NWERSIT'' OF 
 CALIFORNIA 
 SAN DIE60

 
 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 AN ASPECT OF CITIZENSHIP
 
 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 AN ASPECT OF CITIZENSHIP CONSID- 
 ERED IN VARIOUS ADDRESSES 
 GIVEN WHILE PRESIDENT OF 
 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 
 
 BY 
 WILLIAM JEWETT TUCKER 
 
 THE RVMFOFU3 PRESS 
 CONCORD-NEW HAMPSHIRE 
 
 CONCORD 
 
 1910
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1909, 
 BY THE RUMFORD PRESS
 
 TO MY WIFE 
 
 BY THE AID OF WHOSE HELPFUL CRITICISM THESE 
 
 PAPERS HAVE BEEN MADE READY 
 
 FOR PUBLICATION
 
 PREFACE 
 
 The accepted definition of a citizen is that of "a person who 
 enjoys the privileges of a city or state." Citizenship is the 
 "status" of a person enjoying these privileges. There is as yet 
 no sufficient recognition, either in idea or in fact, of the quality 
 of public mindedness as inherent in citizenship. If we wish to 
 emphasize this quality we are still obliged to speak of "good" cit- 
 izenship. The title of the present book is a reminder of this 
 deficiency. It implies that the discrimination may fairly be made 
 between citizens who use their citizenship to guarantee their private 
 interests, and citizens who also use their citizenship with supreme 
 regard to the public good. 
 
 As indicated on the title page, discussion is here carried on 
 through occasional addresses given during the period of my service 
 as President of Dartmouth College (1893-1909). The traditions 
 attaching to the office of the president of a New England college 
 call for a very considerable amount of public address, not only in 
 reference to the college itself but also in regard to many matters 
 of general interest and concern. Very likely, under the present 
 requirements of specialized knowledge, a college president may 
 cover too much ground in these outside addresses. There is, how- 
 ever, a difference in the demand which different subjects put upon 
 him. Some lie close to his own work or thought, some readily yield 
 to such investigations as a trained mind may be able to make, 
 others manifestly lie beyond his reach, requiring either highly 
 specialized training, or such constant familiarity and close knowl- 
 edge as is required, for example, in a discussion of current party 
 politics. But the relation of the higher education to most of the 
 public needs which are involved in citizenship is direct and inti- 
 mate. College men are set toward those professions or toward 
 those businesses in which, whatever may be the service which they 
 can render through their calling, they ought to be pre-eminently 
 citizens. The willing and intelligent fulfillment of the duties of 
 citizenship is the price which educated men may reasonably be asked
 
 Tiii PREFACE 
 
 to pay for the privileges of democracy. Every college also has its lo- 
 cal environment which ought to be recognized on suitable occasions. 
 The individual college and the individual state are mutually related. 
 The relation of Dartmouth College to the State of New Hamp- 
 shire has called out several of the addresses which are included 
 in this book. Some others relate to events which took place within 
 the borders of the State, in which the State itself took part. When 
 I assumed the presidency of Dartmouth College it seemed to me 
 that in many ways its interests were identical with those of the 
 State of New Hampshire. Each had had a great history, but 
 neither could rely upon its history for the advancement of its inter- 
 ests. It was evident that under right co-operation the interest of 
 both might be advanced to a degree corresponding with their mutual 
 inheritance. So far from developing any spirit of provincialism, 
 it was considered that the development, in all legitimate ways, of the 
 spirit of self-respect would entitle each to its largest place and its 
 largest influence in the nation. 
 
 It is an open question whether the spoken word, especially in the 
 form of an occasional address, ought to be allowed a second hearing 
 or be put on duty a second time. My apology for recalling these 
 addresses, which were chiefly called out by occasions, is that as ar- 
 ranged they have a certain cumulative effect bearing upon the 
 question under discussion. The earlier addresses, not necessarily 
 earlier in time but in arrangement, have to do with some of the 
 present needs and requirements of citizenship. Incidentally yet 
 directly principles of good citizenship are discussed. Later, 
 addresses are introduced dealing with men or with events illustrat- 
 ing in one way or another some aspect of citizenship. And in the 
 concluding addresses account is taken of various educational 
 agencies which may be expected to bear their part in the training 
 of citizens. The discussion at this point has been kept free, as far 
 as possible, from all technical questions which at the present time 
 fall within the scope of the higher education. 
 
 W. J. TUCKER. 
 Hanover, N. H., December 15, I909.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAFTEK PAGE 
 
 I. GOOD CITIZENSHIP DEPENDENT UPON GREAT 
 
 CITIZENS 1 
 
 Address at the Federation of Churches, Carnegie 
 Hall, New York, November 17, 1905. 
 
 II. THE SACREDNESS OF CITIZENSHIP ... 7 
 
 Address before the Religious Educational Asso- 
 ciation, Tremont Temple, Boston, May 25, 1906. 
 
 III. SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 16 
 
 Address before the Faculty and Students, Union 
 Theological Seminary, New York, January 18, 
 1897. 
 
 IV, THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE MODERN CITY . 38 
 
 Address at the Semi-Centennial of the City of 
 Manchester, September 6, 1896. 
 
 V. THE CONSCIENCE OF THE NATION ... 58 
 
 Sermon on the Liberation of Cuba, College 
 Church, Hanover, April 22, 1898. 
 
 VI. THE REVIVAL OF CIVIC PRIDE IN THE COM- 
 MONWEALTH 71 
 
 Address at Dedication of State Library Build- 
 ing, Concord, N. H., January 8, 1895. 
 
 VII. NEW HAMPSHIRE DURING THE PERIOD OF 
 
 INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION ... 87 
 
 Address before Members of the Present and Past 
 Legislatures of the State, Concord, N. H., June 
 30, 1896.
 
 X CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTBB PAQB 
 
 VIII. THE ORIGIN OF THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 
 
 CASE 109 
 
 Speech in Response to the Toast "Dartmouth 
 College" at the Banquet of the Bar Association 
 of New Hampshire in Celebration of the Cen- 
 tennial of Chief Justice Marshall, Manchester, 
 N. H., February 4, IpOl. 
 
 IX. NATIONAL UNITY 122 
 
 A Speech on the Transfer of Battle Flags Fol- 
 lowing the Presentation of Memorial Tablets by 
 the State of New Hampshire to the U. S. S. 
 Kearsarge and the U. S. S. Alabama, Ports- 
 mouth, September 18, 1900. 
 
 X. COMMODORE PERKINS 129 
 
 Address at the Unveiling of the Statue in State 
 House Yard, Concord, N. H., April 25, 1902. 
 
 XI. THE OWERSHIP OF LAND . . . . . 156 
 
 Address at the Thirty-First Annual Session of 
 the New Hampshire Grange, Dover, N. H., 
 December 20, 1904. 
 
 XII. "THE MIND OF THE WAGE EARNER" . . 167 
 
 Address before the Twentieth Annual Convention 
 of the Officials of Labor Bureaus of America, 
 Concord, N. H., July 12, 1904, Hon. Carroll D. 
 Wright Presiding. 
 
 XIIL THE REPEAL OF THE CHARTER OF THE NEW 
 
 ENGLAND BREEDERS' CLUB . . . . 17T 
 
 Address at a Meeting of Citizens of Manchester, 
 N. H., January 14, 1906. 
 
 XIV. THE TREATY OF PORTSMOUTH IN RETROSPECT 189 
 
 Address at the Unveiling of Commemorative 
 Tablet in the Navy Yard at Kittery, Me., Sep- 
 tember 5, 1906. 
 
