An Address Delivered at the Inauguration of the Author as President of Dartmouth College by Asa D. Smith
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Title:An address delivered at the inauguration of the author as president of Dartmouth college,

Author:Smith, Asa D. (Asa Dodge), 1804-1877.

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Print Source:An address delivered at the inauguration of the author as president of Dartmouth college,

Smith, Asa D. (Asa Dodge), 1804-1877.

p. cm.

Hanover, N.H.,

1863.

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NOVEMBER 18, 1863. BY REV. ASA D. SMITI, D. D.’ INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS OF

0HIS EXCE,LLENCY JOSEPH A. GIL-f ORE. GOVERNOR OF -NEWV 11l,PSIITlE.

PLULISHED BY REQUEST OF TIIE BOAIRD OF TRIUSTEES. IIA N 0V)P, N. If. 1IS

6,3. WXITII T1IE

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(c f;,w. -4,,z TIE Order of Exercises at the Inauguration of the Rev.

AsA 1). SMITH, D. D., as President of Dartmouth College, was as follows: 1. MIuisic, by the Lebanon Band. 2. Introductory Address, by His Excellency JosErp A. GI~,IOnkE. 3 Reading Select Portions of Scriptures by the Rev. Professor DANIEL J. Noyrs, D. D. 4. Prayer, by Rev. ZEDFKIAII S.

BAnSTOw, D. ]). 5. Music, by the Handel Society. 6. Inaugural Address, by the PRESIDENT ELECT. 7. MIusic, by the Handel Society. 8. Prayer, by the Ex-President, Rev. NAvrutAN LoED, D. D. 9. Benediction, y the Rev. S. P.

LEEDs, of Ranover. PRELIMINARY NOTE.

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INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS. BY HIS EXCELLENCY JOSEPH A. GILMORE, GOVERNOR OF

THiE STATE OF NEW HAMPSHIRE. OFFICERS, STUDENTS AND FRIENDS OF DARTMOUTII COL LEGE: THiE occasion on whichl we are met is one of peculiar interest.

After the lapse of a thlird of a century, this ancient seat of learning is without a hlead. WNe have met here to-day to supply that want, or rather to consummiate that action of the IlIonorable Board of Trus’tees by which the want has already been most p)romptly and efficiently provided for. It is my privilege and my dcluty. as Chlief Magistrate of tl-he State of New Hampshire, to formally announce to you those facts which haive already gladdened y,our hearts. The Trustees of the College have unanimously chosen Rev. Dr. AsA D. SMIrTn, of New York city, to preside over its affairs. He lhas signified his acceptance of this hi?.zh and sacred office, and presents himnself hlere to-day to formallyN enter upon the discharg,e of its duties. It is my privi (5)

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6 lege, Sir, to welcome you to our Conmmnonwealth, and to an office which I am sure you will sig,nally honor. There are certain circumstances and relationships which render this duty especially pleasant to me, and almost reconcile mie to the unaccustomed service of speaking before such an assembly and in such a place. It is no formial welcome which I give you, Sir, to-day. We have played as boys together amid the Green Mountains of my native State, and the name of AtsA DODGE S.rfIT recalls the tenderest,memories, and reminds me that the same blood flows iu your veins and my own. Widely have our paths in life diverged, yet here we meet again in maturer years; not too old, I trust, nor too much elated by the honoris which have fallen to our lot, to renew the firiendship of our childhood. I welcome you, as a son of Dartmouth, back to your mothler’s armis, after a generation has passed away, and rejoice that no ordinance, lhuman or divine, hinders us from hailing, the soil as at the same time thle husband and the father. Your vigorous manhood gives promise of a lasting union.

That large experience which the Great Metropolis has given you, joined to that native strength of character which led me to look up to you when a boy, assures us that the offspringr of mother Dartmiouth which shall be ireared under your charge, will be worthy to be remembered with such illustrious names as Webster jid Choate. The tender and tearful reluctance with which the people of your late chlar,ge have given you up, leads us to believe that you will

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7 soon win the confidence of your associates in offiie. and the love of tlhe young(r gentlemien entrusted to your care. I feel, Sir, that the interests of our college are safe in your’ hands. You will not only exemplify a pure morality and inculcate lessons of sound wisdom, but enforce a patriotism which, while it is untainted byr fanaticism, shrinks from no sacrifice which our country demands. The sons of Dartmouth in the camp and oi the battlefield will be to you as your own children. Relying, on God for aid, you will assuredly winl thle praise of all, as a Christian, a schlolar, a patriot. Althougrh the founders of this republic have, withl a wise forethought, given its rulers only a nominal coi1nection with this seat of lealiiiing, yet let mie stay to 3you, that you will find myself and my associates in office ready to co6perate iu every wolrk which lnay lilghteit your labors, or render thlem more effective for goo(ld. The sense of what I have nmyself lost in being deprive(l of such training as is here given, only makes rme more ‘,anxious to extend these facilities to others. It shall be my personal aim to render our’ only college worthy of the honored names which, grace its catalogue, and of Hiim to whose service it was dedicated by its pious founders. It shall be my prayer, that not the least prosperous epoch in its history may be when it was governed by the counsels of President Smith. Iii behalf of the Corporation, Sir, I welcome you to these solemin services, which are to invest you withl the high and responsible office of Presi(dent’of Dartmouth College.

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8 REPLY OF THE PRESIDENT ELECT. I HAVE been deeply impressed, imay it ple~ase your Excellency, by the terms in which you have seen fit to address me. Especially-touching have been your allusions to bygone years.

