IN MEMORIAL 
 Isaac Flapg.- 1845-1953J 
 
BACCALAUREATE SERMON, 
 
 ORATION AND POEM. 
 
 r V ft f X U i K 
 
 CLASS OF 1864. 
 
 QAMBRID G E: 
 WELCH, BIGELOW, AND COMPANY. 
 
 J HIXTKnS TO THE I NI VEI5SITV. 
 
 1864. 
 
HI 
 
 CLASS COMMITTEE. 
 
 WILLIAM LAMBERT RICHARDSON, Class Secretary. 
 HENRY HARRISON SPRAGUE. 
 GEORGE GOLDING KENNEDY. 
 
 Jj 
 
 * -: 
 
THE CHRISTIAN ORDER OF NOBILITY. 
 
 SERMON 
 
 PREACHED IN THE APPLETON CHAPEL, 
 
 JUNE 19, 1864, 
 
 BEING THE SUNDAY BEFORE THE VALEDICTORY EXERCISES 
 OF THE SENIOR CLASS, 
 
 BY ANDREW P. PEABODY, D.D., LL.D., 
 
 PLUMMER PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN MORALS. 
 
 M300912 
 
SERMON. 
 
 " What I do thou knowest not now ; but thou shalt know hereafter." - 
 
 JOHN xiii. 7. 
 
 JESUS had just been performing a menial office for his 
 disciples, had washed their feet as they were about to 
 sit down at the paschal supper, a service usually performed 
 before supper by a hireling or a slave. Peter objects to be 
 ing thus served by his Master, and says, in earnest depre 
 cation, " Lord, dost thou wash my feet ? " Jesus replies, 
 " What I do thou knowest not now, thou canst not yet 
 comprehend the significance of this act of mine ; but thou 
 wilt know in after time, and wilt deem it thy highest privi 
 lege and joy to do likewise." 
 
 This act of Christ was a revolutionary act. It was utterly 
 opposed to pre-existing notions, and was designed to subvert 
 them. There lived not then the man who knew what it 
 meant; there are thousands upon thousands now who live 
 only to embody its meaning. It then seemed servile ; it 
 now seems regal. Peter then felt that he could never stoop 
 so low ; the Peters of our time earnest, aspiring, energetic 
 disciples feel that they can never rise so high. 
 
 In fine, this act of Jesus established a new style and order 
 of nobility, that of the great servants. Before, greatness 
 had for its aim and token the acquisition or appropriation of 
 wealth, title, power, service, or whatever else might be the 
 foremost object of desire ; and the greatest man was he who 
 
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 could most efficiently make others tributary to himself. 
 Since, greatness has had for its aim and token self-privation, 
 self-renunciation, the bestowment of all that one has and is 
 for the good of his brethren ; and he is the greatest who has 
 the largest, the most affluent nature to spend and sacrifice 
 for his race, and the most fervent desire to coin his whole 
 being into uses and services. 
 
 A moment s reflection will show you how entirely, in this 
 respect, Jesus has made all things new, though the renova 
 tion has been slow. Review the series of prolonged and 
 extended wars from the dawn of history almost to our own 
 time, and you can recall as identified with each of them, and 
 thus transmitted to enduring fame, certain names of heroes 
 manslayers, besiegers of cities, master-destroyers for whose 
 behoof no less than for whose praise armies have been sacri 
 ficed and countries laid waste. Who were the heroes of the 
 Crimean War, for its magnitude, its darings, its endur- 
 ings, its brilliant and disastrous epochs, one of the most event 
 ful wars in all history ? Can you recall their names without 
 .a painful effort of recollection ? Is there one among those 
 names that will be transmitted as illustrious even to the next 
 generation ? But that war has its heroine, who has borne 
 off all its laurels, the founder of the sisterhood of mercy, 
 the tenderly nurtured woman who went forth, in the spirit 
 of the world s Redeemer, to save and to bless, whose name 
 was floated heavenward on the thanks and praises of those 
 ready to perish, and is written for ever and ever in the bright 
 ness of the firmament on high. 
 
 In the conflict into which we have been forced, though 
 there are those of the fallen and of the surviving who will be 
 held in reverent and grateful memory, will live in history, 
 and be deemed great in coming ages, they have their glory, 
 not as destroyers, but as preservers, not for what they 
 sought, but for what they sacrificed, not as soldiers, but as 
 patriots, not because they were commanders, leaders, office 
 bearers, but because they made themselves the very chief of 
 
servants. Yet even their exalted fame will be rivalled, if 
 not transcended, by that of the ministering angels in camp 
 and battle-field and hospital, whose offices of pure evangelic 
 mercy have wooed back hope for those from whom hope 
 seemed fled forever, have soothed the agony of ebbing life 
 with all of a mother s tenderness, and borne up to heaven on 
 the strong prayer of faith the spirits of the dying. 
 
 Can there be a better lesson than our text suggests for 
 those who claim our special interest to-day ? You, my 
 friends, go hence, one and all, I trust, with a generous am 
 bition, with the desire, not to supplant, but to excel, 
 not to snatch prizes from others, but to win and wear honor 
 in careers on which none can fail who do not deserve to fail. 
 Such is the career opened by our Saviour, and hallowed by 
 his footprints, that of great servants. It is a field of en 
 deavor in which there is no unfriendly emulation, in which 
 there is room for all/need of all, glory for all, conscious and 
 almost always manifest reward and blessedness on earth, and 
 at the gate of heaven the greeting, " Well done, thou good 
 and faithful servant ; enter thou into the joy of thy Lord." 
 
 Let me now ask your attention to some of the services due 
 from the educated men of our age and land. 
 
 I. As educated men, you are bound to commend liberal 
 tastes and pursuits by the grace and beauty of your own 
 characters. Learning may be made repulsive or attractive, 
 according as it is merely^received by the intellect and lodged 
 in the memory, or digested, assimilated, and .utilized. In the 
 former case, it is neither culture, knowledge, nor wisdom ; 
 and there have been prodigies of learning who have been at 
 the same time prodigies of boorishness, ignorance, and folly, 
 nuisances and stumbling-blocks in the paths of erudition, 
 fungous excrescences upon the surface of the society which 
 ought to have been adorned by the flowering and nourished 
 by the fruitage of their genius. 
 
 Some men take in learning beyond their capacity of stow- 
 
8 
 
 age, and it lumbers and clogs the mental passages, impedes 
 the processes of the intellect, dulls the discernment, makes 
 the mind heavy and slow, and in its separate items is never 
 at hand when needed, but tumbles from the pen or the lips 
 out of shape, out of place, out of season. Learned men of 
 this order the Bentleys and Persons are the reproach 
 and scandal of scholarship. They are so far out of gearing 
 with the living world, that their attainments can hardly be 
 made to subserve any important office in the progress of 
 knowledge, literature, or science. At the same time, their 
 moral development is generally as ungraceful and faulty as 
 their style of intellectual character. Conscious of large at 
 tainments, painfully aware that they are unappreciated, and 
 wholly ignorant of the reasons why they forfeit the favor of 
 society, they become morose and surly ; they present a por 
 cupine aspect to the surrounding world, and are very Ish- 
 maelites in their relations to their fellow-men. 
 
 But learning, made one s own by the vigorous action of the 
 reflective powers, enters into the soul s life-blood ; softens 
 and sweetens the manners ; refines and exalts the tastes ; 
 imparts weight and dignity to the character ; makes the 
 speech pure, rich, and strong ; fits the scholar for his life- 
 work by his conversance with the root and essence of things ; 
 inspires him with equal prudence and vigor in action ; gives 
 aim and end to his endeavor ; and places him in kindly and 
 beneficent relations with all around him. 
 
 Learning, thus incorporated into ^he being, is second only 
 to religion as a moral force. It makes its possessor modest 
 and humble ; for he owns and feels its limits and its imper 
 fections, and in the desire and effort for larger attainments 
 he regards himself as but a learner and a novice in the ratio 
 of his advancement and proficiency. At the same time, these 
 lofty pursuits can hardly fail so to occupy thought, sentiment, 
 and feeling as to exclude low passions and appetites, sordid 
 avarice and mean ambition, and to make the life sober, chaste, 
 generous, and faithful. 
 