 XV. WHAT HAS PATRIOTISM THE RIGHT TO DE- 
 MAND OF EDUCATION 195 
 
 Address at Union League Club, Chicago, Feb- 
 ruary 22, 1906.
 
 CONTENTS xi 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XVI. THE HISTORIC COLLEGE: ITS PLACE IN THE 
 
 EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM 204 
 
 Inaugural Address, Dartmouth College, June 26, 
 1893. 
 
 XVII. THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE MODERN COL- 
 LEGE 234 
 
 Address before the Wonolancet Club, Concord, 
 N. H., December 7, 1905. 
 
 XVIII. THE RIGHTS OF THE PERIOD OF EDUCATION 252 
 
 An Address Given at Several Gatherings of 
 Teachers, 1899- 
 
 XIX. ARRESTED EDUCATION— HOW RECOVERED . 270 
 
 Delivered at Rutland, Vt., before the State 
 Teachers' Convention. 
 
 XX. THE SCHOOL OF THE COMMUNITY ... 288 
 
 Address at the Dedication of the High School 
 Building, Newton, Mass., February 22, 1898. 
 
 XXI. THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 300 
 
 Address at the Dedication of the Gale Public 
 Library, Laconia, N. H., June 9^ 1903. 
 
 XXII. MODERN EDUCATION CAPABLE OF IDEALISM 310 
 
 Address at the Inauguration of President King 
 at Oberlin, Ohio, May 14, 1903. 
 
 XXIII. NEW IDEALS BEFORE THE YOUTH OF THE 
 
 COUNTRY 319 
 
 Address before the Hampton County Teachers* 
 Convention, Springfield, Mass., October 26, 1906. 
 
 XXIV. THE STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY GREATNESS 336 
 
 Lecture before the Faculty and Cadets of the 
 United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md.
 
 GOOD CITIZENSHIP DEPENDENT UPON 
 
 GREAT CITIZENS 
 
 Address at the Federation of Churches, Carnegie Hall, New York, 
 
 November 17, 1905 
 
 As I interpret our present civic conditions the chief 
 fact in evidence is the opportunity for influential 
 and commanding citizenship. I therefore strike at 
 once the note of greatness, not that of mere obhga- 
 tion nor even of necessity, as most in harmony with 
 my subject. The first question about any urgent 
 matter of a pubhc sort is not, how urgent is it, but how 
 great is it? What rank are we ready to assign to it 
 among the subjects which demand our attention? That 
 is the question which I put in regard to citizenship. 
 What rank do we propose to give it among the compel- 
 hng objects which address themselves to the ambition, 
 the patient endeavor, or the consecrations of men? If 
 we are not prepared to put it in the first rank, to give it 
 a place beside the great constants in the service of state 
 and church, or beside the new and fascinating open- 
 ings of science and industry, it is quite useless for us 
 to expect any results from our discussion of the need 
 of good citizenship. If we are to have good citizen- 
 shij^, as things are today, we must have great citizens. 
 When we have them in sufficient number, and rightly 
 distributed, we shall have practically settled the ques- 
 tion of citizenship. I address myself to one, to my 
 mind the one, solution of our present civic troubles.
 
 2 PUBLIC MINDEDXESS 
 
 namely, the presence of men qualified for leadership, 
 whose great quahfication is not a sense of duty, but 
 the joy of the task. Nothing short of this will take 
 the men we want away from the fascinations and the 
 rewards of private gain. 
 
 What then are the qualities in men which can make 
 them able and willing to achieve greatness by way of 
 citizenship? I name first, without the slightest hesi- 
 tancy, imagination, the power to see beyond, or even 
 through, wickedness into righteousness. No great cause 
 ever moved far until it had taken possession of the imag- 
 ination of men. Whatever start the conscience may 
 have given it, it waited for the kindled mind to give it 
 movement. Foreign missions in this country sprang 
 out of as fine a burst of idealism as the republic itself. 
 When young Mills said to his comrades at Williams, 
 "we ought to carry the gospel to dark and heathen 
 lands, and we can do it if we will," the word of duty 
 waited upon the word of inspiration. We have had 
 enough to say about the duty of citizenship. Progress 
 does not lie in any more discussion of duty, or even in 
 the deeper sense of it. It is time for us to change our 
 camping ground — to move out from "we ought" to 
 reform our cities, into "we can do it if we will." What 
 we need in further thought about citizenship is to put 
 more of what Stevenson calls "the purple" into our 
 thinking; or if we are ready for action, to give to that 
 what the London Spectator calls the "Nelson touch," 
 the fashion which the old admiral had of doing a great 
 thing in a great way because he saw it in its greatness. 
 
 Next to imagination as requisite to any kind of 
 efficiency in citizenship, I put intelligence, that fine dis- 
 cernment of an issue which gives us simplicity in place
 
 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 3 
 
 of confusion. Men are variously intelligent for public 
 uses, every man after his own kind. We ought to be 
 careful about prescribing the method. What matters it 
 whether discernment comes by way of the school, or by 
 way of the street? "Wisdom is justified of all her 
 children." Of course the security of corrupt men lies 
 in the confusion of good men, or in their divided coun- 
 sels. No matter how great or wide-spread the corrup- 
 tion, good men are absolutely helpless until some one 
 arises who can simplify the issue and make it clear and 
 imperative. The tendency to overweight a moral issue, 
 to put the work of tomorrow into the work of today, 
 has brought many an attempted reform to naught. It 
 requires the clearest intelligence to place an issue before 
 the public mind, and to hold it there, naked and 
 unadorned, till the public mind becomes ashamed of its 
 continued presence. 
 
 When we add to imagination and intelligence the evi- 
 dent quality of courage we simply remind ourselves that 
 citizenship is in the militant stage. The task of citizen- 
 ship in most of our cities is many years in arrears. 
 Some valuable properties have been irretrievably lost. 
 Other and greater properties are in danger. The 
 looting of the public wealth is not the work of one man 
 or one set of men. It has become a recognized industry. 
 The men who practice it are as highly trained as men in 
 the skilled employments or in the professions. They 
 are never, of course, men of moral courage, and seldom 
 of physical courage, but they have the courage of their 
 position, intrenched as they are in power and equipped 
 with means. Every attempt to bring a set of political 
 thieves to justice is fraught with personal danger, but 
 the danger increases mightily with the settled purpose
 
 4 PUBLIC MIXDEDNESS 
 
 to break up the business. The man who stands for that 
 result must have the long courage of the campaign. No 
 one can tell how far we are from the reign of honesty 
 in our cities. The time depends, I supjDose, upon the 
 steadiness, the endurance, the unflinching courage of 
 those who fight our battles. I know of no better motto 
 for any man who dares a great deliverance for his city 
 than the word of the most persistent of the anti-slavery 
 reformers — "I will not compromise, I will not equivo- 
 cate, I will not retreat a single inch, and I will be 
 heard." 
 
