Transcription

United States Senate,

Washington, D.C., May30th, 1886

Rev. W. Austin, [Eyr?]: Secretary=

Mr Dear Sir -

With satisfaction amounting to pleas-

ure, I have received your letter as Secretary of the

Northwestern Literary & Historical Society, an-

nouncing my election as an honorary mem-

ber of that organization.  With such associations

I have the deepest sympathy.  An earnest

believer in our popular institutions as

a form of government, I have greatest re-

[liance???] upon popular education among the

agencies by which those institutions are to 

be conserved.  The shcools are the preparations

merely for that higher education promoted

best by the attrition of intellect developed

by associations like yours.  To meet often, where

"mind with mind may blend & brighten" is among

tghe best, if not the best, means of attaining a libe-

ral education such as befits the American

citizen who may at a time least expected