9 
 
 Such scholars you are called to be. Remember that it is 
 not mass of acquisition, but quantity of character, that you 
 need, not learning, but wisdom ; and learning, only that it 
 may be transmuted into wisdom, dead tongues, that they 
 may give grace and flexibility to your living speech, his 
 tory, that it may furnish precedents, examples, warnings, for 
 the time in which your lot is cast, the philosophy of mind, 
 that you may know yourselves and use your powers, nat 
 ural science, that God s creation around you may speak to 
 you in a known language, mathematical laws and propor 
 tions, that you may read the Divine ordinances in earth and 
 sea and sky and stars. 
 
 By such culture you make yourselves among the very chief 
 of servants. You commend good learning by your example. 
 Your higher life is a perpetual protest against the low, grov 
 elling utilitarianism which is the curse and bane of the age. 
 You draw ingenuous youth to the elevation on which you 
 stand. You show that liberal pursuits minister to strength 
 and beauty, to the highest type of manhood, to the power 
 that both uses and overcomes the world. 
 
 II. I would next speak of your duty, as educated men, to 
 your country. Some of you have already obeyed the call to 
 her active service, and will be graduated with double honors 
 in arts and arms. I am reminded, too, and with saddened 
 thought, that not all have returned, that you have laid your 
 costly, precious sacrifice on the altar of patriotism, and that 
 death in the cause so dear and sacred leaves only cherished 
 memories of the gifted, beloved, and tenderly lamented, 
 whose unseen presence deepens the solemnity of your part 
 ing hour. So long as the country still needs for her defence 
 those who are her pride and hope, I can only bid a fervent 
 God-speed to such of you as may serve her in the camp and 
 field. But she has other I will not say higher, but more 
 enduring claims on those who should be her leading minds. 
 There lies before us a work of reconstruction, in which you 
 must bear your part. 
 
10 
 
 Strained to the utmost tension in the stress of need, our 
 body politic may find itself, in victory even, collapsed and 
 nerveless. We shall retire from the conflict a reunited peo 
 ple, I trust, through the good providence of God, but with 
 our industrial, commercial, and financial interests disordered 
 and deranged, and not without many of those demoralizing 
 influences which follow in the train even of the most neces 
 sary and righteous war. It will be your part, in your several 
 spheres of service, to study the public good ; to be vigilant 
 and energetic as citizens ; to weigh well the measures which 
 may be helped or hindered by your action ; to aid in the 
 elevation of capable, just, God-fearing men to places of trust 
 and power ; to give the whole weight of your example in 
 behalf of the frugality which alone can restore what war has 
 wasted, the temperance and soberness which alone can com 
 mend our people to the blessing of Heaven, the integrity and 
 loyalty in public and private life which alone can transmit 
 the blessedness of our free institutions to the coming age, 
 and make them the cynosure of liberty to all lands and 
 nations. 
 
 In the positions which most or all of you will occupy, you 
 must have wide and enduring influence. Your passiveness 
 and indifference as citizens will paralyze action around you. 
 Your self-seeking and time-serving will corrupt public opinion 
 in a larger sphere than you mean or know. Your pure and 
 conscientious discharge of every function that may devolve 
 upon you, whether of suffrage, speech, pen, or official station, 
 will multiply and extend itself, not only among those with 
 whom you are intimately associated, but from numerous 
 centres of influence which lie within your respective circles. 
 It is a responsibility which you cannot evade or disown, and 
 which will grow constantly with every stage of your success 
 and advancement. God has given you your nurture under 
 the best government the world has ever seen ; thank him for 
 it by such patriotic service and devotion as only the highly 
 privileged can render. 
 
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 III. Including all other services, and essential to their 
 consistency and their effectual working, is the service de 
 manded of you in the religious consecration of your hearts 
 and lives. On you as scholars religion has peculiar claims. 
 
 It might be pardoned to those who are constantly occupied 
 with the most paltry material interests, if there were not in 
 them a sufficiently clear spiritual self-consciousness to com 
 mend to their contemplation themes appertaining to the 
 inward life. It would be venial, too, if those unused to 
 reasoning or to research, incapable of following fallacy or 
 sophistry through its windings, were bejuggled and bewil 
 dered by the assumptions and the casuistry of infidelity or 
 naturalism, if a sneer against the Bible sometimes had with 
 them the force of an argument, if some cavil at an obscure 
 Old Testament narrative seemed to them destructive of the 
 entire historical basis of Christianity. 
 
 But you have no such apology. You have been trained in 
 the use of argument, in the exercise of reason. You 
 know, or can know, how to search into the evidences of the 
 Christian faith ; to test the strength of its foundations ; to 
 judge of the marks of Divine or human workmanship in its 
 superstructure ; to determine for yourselves whether it bears 
 tokens of fraud or truth, of delusion or reality, of myth or 
 miracle, of development from man s brain or of revelation 
 from the infinite God, of earthly or of heavenly parentage. 
 You have no right to remain in doubt. If thorough investi 
 gation make you unbelievers, I judge you not ; but if you 
 become so by reading, hearing, and speculating on the 
 negative side, and ignoring all that may be urged in the 
 affirmative, you do with the most momentous of all subjects 
 what you would not risk your reputation by doing with 
 any other subject, however insignificant in magnitude or 
 ephemeral in interest. But I have no fear for the result 
 of honest inquiry. If Christianity be divine, it cannot fail to 
 vindicate its divinity to every diligent seeker after the truth. 
 
 You, too, as educated men, live not on the low sensual 
 
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 plane on which persons destitute of culture must habitually 
 dwell. Yours is, or ought to be, a life of thought, sentiment, 
 reflection. And can there be any apology for excluding or 
 slighting those noblest themes of thought that belong to the 
 essence, the Author, the destiny of your being, those high 
 est sentiments that appertain to the realm of spiritual exist 
 ence, those loftiest subjects of reflection which embrace the 
 infinite and the eternal ? No. Your culture makes these 
 contemplations your duty no less than your privilege. If 
 Christianity is God-born, you, by remaining aliens from its 
 faith and joy, are at once rejecting God s best gifts, and 
 pouring scorn on the Giver. 
 
 But while for your own sake I cannot urge these sacred 
 themes too earnestly upon your regard, they equally belong 
 to you as the trained chief servants of your generation. Re 
 member that the excellence of your service depends even 
 more on what you are than on what you do ; on the mass 
 and momentum of your mental, moral, spiritual life ; on the 
 capacity of influence with which your person, your words, 
 your deeds are charged ; on the power there is in you ; on 
 the virtue that goes forth from you. But Christian piety 
 alone can give the crowning grace to your character, can 
 place you beyond reach of temptation, can attach weight to 
 your precept, dignity and sacredness to your example. You 
 put your soul, your moral nature, such as it is, into what 
 ever you are, and say, and do. If that soul be sensualized, 
 materialized, conversant with earthly things alone, your best 
 intended endeavors for the good of others are limited by the 
 limitations of your own being. If that soul be enlarged, 
 exalted, hallowed by heavenly communings, by the life of God 
 within, then is there a " power from on high," an efficacy 
 literally Divine, not only in what you say and do expressly 
 for others, but in the mere example of quiet, faithful, per 
 sistent duty. You cannot be what God and Christ would 
 have you be, without being among the very chief of servants 
 to your fellow-men. 
 
13 
 
 But because as educated men you will occupy conspicuous 
 places, your irreligion, your infidelity, your neglect of sacred 
 times and ordinances, will be contagious. Sneers and scoffs 
 at Divine truth from your lips will find ready currency. 
 Loose notions as to religion or its records will have from you 
 an authority which minds of inferior culture could never 
 command. You are set, if not for the rise, for the falling of 
 many ; and to the full measure of your superior privileges 
 must you be responsible for the souls that will often owe to 
 you their noblest or their basest impulses, their initial start 
 ing and their vigorous progress on the path to God, or on the 
 way of death. 
 
 " For their sakes," said Jesus, " I sanctify myself." " For 
 their sakes," for the sake of the many, the constantly wid 
 ening circle, to whom you may be the source of the holiest 
 influences, sanctify yourselves, that in the resurrection- 
 life there may be those who will say to you, " Ye helped us 
 hither," and who will be as jewels in the crown of your eter 
 nal rejoicing. 
 
 My friends, receive these counsels as the heart-offering of 
 one who speaks to you lovingly and hopefully, of one, too, 
 whose years have their authority, who has followed with 
 the warmest sympathy successive circles of youth that have 
 been under his charge into the scenes of their maturer cares 
 and trusts, and who speaks of what he knows, testifies of what 
 he has seen, in the solemn emphasis with which he commends 
 Christian faith and piety as essential to the loyal, faithful, 
 efficient service of man, and of God in and through man. 
 