I deemi it a rare felicity, that in declaring thus publicly, as I have already done in a more private way, my acceptance of the position to which I have been called, I do it through one, in whom I recognize at once tlhe playmate of imy boyhood, and the lhonored Chlief MAlagistrate of my native State. The scenes to which you have referred, seemed, as you spoke, to pass freshly before mie. And I cannot but think, as I recall them, that your own tra;iing ainid the Green Mountains, had no smtall share in preparing y3ou for the eminent public service you have rendered, in this great crisis of our counttry,‘s lhistory. Ao’aii tlhaulking, you for the kindless of A-our greeting, I reserve for another point in the programme, whlat I have to say of the important trust committed to mle. 6

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THE COLLEGE, IN ITS PROPER FUNCTIONS AND CHARACTERISTICS. AN INAUGURAL

ADDRESS, BY REV. ASA D. SMITH, D.D. THERE are four chief organic forces, by which, under the providence of God, humanity has its normal development. These, generalizing broadly, are the family, the school, the state, and the church. WThlerever you find, even in its lowest measure, a true civilization, these exist; and as it rises they rise, sustaining, to it the relation both of cause and effect. Concerning’, as tlhey do, one and the same complex nature, they have, in different degrees and combinations, the same underlying elements of power. In the family, we have, in its rudimental form, both teaching, and government. It is a patriarchate-a little commonwealth; and to its heada priest as well as a patriarchl-that Scripture should ever be relevant, “the church that is in tlhy house.” In the school, the simplest offshoot, perhaps, from a (9) …

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10 congeries of families, we have, or oug,ht to have, the parental element; we have magistracy also, and a certain statehood; we have, or should have, worship. Tihe state, properly apprehended, is not only governmental but didactic-it is a teaching power; and though not, at this age of the world, theocratic, it should be, in a large view, religious. In the church, having specially and predominantly the last-named characteristic-being, of divine appointment, and as ministering to our imiperative needs, the foster-mother of devotion-we have, also, as essential to its purpose, both rule and instruction. And in the influence they wield, these great moulding Iagencies aie perpetually interpenetrating and modifying each other. * It is of the second of these, the school, that we are now called to speak. The service we essay is connected with.an educational institution, using the termni in the specific sense; a fact, it may be said at the outset, which of itself di,gnifies the occasion. Not to insist on those affinities and mutual influences just adverted to, and of which there will be further occasion to speak, there is a view of education, a large and comprehensive one, which gives to it the very grandest elevation. It is the end, next to that which the good old Catechism makes chief, and subordinate to that, of all the divine provisions and arirangements. God is the great Educator of the universe. More glorious in his didactic offices is He than even in creation; nay, creation was for these. Earth is our training place-timnle is our cur

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11 riculuni; eternity will but furnish to the true pupil the higlher forms of his limiitless advancement. We have our lessons in all providence, in all beings and things, God teaching us in and thlroulgh all. No meaii vocation, then, is that of the earthly educator; no unimportant themei that now in hand. Yet even of the school in the more technical sense of the term, we cannot speak at large. except as in touchling( on any one department we nore or less affect every other. Our thourght may be fitly limnited to that class of institutions whichll these ancient hlalls of learning and these inauguration solemiiities naturally bring before us.

TIIE COLLEGE: is my sulbject, considered IN ITS PROPER FLUNCTIONS AND

CHARACTERISTICS. I use the term College in the American senise. This, not for the poor purpose of ministering to national vanity, but because we must needs take thingis as they arc; and for the further reason, that there is much to conimend in the shape the institution here assumes. It has hardly its prototype either in the Fatherland or onl the Continent. It has but a partial resemblance either to the Geriman Gymnasia or to the Entiglish prepariatory schools, as of Eton and Rugby. As preliminary to professional study, it is in some respects far in advance of these. It differs materially, at once from the German and English University, and fiom thle College as emrbraced in the latter. Uiiiveirsity education in Europe was once somewhat rigidly divided into two portions the one desigtned to’ form the mind for whatever sphere

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of life; the other, the Brodstudium, as the Germans significantly term it, a course of training for some par ticular profession. Long ago, however, this division became mainly obsolete. “On the continent,” said an eminent English scholar, some years since, “the pre pa}actoly/ education has been dropped i among ourselves, the professioal.” He speaks, of course, comparativel)y. So far as England is concerned, the same testimony is borne by a well-informed recent observer. This ancient and wise division is by us still maintained; withl this peculiarity, that the “preparatory”

education, so called,-by which is meant the’ highest form of it,-is the sole work of the Colleges. Professional culture is remitted to other and often separate schools. Tihe iundergraduate course is for general training; it lays the foundation for whatever superstructure. It has no par ticular reference to any one pursuit; but, like the first part of the old University course, aims to fit the whole manl for a man’s work in any specific line either of study or of action. In this conception of the College, there are, it is believed, important advantages. It is better for preparatory education; it is better for professional. It lelicitously discriminates. It keeps tl]ings in their place. It defines and duly magnifies each of the two great departments of the educational process. It is likelier to dig deep, and build on broad and solid rock; it tends to symmetry and finish in the superincumbent fabric. It is well, on many accounts, that the different 12

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13 professional institutions be, as often happens, linked with the College; in thlis relation, they may both give and receive. Yet let them not lose their identity. Let them not trench upoil the College, or the College upon themi. Let that still remain, as the great central reservoir, as the galvanic battery whose life-currents thrill them all. Call the whore a University, if you please; yet we own a preference for our more common term. Xor is there reason for attempting, what some have proposed, a still higher class of schools for general culture. The object is a good one, but not the method. It is better, we judge, to endow more amply and variously existing institutions, and so to furnish, within their walls, whatever opportunities may be desired. It is more accordant at once with the genius of our political system, which favois diffusion rather than concentration and monopoly, and with the work proper to our present stage of national development, that of founding ;ather tlhan finishling. That we adapt ourselves to both, is no less philosophical than patriotic. We would retain not only the old name, but the old form of the Amierican College, only giving enilargement to the form, and rendering it more worthy of the central position it holds. Of the importance of the College, as thus defined, it would seem scarcely needful, in this presence, to speak. It might put us in peril of commonplaces and truisms. Yet it fares with this power as with the great forces of nature; the very universality and quiet might of its

