Gentlemen:—I acknowledge the receipt of your polite note, and am happy to comply with the request which it conveys. Identified with the College of William and Mary by the early recollections and warm affections of youth, I have nothing so much at heart as a desire to be found worthy to aid in restoring that venerable institution to all its former prosperity and usefulness. Your approbation is dear to me, as encouraging a hope that my efforts may not be unavailing. If I shall be so fortunate as to send out into the world but one more, to be added to the list of illustrious men, who are every where found upholding, with generous, devoted and enlightened zeal, the free institutions inherited from our fathers, in their true spirit, I shall have my reward. If I can succeed in impressing on my class the conviction, that freedom has its duties, as well as its rights, and can only be preserved by the faithful discharge of those duties, I shall have my reward. If I can do no more than to furnish to the profession members devoted to its duties, and qualified to sustain its high character for intelligence and integrity, by diligence and fidelity even in its humblest walks, I shall still have my reward. In either case I shall have rendered valuable service, to you, to this venerable institution, to this scene of my earliest, happiest and best days, and to Virginia—my mother—the only country to which my heart has ever owned allegiance. Far as my feet have wandered from her soil, my affections have always cleaved to her, and as the faithful mussulman, in every clime, worships with his face towards the tomb of his prophet, so has my heart ever turned to her, alive to all her interests, jealous of her honor, resentful of her wrongs, partaking in all her struggles, exulting in her triumphs, and mourning her defeats. May she again erect herself to her former proud attitude and walk before the children of liberty in the pathless desert where they now wander, as a "cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night."
For yourselves, gentlemen, and those whom you represent, be pleased to accept my acknowledgments for the compliment implied in your application. I would ask you to accept the expression of another sentiment, if I knew how to express it. Returning to Williamsburg after an absence commencing in early life, the long and dreary interval seems obliterated. I find myself remitted at once to the scenes and to the feelings of youth. It would seem more natural to me to come among you as a companion than as an instructer. But this may not be much amiss. My business is with your heads, but the road to them is through the heart, and if I can only bring you to understand and reciprocate my feelings, there will be nothing wanting to facilitate the communication of any instruction I may be capable of bestowing.
I remain, gentlemen, with high regard, your friend and obedient servant,
B. TUCKER.
To Messrs. J. W. Dew, John Murdaugh, Wm. T. French, and Chs. H. Kennedy.
YOUNG GENTLEMEN:
I gladly avail myself of an established custom, to offer some remarks on the mutual relation into which we have just entered, and the studies which will occupy our attention during the ensuing course.
This day is to you the commencement of the most important æra of life. You have heretofore been engaged in studies, for the most part useful, but sometimes merely ornamental or amusing. The mind, it is true, can hardly fail to improve, by the exertion necessary to the acquisition of knowledge of any kind, even as the athletic sports of the boy harden and prepare the body for the labors of the man. But, in many particulars, what you have heretofore learned may be of little practical value in the business of life; and your past neglects may perhaps be attended with no loss of prosperity or respectability in future. Some of you are probably acquainted with sciences of which others are ignorant; but are not for that reason any better prepared for the new course of studies on which you are about to enter. Nor will such knowledge necessarily afford its possessors any advantage at the bar, or in the senate, or on any of the arenas, where the interests of individuals and nations are discussed, and the strifes of men decided. But the time is now past with you, young gentlemen, when you can lose a moment, or neglect an opportunity of improvement, without a lasting and irreparable detriment to yourselves. You this day put on the toga virilis, and enter on the business of life. This day you commence those studies on which independence, prosperity, respectability, and the comfort and happiness of those who will be dearest to you, must depend. For, trust me, these things mainly depend on excellence in the profession or occupation, whatever it may be, which a man chooses as the business of his life. The humblest mechanic will derive more of all these good things from diligence and proficiency in his trade, than he possibly can from any knowledge unconnected with it.
This, which is true of all occupations, is most emphatically true of that which you have chosen. To be eminent in our profession is to hold a place among the great ones of the earth; and they, who devote themselves to it, have the rare advantage of treading the path which leads to the highest objects of honorable ambition, even while walking the round of daily duties, and providing for the daily wants of private life. The history of our country is full of proof that the bar is the road to eminence; and I beg you to remark how few of its members have attained to this eminence in public life, without having been first distinguished in the profession. To win its honors, and to wear them worthily, is to attain an elevation from which all other honors are accessible: but to turn aside disgusted with its labors, is to lose this vantage ground, and to sink again to the dead level of the common mass. You should therefore learn to look on the profession of your choice, as the source from whence are to flow all the comforts, the honors, and the happiness of life. Let it be as a talisman, in which, under God, you put your trust, assuring yourselves that whatever you seek by means of it you will receive.