Excerpt from Of Educational Development: A Discourse Delivered Before the Literary Societies of the University of Michigan, on Monday Evening, June 25, 1855
But it cannot be uttered to the empty air - there must be a hearing ear - an understanding mind - a living heart, to which to communicate, and from which to gain a response.
To think without speaking, would seem an impossibility; to speak to ourself alone, an absurdity. To gain knowledge to rest forever with ourself, would be like making one"s bed forever on a golden rock. To plan and propose any improvement by art and industry to be shared by no one, would be action without an end - the building of ships without commerce, and cities without inhabitants, the sowing of fields never to be reaped, the moulding of beautiful forms with none to admire them, the singing of epics and no hearts to be moved upon. And thought itself would claim the critical judgment, the aid, and inspiration of other thought; and the hand of industry seek to link itself with the strength and skill of some other hand.
Is not society then all and in all to us? Do we not live by society think, - labor, improve and enjoy by society? To be alone is next to negation of being: to be associated is the life, power and completeness of being.
Inanimate matter congregates by resistless affinities; organic forms grow in companies - the trees, the flowers, the herbage; all animals are in families, and flocks, and pairs; the stars of heaven are sown in clusters; and emotion, passion and thought run into fellowship from man to man, from men to angels, and from all created intelligences to God, the creator and centre of all. Thus science, the useful arts, the beautiful arts, language, poetry, eloquence, legislation, ethics, and religion, all imply society, and grow in society.
The laws of society are necessary and eternal. The passive, unthinking forms of being - organic and inorganic - cannot but obey these laws.
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