 But why should we discuss the question of citizen- 
 ship in the Federation of Churches? What have we to 
 add, or what ought we to add, to the qualities which 
 make up the great citizen? We ought to add the 
 supreme qualification, namely, consecration. Consecra- 
 tion supports and steadies the vision of duty, it directs 
 the trained intelligence, it nerves the will and cheers the 
 heart in defeat, and above all, it teaches the soul the joy 
 of self-sacrifice. There is but one equivalent for the 
 immense rewards of private gain, and that is the exceed- 
 ing great reward of self-sacrifice. If a man does not 
 allow himself to feel the joy of self-sacrifice in a right- 
 eous cause, he is not out of reach of the rewards of 
 private gain. When he has once tasted that joy, 
 rewards seem cheap. What money would bring back 
 your missionaries from "dark and heathen lands," 
 where their comrades have fallen and are falling at 
 their side? What money has been able to hold back 
 from the high places of public duty, men who have been 
 summoned there out of the very midst of us at the cost 
 of personal enjoyment or professional honor? In our 
 demands for citizenship, we cannot stop short of the 
 man capable of devotion.
 
 GOOD CITIZENSHIP 5 
 
 In declaring then the attitude of the churches toward 
 citizenship, I insist first upon the recognition of all who 
 are giving us the finest illustration of it, regardless of 
 name, or creed, or profession. The men about us who 
 are rising into the greatness of citizenship are the men 
 for us to study, not to criticise. Let us beware how we 
 say the word of the discij^les, "Lord, we saw one casting 
 out devils in thy name and we forbade him, because he 
 followeth not with us," lest we receive the answer of 
 the master, "Forbid him not: there is no man which 
 shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak 
 evil of me. He that is not against us is on our part." 
 The test in all this business of reforming our cities is the 
 power "to cast out devils." 
 
 In the second place I insist upon the duty of our 
 churches to create "so far as in them lies" the condi- 
 tions which produce the citizen. It is in the expression 
 of this duty that I have been urging that advance in the 
 rank of citizenship which shall put it among the fore- 
 most privileges of christian service. I would have 
 every church put it upon the list of great causes for 
 which men are to pray, and to which they are to give as 
 occasion may arise, and to which they are to consecrate 
 themselves. While the present emergency lasts I would 
 give it standing with missions at home or abroad. 
 
 And in the third place I insist upon the acceptance 
 of the high duty and privilege which co-operation in 
 citizenship offers as a means of making real to our- 
 selves and to all men, in their own generation, the unity 
 of the church. Unity is not an end to be striven after 
 as men may strive after the truth. Truth is always the 
 greater end, even though the search after it may for the 
 time separate a man from his brother. Unity comes in
 
 6 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 upon us through the sense of a common need, a common 
 duty, and a common privilege. Suddenly, in the provi- 
 dence of God, the churches are confronted by the same 
 imperative and exciting duty, and lo, in the doing of it, 
 we are one. In the immediate providence of God we 
 have been brought, through a well nigh universal 
 demand for civic righteousness, into one of tliose great 
 meeting places of righteous men upon whom God looks 
 down, "without respect of persons." Let not the 
 church miss its present opportunity to realize its one- 
 ness. Let the search for truth go on, lead where it will, 
 but let righteousness, plain, everyday, brotherly right- 
 eousness, have its day amongst us. What better word 
 could the great apostle have for the men of today than 
 that which he had for men of Iiis own time, as he led the 
 way out of the confusions of their thoughts and desires 
 for the things of the spirit into the works of charity — 
 "Covet earnestly the best gifts, and yet show I unto 
 you a more excellent way."
 
 II 
 
 THE SACREDNESS OF CITIZENSHIP 
 
 Address before the Religious Educational Association, Tremont 
 
 Temple, Boston, May 25, 1906 
 
 In the opening volume of the series on Modern His- 
 tory, planned by the late Lord Acton, modern history 
 is defined politically, and is dated from the rise of the 
 spirit of nationality. It is very doubtful, I think, if 
 we have as yet arrived at the political conception of the 
 modern world. Other conceptions, born chiefly of the 
 discoveries of science, have thus far filled the imagina- 
 tion and developed the energies of men. Suddenly, at 
 least to us in this country, there has come a conception 
 of political power which we had not entertained, and 
 for which we are not prepared. We awake to find the 
 spirit of nationality the dominant force at the opening 
 ©f the century. We see, at a glance, that it has sup- 
 planted all other forces of like nature — the power of 
 race, and the power of organized religion. A man no 
 longer counts, as we take note, because he is of this or 
 that race, or because he is of this or that religion, but 
 because he is of this or that nation. And on the other 
 hand, we are conscious of a marked change in our atti- 
 tude toward the government. We find ourselves 
 instinctively turning to the government for ends which 
 we had not contemplated, and which we cannot now 
 exactly define. But in the midst of the overwhelming 
 and often reckless supremacies of material power we 
 are asking for something which shall guarantee to us
 
 8 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 the condition of human well being, and if not the 
 government, what ? 
 
 Therefore the new meaning, or better, the new valua- 
 tion attaching to the idea of citizenship, a word which 
 expresses the responsible relation of the individual to 
 this wide movement which is stirring the nations, and 
 also to this inner movement which is stirring the hearts 
 of the people. And if we are to discuss citizenship here, 
 in these surroundings, I do not know of any lower 
 terms in which we can afford to discuss it than those in 
 which my subject has been cast for me, namely, "The 
 Sacredness of Citizenship." 
 
 We must be sure that we advance our ideals as the 
 facts for which they stand are filled with power. Every 
 powerful thing must be capable of being invested with 
 sacredness, else it is an evil thing — money, position, 
 knowledge. It is the chief business of righteousness to 
 follow after power and after powerful men. Whenever 
 this work is ignored or evaded all minor tasks are futile. 
 The account with righteousness is not kept by attention 
 to incidentals. As someone has recently said, "There is 
 something grander than benevolence, more august than 
 charity: it is justice." Citizenship, as it advances to 
 its new and enlarging functions, must become more and 
 more sacred in the eyes of men if it is to fulfill these 
 functions. It must concern itself, according to our 
 judgment of its business, with "the weightier matters of 
 the law." We must learn to become impatient in down- 
 right earnest with all easy and spectacular, if not ques- 
 tionable, substitutes for citizenship. 
 
 So much lies in our subject without further saying. 
 But how shall we compass so great an end, which is 
 nothing less than to raise the moral estimate of citizen-
 
 SACREDNESS OF CITIZENSHIP 9 
 
 ship? How shall we who believe in the values of educa- 
 tion contribute to this end? How shall we come out 
 of the academic into the practical, and say the tilings we 
 have to say, and do the things we have to do, effectively? 
 So far as the masses are concerned, we must work, I 
 think, in and through the concrete. Citizenship is a 
 matter of principles and ideals, but it is no abstraction. 
 It is a matter of details, which in their ceaseless and 
 monotonous return teach "line upon line and precept 
 upon precept." Citizens are made by doing the things 
 for which at any given time citizenship stands. There 
 is no other way of making the ordinary citizen. Prin- 
 ciples are established, standards are set, ideals are made 
 clear and abiding through persistent, or, as in some 
 cases, through aroused and impassioned action. A cam- 
 paign like that of District Attorney Jerome on the east 
 side of New York is first education, secondarily pol- 
 itics, with the outcome in citizenship. We can educate 
 somewhat poHtically through the schools, but for the 
 most part we must be ready to take the field, and deal 
 with men who do not think much in our way, but who 
 are capable of thinking earnestly. 
 
 But the immediate question before us, and, as it seems 
 to me, the most serious political question before the 
 country is not, how shall we educate, in the ordinary 
 sense, those whom we call the masses, but how shall we 
 raise in those already educated the moral estimate of 
 citizenship? The greatest political danger of our time 
 does not come directly from ignorance, but from the 
 use made of ignorance by the intelligence of organized 
 power, with the tacit consent of the intelligence of cul- 
 ture. Ignorance may be the condition, it is not the 
 inciting cause of political corruption. That cause lies
 
 10 PUBLIC MIXDEDNESS 
 
 within the region of intelligent dishonesty. It is our 
 bounden duty, for every reason, to educate the ig- 
 norant ; but it is a shame that we are obliged to educate 
 them for the sake of protecting ourselves from our own 
 trained and often educated leaders w^ho have become 
 adepts in corruption. 
 