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14 working, the quietness coming of the mi,ght. the unpretentious commnonness of the blessings it confers dulls, even in the intelligent the sense of its worth. The truth concerning it is “so true,” as Coleridge phrases it, that it “loses the power of truth;” and our minds need to be refreshed withl repetitions, at least, if not with novelties. It is no rhetorical exaggeration to say, that we find in the College the Archimedean condition, the -roD a-r, whence the world is moved. We have already glanced at its relations to professional study, in virtue of which it shapes and colors all professional life. We speak in general, not oblivious of the great imerit, in exceptional cases, of self-made men. It is as the secret laboratory of nature in whichl the material is furnished for the statuary, whether the fine Carrara or at block of coarser grain.

The professional teachler has to work on what is here supplied; and the result of his labor is largely determined by the hlabits of study, the mental acumen, the logical power, the various furniture of knowledge, the intellectual and moral leanings, whllich the pupil acquires in the College curriculum. I-lere are the seeds and germs of thiings; here, intertwined witl each other, the roots of all sturdy growthl. This is true, in a cldegree, of all previous education; yet that is rather a preparing of the soil, than a radication, suchl as College training gives, of great informing principles. We touchl the Bar here, training the intellect to thread alt perplexing mazes, and the tongue for masterly speech. We touchl the Benchl; we send a quickening and an

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15 elevating influence through all jurisprudence. Largely is the AIedical Profession affected; for, while we accord due honor to many of its members who have not been itlvored with a course of liberal culture, even they would gratefuilly acknowledge the beneficent issue of such a course, in the science elaborated for thlem, and ministeringr so variously to their art, as well as in the radiance of many of the great lights of the fraternity. Still more deeply is the Gospel Miniistry, with all the momentous interests that hang upon it, indebted to the College. Not only are the cleirgy more generally trained thleiere, they bear through life, more evidently perhaps than another profession, the stamp of that training. It afiects not only the form, but the very sublstance of thei’

thou,ght. The teacher who, with cUInning hand, mioulds the metaphysics of a student, goes far, say what, -on will, to mould his thlleology; to settle the qucstioi whether hle shlall be reverent and biblical, or opinionated and rationalistic, meagerlv literal and narrowly individualistic, or of a generous and fa’r-reaching catholicity. Need I advert, with the history of this Institution before us, to political life-to that relation of the school, hinted at the outset, to thle State?

” The four pillais of government,” says my Lord Bacon, ” are religion, justice, counsel, and treasure.” Hlow much have our Colleges done, not only.to form, but to keep intact and beautiful, that pillar of “counsel.”

In what comiitia of the democracry,- in what legislative assembly of the

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16 land, are they not an ever-present power? There is another training, indeed, for the mere politician. Nay, we concede much, as we have already hinted, to that extraordinary native talent, that self-constructive ability, which, in public as well as private life, outstrips often all expectation. Yet we still insist, that here, mainly, are the springs of all lofty statesmanship. Nor do we disparage our noble Common School System, we virtually plead for it; for as touching both its inception and its wise progression; its books, its apparatus, its teachers; its method and its pabulum of thought; the College is its life. So of all other inferior forms of education. Even Agriculture and all Aiechanical Industry are concerned. There is not a hill-side or a valley in our land, but has been illumined and gladdened by the most abstract science of our highler training; not a I)loughshlare but it has sharpened; not a spring, or a a whleel, or a spindle, or a steam-engine, 01or a furnacefire, in any of our workshops, but it has adjusted. It has given to the miner the true divining-rod and the safety-laimp. It has made the stars of heaven the iaimiliar guides of the mariner; it has peopled the deep with new and strange leviathans of art; and it is now b)usy in pielcing it withl those cords of a grand sodality, by which in due time the jarring nations are to become one. As we call to mind thus, the universality of the influence wielded bj? the College; that it is not only itself a centre of power, but is ever forming centres of po)o%re tlhat iti’not only leads itself, but is ever training,

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17 the leaders of all thoug,lt and action”; as we consider its relations to all literature, periodical and permanent as we think of its adaptedness-especially in its Amnerican attitude of accessibleness to all, and its strong hold on the popular sympathly to check that materialistic spirit, which, firom obvious causes, markls the ag,e, and which has been so the bane of our land, that the God of our fathlers must needs employ these fires of war to purge it away; it will Inot be deemed strange, that in words which do but stir up these pure and learned minds by way of remembrance, we have been beguiled beyond our first thlought, inl urging its importance. As the capabilities of any human instrumentality grow in our apprehension, so deepens within us the sense of responsibility. In view of the proper position and functions of the College, as they have nowv been set forthl and emphasized, it is natural to aLsk, how may it be made most effective? Let us note, then, in that ruere outline to which the time restricts us, gomic qf itA chief no2ma c]aral te2’istics. If we picture the idcleal, it will be all the better; for only-as it works toward that, has the actual a true advancement. The College should be marked, we say then, first, by a certain coP,),etenes.v. Rejecting the fraglnentary and tlle unfinished, the well constituted mind ever craves this. .Modern thought, especially, is passing fl’om ian excessive Inomninalism to a more reallistic habit; by many a broa.l induction, from mere details to a rounded vlwhole. -And nowhere more persistently than in relation to institu 2

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18 tions. The college should be complete as to its objectire.sc-enie.

