Excerpt from Public Education, Vol. 1: An Address, Delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, in the Capitol at Lansing, on the Evening of January 28th, 1857

Gentlemen - Members of the Honorable Senate,
and of the Honorable House of Representatives,
and Fellow Citizens of Michigan:

I thank you for the courtesy which has granted me the use of this Hall for the purpose of speaking on a subject, not among the least of those on which you are called to legislate, one of the deepest interest to you in all the relations of life, and one which comprises the sphere of my own particular duties. Called to preside over a State institution, and therefore, properly an officer of the State myself, it is in all respects appropriate that I should appear before you to give an account of the condition of that Institution, and to represent its interests. In the remarks I propose to make this evening, however, I shall not confine myself to the University, but shall endeavor to expound some of the great principles of Education, both as they lie in my own mind, and as I find them existing in that admirable system of public Education which has already given Michigan a high and enviable position among her sister States. If I shall not advance anything positively new, I may at least serve to afford entertainment for the hour, and do a not unprofitable service, in collecting together in one view those scattered thoughts, the force of which every man acknowledges, while he claims them as his own.

The life of man is two-fold: he has an outer life and an inner life. The outer life is a life of action, of industry, of art. The inner life is a life of thought, of reasoning, of desire, emotion and passion, of purpose and volition. In his outer life, he exerts his power over matter, and over whatever is objective to him - whatever he can handle and modify, or talk to and influence.

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