 I feel a peculiar nearness of intimacy with you. You and 
 I commenced our college life together ; and you can hardly 
 know how solicitously I have watched the development and 
 growth of character in those who here first came under my 
 instruction, and compared each stage of the fulfilment with 
 the hope and promise that you severally gave at the outset. 
 
 I cannot but recall, as our parting approaches, him under 
 whose presidency you entered on your academic career. It 
 
14 
 
 was the joy of his life and the beauty of his character, to be 
 among the very chief of servants. No one illustrated more 
 fully and richly than he the beneficent influence, the ex 
 tended and cumulative power for good, at the command of 
 the Christian scholar. You will carry hence with you pre 
 cious memories of his genial spirit, his meek wisdom, his 
 wealth of intellect, his persistent firmness in the right. Let 
 us be thankful that the dead live for our example, and speak 
 for our counsel, though we see them no more till we meet 
 them in heaven. 
 
 My friends, take with you my congratulations on all the 
 honor that you have worthily won, on all the prophecy of 
 worth and honor that you bear with you from these walls to 
 the world-wide university in which your training is now to 
 be pursued ; and my most affectionate wishes for your well- 
 being and well-doing. May God bless you and keep you. 
 May he make you his servants for great and enduring good 
 in and far beyond your day and generation. May he write 
 your names together in his book of life eternal ; and while 
 we shall never all again renew our Sabbath worship in the 
 same earthly sanctuary, may none be wanting in our united 
 praise and worship in the temple not made with hands. 
 
BACCALAUREATE HYMN. 
 
 BY ISAAC HOWARD PAGE. 
 
 TUNE, Pleyel s Hymn. 
 
 FATHER, thou hast led us on 
 O er a long, eventful way ; 
 Now, as near the end we stand, 
 Hear us while to Thee we pray. 
 
 Thanks for thy unbounded love ; 
 
 For our sins a sorrow deep ; 
 O forgive, and evermore 
 
 Help us in thy ways to keep. 
 
 In the war of earthly life 
 
 Help us bravely, nobly fight; 
 
 Warm our hearts with holy love ; 
 Guide us by thy perfect light. 
 
 May we, now so soon to part, 
 When the voyage of life is o er, 
 
 Meet, beyond the stormy sea, 
 On the peaceful, happy shore. 
 
CLASS-DAY EXERCISES, 
 
 JUNE 24, 1864. 
 
0f 
 
 Music. 
 
 n. 
 
 Prayer. 
 BY REV. ANDREW P. PEABODY, D. D. 
 
 III. 
 Oration. 
 
 BY GEORGE CALLENDER BRACKETT, 
 
 OF SOMERVILLE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Music. 
 
 V. 
 
 Poem. 
 
 BY ISAAC FLAGG, 
 
 OF SOMERVILLE. 
 VI. 
 
 Ode. 
 
 BY CHARLES HENRY COXE, 
 
 OF PHILADELPHIA, PENN. 
 
ORATION. 
 
 BY GEORGE CALLENDER BRACKETT. 
 
 IN the narrow, crowded streets of the Indian cities, toiling 
 patiently day after day, sit at their simple handlooms the 
 weavers of the costly shawls which serve to ornament our 
 Western civilization. Slow is the labor, and slowly grows its 
 product, till under the skilful hand what was at first but a 
 confused heap of wool becomes the gorgeous fabric of bright 
 colors, lending grace and ornament to royalty itself. Not 
 only is it woof ajid warp the humble weaver sees, but in his 
 finished work lie the joys and sorrows of a lifetime, which 
 with each separate thread were woven in, and the shawl, 
 which to us speaks of luxury and wealth, to one better 
 acquainted with its language tells a tale of life wasting slowly 
 away, of crushed hopes and a nameless grave. 
 
 The life of these Hindoo weavers is symbolic of the life of 
 every man, live he where or how he may. The infant, when 
 he first comes into the world, takes his place at the loom lie 
 finds prepared for him, and patiently works in the morning 
 and in the evening, till his hand no more knows its cunning 
 to produce the pattern which his life has set before it. Day 
 by day the shuttle flies, and day by day a new thread is 
 added ; now one of gold, to cast its radiance and charm of 
 beauty over the whole design ; now one of black, which 
 spreads its effect no less upon the fabric some day to be hung 
 up and examined as the result of his life s work. For gloomy 
 black, and gleaming gold, and every other color and texture 
 
20 
 
 which we weave into our work, will tell our story as it tells 
 its own, and, all taken together, they shall serve as patterns 
 to other workers and weavers, who shall occupy our places, 
 and in their turn furnish patterns for the long train who shall 
 succeed them. Who shall say how far the design we leave 
 behind us shall assist these future laborers ? Yes, for the 
 black line which tells of duties unperformed, of sins com 
 mitted, as well as the golden thread, shall serve them in their 
 labors. The mariner watches with no less eagerness for the 
 sound of the wave-tost fog-bell and the gleam of the beacon 
 lamp that warns him of the rocky coast, than he looks for 
 the welcoming light of the friendly town, foretelling the 
 harbor and safe anchorage. And we, in our strivings and 
 desires for perfection, depend no less upon the errors and 
 misdeeds of our predecessors and our friends, than we do 
 upon the example which their acts of virtue and heroism pre 
 sent. Can we say that what success we have achieved is due 
 less to our neighbor s failings than to the excellences of his 
 performance ? Had we no errors, we could look for no pro 
 gress ; it is by our shortcomings that we are led to more 
 active exertions for improvement, and only by the milestones 
 of our youthful faults can we measure our advance in the 
 path of virtue. 
 
 George Washington, the patriot, and Benedict Arnold, the 
 traitor, are the two names most opposed to each other in our 
 struggle for national existence ; yet different as they are, the 
 life of either placed in a boy s hand would lead to the same 
 result, a devotion to the right, a hatred for the wrong, a 
 deeper and more reverent love for our native land. Thus the 
 evil of the past works hand in hand with the good, and the 
 optimist gathers flowers from the selfsame branch where the 
 pessimist finds only thorns. 
 
 But we, who have been also weaving for the past twenty 
 years, ought already to begin to display the dim foreshadow 
 ing of the result of our work, or we may indeed fear lest the 
 work and worker have both been wasted, and the produce of 
 
21 
 
 our labor be of value to teach others only to shun our errors, 
 not to copy our success. And for the last four years we have 
 worked steadily side by side, gathering our threads from the 
 same mass of material, and with the same patterns placed 
 before us to assist us in our labor. From to-day this is to be 
 so no more ; but before we go our various ways, it will do us 
 good and strengthen us for the future, if we review our work, 
 and study well the lesson which each thread may give. This 
 work is our own, and we have a right to claim as ours what 
 ever good it may present, as well as whatever failure we may 
 see. This work is our own, but our own as everything else 
 which we may claim as ours. We are masters of circum 
 stance, but circumstance is master, too, of us. Action and 
 reaction are ever equal in the world of mind as in the mate 
 rial universe, and while we assert our right as free agents, we 
 ought also to render to the bright examples set before us their 
 rightful part in the progress which these years have seen. 
 
 Gratefully would we remember all whose lives and in 
 fluence have served to guide and cheer us. Of the many men 
 who have stood where we stand to-day, and who have gone to 
 fight the fight in which we are to join, ay, and who have 
 fought it well, shedding new glory on the dear Mother whose 
 arms we leave to-day, there is no one but will gladly render 
 his meed of gratitude to those whose patient labor served to 
 make him strong for the contest, whose hands helped to gird 
 on the armor, and whose voice to guide him to victory. Nor 
 can we find a time more fitting, nor a more appropriate place 
 to bear our witness and to testify to our appreciation, than 
 now and here. 
 