 It is as true today as when Carlyle said it, — "It is 
 the knowing ones who rule." What do our "knowing 
 ones" think about citizenship? What is the moral esti- 
 mate which they put uj)on it? What is the moral 
 estimate which we, as a consenting if not an active polit- 
 ical part of the knowing and ruling ones, put upon it? 
 Let us test very briefly this moral sense of citizenship 
 as it comes within our observation or experience. 
 
 Citizenship, we shall agree, requires the faithful use 
 of political rights. Rights once established instantly 
 become duties, otherwise we must speak of them as 
 unoccupied riglits. An unoccupied political right 
 always represents so much indiff erentism, so much moral 
 as well as physical absenteeism. The per cent of unused 
 rights has become a calculable factor in political man- 
 ipulation. It can be pretty definitely located in any 
 given community, for it usually follows the line of intel- 
 ligence. We familiarly say that the quality of the vote 
 in Xew England, not its size, depends upon the weather. 
 No man can faithfully use his political rights without a 
 good deal of inconvenience, personal effort, and some- 
 times personal courage. The result is an increasing 
 disuse of political rights among those who are unwilling 
 to pay the price of the right. It is for this reason that 
 a great many question the extension of political rights, 
 as througli woman's suffrage. Will the right if estab- 
 lished be occupied? Citizenship is cheapened by 
 unused, as it is demoralized by misused, privileges.
 
 SACREDNESS OF CITIZENSHIP H 
 
 Citizenship, we shall emphatically agree, requires 
 that its political purity be kept inviolate. Bribery is 
 to suffrage what forgery is to business, or treason to the 
 "service." But bribery is a recognized, not exactly 
 authorized, but recognized method of transacting polit- 
 ical business. Neither party claims to be free from it. 
 The general facts in regard to political bribery are part 
 of the public knowledge, though it may be difficult to 
 individualize them. Aside from the dullness of the party 
 conscience at this point, the most disheartening feature 
 of this whole business has been the failure to put the 
 emphasis upon the wrong in the fit place. We have 
 held in public contempt the men who take bribes, 
 instead of holding under public condemnation the men 
 who give bribes. Not until the exposure in Missouri 
 were we ready to view this matter in right proportion. 
 Of course there is a vast difference in degree between 
 the selhng of one's vote and the sale of one's official 
 power or influence as a legislator or judge, still it is the 
 men or the corporations who are taking the initiative in 
 this kind of corruption with whom we are chiefly con- 
 cerned. We cannot expend our wrath or our contempt 
 upon their victims and allow them to maintain their 
 respectability. Certainly as regards the purchase of 
 votes it is the purchaser who is the greater sinner in the 
 light of the sacredness of citizenship. It is he who con- 
 ceives the mischief, and works the temptation, and se- 
 cures the result. Upon him should fall the heavier con- 
 demnation. We are just awakening to the enormity of 
 the offense of bribery on its active as well as on its recep- 
 tive side. Last evening I listened to a statement, at a 
 hearing in the New Hampshire House of Representa- 
 tives, by Judge Lindsey of Denver, in regard to the new
 
 12 PUBLIC MIXDEDNESS 
 
 court established by the state of Colorado for juvenile 
 offenders. It is the business of this court to locate the 
 real offender. If a father sends liis boy to a saloon with 
 the result that he falls into disorderly conduct, or if 
 he sends his boy to take coal from a railroad with the 
 result that he becomes a petty thief, it is the father with 
 whom the court deals at first hand, the boy with whom 
 it deals at second hand. Let us learn to discriminate in 
 like manner in respect to bribery in the purchase of 
 votes among the more ignorant voters, so that penalty 
 shall fall where it belongs, at a second remove upon 
 ignorance, at first hand upon intelligence. 
 
 Citizensliip, we shall further agree, requires the 
 subordination of private interests to the public good. I 
 would not afikm, I do not believe, that men are more 
 selfish or less patriotic than formerly, but it is entirely 
 clear that there are greater opportunities for, and 
 greater incentives to, self-aggrandizement at the public 
 cost than formerly. Organization has become a power- 
 ful influence in stimulating private interests. It retires 
 personal responsibility, it awakens in its place ambition 
 and pride in large adventure, it develops great rival- 
 ries, it creates powers which must be recognized, and 
 which may demand to be fostered by the state. Uncon- 
 sciously, it may be, the private citizen finds himself car- 
 ried on step by step, by the way of organized power, to 
 a position where he seeks to utilize the government or 
 where he is forced to antagonize it. The process is 
 evident, and we are becoming familiar with the result. 
 Hence the growing fear in the public mind of organized 
 l^ower as such, a fear which is beginning to include 
 organized labor as well as organized capital. It 
 requires no prophetic vision to foresee the nature of the
 
 SACREDNESS OF CITIZENSHIP 13 
 
 next political struggle, if there is to be a struggle 
 rather than a campaign — that it must be between the 
 organized and the unorganized power of the country; 
 in which event organized capital and organized labor 
 will be found of necessity upon the same side. Who 
 can doubt, in the present circumstance, the duty of all 
 enlightened and patriotic citizenship of trying to avert 
 the possibility of such a struggle. Now, if ever, is 
 the time to consider, and to consider diligently, the 
 public good, and if for no other reason, that lasting 
 security may be given to all private interests which are 
 compatible with the public good. 
 
 And yet again I am sure that you will agree with me 
 as I say that citizenship cannot exist without sentiment. 
 The state is not a corporation. It has a soul. It has 
 its essential greatness in its humanity. Let me recall a 
 recent word which some of you will recognize as from 
 the pen of Justice Holmes. "It seems to me that the 
 social difficulties of our time are even more sentimental 
 than economic, and that those who let their democratic 
 feeling grow cold, be they rich or poor, do more than 
 any other to shake the present order of things." The 
 present order of things, as we know it, is the order of a 
 democracy. Citizenship amongst us must conform to 
 the political aims which we profess and to the political 
 ideals which we cherish. The "democratic feeling" 
 must not be allowed "to grow cold." It is the ruling 
 passion of a people which fixes its destiny. That 
 ancient and formative passion for liberty, that respect 
 for man as man, that sense of justice which was not sat- 
 isfied till it had set the bondman free, that hospitality 
 which has held the doors of the nation open to all who 
 aspire after freedom, that tolerance which has kept the
 
 14 PUBLIC MINDEDXESS 
 
 realm of opinion as free as the realm of action, that 
 almost impracticable sentiment which has been strug- 
 gling and is struggling still to realize the equality of 
 opportunity, all these are our inheritances of the spirit, 
 the endowment of our citizenship. These are the things 
 for which we stand. Realized politically, they make a 
 democracy. Realized spiritually, they make a brother- 
 hood. Let us realize them through citizenship. Let us 
 keep the path for the democracy of toil and struggle 
 open to the last material rewards to which it is entitled. 
 Let us keep the path for the democracy of the mind 
 open through every grade of education to the last train- 
 ing of the university. Let us keep the path for the 
 democracy of the soul open to every spiritual privilege, 
 even if in so doing we must needs reconstruct our 
 churches. Nothing less than these things can satisfy 
 the deep and abiding sentiment of citizenship. 
 