There may be onesidedness here. There may be, for example, an excessive or ill-directed pressing of utilities, as in the speculations of Mr. IHerbert Spencer; or there may be an undue exaltation of what lie calls “the decorative element.” The theoretic may be too exclusively pursued; or there may be a practicalIeSS which has too little of theory, like a conie required to stand firm on its apex. There should be completeheSS, also, as touching the sut)jective aimn. It should embrace, in a word, the whole man, and that not in his Edenic aspects alone, but as a fallen being. You may not overlook even the physical; the casket not merely, holding all the mental and moral treasures-the frame work rather, to whichl by subtile ties the invisible machlinery is linked, and which upholds it as it works.

The world has yet to learn fully how dependent is the inner upon the outer man, and how greatly the highest achievements of scholarship are facilitated by proper hygienic conditions. As you pass to the intellectual, it mnatters little what classification you adopt, whether with the author of the.VIcovumn OJ’ganum, in his Advanceinent of Learning, you resolve all the powers into those of memory, imagination, and reason, or whether the miniuter divisions of a more recent philosophy are preferred; only be sture that not a single faculty is Soverlooked or disparaged. Be it presentative, conservative, reproductive, representative, elaborative, regulative, or whatever the line ttamiltonian analysis may

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19 suggtest, give it its proper place and its proper scope. T”ake not your pupil as a Briareus, all hands, or a Cy clops with but one eye. Let AMenory, the mother of the Mauses, by some undervalued and ne,lected, be duly cared for. Let strength and tenacity be given iher, and in her mystic repositories let all precious thlings be (accumulated. Let the judgment, iii tlhe broadest sense of the term, be thoro,ughlly trained; let it be tarught to analyze, to synthetize, to add link to linkl iu tlhe longest clhain of ratiocination, to hold with a steady hand the golden balance of truth. Give to the imaginaation, that weird and i)otent faculty, at once its impulse, it fuirniture, and its law. Withl deftest touches, let t]ie whole astlietic nature be developed; both the source and the test, as it is, of all that is most chariinig in letters and in art. And let the commuliicative faculty-, conbining( so marvelously the intellectual and the plh)ysical, wvith its “Gate Beautiful ” betweeii the innelr and the outer world, lhave the wisest culture. Give us iiot monlsters fiom this laboratory of character, but men, symmetrical I21ewn. To attain this end, however, we nmust pass, as ]has been intimated, beyond the merely intellectual; we must enbrace the moral nature. How vast the voi(i if we omit it. One of the masters of modern fiction l]as given us as one of his chief characters, exquisitely pictured. a, man literally aiad absolutely wvitlhoult a conscience. But we have no Margraves in real life. Not one such did the Great Apostle to the pagan world

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20 find, in all the wide circuit of his evangelism. Not only is the moral nature universal, it is central, it is ultimate. The whole man is for it.

To fail either of including or of magnifying it, is the starkest educational solecism. Nor do you thus a partial wrong. One of De Tocqueville’s chapters on “Democracy ili America,” is given to the position, that “excessive care of worldly welfare may impair that welfare.” A like c-vil results fromn an exclusive culture of the intellect. The man suffers more than a hemiplegy; the whole being is touched. We may admit, with De Gerando, that “intellectual progress is always, iin itself, favorable to moral progress.” But we must deny, with him, ‘ that the first can supply the place of the second.” We must insist, as he does, “that the former only inposes a greater necessity and a greater duty of laboring(r for the latter, in order to preserve constantly the hariony of the two systems.” It is a fine saying of an EL(nglish Essayist, ” Genius should be world-wide, but it should not be world-limited.” The issue of such limitation-the shutting out from its vision of the great, supernatural and eternal verities-can hardly fail to be a limitation of its power, as well as a dimming( of its bri(gihtness.

Ain evil influence flows out, besides, thlrouIgh all channels, into the wide world. We have a B-Iron and a Shelley instead of a Milton and a Cowper; a tJefl’reys instead of a Itale; a Buckinghamin instead of a Burlike; an Arnold instead of a Washington. It will not be soon foirgotten, that no small part of the

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21 treachery in military circles which has marked our present Tgreat national conflict, has been ascribed, on highl authority, to a system of discipline “calculated to confound’in the mind of the pupil, the distinctions between righlt and wrong, and to substitute, in the decision of grave moral questions, habit for conscience.” To completeness as touching our airs., be it further noted, completeness of mnet#od is essential. Much that has been held by some a reproach to our Colleges, as if it were useless, and so a mere waste of time and labor, has been really to their praise. If you would unfold all the powers, you must have all the processes, and it is just at that the programme of study aims. If we would reach the desired result, not only teachers but patrons and pupils must have done with the notion, that this or that branch is of little moment, and may be omnitted or slilghted. In Language, that meets us on the threshold, we have not only the exponent, but the ins4rument and auxiliary of tlhough,t. As it miirrors the soul, it helps us to the knowledge thereof. And, as thloroughrlly studied, it gives to the various faculties-to every one of them-a kind of discipline which caii neither be found elsewhere, nor safely dispensed wvitlh. We say lang(uage, meaning first our own, worthy in every College of a distinct professorship, and not excluding whatever modern tongues can be acquired, but emphlasizingr, also, the aucient classics. The controversy about these may perhaps be considered as ended. Dead, those old languag(res may be called; but it is only as the