 To few classes in a four years course does it fall to render 
 thanks and gratitude to three presiding officers. We did not 
 stand in person under the ministrations of that venerable 
 man whose children for the last ten years have risen in this 
 place and called him blessed ; but his mantle descended on 
 that scholar and that gentleman whose genial way and kindly 
 interest in us we still remember, and who was always ready 
 
9-7 
 
 to cheer us with his sympathy and assist us with his counsel, 
 as we essayed to walk in our new and untried path. But on 
 our third return to College, the call was given, "Come up 
 higher," and new fields of labor received our guide and 
 friend. The year that followed we shall ever look back upon 
 with pleasure, for it taught us to love the childlike simplicity 
 of character, the gentle earnestness, the unselfish devotion to 
 duty, that marked its flight. The office claimed our respect, 
 but the man claimed our love, and both respect and love were 
 rendered freely and gladly ; gladly, that sucli an opportunity 
 was given us to feel it ; freely, because it could not be with 
 held. But again there came a change, and as time and occa 
 sion have taught us to recognize the firm will which holds its 
 steady way, the wise judgment which guides, and the strength 
 of purpose which shall gain the goal at which it aims, we see 
 that wisdom watched over and directed the choice. With 
 these bright and shining examples placed before our eyes, if 
 we fail to profit by their teachings both by word and deed, 
 ours and not theirs is the fault ; if to the years of action now 
 before us we bring not their earnestness of character, let 
 them know to-day that the responsibility of our failure lies 
 with us. And as we render them our thanks, we would with 
 them remember all our instructors, to whom we owe what 
 ever advance we have made in their respective departments. 
 Though the seed fell often on what seemed stony ground, in 
 good time it shall bear abundant harvest. Gratefully we re 
 member them to-day in our words ; in the future, our actions, 
 showing in our practice the influence of their example, shall 
 speak our gratitude. 
 
 But this is not all that these years have given us. We 
 stand to-day, as it were, between two worlds, and as through 
 the mind of the drowning man passes every thought and 
 memory of his past life, so over our minds now comes the 
 remembrance of events long forgotten, of the thoughts and 
 actions which in these four years have made up our life. 
 Each one was woven into our work, and to-day reappears as 
 
23 
 
 clear and bright as when it was our present. College friend 
 ships ! No! they are not wholly of the life that is closing. 
 Whatever we take with us to our new life, our friends shall 
 never leave us. Were the warm hearts which have beat 
 with ours, the hands which we have clasped in friendship, 
 and the voices which have answered to our own, to vanish 
 with the sunlight of to-day, they might almost as well have 
 never been. However rocky may be the path we are to tread, 
 however hard the work to which we put our hands, the 
 thought of the friends by whose side we have worked, the 
 friends who still are working by our sides, shall strengthen- 
 our hands with renewed vigor, and make them mightier for 
 the contest. Ah ! why speak of that, when we know that the 
 greatest sorrow we shall take with us from these walls is the 
 knowledge that never again, after to-day, shall we stand 
 together an unbroken band. 
 
 But from the many thronging memories, what shall we 
 choose to speak of? Where every thought is pleasant, it is 
 hard to make selection. The pleasant evening chat, when 
 the day s work was done, and, gathered round the comfortable 
 hearth, the song and jest went round from lip to lip ; the 
 spring rambles to the haunts of the first early blossom, and 
 where the last flower braved the frosty autumn winds ; the 
 dreary winter mornings, when, poor sleepy wights ! roused 
 by the stern voice of duty, shouting out her summons from 
 the neighboring belfry, we trudged through sleet and snow, 
 or under " the cold light of stars," to the chapel services ; the 
 mornings drearier still, when, having turned a deaf ear to 
 duty s voice, some kind classmate roused us in time for the 
 morning recitation, and, half waked, reckless, and breakfast- 
 less, we turned our course to University Hall, too apt on such 
 occasions to symbolize the life of man, marching but from our 
 cradle to our grave ; the hours spent in the swift wherry on 
 " the winding Charles" ; and best of all, our club meetings, 
 where we met, and welded still stronger the bonds of friend 
 ship which before drew -us together ; these all come freshly 
 
24 
 
 before our minds to-day, and eacli is pleasant to recall, though 
 some were bitter to experience. Nay, our very reprimands 
 and privates wear a pleasing aspect, seen through the glamour 
 which the past spreads over them, and our publics how 
 could we regret them, when each one, as it came, but put us 
 more strongly in mind of our loved Sixty-Four ? 
 
 But other sadder memories arise before us. There are 
 many who have stood among us in our College course who 
 stand among us no more. It is but fitting that to-day we 
 send them a hearty God-speed, wherever they may be. Far 
 and wide are they scattered, who in these years have clasped 
 our hands, and walked by our side along these familiar paths. 
 Our Class List tells us that, of the one hundred and forty-four 
 who have been of our number, to-day but ninety-six stand 
 together. Where the waters of the Mexican Gulf beat upon 
 the Texan reefs, where the unshackled Mississippi bears 
 along his whole course the nation s flag ; in the mountains 
 of Tennessee, on the Carolina swamps, on the Virginian 
 plains, wherever the national forces stand, there stand our 
 brothers of the Class of Sixty-Four. And as we think of 
 them, perhaps this moment standing in the very front of 
 battle, let us think tenderly and reverently of those who 
 have dared all, and have done all, who answered " Adsum " 
 to the call of duty, and sealed their offering with their blood. 
 
 There stands none among us who has not, since the blast 
 of the battle-bugle first rang through the land, seen the best 
 and the bravest of his boyhood s friends gird on the sword, 
 and stand to strike his blow and do his part for freedom and 
 his native land. And happy may he count himself, if the 
 shadow of the death-angel s wing has not struck across the 
 bond of friendship, and left him to write with trembling hand 
 and bleeding heart against the young renown the motto 
 of the noble knight of old, " Without fear and without 
 reproach. 19 
 
 And as a Class, too, we have been called iipon to make 
 the great sacrifice, and the remembrance of Abbott and of 
 
25 
 
 Chapin, of Hedges and of Thurston, is the most sacred of all 
 our College years have giver! us. And within the past week 
 the summons has again been sent, and the funeral bells that 
 perhaps even now are pealing his dirge, and the martial 
 music that is sounding forth his requiem, tell us that the 
 name of the young and well-beloved Birney has been added 
 to the list of those whom we have loved and honored, and 
 who have been accepted as our offering on the altar of our 
 country. Many are the lessons we have learned within these 
 walls, but the purest and the most enduring of them all is . 
 that which a good life, crowned by a noble death, has taught. 
 How great must be the value of what is purchased at so dear 
 a price ! 
 
 " But, O Fatherland that we love so well, 
 Shall the future s annals, shuddering, tell 
 It was all in vain that our heroes fell ? 
 
 " We give them up at thy bitter cry ; 
 We speak no word when they go to die ; 
 Is it Freedom s dawn that reddens the sky ? 
 
 " O comrades, sleep well in your soldier s bed, 
 Your HERO sleep in the fields of our dead : 
 We know who watches overhead." 
 
 And with the memory of our soldier brothers, of those who 
 have passed on, and those who still are here, let a word be 
 given to those who, when duty seemed divided against duty, 
 chose what they thought the better part, and left our side. 
 Where they are we know not, but we know that with many 
 the choice was made with tears and sorrow, and we believe 
 that with them all the head, and not the heart, was wrong. 
 Who can weigh the power of early associations, arid the 
 strength of childhood s ties and education ? It behooves us 
 to think with tenderness of their misfortunes, and to thank 
 God that we were spared the trial which proved too strong 
 for them. Have we been so true to duty when pleasure 
 tempted us astray, that we can sit in judgment upon them, 
 4 
 
26 
 
 who followed what they thought was right ? Let him who is 
 without sin amongst us cast the first stone. 
 
 These are but a few of the many memories to-day recalls. 
 Each one from a full heart can complete the list ; but it was 
 fitting that these general interests should be thus specially 
 remembered. But to-day presents a twofold aspect; not 
 only is it the close of the past, but also the beginning of the 
 future, and in this view the lessons that it gives are even 
 more important. 
 
 Among the many beautiful valleys which lie embosomed 
 among New Hampshire s hills, there is none fairer than the 
 one which holds the Saco in its protecting arms, when the 
 stream, having left in his swift course the hamlet of Upper 
 Bartlett, turns obliquely to the south, and flows through the 
 intervales of Conway. Mountain and valley, the fresh ver 
 dure of the meadow, and the dashing, foaming stream, com 
 bine to give at every moment some new beauty to charm the 
 eye and please the mind. At the head of this valley, turn 
 ing off from the usual line of travel, an old country road 
 winds along the side and crest of what is called Thorn Hill. 
 Take this road some summer morning, before the purple 
 light of that mountain region throws its veil over the distant 
 ranges, and, before you reach the summit, turn and view the 
 scene that lies behind. The gleaming river winds its way 
 along in alternate light and shadow ; the steeples of the vil 
 lage and the white houses, as they peep from behind the 
 trees, dot the landscape, and the long range of Mote, with 
 Chocorua looking over his shoulder on the right, and majes 
 tic Kearsarge upon the left, stretch their gray and weather- 
 beaten sides far out on either hand, forming a worthy frame 
 for the lovely picture they enclose. Note how distance has 
 toned down the sharper colors, and softened by her magic 
 touch what at a nearer view seemed rough and ungainly. 
 It is a picture of beauty and strength combined, which 
 returns to the mind again and again, and asserts its claim 
 when far removed in time and space. 
 
