the things that should be wrought into the intellectual fibre of each rising generation ? And is not the mother-tongue rich enough in power and grace of expression to challenge cultivation even by the most scholarly ?
I plead only for the greatest good of the greatest number in the administration of our public schools. Not the literary man nor the lawyer, not the doctor nor the minister, should have at the public cost a more liberal preparation for their calling than the farmer, the mechanic, the manufacturer, the engineer, and the builder have for theirs.
In times past, and not so long past that some of us cannot remember them, spelling and the three R's constituted the entire curriculum of many of our public schools : now there are other studies taught in them which no youth who would keep himself abreast of the times, and who means to stand for something as a social factor, can afford to neglect. To say nothing of literature and music and drawing, there are phys- ics and chemistry and botany and physiology that demand attention. These, and others like these, concern our every- day practical life. But they cannot be learned in the old way, -from books alone, or with words only, which are but the signs of things. They must be studied with the things
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ADDRESS OF R. II. MANNING, ESQ.
themselves, so far as practicable, in our hands, and before our eyes.
Already, here and in Europe, educators are insisting that the desideratum in schools is experimental and manual train- ing. For this we must have not only larger cabinets, more apparatus, and better chemical laboratories, but also well- equipped workshops with expert teachers, where our boys, and girls too, can learn something of the nature and proper- ties of materials, and of the best methods of converting them to human uses.
We boast of our public-school system, and are prone to think it the best in the world. We must look to our laurels. Europe is ahead of us in some respects, especially in the mat- ter of manual and technical schools : as a consequence, we still import many of the finer fabrics in use. If we would not be outdone in our manufactures, and have them perma- nently shut out of foreign markets, we must inspire our youth with an ambition to excel in whatever they do, and give them such intellectual and industrial training as will make them the best workmen in the world. But this is not all. Impor- tant as are these material interests, they are but the founda- tion on which is to be built a nobler social and spiritual life.
In the school of the future, attention will be given to teach- ing the principles of taste, and to the cultivation of the sense and love of beauty; so that their refining influences, mani- fested in all our homes, will make them more attractive, and more conservative of order and morality. And above all, in view of the declining influence of religious teaching, espe- cially on young men, there will be need of a more compre- hensive teaching of morals than heretofore - not the morals of Sunday-school books, nor of the Ten Commandments only, however good they may be, but that more thorough understanding of the motives and reasons for right-doing, to ourselves as well as to others, which can come only from a scientific investigation of our nature and our needs.
A constant and an important feature of our public-school system has been the co-education of the sexes, and in the same
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THE TOWN OF IPSWICH.
studies. In due time, and as a logical outcome, this must lead to the emancipation of woman from social, legal, and political disabilities. Not until she stands the peer of man in all these relations, and not until righteousness and justice, informed with intelligence, shall guide and control the conduct of all, will our public schools have done their perfect work.
Let us hope that in the not distant future, and long before she celebrates the three hundredth anniversary of her corpo- rate existence, Ipswich may have some such school as I have suggested among her most cherished institutions.
THE TOAST-MASTER. - The next sentiment is,
" The Soldiers of Ipswich : their record from the earliest settlement of the country to the present time has been one of unblemished honor and patriotism."
A response was expected from JOHN D. BILLINGS, Esq., commander of the Massachusetts Grand Army ; but in his absence there will be a response made by the band.
The band played " Marching through Georgia."
MR. SAYWARD. - We have all listened this morn- ing with very great pleasure to a very able and elo- quent address, and I have no doubt, sir, that we all feel under obligation to the speaker for his services. It seems to me that there should be some public recognition or acknowledgment of the great service which he has rendered, and it is for this purpose that I rise to offer this sentiment : -
" The Orator of the Day : descended from the old Puritan stock, through whose veins flows the blood of sturdy ancestry, his effort to-day has demonstrated the fact that the talents of the fathers have been transmitted to their children, even to the eighth genera- tion. 'May his tribe increase !'"
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RESPONSE OF REV. JOHN C. KIMBALL.
RESPONSE OF REV. JOHN C. KIMBALL.
MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, - I promise you that my response to this toast, an interpolation, as I see, in the regular programme, shall be a good deal less than an hour in length, even a clergyman's preaching-hour. I thank you very much for the complimentary reference to mne in your toast, and for the patience and kindly judgment with which you listened to my words this morning. I am indeed proud of being counted a son of old Ipswich, and of having in my veins the blood of eight generations nourished at its breast. I have always loved it from a boy up; always thought of it, even while my work has been elsewhere, as my real home ; always felt glad that I was born on its soil, that I got my first ideas of what beauty, nature, country, and God's earth are among its rounded hills, and along its winding stream ; that I learned letters in its public schools, and reli- gion in its church and Sunday school; glad, Unitarian as I now am, that I was taught here the good old Orthodox faith, - the best possible foundation, so I have found it, for what I rejoice in to-day ; and glad above all else, that I learned what parental love and care are in one of its blessed homes. Like General Michael Farley, - that grand old Revolutionary sol- dier, who, at the reception of Lafayette on his visit here, took off not only his hat, but his wig also, in his excitement, and anxiety to show him respect, - I feel, whenever I think of my indebtedness to the town, as if I ought, somehow, to give it double honor. And this feeling of reverence, an instinct before, has been immeasurably increased by my study of its records and of its history in preparing for this occasion. I tell you, friends, you especially, young men and women whom I see here, that we none of us have ever half appre- ciated what it is to be the offspring and heirs of this good old town, -what stock it was made of at first, what labors, love, and prayers have gone to build it up, what whole-souled men and women have illustrated its annals, how grand are its
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THIE TOWN OF IPSWICHI.
traditions, and how largely it concentrates in itself all that is richest and best in our New England life and in our free American institutions. Never speak ill of it. To love and honor one's native town is the letter A in the love and honor of one's country ; and the best influence of this present cele- bration will be its fresh inspiration to us who are now living to show ourselves the worthy heirs of its grand traditions, to take up and carry on in the town-meeting, and on every possible occasion, the work of progress that the fathers began, imitating the large public spirit of its early years and of its Revolutionary period, and to make the fruit of our ancestral tree a fit outcome of its precious seed and of its faithful sowers.
"On this enchanted loom
Present and past commingle, fruit and bloom
Of one fair bough, inseparably wrought
Into the seamless tapestry of thought ; So charmed, with undeluded eye we see ; In history's fragmentary tale Bright clews of continuity, And feel ourselves a link in that entail
Which binds all ages past with all to be."
THE TOAST-MASTER. - I take pleasure in proposing now a toast to the
" Member of Congress from the Seventh District,"
and invite a response from Hon. EBEN F. STONE.
REMARKS OF HON. EBEN F. STONE.
MR. PRESIDENT, - This is an interesting day for the peo- ple of Ipswich. I have felt, while sitting here, as the Gov- ernor did, when he said in his speech to you a short time since, that he tried to find something which would justify him in claiming that he had some right here beyond that which originated in the invitation. I feel as though I had some title to be here; for while I am not of Ipswich
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REMARKS OF HON. EBEN F. STONE.
stock directly, yet I happen to be a lineal descendant of one of those who went from Ipswich in 1635 to Newbury. You recollect it is stated in the history of those days, that the little Colony which was first born, so to speak, of this old town of Ipswich, and which went to Newbury, consisted of some of the chief men of this place. And among those who went from here at that time to settle that old town near here at the mouth of the Merrimack, was one William Moody, named in the history. Being one of his lineal descendants, I think that I may rightly claim that I am not altogether a stranger here to-day.
I wish to call attention to one or two matters which have always interested me in relation to this whole line of coast. It is interesting, Mr. President, to remember a matter to which you referred this morning, - that in 1630 Governor Winthrop ordered that persons should be forbidden from set- tling here in this town. He forbade, as far as he could con- trol it, the settlement of people here in 1630. Now, it is curious to inquire why he interposed at that time to prevent a settlement here. It must have been that, even then, Win- throp and his party anticipated the importance of having the people of this whole territory, extending from Charles River to three miles north of the Merrimack, occupied by men in entire sympathy with his party : so, at that time, Governor Winthrop instructed those that were identified with him to prevent any settlement by other parties in Ipswich. In 1633 and 1634, when a settlement took place, it is no exaggeration to say that the party that was sent here to occupy this old town at that time was made up of picked men. Those who went from Ipswich to Newbury, as I have already said, were a select party made up of the chief men of Ipswich. So early, in those days, it was evidently a part of the purpose of Winthrop and his associates to take possession of this coast, not only because they wanted to hold it against the French, but because they feared that their rights might be interfered with by persons claiming under other grants: on the one side, parties claiming under those who were in the neighbor-
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THE TOWN OF IPSWICHI.
hood of Ipswich before them; and, on the other side, parties claiming under those who settled Portsmouth, and who under- took to occupy the territory immediately east of the Merri- mack River. It is interesting to know that this part of the State of Massachusetts was occupied by men who represented, in a special sense, the ideas and interests which controlled Winthrop and his party when they came here and took up this spot on this coast.
