Artifacts & Documents: Manuscripts

Edward Hitchcock's talk to the Adelphi, August 1813

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Edward Hitchcock delivered this address to the all-male Literary Adelphi Society of Deerfield, Massachusetts, in 1813, when he was 20 years old. In it, he praised the virtues of science and questioned what religion and the arts would be without it. He also claimed that man is uncivilized without knowledge of science, for "[by] the sciences he dissipates the thick film of error from the mind, he bursts the narrow gloomy bounds of superstition prejudice and bigotry . . . " To Hitchcock, science was a realm of purity, an escape to a better world unclouded by politics and war.

Creator:
Edward Hitchcock
Date:
1813
Courtesy of:
Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association Library