27 
 
 Now turn and cross the summit ; the quiet beauty of the 
 stream and valley has disappeared, but right in front, raising 
 his glorious forehead to the morning air, king of a thousand 
 hills, rises before you in one grand sweep the monarch of the 
 realm, Mount Washington. Along his sides, seamed and 
 scarred by the battles of the elements, wind in light airy 
 troops the pale phantoms of the mist, as they sweep around 
 his summit ; and, parting, disclose again the hoary head 
 which has seen the stars pass over it since first they rolled 
 their fiery chariots across the dome of heaven. 
 
 To-day we stand on that hill-top ; even now we turn to 
 cross it ; behind us lies the valley of the past, which for the 
 last time we have viewed together, and which in its quiet 
 beauty shall often return to us, when the toils of life lie in 
 our path. But before us rises in its calm majesty the moun 
 tain of our hopes, towards which we are to press, which we 
 see clearly though so far removed, which in all our wander 
 ings has been our aim, but which to-day we see, as we have 
 never seen it before, grand and glorious in all its large pro 
 portions. Forward ! no thought upon the past ; the future 
 claims us now, and in our onward course, though our road 
 may lie through valleys where the sunlight never comes, 
 where the trees hang thick with drops which constant showers 
 bring, though the mist shall wrap us in its covering, and 
 shadows lie thick across our path, forward ! the mountain 
 and pure sunlight are before us. Lower ridges come between 
 us, scale them ! Beauty lies on every hand, pause not ! 
 press on, and at the evening hour, baring our forehead to the 
 eternal skies, we shall stand where nothing comes between us 
 and the heavens. Various are the roads which we shall tread 
 before our weary feet shall press the summit : what matter 
 so they all lead upwards ! But here no carriage-road invites 
 to a luxurious ascent ; steep rocks and jagged cliffs, which 
 only the strong hand, guided by the strong heart, shall con 
 quer ; mountain torrents, which foam and dash down dreadful 
 chasms ; ravines to cross, through which the wild wind roars, 
 
28 
 
 and across which sweep the -blinding clouds ; toil and danger 
 on every hand, who shall conquer these? Only he whose 
 spirit is strong within him, and who has faith that the goal 
 he aims at is no wandering phantom, but a rock with its 
 foundations deep-set in the earth, and enduring as the 
 heavens. 
 
 God only knows what path we each shall choose, but in 
 each one of us he has implanted the power to walk in that 
 path wherever it may lead : whether we do so is for us to 
 say. One thing let us remember, that, the steeper and more 
 difficult the road, the sooner is the summit gained. When 
 the path lies level and easy before us, no progress towards 
 the real end is made. Life is found in conflict alone. He 
 who has never fought can never know the joy which victory 
 alone can give. And we are ready for the fray. The mus 
 cles which in these years we have been practising shall show 
 their strength in the blows that they shall give against the 
 wrong. Hard blows ! Strong blows ! Never flinch ! The 
 world has made progress since we entered it, and, by God s 
 help, it shall through us make more before we leave it. What 
 weapon shall we use ? Whatever comes ready to our hands. 
 Or if the weapon fail us at our need, the strong right hand 
 of an earnest man can leave its mark upon the world. 
 
 When, three years ago, the cry of danger sounded through 
 our land, men did not wait because they had not what they 
 would most like to give, but each one came, bringing what 
 he first put his hand to, and no one came amiss. And that 
 is what we are now to do. To batter down the sin and error 
 of our age, every tool or weapon which from the ores we 
 have been smelting we shall forge upon the anvil of the 
 present shall find its fitting work. Some of us will shape 
 the cunning pen, which from the merchant s desk, the law 
 yer s office, or from the study of the clergyman, shall wield 
 its potent influence to bless or ban. Some will forge the 
 ploughshare and the pruning-hook, and seek the duties and 
 the pleasures of a farmer s life. The teacher, the physician, 
 
29 
 
 the mechanic, each will shape his necessary implement and 
 use it in his daily toil. And some will forge the gleaming 
 sword, and take their stand side by side with the many hun 
 dreds who have hung among the peaceful laurels on our 
 College walls the trophies and the flags which, soiled by the 
 dust of many a battle-field, tell that, in war as well as in the 
 peaceful walks of life, where death is the reward, as well as 
 where life s choicest prizes hang before our grasp, the sons 
 of Harvard are never found wanting in all that goes to make 
 up the man and the gentleman, the true-hearted warrior and 
 the honored patriot. 
 
 Let no one cast slurs upon the more retired walk of life 
 another one may choose. The marble which the school-boy 
 holds within his hand is, in its way, perfect as the grand 
 planet, who" with his attendant satellites sweeps through the 
 infinite void, and joins the choral song of the morning stars. 
 It is no matter what our toil may be, so we work with all the 
 strength of our hands and the cunning of our brain, so we 
 leave the world richer when we bid it farewell than when we 
 entered it, so we have helped on the great progress of the 
 age. 
 
 my classmates ! my brothers ! this is no common 
 time when we are called to the more active work of life. 
 The waves that have beat against the rock on which our 
 country stands, still howl and dash to hurl her from her 
 strong foundation. Next to our duty to our God stands the 
 claim our country has. To her we owe whatever we most 
 prize and have, our homes, our memories, our hopes. To 
 her we must give whatever we most prize and have, our past, 
 our present, and our future. The sacrifices she demands 
 are not always to be offered on the battle-field. They are 
 not the only patriots and heroes who go to do her battles ; 
 but whoever speaks a word in the defence of her cherished 
 institutions, whoever stands to answer the malignant sneer, 
 the covert allusion, which betray the mind too cowardly to 
 stand openly for what it thinks the right, but small enough 
 
30 
 
 and mean enough to add to its country s troubles in the hour 
 of her anguish, by traducing the motives, the intentions, and 
 the actions of her defenders in the capital and in the field, 
 they, too, are doing their part in the great work the age has 
 given to this nation. Whether high or low, whether short 
 or long, life is our own to make of it what we will. Not 
 only on the battle-field, or where the tossing vessel seals the 
 hostile port, does our country claim our help ; not only now, 
 in the hour of her peril and her danger, but at home, and for 
 our whole life long, however long we live, and wherever our 
 duty calls us, our duty to America is always to be performed. 
 Not only is the sword to defend her from injury, but the pen 
 from insult ; and the heart and the life are to guard her from 
 danger and raise her to her own among the nations ; and 
 when she stands, as stand she will, regenerated and with the 
 light of freedom shining on her forehead, it shall be ours to 
 say, We, too, have done our part to free our native land. 
 
 And so, with the light shinmg cheerily upon our path, we 
 go to take our place among the workers of the world. A 
 place awaits each one of us ; this we must fill, or none. 
 There is no lesson the truth of which we are so sure to learn, 
 as that we can never escape our work, turn we where we 
 will. When we think that we have most cunningly avoided it, 
 and most congratulate ourselves on our success, lo ! right in 
 front of us it stands, and looks us face to face with pitiless 
 and stony gaze. There can be no avoidance of our work : 
 it must be met and conquered ; and the sooner we set our 
 selves to the task, the more easily is the work completed. 
 
 Then up, with a strong hand and a resolute will to the 
 toil. Strengthen the purpose with all the failures of the 
 past ; encourage it by all the prospects of the future, but 
 never falter. 
 
 By all the memories of these College days, now hastening 
 so swiftly to their close, by the strong ties of friendship we 
 have formed within these walls, by the bright examples of 
 faithfulness to duty placed before our eyes, by our love of 
 
31 
 
 country and our love of God, let us so acquit ourselves, that, 
 when our history as a Class is ended, some hand shall write 
 upon the opening leaf of the class-book of the Class of Sixty- 
 Four : " These are they who, whether before the world or in 
 retired walks of life, sought not their own renown, but, 
 taking right and duty as their guides, fought the good fight 
 till they were called to their reward. These are they whom 
 their countrymen delighted to honor, and whom their Alma 
 Mater has enrolled among the not least honored of her 
 
POEM. 
 
 ISAAC FLAGG. 
 
 The intelligible forms of ancient poets, 
 The fair humanities of old religion." 
 