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22 grain of wheat is dead whichl we have cast into tlhe ground. Allany a glorious ava’irac’t have they in all modern literature, arnd not least in our Anglo-Saxon. With their mallifold vitalities our own tongue is all instinct. Nay, their fleshy fibres run throulgh all its fiame-work; so that we can have the full mastery of it, in its spirit as well as its form, in its nicer as well as its bolder points, only as they are mastered. Tlhey lead us, besides, to the old fountains of thought, fresh, pure, sparkling, as the springs that gush fiom our mountain sides. With no little truth mara we apply here, whlat Chaucer sang in a broader view “Out of the old fields, as men saitlhe, Comethli all this new corn fro yere to yere; And out of old bookls, in good faithe, Comethl all this new science that men lere.” To linguistic study let Maathemiatical be added. It has a wvorth peculiar to itself, I)romotiigr, as it does, concentration, continuity, and comprehensiveness of thlou(ght. By learning to tread safely the po6’ as’inoi’Um, and other perilous places indicated onl the blackboard, tlhe student escapes many a lapsu.s nienti[ on dizzy hleights of his future life-journey. He gains the very key of ktiowledg,e, besides, in various important practical relations. Nor let Metaplhysics, whether in the narrower or the broader sense, be held in contempt, as shladowy, nnceitaiii and unprofitable. Shlall manl know all things that minister to him, and not know himself? Or shall he know tlhe visible and tangible, phenomenally alone?

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23 Scarce any line of study is more conducive to mental acuteness. Scarce any is more imperatively enjoined by the signs of the times. What need of guarding the future guides of opinion against both the Scylla and the Charybdis of modern speculation; against a dreamy idealism, on the one hand, introducing us to a phantasmagoric universe, carrying its resolution of all visible entities beyond even the primeval fire-mist, merging, by some form of Berkelcyism, the not nre in the me, and at last the finite in the infinite, and so landing us, after preliminary vagaries of rationalism and reason-worshlip, in a dreary and desolate pantheism; or a shallow though pretentious sensationalism, on the other hand, losing the me in the not me, mnaking the phenomenal and the mnaterial all, substituting in ethics utilities for principles, and coming, finally, through tortuous passages of the positive philosophy, to a dark and comfortless atheism.

With intellectual philosophy3, Logic is intimately connected, that science of the laws of thought as thought, or of thought as it masters truth, including all processes of reasoning, which the genius of the great Scottish metaphysician has of late so illustrated and dignified. Cani we omit this fiom our circle of attainment? Or can we forget the goodly offices of Rhetoric, arraying all thought in robes of beauty, and giving it a tongue of sweetness and power? There is little need of insisting on Natural Science, in its various departments; so well recognized are its claims, as it passes from the once mute but now eloquent rocks up to the marvels of human physiology, 0

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24 fi’om the play of all iinuter affnlities to the music of the splheres.

Alost enriichlling is it to the mind, not to speak of practical ends; so luminous with thoulght is all nature, and of suchl typical sig,nificance.

It has innumerable relations, moreover, to all other science. We add only a word for History, reverend chronicler of the ag,es, philosophy, in the largest view, teaching by example; and that word is, not only to vindicate the nmeasure of attention we award it, but to pronounce itin the greater value and the wider compass assigned it by modern thinking, as it not only prosecutes more fully its old explorations, but enters the comparatively new field of etlnological inquiiy wortlhy of still greater prominence.’

listories,” says Bacon, “make imen wise.” So far as the intellect is concerned-and quite as clearly, we mighilt show at lare, in relation to tlhe inoial natuLre we can spare nothing firom our fullolbed programme; we will increase the diameter, but we cannot mar the circumference. Let it not be forgotten, however, that to this conmI)leteness of aimn and of method, a correspondingr coml)leteness of endowment and of furniture is indispensable. You set us the old EIgyptian task witlhout it. We must lhave professorships in adequate number, not crowding ii to one department whIat mighlt fitly and amply fill two. We must have apparatus. We must have College buil(lings, sufficient and convenient good workshops, if you ask for good workl; and if there be some touchles about them of the rising architectural taste, it will be

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25 all the better. A fagade or a tower may teach, as effectively as a book. WTe must have liblaries. iere lhas been, perhaps, the weakest point of our Americaii Colleges. Said one of our eminelt scholars, some thirty years ago, “There is not a library in the United States, in the European sense of the term.” In the lapse of these years, it is true, the case has been greatly improved; yet even now. the aggregate of the books in the alcoves of all our -New Enigland Colleg,es, would not equal some singl(e libraries of the Old World. Give us more books thlen. Tlhey are needed for reference, for study, for incitement. What inspiration there is in a well filled library, what guidance andl food of thlouglilt, hlow li(ght beams and electric currents flow forthl from its shelves, every real student knows. We need, too, foundations for worthy 3young men, rich in,genius but p)oor in pelf. While many such are kept fi’oin our halls, the education of otlhers, is by tlhe sternl hand of j)overty pinched into sadl ini(o )leteniess. Let those whose joy it is to transmute thelir goldl and silver into mental and moral treasures, see to it, that our Colleges have the amplitude of equipment essential to that fullness and symmetry which we have tlhus briefly sketched. We have next to affirmr, that the College should hav,re also a co.servative character. There lhas been much abuse of that trite term conservatism; yet, rilghtly interpreted, it has a broad and l)recious significance. It is not bare immobility. It is not the guidling of trees till they die, or the rearing, of fences arounid their lifeless