 Judged by the tests which I have recalled we cannot 
 say that citizenship as it exists within our knowledge is 
 clothed with those sanctities which alone can give it 
 saving and redeeming power. And yet I firmly believe 
 that there has begun a revival of the political conscience 
 of the nation which is to make its moral power com- 
 mensurate with its intelligence. We are certainly grow- 
 ing more sensitive to political wrong doing, in the 
 nation, in the state, even in the city. We are grow- 
 ing steadier and more determined in movements for 
 reform. We are not afraid to invoke the law of the 
 land for all legitimate ends which are revealed by public 
 necessities. We are growing less narrow, less captious, 
 less partisan in our criticism of public men, and more 
 discriminating and more demonstrative in our support 
 of those whom we believe deserve well of the Republic.
 
 SACREDNESS OF CITIZENSHIP 15 
 
 Within the last decade we have had two men of com- 
 manding personahty in the presidential chair, men who 
 embodied in honorable degree our national ideals, men 
 whose faults are not the faults of weakness, neither one 
 of them blind to corruption, nor insensitive to social or 
 economic wrongs, nor mentally inhospitable to the 
 things of the spirit — Mr. Cleveland, and Mr. Roosevelt. 
 But within the decade the nation has grown more 
 appreciative of what I may call political personality, 
 and supports Mr. Roosevelt as it did not support Mr. 
 Cleveland in his time of official service. Other reasons, 
 partly political, and partly personal, may explain to 
 some degree the difference, but enough remains to 
 prove the fact of the growing appreciation of high- 
 minded and resolute public service. Approval of the 
 right, and of right men, is just as much a sign of moral 
 advance as criticism of the wrong, and of wrong men. 
 
 And we are also coming to believe as a nation that 
 greatness is not incompatible with righteousness, but 
 rather that if greatness be ordered of God, righteous- 
 ness must come forth out of it in the divine sequence. 
 If God be in His world at the present time this must 
 be so, for all things which belong to the nations are 
 taking on the dimensions of greatness. The spirit of 
 nationality, of which I spoke at the outset, and of which 
 we are beginning to be fully conscious, is I believe 
 related to the spirit of God. In His name it is sum- 
 moning nation after nation to show itself at its best. 
 There is a call of God to nations as to men, to be great. 
 It is not wise for a nation any more than it is for a man, 
 when the call comes, "to hide amongst the stuff." May 
 God in His infinite grace deliver this nation from the 
 weakness and the cowardice of mere material prosperity 
 into "that liberty wherewith He makes His people free."
 
 Ill 
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 
 
 Address before the Faculty and Students, Union Theological Sem- 
 inary, New York, January 18, 1897 
 
 If we can determine what that righteousness is, of 
 which we are confessedly so much in need, which we are 
 beginning to call social righteousness, some advance will 
 have been made toward the solution of our present 
 social problem. Not that definition will solve it. I 
 shall want to say before I close that the greatest diffi- 
 culty in the way of establishing social righteousness lies 
 in the extraordinary demand which it makes upon the 
 interest of man in man, an interest as sensitive and 
 absorbing as that which we take in our theories, or in 
 our occupations, or in our institutions, or in any matters 
 of personal and public concern. But to begin with, we 
 need definition. We certainly need to know why there 
 is such a demand for what seems to be another kind or 
 department of righteousness in the process of moral 
 sj^ecialization which is now going on. 
 
 We began to specialize because it was found that 
 general righteousness, the goodness which is expressed 
 in ordinary personal character, was not a sufficiently 
 positive and well-defined force to meet the conditions 
 of modern society. Put a good man into a bad environ- 
 ment, put him into a corrupt political body, or into a 
 heartless corporation, or into frivolous society, the 
 prol)abilities are that he will remain a good man, but 
 he will not change his environment, unless he makes that
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS IT 
 
 object his particular business. As Edmund Burke used 
 to say, he will not make "goodness prevalent." 
 
 It became necessary therefore to specialize, that is 
 to organize righteousness to specific ends. What are 
 these ends? They have been and still are in all cases 
 representative of institutions, or of what had become 
 institutionalized. They are at a second remove from 
 life. The first great specialization in righteousness in 
 this country was directed to the overthrow of slavery. 
 But slavery had become incorporated into the national 
 life. It had become institutionalized. We called it 
 "the institution of slavery," and it was against slavery 
 as such that the moral power of the nation was being 
 organized, when Mrs. Stowe brought the question back 
 to its simplest human aspects, and made the humanity 
 of "Uncle Tom" as real as the arguments of Calhoun. 
 Something of the same process is now going on in the 
 movement against intemperance. We are face to face 
 with the commercial and political aspects of this social 
 evil. The liquor traffic has in time become institution- 
 alized. Society is not thinking so much today about 
 the drunkard and his family as about the saloon keeper 
 and his political associates. We are specializing in like 
 manner for the protection of institutions — the family, 
 the trades and professions, the municipality, the state 
 at large, and even the church. Society has been train- 
 ing reformers, organizing crusades, and in various ways 
 concentrating public opinion at the exposed points in 
 our modern civilization. Sympathy of interest is called 
 for in all these various movements, but division of labor 
 is equally called for. Nobody is expected to attend to 
 more than one kind of righteousness. The old time 
 philanthropist is simply the man upon whom everybody
 
 18 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 calls to pay the bills. So far as actual work is con- 
 cerned, the conditions are so exacting that one is justi- 
 fied in the imijatience of Lyman Beecher, when on his 
 return from Cincinnati to Boston he was besought to 
 identify himself more actively with the anti-slavery 
 cause — "I have got too many irons in the fire already," 
 was his lament. What the grand old man felt he could 
 not undertake, he left as the moral birthright of his 
 children. 
 
 Now the present demand for social righteousness 
 seems to be, as I have indicated, the demand for one 
 more kind of righteousness, to meet a new and pressing 
 difficulty. I do not, however, so interpret the situation. 
 I prefer to consider and to treat social righteousness as 
 the complement of personal righteousness, at least of 
 the personal righteousness of today, for three reasons. 
 First, I would not divide and subdivide righteousness, 
 even for practical ends, further than may be absolutely 
 necessary. Specialization in morals always reaches a 
 point, where it raises the question whether there should 
 not be a return to what is fundamental. Such is the 
 history of creeds. One doctrine after another is for- 
 mulated to meet the succession of errors. Gradually 
 the creed loses in tone and spirit what it gains in defi- 
 niteness. It becomes contentious and belligerent. The 
 church at last becomes aware of this fact and, with or 
 without modifying its articles, goes back into the mind 
 and heart of Christianity, to get a new disposition and 
 outlook toward truth and life. We have now reached 
 the point, I believe, in the development of our moral 
 specialties, where we need to assure ourselves that our 
 righteousness of every sort is so far right-minded and 
 right-hearted as to be easily effective. We may find,
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 19 
 
 as we proceed, that some kinds of righteousness are 
 ineffective, because we have not put the human element 
 into them in right proportions. 
 
 Second, social righteousness is not a specific and con- 
 crete end like commercial or civic righteousness. Soci- 
 ety cannot be viewed as a distinct thing, as we can view 
 the state or an industry. What most persons have in 
 mind, doubtless, when they ask for social righteousness 
 is the right feeling between people of different positions 
 or occupations. The demand grows in large measure 
 out of the disturbed relations between capital and labor, 
 and is really the call, when translated into its lowest 
 terms, for economic righteousness. 
 