 FAR through the deepening shadows of the Past 
 With wondering silence we direct our gaze, 
 To penetrate the gloomy clouds that cast 
 Their dimness round the scenes of ancient days, 
 Beyond that shadowy distance to review 
 
 The deeds that rolling centuries have wrought, 
 An hundred lives within a single thought, 
 The Old and Dead beside the living New. 
 
 The worn and faded chronicles of old 
 Their legendary histories reveal, 
 And from the ruins of the Past unfold 
 The grandeur that forgetful years conceal, 
 And they who lived before those ruins fell 
 Repeat instruction to our listening ear, 
 Command Oblivion s shades to disappear, 
 And to our minds its buried secrets tell. 
 
 Each towering city s walls resist in vain 
 Relentless Time, but fall before his might 
 Who scatters desolation o er the plain, 
 Where monuments of glory reared their height ; 
 The thoughts of men dread not his wasting power, 
 That from the Spirit never dying spring, 
 Themselves immortal, and its influence bring 
 From distant ages to the present hour. 
 
 5 
 
34 
 
 No death feel they, but live forever on, 
 On through the course of swiftly transient years ; 
 Live when bright Memory s lingering light is gone, 
 Live in our lives, evoke our smiles and tears ; 
 Departed cities rest in sleep profound, 
 
 Nor doth a voice the mournful stillness break, 
 Until reviving words of heroes wake 
 Resounding echoes from the silent ground. 
 
 While the long-buried Past unfolds to view 
 The changes that destructive Time has made, 
 Deserted waste where mighty empires grew, 
 And shining marble low in ruin laid, 
 Let no dark cloud of sadness dim the eye, 
 
 Because earth s beauteous structures pass away, 
 For, like the silent star s unvarying way, 
 The human spirit shall all change defy. 
 
 Through every age the same the human mind 
 In every feature still unchanged remains, 
 To cheerful aspiration still inclined, 
 However doomed to disappointment s pains ; 
 Love of the beautiful and good is there, 
 
 Ambition, valor, friendship, faith, and praise, 
 Undying hope through sorrow s darkest days, 
 And gentle patience under wasting care. 
 
 Upon these later days the rising Truth 
 Has dawned in beauty o er the mind and heart, 
 Fulfilled the promise of its hopeful youth, 
 Shedding the light that Christian words impart ; 
 Yet ancient reverence has not passed away, 
 But still retains its power within us all, 
 And still the feelings of our hearts recall 
 Long lost religions of the ancient day. 
 
 For if perchance the fancy should essay 
 
 To imitate the bards of olden fame, 
 
 In forms divine our feelings to array, 
 
 And lend each passion s power a living name ; 
 
35 
 
 New forms and names for every hope and fear 
 The mythic song of ancient Greece could yield, 
 And in men s souls her deities concealed 
 
 Born to another life would reappear. 
 
 In that famed land of Greece, across the sea, 
 Where poetry and learning had their home, 
 Whose rocky shores the waters rough and free 
 Still beat with dashing waves of briny foam ; 
 Mysterious deities and forms divine 
 
 Peopled the tangled woods and mountains gray, 
 The vales where winding rivers rolled their way, 
 The slopes where grew the purple-clustered vine. 
 
 There Pan, the sylvan god of herds and flocks, 
 With cloven foot traversed the fertile ground, 
 Rehearsed his music to the echoing rocks, 
 Till forests bent their heads to catch the sound ; 
 There dwelt on rising hill and mountain glade, 
 Guarding the groves that shaded city towers, 
 The sister Nymphs among the woodland flowers, 
 To whom the Greeks their solemn worship paid. 
 
 And under every fountain s falling spray 
 Some Naiad had her watery dwelling-place, 
 Who rose to greet the traveller on his way, 
 Or cheered the huntsman from the tiresome chase ; 
 In her remembered name the fount received 
 A gift of thankfulness and grateful prayer 
 From all who found refreshing coolness there, 
 And all whose pain her sparkling waves relieved. 
 
 From deep concealment in the knotted oak 
 Were gentle Dryads rustling voices heard, 
 Who oft within the dark-green foliage spoke, 
 When by the breeze the trembling branches stirred, 
 And various were the words they seemed to say, 
 Joyful before the summer days had passed, 
 But sighing mournfully when autumn s blast 
 Their dry and withered leaves had swept away. 
 
36 
 
 And we at Nature s altar offer praise 
 
 To sacred Nymphs and Dryads of our own, 
 
 Who haunt the lost scenes of our early days, 
 
 Whence all but these fair guardians now have flown ; 
 
 Within the firefly s spark their watch-lights burn 
 
 Through sultry evening, and their music floats 
 
 Upon the sad cicada s plaintive notes, 
 That bid forgotten hours again return. 
 
 When the lone huntsman hears his rifle ring, 
 Reverberating o er the wood-bound lake, 
 Till neighboring mountains back its echoes fling, 
 And startled birds in fear their nests forsake ; 
 He finds the deities of Nature there, 
 
 He hears their voices through the rustling pines, 
 From rocky caverns clad in clambering vines, 
 He feels their light breath on the wavering air. 
 
 Wandering mid Helicon s luxuriant shade, 
 
 Or in the cool retreats of Haemus vale, 
 
 Where the bright buds of summer latest fade, 
 
 Where rivulet and fountain never fail ; 
 
 The Muses cherished poetry and song, 
 
 Whose melody, from Grecian mountains heard, 
 The souls of men with inspiration stirred, 
 
 As o er the winding slopes it swept along. 
 
 When fierce oppression crushed their favorite land, 
 The Muses sung on Grecian hills no more, 
 When in the chains of slavery drooped the hand 
 That hurled the Persian from the Attic shore ; 
 But those inspiring strains they still renew 
 
 Wherever timid Freedom finds a home ; 
 
 And through our rugged Northern woods they roam, 
 Where the dusk Indian launched his bark canoe. 
 
 With sweet harmonious voice the Muses speak, 
 Soothing despondent hearts by hopes of rest, 
 No suppliant can in vain their favor seek, 
 Who offer comfort to the mourning breast : 
 
37 
 
 Through trumpet call and strains of martial bands, 
 They cheer the soldier on against his foe, 
 And for his painful victories bestow 
 
 The laurels from a grateful nation s hands. 
 
 In ruin rest the Grecian temples now, 
 And statues of the gods of costly stone, 
 Their towering mansion on Olympus brow 
 Amid the sombre cloud is left alone ; 
 Yet all the Olympian gods are reigning still, 
 Their glory still unmindfully we praise, 
 And, reverencing their majesty, we raise 
 Temples to satisfy their sovereign will. 
 
 Our fathers founded learning s temples here, 
 Where colleges throughout our land arise, 
 The starting-point of youthful life s career, 
 Where future greatness all unconscious lies ; 
 Herein Minerva, Queen of Wisdom, reigns, 
 Accepting worship from the mind of youth, 
 For whom she points the way to sacred Truth, 
 Turning their steps from Error s dark domains. 
 
 These walls Minerva s presence makes divine, 
 She claims these aged structures as her own, 
 And all who bow sincere before her shrine 
 Shall tread a path with wreaths of honor strown ; 
 As through the honor of this sacred name 
 The light of ancient Athens is renewed, 
 Wherefrom Athena s warlike statue viewed 
 The distant ships that heralded her fame. 
 
 But here, where learning s goddess rules supreme, 
 
 Still other ancient deities are found, 
 
 Who, like the phantoms in a fleeting dream, 
 
 Diffuse a magic influence around, 
 
 Enticing youth to worship at their shrines, 
 
 To crown their altars with luxurious flowers. 
 
 Claiming the services of idle hours 
 When studiousness for relaxation pines. 
 
38 
 
 Perchance, at times, within the College walls, 
 The far-famed Bacchus of the clustering vine 
 Attends a scene of revel, that recalls 
 Those Bacchanalian worshippers of wine, 
 Who once on stern Cithaeron s thorny heights 
 Offered their furious song and frantic prayer, 
 With hideous music through the darkened air 
 Marring the stillness of autumnal nights. 
 
 Often by clouds of curling, circling smoke 
 That lift a fragrant incense on their fumes, 
 His worshippers assemble to invoke 
 The sooty Vulcan to their jovial rooms, 
 And laughter irrepressible goes up 
 
 Mid mirthful story, jest, and merry song, 
 As here from hand to hand are passed along 
 The social pipe of peace and foaming cup. 
 