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26 stumnps. A ) pile of rocks is not a conservatory; nor even a hall of cold, motionless statuary. True conservatism is the chierishiinog of all the great vital forces.; the principles, which, thouogh old as creation, or even as God, do yet flourish in immortal beauty, and are worthy of perpetual reverence. It is that holding fast to the old, in its fundamental, changeless elements, without which all the new is as ” the baseless fabric of a vision.” C(olleges, from the very thoroughliness of their inivestigations,-descending as they do to the roots of thiings, -and from their natural predilection for the orderly and the systematic, instead of the desultory and the disjointed, mighilt be expected to be conservative. They are too scientific to be rashly empirical. Conservative they have ordinarily been, firom their inception until now. Tlher have kept safe many a good thling, whichl mankind would otherwise have lost. In this excellent wav let tlhem continue. As to miodes of teaching and (liscipline, let them not follow every ignis ftituu.s, but carefully and patiently “prove all thling,s.” As to allegc,ed discoveries in the realmi of physical science, let them not make haste. The jaw-bone of the geolog,ist may turn out not quite so effective as that which Sampson wielded, and so the old chronology may have some days of grace. Let themin not be unduly propense to change, in the metaphylsical, ethical, or religious sphere; lest the miirqge be taken for fountains, or cloud banks for solid land. We need here in America, amid the fascination’and intoxication of all our newness,

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27 and the self-sufficiency engendered by it, to cultivate, every way, the habit of reverence, anmd especially of reverence for the old. Not the old dross, indeed, but the pure old gold. There was something known, let us often remind ourselves, before the culminlation of this mlost knowing age.

The masters of thought and opinion in bygone times-suchl as Bacon, and Locke, and Edwards-lhowever they mnay have failed in some points, were no pratirlg sciolists. Even the wise modern world may learn somethling of them. In points, not a few, of our real advancement, it should be gratefully remembered, we have but built on the foundations which their ,,giant hands had laid. Nay, in many directions, we are reminded of our Lord’s saying: “No man hlaving drunk old wine, strailghtway desireth the new; for he saith, the old is better.” Yet with a, due conservatism, the Colleg,e should be animated also, be it further observed, by the:pii’it of pi’ogi-e.gy. Else it is not really conservative. For whatever is vital, naturally gr’ows; and, with the lapse of time, everythling(r pertaining to science and literature is becoming more and more vital. Law-pervading, quicklening(, mouldingl-is seen everywhere. We may say of it as Inspiration has said of Wisdom: “When there were no depths it was brought foirth, when there were no fountains abounding withl water.” Even old chaos, lifeless and barien as it seemed, was yet most germinant, and so, in at good sense, most radical; it irnbosoined manifold elemients of progress pineiles,

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28 divinely originated and sustained, that must needs develop thlemselves in foirms of beauty and grandeur. There is a thleistic, as well as an atheistic theory of development. Nowlhere in nature have we absolute stagnancy, but eveywhlere action, reaction, movement. VIWhat we used to call the imponderables,-ealoric, for example,-the later science is resolving(r into mere modes of motion. The burning of a dwelling, or a city is held to be nothling more thani an extraordinary agitation of the monads. Even ponderable “hard matter,” philosophers are beginni,ng to tell us, is but ”’ an antag,onistic force,,’ the product of ” God’s simple activity in counter-agency; ” and that in such perpetual flux, that we can speak of nothling, in strictness, as being], but only as becomi;2n. One of our profoundest physicists has just shlowni us, on a broad scale, that tlhe law of natuie’s constancy is ever subordinate to the highler law of chang,e;” the stabilities, or uniderlying forces, are ever for the mutations, the transformatious, the advanceinents. So meet together, as we have said, the old and the new; so does pro,gress harmonize with conservatism. After this manner all providence goes onward, not moving pendulously, ol ilI a vain circle. So laguage grIows, and industry, and commerce, and law, and govelininent, and all our coirl)lex civilization.

So all hlnali tlhoughlt proceeds; and that educational institution is unworthy of the name, which tfails practically to reco,gnize the fact. In a,high(er sense than Galileo affirmed, “the world

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9 moves,” and we must keep abreast with it. What progress has there been in modern times especially, in all physical science! What. a, mneagore thing, comnparatively, was the chlemistry of fifty - ears a,go! What poor makeslhifts were many of its theories! Where was geolo-gy then? Where, etlhnology? In al,most every department of knowledge, what new discoveries have been made; what new definitions and generalizations, what improved processes have been introduced! Even in metaphysical science, remitted thlough it is by many to dreamn-land, there has been, we aire ftain to believe, substantial gain. i little spiral the movement lIay have been; yet we think it has been onward. Aid not oinly have we the present to miaster, a great future lies lbcfore us; we are as yet, in Newton’s phrase, butt p)ickilng lip pebbles oil the shlore of the great ocean of trutll. We are to go on fiomn knowing to know. Evern inii ethlical relations there has been, and there is still to be, progress; not in the old principles, iimmutablle as their author, but in the ever-varying applications. It is the same sunlight that shines onl from dawn to mid-(lday, onlyi it beams farthler and farther down into deep valleys and ravines unvisited at first. And while, as to tlhe matter of all good learning(, the College should be in no respect behind-hand, the same mav be said of the methods. As has been hinted, we are not to adopt at once all new-fangled,sclhemes; otherwise we shlall vex ourselves with much educational quacklery. Yet we are never to imagine that, touchling a Nwork so great as the

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30 training of the lhuman mind, nothing remains to be learned. Our eyes should be open to all the new that is true and good, and our hands ready to modify our own system accorliingly. Let the standard of attaininent which we propose to our Lpupils, above all, be ever rising. Let us not cater, however tempted, to that spirit of unprofitable and really unpirogressive haste which, unhappily, is not yet quite exorcised even from New England. To all who seek admission to our halls let us say, rathler, felstina leite. It were well if the line of preparation for College were, in most cases,much extended, or at least more thoroughly mastered. Nor let u.s here essay the casting up of any royal roads, save as hard and protracted study is ever right royal-that, only, tending to a true advancement. We cannot forbear to note, in this relation, what has been already suggested in another, the importance of ampler College endowments. I speak inot of this institution pariticularly, but of the sisterhood generally. Such endowments are essential to a rounded fullness, as has been said, and they are indispensable to that growth for which we plead. Let clear-sighlted men of means understand the matter; would I could reach the ears of all such in our land. iAs the farmiing apparatus of the last century, the factory, the mercantile establishinent, would be quite inadequate to the demands of the present timles, and as what now replaces them must suriely have various implovemnent and enlargement in comiing years, so, clearly, is it with the College. You