 The third and chief reason is that the personal right- 
 eousness of our time needs the complement of social 
 rightousness. Of course it is possible to so define per- 
 sonal righteousness as to make it inclusive. If you 
 could only have the perfect man, you would have the 
 perfect society, and the perfect state, and the perfect 
 church. I have referred to the personal righteousness 
 of our time. That, I say, needs the complement of 
 social righteousness. A righteous man may need, he 
 does need at the present time, a certain character or 
 quality of righteousness. You do not necessarily get 
 that by extending the righteousness which he already 
 has into his business or into his citizenship. There are 
 different ways of being righteous, genuinely righteous, 
 in these external relations. Society just now lays the 
 stress upon a given way. And if you can get a personal 
 righteousness which in all its relations, and at all times, 
 will work that way, you have gained the end of social 
 righteousness. 
 
 Social righteousness then I would define, not as a
 
 20 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 specific kind of righteousness directed to a concrete end, 
 like the purifying of government, but as representing a 
 quahty and method of righteousness made necessary by 
 the conditions of modern society. I speak of it as the 
 complement of personal righteousness because personal 
 righteousneses, as we know it, is so manifestly insuffi- 
 cient and incomplete at the very point where the social 
 distress or danger is most acute. This conception of 
 social righteousness may seem to you to be to a degree 
 negative. I am entirely content, if I have succeeded in 
 what I have thus far said, in giving my subject a nega- 
 tive definition, in taking it out of the category of spe- 
 cialized duties, where it must come into competition 
 with all manner of righteousnesses. Let me now 
 advance into the positive apphcation of this idea or 
 definition. 
 
 Social righteousness makes its first and most insist- 
 ent demand for a habit of mind for which we have no 
 training in the school of individualism. Theodore 
 Parker used to say of democracy — "Democracy does 
 not mean I am as good as you are, but you are as good 
 as I am." Consider the change necessary to the mind of 
 a man accustomed to think of democracy in the terms 
 of the first saying before he can think of it in the terms 
 of the second. Suppose the occasion for the assertion of 
 his politcal rights or sense of equality in the face 
 of another man was over, he would still keep on think- 
 ing of democracy as the satisfaction of personal rights, 
 or the assertion of personal equality. He might be led 
 to acknowledge another's rights, but not so easily his 
 equality. He might fairly say of many a man, he is not 
 so good as I am : not understanding that while it is not 
 the business of democracy to proclaim as a fact that
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 21 
 
 which is not a truth, namely the moral equality of men, 
 it is the duty of democracy to endeavor to establish the 
 fact, that is, to make one man as good as another. 
 Democracy may have come into being through the habit 
 of mind, which expressed itself in the first saying, but 
 the continuance of democracy depends, as any one can 
 now see, upon the habit of mind which expresses itself 
 in the spirit of the second saying. 
 
 The habit of mind of which most men are at present 
 possessed is the product of individualism. I am not 
 about to speak of individualism as the moral opposite 
 of altruism, or as in any direct way the synonym of 
 selfishness. I am not so ignorant of its history. It has 
 been thus far the most potent force in modern civiliza- 
 tion. It has given us religious, political, and philosoph- 
 ical freedom. It has accelerated the rate of material 
 progress. It has created those great units of personal 
 power which have changed the level of society. But we 
 are now getting the secondary effects of individualism 
 which, as in the case of any great force, are often not 
 only so much less, but so different from the first effects. 
 Individualism acting as a motive power toward personal 
 freedom, or personal responsibilities, shows a first effect, 
 than which nothing can be more inspiring. Individ- 
 ualism serving as a barrier to unity, or as deadening the 
 sense of social and corporate responsibility, is a sec- 
 ondary effect, than which nothing can be more 
 deplorable. 
 
 Let me give you two illustrations of this secondary 
 effect of individualism as we can now see them. I will 
 take first the effect as seen in the expression of religious 
 feehng. We have driven out most of those expressions 
 of personal experience which were at first the genuine
 
 22 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 result of a deep sense of sin^ but which had become the 
 cant of a self-seeking salvation. It is very seldom that 
 we now hear them. But the same individualistic habit 
 of mind finds expression in another form, comparatively 
 harmless, but showing that it is still the ruling habit. I 
 refer to the common expression of gratitude or thanks- 
 giving by way of comparison or contrast of our condi- 
 tion with that of others. This is the ordinary way of 
 realizing our mercies. We do not seem to be able to 
 make them real in any other way. From thousands of 
 family altars the prayer of thankfulness is for mercies 
 which we have, of which others have been deprived, or 
 for exemption from suffering which others are experi- 
 encing. The ritual of extempore prayer in an ordinary 
 social assembly is to the same effect: we thank God 
 that while other communities have been visited with 
 pestilence or famine, or, as it is now more frequently 
 some kind of financial disaster, we have been mercifully 
 spared. This is not j)harisaism. It is not a rude selfish- 
 ness. If it were, we should attack it and drive it out. 
 We leave it alone because it is simply the harmless 
 vestige of a habit of mind which instinctively works that 
 way. I refer to it now because it shows just as conclu- 
 sively as a more harmful expression would show, that 
 the habit of mind is there. 
 
 Take a more serious illustration. It is our constant 
 complaint that corporate action is not as responsible as 
 individual action. We say that the same man cannot 
 be depended upon to act with others as he will act alone. 
 Perhaps we ought not to expect that he will. Neverthe- 
 less the fact remains that corporate responsibility must 
 bear some proportion to the tremendous advance in the 
 absorption of individual activity into corporate activity.
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 2a 
 
 You are losing the individual: how are you going to 
 follow him with individualism? Individual responsi- 
 bility is becoming capitalized : how are you going to get 
 at the moral value of the new capital? We must have 
 measurements which are fitted to this object, and apply 
 them. Or carry the thought over into our social and 
 civic obligations. In the old days of Boston, in the time 
 of its transition from a great village into a city, the 
 citizens organized themselves into a Watch and Ward 
 Society. They took turns in patrolling the streets. Of 
 course this could not last. A city means delegated 
 authority; first the creation of departments to do cer- 
 tain things, and then perhaps the organization of socie- 
 ties to see that they do them. This is the process by 
 which we divest ourselves of individual responsibility — 
 not by denying it in the first instance, but by putting 
 the exercise of it at a farther and farther remove from 
 us, till at last with this removal of responsibility there 
 comes in the gradual loss of sentiment, of feeling, and 
 even of shame. I suppose that it would be as hard for 
 the average citizen to repent of his share of the sin of 
 New York, as for a man trained in the New England 
 school of theology to repent of the sin of Adam. He 
 does not know how to do it. He doesn't see things in 
 that light. His mind is not capable of working that way. 
 Now, social righteousness, speaking in the person of 
 its advocates, calls for a habit of mind which will corre- 
 spond to present facts and conditions. To the extent to 
 which the individual has been merged into something 
 else, in fact, it demands that something else, in theory^ 
 shall take the place of individualism. Every great 
 moral movement which has been successful has created 
 for itself an appropriate habit of mind. The Reforma-
 
 24 PUBLIC MIXDEDNESS 
 
 tion began that way. It was another habit of mind, 
 another sense of the individual self, another vision of 
 God. It is useless to confront new and obstinate con- 
 ditions with old habits of thinking, or with unused sensi- 
 bilities. The demand of social righteousness at this 
 point is a reasonable demand. It can make no great 
 headway until the demand is complied with. When 
 once this demand has been met, when once the habit of 
 mind has been created which will express itself steadily 
 and urgently, through sensitiveness to others, through 
 responsibility for things held in conmion, through what 
 we may call, in spite of its philosophical vagueness, the 
 social conscience, the work of social righteousness will 
 be well under way, if not well accomplished; and then 
 there may be a return to individualism or an advance 
 into a new view of life and duty. Just as individualism 
 did its work suddenly and effectively when it had made 
 its own type of mind, so may we expect Hke results of 
 social righteousness when it can work through a like 
 instrumentality. 
 