 The winged Mercury, whose wisdom brought 
 Gymnastics to the earliest men of earth, 
 Whose form of strength and manly beauty taught 
 What healthful sport and exercise are worth, 
 May here his youthful votaries behold 
 
 Upon the wide Gymnasium s polished floor, 
 
 Renewing feats that centuries before 
 Nerved the hard muscles of the men of old. 
 
 At eve, embarking in swift-sailing boats, 
 They glide along the river s sinuous length, 
 Beside the shell old Neptune s chariot floats, 
 Who pours through youthful veins exultant strength 
 Under low-arching bridge with glancing oar 
 They pass beyond the quiet river s tide, 
 Until on Ocean s heaving swell they ride 
 Beneath the shadows of a city s shore. 
 
 Apollo, lover of the mountain lyre, t 
 The first \vho tuned its lightly quivering strings, 
 Here leads the voices of a Gleeful choir, 
 Whose harmony in loud accordance rings ; 
 
39 
 
 And his awakening spirit bids arise 
 The melody of sweet Pierian strains, 
 Until his harp its former joy regains, 
 
 The joy it knew beneath the Grecian skies. 
 
 And Ceres, goddess of the golden grain, 
 
 To whom the Greeks mysterious homage paid, 
 
 From Athens leading forth a stately train 
 
 With torchlight flickering through the olive shade, 
 
 Her Eleusinian mysteries resumes, 
 
 And weekly rites demand her guardian care, 
 When jocund chorus strikes the evening air 
 Emerging from the " Hasty-Pudding " rooms. 
 
 But all these guardian spirits love to meet 
 The dear assemblage of this honored day, 
 With welcome all our fairest friends to greet, 
 And add their presence to the bright array ; 
 Their flitting forms arrest my wandering eye, 
 The airy Graces, and the white-robed Hours, 
 Venus adorned with June s abundant flowers, 
 And Zephyrs fanning Beauty as they fly. 
 
 Now may their gracious influence 
 Gently on you, O friends, descending, 
 
 Be to you safety and defence, 
 
 All ill forefending, 
 Lighting your lifetime s varied flight, 
 Like moonbeams through the clouds of night. 
 
 And even as we welcome you, 
 Look well on us who now forever 
 
 To Alma Mate*r bid adieu, 
 
 Adieu forever, 
 
 Leaving her broad wing s sheltering care, 
 To spread our pinions on the air. 
 
 While we, O classmates, undertake 
 To speak concerning this transition, 
 
 Looking behind where old scenes break 
 Upon our vision, 
 
40 
 
 As the young eagles turn their eye, 
 When from the aerie first they fly. 
 
 O Cambridge, list to our adieu, 
 City of " thoroughgoing " flatness, 
 
 We sigh for four years more with you, 
 
 We sigh with sadness, 
 
 Your scenes shall o er our memories creep, 
 Of herds and circumambient sheep. 
 
 Your chimes will vibrate in our ears 
 When we are old, in future ages, 
 
 Your memory will move us to tears 
 
 When East-wind rages. 
 Warm thoughts of you will brightly glow, 
 When furious April snow-storms blow. 
 
 Now yon secluded College green 
 To our departing words must listen, 
 
 Where shady waving elms are seen, 
 Whose bright leaves glisten 
 Above familiar College halls, 
 And rustle round their ancient walls. 
 
 In weather-beaten brick arrayed 
 Long have those buildings pressed their bases, 
 
 For centuries have they surveyed 
 
 Each other s faces, 
 
 Turning toward the street their backs 
 On cattle-dusted railroad tracks. 
 
 Thus the new hall so late erected, 
 After judicious hesitation, 
 
 With sterling sense at last selected 
 
 A fixed location, 
 
 That truthful face turned to the others 
 Its more experienced elder brothers. 
 
 O classmates, in those brick-bound halls 
 Together have we kept our dwelling ; 
 How many thoughts their name recalls 
 Old love compelling, 
 
41 
 
 Their look such confidence assures, 
 
 " Who wonders that we come out boors " ? 
 
 Their spacious rooms have been our homes, 
 Light feet have trod those u dingy entries," 
 Where the untrammelled spider roams, 
 
 And fears no sentries ; 
 Whatever Abigails may think, 
 We would not have them painted pink ! 
 
 From one brick edifice the bell 
 Proclaims commands of early rising, 
 
 The woful tales its tongue might tell 
 
 Would sound surprising, 
 That voice to students yet unborn 
 Shall usher in the welcome morn. 
 
 Within this building with a bell 
 The Muse of History has her station, 
 
 Exhaustless, deep, pellucid well 
 
 Of information. 
 
 She drags old nobles from their graves, 
 And bids Britannia rule the waves. 
 
 One lingering look let us bestow 
 On Alchemy s dark laboratory, 
 
 Where stalks the ghost of old Regnault, 
 
 Diffusing glory 
 
 Through that sepulchral pile of stones, 
 "Most fitly filled with dead men s bones. 
 
 T was there the famous " Spartan Band " 
 Did perpetrate their grand " reaction " ; 
 
 Reorganized their native land 
 
 By force of faction, 
 Until the ghost of old Regnault 
 Shook like a corn-stalk with the blow. 
 
 Far more imposing powers than this, 
 Which to all others bid defiance, 
 6 
 
42 
 
 Reign in yon white stone edifice, 
 
 Temple of science, 
 Wherein the learning of all ages 
 Repeats itself in modern sages. 
 
 At the dead hour of Monday night, 
 In synagogue by gaslight sitting, 
 
 They legislate as seemeth right 
 
 And most befitting ; 
 They are the College s suspenders, 
 To elevate or drop offenders. 
 
 There most divine Philosophy 
 Maintains a lofty elevation, 
 
 And Rhetoric abides close by 
 
 Her near relation ; 
 There, to instruct our youthful wits, 
 The Hierarch of Concepts sits. 
 
 Above the other spiral stair 
 Philology pours forth her glory, 
 
 And classic voices whisper there 
 
 Through ancient story, 
 Voices whose tone to all who know them 
 Is "prater expectationem." 
 
 Between the two sits Eloquence, 
 And there preserves such wondrous stillness, 
 
 That most perchance would argue hence 
 
 Some serious illness : 
 Fear not, t is but her sleepy way, 
 She wakes on Exhibition Day. 
 
 Astronomy dwells in that hall, 
 That same white hall of shining granite ; 
 
 She looks from this revolving ball 
 
 To star and planet, 
 
 And, swayed by their imperious force, 
 She imitates their changeless course. 
 
43 
 
 Alchemy, Philosophy, 
 Remorseless Logic, Saxon story, 
 
 O Faculty, Philology, 
 
 O Oratory, 
 
 Impossible with one adieu 
 To leave so numerous friends as you ! 
 
 Reduce them all to Mathesis ; 
 All science is in her united ; 
 
 Through her mouth all may take one kiss, 
 
 And none be slighted ; 
 Ah ! thus may we accomplish this ; 
 Adieu to all in Mathesis ! 
 
 Still further scenes might we review, 
 A multitude too vast to mention ; 
 
 In memory they spring up anew, 
 
 Call new attention, 
 Till these four years appear to be 
 A prceterite eternity. 
 
 But the long Future still remains, 
 Whose dark " extension " gathers o er us ; 
 
 Whose dim " unqualified " domains 
 
 Expand before us ; 
 Vainly we strain our eager gaze 
 Into the gloom of coming days. 
 
 O thou obscure Futurity ! 
 Answer a few interrogations, 
 
 About our public destiny 
 
 Or home relations : 
 Who first shall hear his baby snore 
 Rocked to the tune of Sixty-Four ? 
 
 Who first shall take his station there 
 Where learned judges are the actors, 
 
 And bonds for keeping peace declare 
 
 To malefactors, 
 Even suspension to pronounce 
 Worse than his own in College once ? 
 
Perchance to one of us has Fate 
 Reserved the imperial elevation ; 
 
 Where he may grasp the helm of state 
 
 To steer the nation, 
 And hither send his eldest son 
 As his own father once had done ! 
 
 Who first shall gird his armor on, 
 Inspired by martial resolution, 
 
 Life, love, and honor staked upon 
 
 The Constitution; 
 
 To rally round the stripes and stars, 
 And show their colors in his scars ? 
 
