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LECTURE I.

INTRODUCTORY.

THE favorable reception of the course of lectures, which I gave last winter to the young men of Baltimore, has encouraged me to attempt something of a similar nature during the approaching season, embracing a wider range of topics, and addressed to the citizens at large. The ultimate object of both is the same, the promotion of the cause of moral, intellectual, and literary culture. I shall touch in the present course on most of the social relations, but I shall devote a portion of it especially to THE SPHERE AND

DUTIES OF WOMAN.

The success of the lectures of the last winter was gratifying to me personally, for I do not profess to be above the weaknesses of our common nature. But it was gratifying to me for higher reasons, as refuting the

imputation so often thrown upon our city, and so long acquiesced in by ourselves, that no literary enterprise could be sustained among us.

In speaking of the literary spirit and institutions of Baltimore, before any thing is said to their disparagement in comparison with those of her eastern sisters, it ought to be recollected by how many years they are her elders. Long after the Puritans had laid the foundations of Boston, and at the very outset made the amplest provision for literary culture, the sea-bird ranged undisturbed along the shore where now stands our noble city. The ships of an extensive commerce had begun to lash the waves of the Hudson before the waters of our river had been disturbed by a single keel. Philadelphia had her Franklin and her Rittenhouse, while the corn was yet waving on the spot where we are now assembled. Literature is the growth of time, of wealth, and leisure. Without these conditions it cannot exist, and it is vain and unreasonable to expect it. But if our city have not the culture of age, she has the charm, the vivacity, and artlessness of youth. It she have not the accomplishments of the

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