 More positive perhaps than this demand on the part 
 of social righteousness for an appropriate habit of mind, 
 because more appreciable, is the protest which it enters 
 against all social or business theories wliich ignore or 
 undervalue the human element in affairs. Humanity 
 has suffered more from the tyranny of theories which 
 were believed to be right, or, if wrong, inexorable, than 
 from any other one source. The history of economic 
 progress, as of political progress, has been the history of 
 deliverance from the fetich of so-called laws, laws of 
 supply and demand, and the like. Every reformer has 
 had to meet at once the outcry, "you are attempting the 
 impossible, you are going against the law of nature.
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 25 
 
 or of business, or of society." The outcry is not always 
 in the interest of selfishness. The worst aspect of it is 
 that the men who raise the outcry believe what they say. 
 To the disciples of the early economists many of the 
 now accepted methods of production and distribution 
 seemed absolutely impossible. The then current laws 
 of supply and demand were to their mind as inexorable 
 as the law of gravitation. To many minds, when they 
 have given any working theory the name of law, they 
 have given it the prerogatives of the law of gravitation. 
 And to such minds one essential part of the idea of 
 law is that it shall take no note of the human element. 
 To do so is unscientific. It introduces sentiment, or at 
 least some variable quantity, which prevents all accu- 
 racy of calculation or of working. Nature, they say, 
 takes no account of human suffering, why should trade, 
 or rather, how can trade any more than nature? And 
 so under the helplessness of this kind of logic, we not 
 infrequently get the same results from the working of 
 the laws of trade as from the working of the laws of 
 nature. 
 
 Some years ago I read in the London Spectator the 
 report of the discovery in South Africa of a hill called 
 the "Hill of the Footsteps," on the slope of which, on a 
 wide uncovered rock, there had been imprinted a crowd 
 of footsteps, some human, some of wild animals, but 
 all turned toward the top of the hill, toward which in 
 some past century all had been fleeing in dire confusion, 
 the soft rock taking the imprint of their flight. The 
 reading of the report anticipated the comment — "it was 
 as if one could hear an isolated scream of agony com- 
 ing up from the depths of centuries ago, without hear- 
 ing anything of the tragic cause or of the tragic issue."
 
 26 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 Unhappily these tragedies of nature have been paral- 
 leled by the tragedies enacted under the laws of trade 
 and industry, by the tragedies of the mine and of the 
 factory. Men, women, and little children were sacri- 
 ficed by thousands under the early factory systems to 
 the theory of laissez faire. Under cover of this theory 
 interference with the inhumanity of the system was 
 fought at every step. The first legislation which gave 
 the slightest relief to the health, morals, or life of opera- 
 tives took effect only at the beginning of the century, 
 and under bitter opposition, — legislation which the 
 Duke of Argyle has not hesitated to say, "was the great- 
 est invention in the science of government in modern 
 times." My reference to this state of things at the be- 
 ginnings of industrialism, is not to expose the cruelty of 
 the earlv masters of industry, but rather to show the in- 
 humanity of the theories to which they were in bondage. 
 Starting with the theory that labor was a commodity, 
 and therefore subject to the ordinary law of commodi- 
 ties, the laboring man or woman or child became the nat- 
 ural victim of the principle. The masters took this 
 theory from the economists, who could see no place for 
 the human element in their conception of labor. And 
 it can hardly be said that the human, in distinction from 
 the mechanical, view found a place in economics till the 
 day of John Stuart Mill. 
 
 The narrowness of the position of the early econ- 
 omists has been clearly put in the calm words of Pro- 
 fessor Marshall in his "Principles of Economics." 
 
 "It caused them to regard labor simply as a commod- 
 ity without throwing themselves into the point of view 
 of the workman : without allowing for his human pas- 
 sions, his instincts and habits, his sympathies, his class
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 27 
 
 jealousies and class adhesiveness, his want of knowl- 
 edge and of the opportunities for free and vigorous 
 action. They therefore attributed to the forces of sup- 
 ply and demand a much more mechanical and regular 
 action than they actually have: and laid down laws 
 with regard to profit and wages that did not really hold, 
 even for England, in their own time. But their most 
 vital fault was that they did not see how liable to change 
 are the habits and institutions of industry. In partic- 
 ular, they did not see that the poverty of the poor is the 
 chief cause of that weakness and inefficiency which are 
 the chief causes of their poverty : they had not the faith 
 that modern economists have in the possibility of a vast 
 improvement in the conditions of the working classes." 
 
 We may say that we have passed out of the reach 
 of these earlier theories. This is only measurably true. 
 Every proprietor of every sweating den justifies him- 
 self by some such theory; every reform still looking to 
 the advance of unskilled labor is met by a like theory: 
 and the general indifference to the condition of the poor 
 is excused by the easy reference of their poverty to their 
 habits. (Society at large refuses as yet to see, as 
 Marshall has said, "that the poverty of the poor is the 
 chief cause of that weakness and inefficiency which are 
 the chief causes of their poverty.") We turn off our 
 responsibility for poverty upon the intemperance of the 
 poor, if not with the contempt, with the easy indiffer- 
 ence with which a recent Secretary of Ireland dismissed 
 the land tax agitation in that country — "You have the 
 remedy in your own hands: drink less whiskey." 
 
 Social righteousness has something to say about the 
 indifference which is begotten of wrong theories, just as 
 it has something to say about the insensibility to the
 
 28 PUBLIC MIXDEDNESS 
 
 kind and amount of unnecessary burdens put upon 
 those who seem to be content to bear them. Social 
 righteousness protests against the tolerance of abuses 
 before they reach the stage of the outspoken grievance. 
 It calls upon society to interpret the grievance and meet 
 it before it is declared. A traveler in the north of Eng- 
 land found, on the morning after his arrival at an inn, a 
 kind of stage or omnibus standing at the door, adver- 
 tised to run some miles into the country. What arrested 
 his attention was a placard giving different rates of pas- 
 sage — first class fare a shilling, second class ninepence, 
 tliird class sixpence, but with no apparent difference in 
 accommodation. Out of curiosity he stepped in, paid 
 the highest fare, and awaited the result. Ever}i;hing 
 went on as at the start till they came to a long stretch of 
 rocky, muddy road, when the driver stopped and called 
 out: "First class fares stay in their seats, second class 
 get out and walk, third class get out and push." 
 
 Without stopping to verify the incident I hasten to 
 point the moral. That process, I venture to say, will 
 go on just so long as there are enough third class fares 
 willing to get out and push in the mud. And nothing 
 that anybody, like my supposed traveler, can say, will 
 avail in the way of remedy, till sometime there comes 
 up out of the mud the cry which cannot be put down, 
 "Mend your roads." Why does not society mend its 
 roads of its own motion? That it does not do so is a 
 part of the concern of social righteousness. 
 