 Let the eventful Past reveal 
 What the Future would conceal ! 
 On the Delta s grassy ground, 
 Once a fierce vociferous sound 
 Floating on the breezes came 
 From the annual football game. 
 But four fleeting years ago, 
 Fate had struck the football low ; 
 Buried sadly neath the sod, 
 Where contending classes trod, 
 Planted deep the grass beneath, 
 Like the Theban dragon s teeth, 
 Whence a bristling warrior band 
 Thrust their spears above the land. 
 Autumn winds had ceased to blow, 
 Spring had melted winter snow ; 
 Lo the same strange fruit had grown, 
 Where the football seed was sown ! 
 Men in warlike ranks arrayed, 
 Arms of pointed steel displayed ; 
 List to words that may proclaim 
 Whence such wondrous harvest came ! 
 
 Long had Minerva, Queen of Wisdom, found 
 Her highest happiness in quiet learning ; 
 
45 
 
 Mildly she dealt the gifts of Peace around ; 
 Upon her altar peaceful flame was burning. 
 Useless now seemed the shield and spear 
 "Which anciently her valor trusted; 
 Her sword, undrawn from year to year, 
 Within its sheath had rusted, 
 So she seemed to heed no more 
 The warlike mail she wore ; 
 When sudden bells pealed forth united sound, 
 And unseen armies started from the ground, 
 Whose new-born soldiers at their leader ^ call 
 Passed on to strike lest Freedom s home should fall ; 
 Then from its sheath her blade the goddess drew, 
 And .near its sheen her eye with ardor glistened ; 
 Forgotten words of war she breathed anew, 
 Addressing us, her children, as we listened : 
 
 " This shield and sword were of old my weapons of fame, 
 Which taught that wisdom from warlike achievements came, 
 When my glory shone forth in peace and in battle the same : 
 Again am I Pallas for whom the Athenians bled ; 
 Go hence to the field, and remember the words I have said, - 
 Remember, all wisdom is gone whence Freedom is fled ! " 
 
 How many hearkened to those words of truth, 
 Remember we, O classmates, one and all, 
 Who left behind fair scenes beloved by youth, 
 In answer to a suffering country s call ; 
 The dangers to withstand that might befall 
 On distant Southern battle-field, away 
 Where terrors rise in visions to appall 
 The veterans of many a conflict s day, 
 More terrible to youth, which liveth to be gay. 
 
 There have they toiled amid the strife of war, 
 
 And some returning thence, our welcome heard ; 
 
 Perchance again that cause to join wherefor 
 
 They strove with ardor by its summons stirred ; 
 
 While some would that my voice knew not the word 
 
46 
 
 Found living honor there but mixed with death, 
 Which changeless fate forbid should be deferred, 
 Yielding to hostile air the silent breath, 
 From home s dear sights afar, where no friend listeneth. 
 
 When oft had they the wind s low whisper heard, 
 At night-watch sigh through unfamiliar trees, 
 On memory s wing their hopeful thoughts recurred 
 Hither, where waving elms bend to a breeze, 
 Through which not yet offended Nature sees 
 Her children s steel against her bosom turned ; 
 And thus they loved their lonely hours to please, 
 With us their heart, their eye where camp-fires burned, 
 Nor knew they how in vain, for all in vain they yearned. 
 
 In many a home the tears of sorrow flow 
 From friends who weep through silent hours of night ; 
 Where Grief has hung her dismal weeds of woe, 
 And Hope has vanished from the mourner s sight. 
 O that our words could but restore the light 
 That changed to darkness when our classmates fell ! 
 Then once again should saddened eyes grow bright, 
 To read what monumental stone shall tell 
 Their names, who passed away so young and yet so well. 
 
 But were there no sad absence to lament, 
 If every well-remembered face were here, 
 Yet, when our College day is nearly spent, 
 Its twilight shades might well demand a tear, 
 To mourn the ending of a day so dear. 
 Now farewell words display their solemn power, 
 To wake forgotten scenes that reappear 
 With new attractions at the parting hour, 
 When o er the brightest spots the darkest shadows lower. 
 
 Thus while the summer of the wandering year 
 
 Unites the smiles of life on earth and sky, 
 
 Of all the radiant days that linger here 
 
 These seem the brightest as their moments fly ; 
 
 Yet when mild summer s breath has hurried by, 
 
47 
 
 And icy storms from arctic regions blow, 
 The beam of cheerfulness still lights our eye, 
 Though what we loved before lies dead below, 
 Enwrapt in chilly wreaths of earth-enshrouding snow. 
 
 T is when the withering autumn sighs farewell, 
 Then all lament for summer s dying day, 
 When the sad murmurs of the wind foretell 
 A sure destruction to the green array ; 
 Too soon must our wide wandering footsteps stray, 
 Scattered like autumn leaves that wild gales blow ; 
 Nor will our parting sorrows fade away, 
 Till cold forgetfulness has spread its snow, 
 Concealing youthful friendship s wasted form below. 
 
CLASS ODE. 
 
 BY CHARLES HENRY COXE. 
 
 THE day of our parting, its hope, its regret, 
 Find our thoughts going over the years 
 Too endeared by our brotherhood e er to forget, 
 
 And their memory softens yet cheers ; 
 For they tell us of comrades whose lot was to fall 
 
 In the Right s bitter struggle with Wrong, 
 And days, happy days, they light up and recall, 
 To yield all their joy to our song. 
 
 IT. 
 
 And we turn from the days we have left in the past 
 
 To question the days still to be, 
 In the trust that our love shall endure to the last 
 
 For the Truth and, dear Mother, for thee. 
 Thou hast nurtured us, given us strength to achieve, - 
 
 Be our purposes holy and high, 
 And our work too well done e er to wish to retrieve 
 
 When our pilgrimage sees the end nigh. 
 
 HI. 
 
 Be thy blessing upon us, to cheer, to inspire 
 In the service where Duty commands, 
 
 To enkindle our zeal with a holier fire, 
 To impart a new might to our hands. 
 
 7 
 
50 
 
 Yes, our pride as thy sons shall incite us through life, 
 
 None the less in our trouble and pain ; 
 We shall press with fresh vigor, wherever the strife, 
 
 If thine be the honor we gain. 
 
 IV. 
 
 And the summons is sounding that bids us away 
 
 To fields where is loss, where is gain ; 
 There to strive, with a purpose, made firmer each day, 
 
 For the peace we may some time attain. 
 Precious seed bear we hence, which but sow we broadcast, 
 
 Be it either in joy or in tears, 
 We shall come, bringing sheaves with us, home at the last, 
 
 Redeemed from all sorrow and fears. 
 
CLASS SONG. 
 
 BY F. T. WASHBURN. 
 TUNE, Russian National Air. 
 
 MEET we again for one more friendly greeting, 
 Grasp we each other once more by the hand, 
 Quickly, too quickly the moments are fleeting, 
 Broken and scattered must soon be our band. 
 
 Friends have we found here, whose friendship shall never 
 Cease till the current of life flow no more, 
 Seas may divide us, but ne er shall they sever 
 Hearts that beat true to our own Sixty-Four. 
 
 Fondly we think on the place we are leaving, 
 Boldly we seek what the future may give, 
 Knowledge and strength we have here been receiving, 
 God grant us all that we know how to live. 
 
 Onward we 11 .march, then, with shoulder to shoulder, 
 Ready to meet all that life has in store, 
 Blood leaping quicker, and hearts beating bolder, 
 As we remember our dear Sixty-Four. 
 
CLASS-DAY OFFICERS. 
 
 Orator. 
 GEORGE CALLENDER BRACKETT, Somerville, Mass. 
 
 Poet. 
 
 ISAAC FLAGG, Somervil/e, Mass. 
 
 Odist. 
 CHARLES HENRY COXE, Philadelphia, Penn. 
 
 Chief Marshal. 
 CHARLES COOLIDGE READ, Cambridge. 
 
 Assistant Marshals. . 
 
 CONSTANT FREEMAN DAVIS, Cambridge. 
 WILLIAM ROBERTSON PAGE, Baltimore, Md. 
 
 Class- Day Committee. 
 
 ROBERT TODD LINCOLN, Washington, D. C. 
 MARSHALL MUNROE CUTTER, Cambridgeport. 
 FRANK WALDO WILDES, Boston. 
 
 Chaplain. 
 WILLIAM ADAMS MUNROE, Cambridgeport. 
 
 Chorister. 
 
 RUSSELL NEVINS BELLOWS, New York. 
 EDWIN PLINY SEAVER, Northboro\ Mass, (pro tern.) 
 
 Class Secretary. 
 WILLIAM LAMBERT RICHARDSON^ Boston. 
 
 Class Committee. 
 
 HENRY HARRISON SPRAGUE, Athd, Mass. 
 GEORGE GOLDING KENNEDY, Roxbury. 
 
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