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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free.This is an OCR edition with typos.Excerpt from book:with the clouds of insipid fable that hang over the origin of Athens, and Rome, and Great Britain,— fables which neither Plutarch, nor Livy, nor Milton has been able to raise into dignity and interest,—that we perceive the real grandeur of the work of which the foundations were laid two centuries and a quarter ago on Dorchester plain. So with respect to the second branch of political philosophy, the organization and administration of States, I am disposed to affirm that there are secrets of practical wisdom and prudence, — elements of growth and prosperity, — in our municipal system, which deserve to be thoughtfully explored. Our towns of course are but units in the great sum which makes up the State. They possess none of the higher powers of government, Not by their hands is wielded the mace of legislation, or the scales of justice, the purse or the sword of the Commonwealth. But whenever the prosperity of New England and the younger States modelled on its type is traced to its ultimate causes, it will be found to a good degree in this municipal system. In the pages of these ancient volumes, — these old town records which have in few cases been better preserved than in Dorchester,— there will be found lessons of experience, of blessed common sense shaping itself to the exigency of uncommon times, of patient submission to present evils in the hope of a brighter day, of fortitude and courage in an humble sphere, of provident care for the rising generation andposterity, of unwearied diligence for the promotion of religion, morals, andeducation, which in their joint effect have done much toward giving us this goodly heritage. Lastly, of those great movements by which organic changes are wrought in established governments and a new order in the
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