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31 cannot take it, if you keep it worth aniythling(r, out of the current of an ever-advancing civilization. It must have, therefore, ever-increasing means. Let its generous patrons understand that it is never done; it follows the physical law just now alluded to-it is ever becomiyg. Be it that you have met what seem its present wants; others, be sure, will soon arise. A new professorship) will be needed, or a new building, or new apparatus, or new scholarships, or a new alcove of books.

Your heart, if God permits you to live as his noble-minded steward upon earth, will as certainly be gladdened by another call from it, as “Throug,h the ages one increasing purpose runs. And the thoughts of men are widened by the process of the suns.” The College, we add only, should be distinctly and eminently (ig’iar. Not in the narrow, sectarian sense-that be far fronm us-but in the broadest evan,gelical view. Our course of thou(ght culminates here and here does all else that has been affirmed find its proper centre and unity. Clhristianity is the great unity. In it, as was intimated at the outset, are all the chief elements of organic influence. It is itself the very acme of completeness, and it tends to all symmetry and finislh. It is at once conservative and progressive, balancing perfectly the impelling and restraining forces; by a felicitous adjustment of thle centripetal and centrifugal, ensurilng to human nature its proper orbit. It is the golden girdle wherewith every institution like this

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32 should bind liei’ garments of strengthl and beauty about her. AVere it needful to arlgue this point, we mighit )put it on the most absolute grounds. All things are Clhrist’s all dominions, di,gnities, potences; it is especially meet that we say, to-day, all institutions. It is the grossest wrong practically to hold otherwise. It is loss, too, and nowhere more palpably thlan in the educational sphere. It is no cant saying to affirmi, and that in a more than inerely spiritual sense, tlat in Christ “are hlid all tlhe treasures of wisdom and klnowledge.” At IHis throne the lines of all science terminate; above all, the science that has man for its subject. Of all history, for example, iighltly read, how is lIe the burden and the gloiy Othlerwise taken, it is a more thlan Cretan labyrintlh. The Clhristian spirit, besides, rat.ising(r the soul to the loftiest planes of thloughlt, giving it the highiest comimunions. bringing before it the grandest obljects, and securingf to all its machinery the most harmonious action, is eminently conducive to intellectual achlievement. We have already said something like this as touchingo moral culture; but that, be it ever remeinbered, takes its proper form and direction only as it is vitally linked withl Christianity. AVliat God has joined togethler let not man put asunder. Let the studies wlhich we call moral, have all a Christian baptism; and, withl all our getting, Jet us not stop short of the cardinal points of our most holy faith. Let thle WAill be still investigated, not as a brute force, or in a merely iiitel

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33 lectual light, but in those high spiritual aspects in which our great New England metaphysician delighlted to pre sent it. Let Butler, with his curious trestle-work of analogy, bridge, to the formintg mind, the chasm between natural and revealed religion. Let the Christian Evi(lences be fully unfolded. We can hardly dispense witli themi in an age, when, by means of Westminster Reviews, and other subtle org,ans of infidelity, the old mode of assault being abandoned, a sapping and mining process is continually going forward. Let Ethical Science, -embracing in its wide sweep, the Economy of Private I,ife, thle Philosophy of Government, and Law, whlicli lhathl its seat in the bosom of God,”-be all bathed in the li(ght of Calvarv. That light is its life. “Let us with caution indulge tlhe supposition,” said the Fatlher’ of our country, “that morality can be mnaintained without religion.,” Let the Bible be included among out text-bookls as the sun is included in the solar system aid let all the rest revolve in planetary subjection about it. Let it be studied, not in a professional, much less in a partisan way; but with the conviction that it is indispIensable to the broadest culture; that without thleology we have but a straitened anthropology; that we see not nature arilght, but as we look up through it to Na,ture’s God. Be ours, in its largest signiticance, tlie sentiment so devoutly uttered by the old Ilebrew bard Iii Tlhy lioght shall we ste light.” And let the disciipline of College, so lintimately connected with its prosper1ity, be fashiioned on the model of the Gospel.

Let

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34 it copy, in its way and measure, the wondrous harmonies of the redemptive scheme, in which “imercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.” So shall it bless our halls with some faint reflection of the Divine fatherhood, and give to our society some happy resemblance to a Christian fammily. Such, in the ideal, is the College-the American College; such in its position and power, such in its conpleteness, its conservative, progressive, and Christian character. How far the ancient institution, at whose bidding we have assembled to-day, has realized this portraiture, it would not, perhaps, become me to say. I would not dishonor the silver locks of muy Alma Mater by aught of boastfulness. Yet none will question, that in all the long track of her history-antedating the Republic, stretching now over almost a century slhe has, at least, aimed at the wisest and best things. She has attempted, and she will still attempt, a scholarly balance and thoroughness of training. A precious link as she is between the present and the past, she would bring forth out of her treasury things new and old. Nor can she be ever untrue to her pious origin. Never can she forget the tears of Christian love and zeal with which her early pathway was bedewed; the vox clamantis t’,deserto will ever linger on her ears. On a facade of the magnificent galleries at Versailles I read, years ago, “A toutes Ie8 gloire.s de la _Fr’ance.” To my mind’s eye, these halls bear a nobler inscription: Chiisto

