Library Collections: Document: Full Text

Massachusetts has always been eminent among the American states. Her metropolis has ever been the metropolis of New England. Her example has been imitated and her influence has been felt, wherever the sons of New England are found, or the name of New England is known. Her deeds are such as to justify even her own sons for an allusion to them.

Her puritan forefathers established the first system of self-government, combining law and order with liberty and equality, and based upon pure morality, universal education and freedom in religious opinion, as the only foundation which can insure its permanency and prosperity. And in her cradle was rocked the first child that drew its first breath under its benign influence.

She has her Concord, her Lexington, and her Bunker Hill, all marked as the first battle-fields in that great struggle which severed the children from the parent, and made them free; into their soil was poured the blood of the most worthy and the most noble patriots the world has ever known; and "the bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every state from New England to Georgia, and there they will lie forever."

The thirteen united colonies furnished for the regular service of the revolutionary army, besides militia, 231,779 men, -- an average of 17,830 each. Of these, Massachusetts furnished 67,907, or 29 per cent, of the whole, 35,968 more than any other state, and 50,077 men more than, or nearly four times, her equal proportion. (5) And she poured out her treasure for the outfit and support of her sons in the regular or militia service, and for the support of their families whom they left be- hind, and for other public purposes, in nearly the same proportion, and with the same liberal hand, as she did her physical force and her blood.

She established, more than two hundred years ago, and near the beginning of her existence, free schools, open alike to all; and they have been cherished and supported, from that time to the present, by money drawn from the treasuries of towns, replenished by taxes on the inhabitants. She expended in this way, last year, for these free schools, $830,577 33, -- a sum equal to $3 87 for every child in the State between the ages of four and sixteen. The whole State has been dotted over with schoolhouses. like "sparkling diamonds in the heavens," giving intellectual light to all that come within their sphere.

She established in the United States the first system for the public registration of births, marriages and deaths, by which the personal history and identity, and the sanitary condition of the inhabitants, may be ascertained. She founded the first Blind Asylum; the first State Reform School; and aided in founding the first Deaf and Dumb Asylum; and her money, public and private, has flowed freely in the support of all the noble charities and religious enterprises of the age.

One of her sons first introduced into the United States the remedy of vaccination for the prevention of small-pox, which has deprived that terrific disease of its power, whenever used, and rendered its approach generally harmless. Another of her sons has the honor of making the great discovery of etherization, by means of whose wonderful capabilities the surgeon's instrument is deprived of its sting, and labor of its sorrow; the operator is permitted to pursue his work undisturbed, while the patient remains passive, unconscious, and unmoved by the horrors which, without it, might be inflicted. The blessings of this great prevention of human suffering are already acknowledged and felt the world over.

For these and very many other useful and honorable deeds, which might be specified, she has been named, by distinguished men of other states and countries, "the forefather's land," "the moral state," "the enlightened state," "the patriotic state," "the philanthropic state," "the leading state," "the pattern state," "the noble state," "the glorious old Bay state." And many an ejaculation has gone up in all sincerity, "God bless her;" "God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts!"

"There she stands;" a bright morning star in the system of the Union. On the pages of her history are recorded the noble deeds which have given her a good name and rendered her glorious. But her people demand at her hands a more full enjoyment of life, and a more abundant diffusion of its blessings; and no more noble and honorable and glorious page can anywhere be found, than that which shall record the adoption of some simple but efficient and comprehensive plan of Sanitary Reform; by which the greatest possible amount of physical power may be produced, the greatest possible amount of physical suffering may be prevented, and the greatest possible amount of physical, social and moral enjoyment, may be attained. "This is the true glory which outlives all other, and shines with undying lustre, from generation to generation, imparting to its works something of its own immortality."