I stand now for the Seventh District of this State. And of all the districts which now compose the Union (of which this is only one three-hundred-and-twenty-fifth part), of all the districts in this country of ours, so large and so extended, there is not a single one which contains to-day more of the spirit, and more of the ideas, which animated our forefathers in the past, than can be found in this district which I have the honor to represent. De Tocqueville says in his History, that it was New England ideas that extended to neighboring States, and from those States to distant States, until they finally permeated the entire country; and that American in- stitutions and American laws are the product of New England ideas. If that be true, if this country of ours, with its insti- tutions to-day, is properly the product of New England ideas, there is no part of New England which can rightfully claim credit for having contributed in all respects more freely to that result than the Seventh District, which covers this coast between Salem and the Merrimack.
The special interest which caused our fathers to unite to form this union was the commercial interest of this coun- try. Is it not true that in those early days this commer- cial interest was largely represented by the merchants of Salem, Marblehead, Beverly, Ipswich, and Newburyport ? And so here we find that spirit of union which finally took form in the government which was eventually established. It was especially represented by the people who lived here upon this coast. It is therefore a matter of great satisfaction to me that I can claim the credit of being, to some extent, identified with the district and with the territory which, from
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REMARKS OF IION. EBEN F. STONE.
the early history of the country, has contained the men who have shaped, to a large extent, the ideas and institutions which have from time to time prevailed. Why, sir, I have reason to think, and I have no doubt that you think, that John Winthrop and his party came here expecting something more than a little settlement upon this coast. I believe that John Winthrop and his party, when they landed upon this desolate coast some two hundred and fifty years ago, liad dreams of ambition, and that they expected, at no distant day, that they should establish a State here which should have a place, and an honorable place, in the history of mankind. But they could not have anticipated, not the most successful of the adventurers of that body could have anticipated, that in less than three centuries there would be established upon this continent an empire which should rival the great powers of the world, and that should even lead England itself in all that constitutes national greatness and prosperity. ¡
Mr. Green, in his interesting History of England, in one passage, speaks of the greatness of this country and of its future promise, and declares that hereafter the path of Eng- lish empire will not be by the Thames and the Humber, but along the valleys of the Mississippi and the Hudson, upon this western continent. And not only will England rejoice in the prosperity of this country, but England, through America, is in the future to have the primacy of the human race. Eng- lish laws, English ideas, and English institutions, as repre- sented upon this continent, will be hereafter the intellectual, the moral, and the material life of mankind.
THE TOAST-MASTER. - Mr. Whittier, in his letter, speaks of the great number that have gone out from this old town over the whole continent. We have here absent townsmen from north, south, east, and west, and it is very fitting that we propose to them a sentiment : -
" Our Absent Fellow-townsmen."
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THE TOWN OF IPSWICHI.
I invite a response from Colonel LUTHIER CALDWELL, ex-Mayor of Elmira, N. Y.
ADDRESS OF COLONEL LUTHER CALDWELL.
MR. PRESIDENT, - I am sure I can accede to the request of the Chairman of the Committee of Arrangements, when he notified me that I should respond to this toast, to " respond briefly." I think he must have had in his profound mind the extent of the services of this day ; and it has recalled to my mind the words of Dr. Watts : -
" God is in heaven, and man below ; Be short our tunes, our words be few."
And I am sure I can approve of that sentiment at this late hour in the afternoon, for the lengthening shadows warn us that this day's events will soon terminate.
I have heard nothing to-day - indeed, since I arrived in this town yesterday - but about my fathers and forefathers. I am full of antiquities and genealogies. I shall dream about Governor Winthrop, or Richard Saltonstall, or some of those venerable men whose names have been so repeatedly men- tioned here, if I dream at all to-night. At a ministerial association out in Western New York, where I live, each of the ministers was assigned some theological topic or question to discuss, and there was a little difference of opinion as to who should have the first chance at the audience. The chair- man, however, who had the assignment, called upon brother Johnson to speak first, because he was full of his subject ; and immediately announced that the subject was " The Per- sonality of the Devil." We are all full of this subject to- day. You cannot touch an Ipswich man, or any man who has been in Ipswich to-day, who is not chock-full of two hundred and fifty years of the history of this ancient town. Every one who has spoken here to-day has said that the subject had been exhausted; but they manifested, before they got through, that it had not been entirely exhausted.
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