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35 et eccle8sie. And I do but utter the one senrtiment of the guardians and teachers, the f’iends and patrons, of this institution, when I say, better that “both the cormorant and the bittern shall lodge in the upper lintels of it, their voice slhall sing in the windows, desolation shall be in the thresholds,” than that a godless phlilosoply shall supplant here the Divine Word, or our conimnoil Christianity cease to be reverenced and vindicated. At the call of these hlonored Trustees, I assume today new and weighlty responsibilities. It is neitlher affectation nor egotism to say, that I approach them with the deepest solicitude. As I think of the excellenIt men who have preceded mne; of those especially to whomi I sustained the relation of a loviing and grateful pupil-one of wlhom has passed, in all ripeness of wisdom and virtue, to his reward, and the other, after a long terni of able and faithful service, is permitted to honor this occasion with his presence; I cannot but fear tlat I shall follow, non pas.ib~tt cequis. Yet with whatever self-distrust, thou,ghts of hope and of courage cluster about mie, and as good angels beckon me onward. The radiant memory of the past chleers nme. I think of the jewels which, with liberal hand, old Dartmouth has scattered not over the land alone, but over the broad earth. Some of her brighiltest names, dear alike to science and to Christianity, have been inscribed impl)erishably on barbaric isles of the sea, aid onl regions darkened by the shadow of thle inos(lue and the pagoda. While the genial voices of her living sons float about

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36 Inc; sounding out from thle bare the bench, the pulpit, and the wallis of medical science; fioom the chair of instruction, the laboratory of art, and the lone study of tllhe man of letters; fromn the legislative hall and the cabinet; and even fromn the lhaults of industry, of trade and of finance; inspiriting voices of the dead steal upon miiv ear. The day and the place waken many an eclho of that unique utterance-worthlily commended, at last, to stuceceedling times by a son of I)artmouthl-the deliglht and the )pride of the nmetropolitan bar, fascinatilng alilke to the (,irave Senate and the rustic thlrong, but now ltushed foIrever in MAIount Auburn. rlThe sleeper at Marslireld stands again before the Supreme Tribunal of tle land, pleaditi, with filial devotion the cause of the (,olle(ge; and, the matchless web of argument all woven, his whole soul wells np,-while his massive fiame trembles withl emotion, and hard legal faces are wet witlI tears.-in the simple, but tender utterance “, they,e are tMloye qv]o love it /” Yea, many a noble spirit, lost to earth, seems to gather fondly about us, breathing’ anew a benison on this familiar home of science. IHow often-we cannot but remember to-day-lhias death found in the corps of instruction lhere, his “slining mark!” My thoughts revert tenderly to my owli beloved Professors. Tlhere was the lamented CIIAMBEltLAIN; in whom we kuew not which most to adniue, his rare commiand of 4-he anciient classics, or his eloquelt mastery of his nativec tonogue. There was the pui’e aii(l single-Ihearted ADIAIs; the rightt lines of whose geome(t

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w elfare. I thiink of fellowv-stu(lents, too, Tl’eeleis heire foi a time, whio lhave ceased fioin tlieii latbols. There iwas PEABODY; of’ suelt exquisite finishl as a scla()ra1, (of suchI winning aid yet commanditng mien. Tlieie ws (CHASE, the profouncd mathematician; the liIght of whlIosc geniuis, as it gleams thioughi one of our text-l)oolks, yet li(ngeis ill ou’ lhalls. Tlheie w’as You xc, Caill, judiciols, klindly; so lucid andl tlhoroughl iri all his instiriiction. Therie was Lox*G; so keen in analysis, of suelc clear insight; so geiitle, so guileless, so unIassuti1ig; “iii wit a. man, simnplicity a chil(l.” Nor can I forbeari to ad(d my own classmate, WORCL;S’TER, whlose active, penetratingr, foicefn’l intellect reveale(l itself as ulnnistakably in his puipil4rge, as iii tlhe Tutor’s chlair or tlce sacred desk. Ilas, that witlini these iecent weelks, anothler dairt has been sped( bvl the ” iisatiate atelic!”

It easts, i-nd(leed, a, slaiow oll)oil the scelnes of tie d(iy, that tlhe places whiclh hlave been mnade l,(ad b-the pi-)esence of the geentle, refined, scliolarly, tiue-lieairted :-

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38 PlUT’AM, sLhall kiow him no imore! But the will of God be done. I-e hlatlh siitten, and I-e will heal us. He can repllace, as He has done, tlhe stars wlhich fade firom ou1r fiirmaiment; whichl do themselves decline only as “Sinks the day-star in the ocean bed.” We have keenly felt, and we may have still to feelthlough we humIbly trust, not long-the touchl of war that war which treason most atrocious has waged against both the life of our nation, and those great prilciples of freedom which are the hope of the world that war whlich makes vacant places in the Colleg,es, as well as in the dwellings of the land. Yet we yield lfromin b-)othl our sons to the contest, in the glad assurance of a glorious issue. In meekness and lowliness of mind, but with no despondency, would I receive, to-day, the keys of office. I shall lean confi(dingly both on the wise and ihithful guardians of the Institution, and on the lar,ge and able Faculty, with which I deem it an honor to be associated. Amid these touching services, as we solemnly pledge ourselves to each other, we will all take heart for our work. Trusting devoutly in that Providence which has been so gracious iin days gone by, we will tend together this ancient light of learning, Inot doubting that it will shine on, more and more )brighltly, till its radiance shall be blent withl the noontide of a world-wide Christian civilization.

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