 And another part of its concern is with those changes 
 which are constantly taking place in the customs and 
 laws which were designed to protect the individual man. 
 Advantage may be taken of legislation which was made 
 to secure a given result in the interest of personal free-
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 29 
 
 dom or security, to bring about an opposite result. We 
 are just now in the midst of countless difficulties grow- 
 ing out of the fact that laws which were passed to 
 protect the rights of personal property are being used 
 to extend the power of corporations. Much of the law, 
 under which the great questions arising out of indus- 
 trialism must be tried, was made before the rise of 
 industrialism. The legislation of that time was estab- 
 lished to meet entirely different conditions. And un- 
 less an interpretation can be given to that early legis- 
 lation which will preserve its original intent, we shall be 
 subjected, under the name of law, to the betrayal of 
 certain individual rights, or to the extension of corpo- 
 rate privileges which could not be secured under pres- 
 ent legislation. Corporations have their rights. They 
 have become incorporated into the American system. 
 They represent in a large degree our way of conduct- 
 ing great enterprises. Socialism, in the sense of 
 entrusting the municipalitj^ or state with indefinite busi- 
 ness functions, is at present better adapted to English 
 political conditions than to American political condi- 
 tions. The tendency with us to increase the functions of 
 the state in business directions keeps pace with the 
 growth of municipal reform, and is a very definite 
 means to that reform. I believe that we have much 
 social and economic good in store for us through the 
 assumption by the state of more business in the interest 
 of the people at large, but I doubt if the corporation 
 will lose its place as the chief method with us of carry- 
 ing out great enterprises, or of conducting great pro- 
 ductive operations. All the more reason therefore that 
 we see to it that no powers and privileges are allowed to 
 be taken up into it out of past conditions when the
 
 30 PUBLIC MIXDEDNESS 
 
 same powers and priv^ileges would not now be conferred. 
 And I believe that we must look to our judges to main- 
 tain at this point the original intent and limitations of 
 the earlier laws. A great judicial decision may accom- 
 plish as much for freedom or progress as a decisive 
 battle. 
 
 JNIore positively still, social righteousness lays a new 
 emphasis today upon outward conditions as affecting 
 character. I am well aware that in the stress which 
 the advocates of social righteousness lay upon condi- 
 tions they seem to some people to run counter to the 
 methods of evangelistic Christianity. They have been 
 charged with preaching a gospel of environment rather 
 than of conversion. As with all such charges, the 
 ground of misunderstanding lies in the impatience of 
 men for quick moral returns in place of long and per- 
 manent results. It lies also in the assumption that a 
 traditional method is sufficient to cover new conditions. 
 What is always wanted is the unchanging spirit of 
 Christianity informing one method or many. 
 
 There are three ways of attacking the problem of 
 sin in the personal experience of men. First, that of 
 reaching the individual man in his sin, man after man, 
 delivering him from evil surroundings, and giving him 
 a better chance under a new environment: that is the 
 work of rescue. Second, that of attempting to so invig- 
 orate and fortify the man under daily temptation that 
 he will have power to resist: a large part of the work 
 of the pulpit of every city. Third, that of striving to 
 arrest the forces which are helping men to sin, if not 
 compelling them to sin, and so far changing the con- 
 ditions of their life without taking them out of it, that 
 it shall at least be harder for them to do evil, and easier
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 31 
 
 for them to be clean, honest, and true. There is no 
 conflict between these methods, if all who use them are 
 equally loyal to the spirit of Christ. They are all neces- 
 sary. It is foolish beyond conception to insist upon 
 one method as against another, when all must work 
 steadily and persistently to make any appreciable head- 
 way. The method of social righteousness finds its jus- 
 tification in the plain fact that multitudes are wrongly 
 conditioned. "What should strike one," — I quote the 
 words of Professor Smart of Edinburgh, former manu- 
 facturer and an employer of labor, — "what should 
 strike one is the enormous disproportion between the 
 people to whom the 'good life' is open and those to 
 whom it is impossible." Impossibility is the word of 
 despair, not of faith. Still it expresses what looks to 
 many minds too much like a fact, in the case of some 
 people: and faith can only say in such cases — "All 
 things are possible with God." In saying this I do not 
 restrict the moral or spiritual outlook to the children of 
 poverty. Their case is no more serious, it may be, than 
 that of the children of luxury. Christ did not say "how 
 hardly shall they that are poor enter into the kingdom 
 of heaven" nor "it is easier for a camel to go through the 
 eye of a needle than for a poor man to enter into the 
 kingdom of heaven." That is altogether a nineteenth 
 century variation. 
 
 But to the main question, namely, the actual condi- 
 tioning of people with a view to their prospects for the 
 kingdom of heaven here and hereafter — let us look at 
 the matter in the experience of the average man, and 
 see how social and economic changes have affected the 
 means of his moral and spiritual development. Con- 
 sider his life as conditioned by his place in the city.
 
 32 PUBLIC MIXDEDXESS 
 
 Under other social conditions he has the great oppor- 
 tunity of what Dr. ]Munger has so happily termed "sal- 
 vation by fellowship." That was the means of the sal- 
 vation of vast numbers of the last and earlier genera- 
 tions in this country. Conversion was not an isolated 
 act. A man was converted among his neighbors, and 
 with his neighbors, and largely because of them. A 
 great citj^ changes all this for the average man, though 
 not altogether for those of exceptional social advan- 
 tages. We cannot overestimate the part which the 
 democratic spirit and habit has had in the development 
 of moral and religious character. 
 
 Or consider the religious prospect of the average 
 man who is the offspring of pure secularism. Here you 
 have the force of heredity to take account of as well as 
 that of environment. A famous sermon of the last 
 generation started from the text — "His father was an 
 Amorite and his mother was a Hittite" — and reached 
 the conclusion, what can you expect of him? Many a 
 workingman of today has a sad heritage of secularism. 
 Christian institutions are foreign to him, as foreign as 
 if they were not under his observation. He knows no 
 church, he knows no family altar, he knows no Sunday 
 as a religious day, he knows no Bible, few if any of 
 the words and deeds of the Lord Jesus. And his 
 thoughts and ambitions, as well as his associations, 
 are non-religious. While j^ou are at church he is dis- 
 cussing the vital questions of labor at his unions. 
 
 Or consider the conditions of the man who is becom- 
 ing isolated in the country, not the resident of the coun- 
 try village, but the man who is being left alone in the 
 remoter part of the town, whose neighbors are moving 
 away from him, whose children must go further and
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 33 
 
 further to school or stay at home, whose church is being 
 deserted, who looks into the face of strangers and aliens 
 as they come and go. 
 
 In the light of such changes as these, will any one 
 say that social righteousness, in so far as it is a religious 
 question, is not a question of conditions? What pro- 
 portion of the life of the country is not affected directly 
 by these rapid changes in the conditioning of people, 
 by the growth of cities, by the extension of industrial- 
 ism, by the abandonment of the remoter districts? 
 
 But I have been speaking of the average man. What 
 shall be said of those at the extremities, who are the 
 special concern of social righteousness, the children of 
 poverty and the children of mere luxury? What is 
 the chance for the moral or spiritual salvation of the 
 typical child of either class: the son of a father, at 
 either extremity of the social scale, of depraved and 
 debauched mind and habits, who inherits his father's 
 passions with some of their results, who comes to know 
 his father's associates, and to entertain his and their 
 views of life. "Even in a palace," said the old Stoic 
 emperor and saint, "life may be led well," and so it 
 may be in a hovel. But the circumstance, as any one 
 can see, is tremendously against one in either place: 
 and as we are at last beginning to understand in this 
 country, quite as much against one under the condi- 
 tions of splendid luxury, as of abject poverty. How 
 can we do anything to help in either case, save by attack- 
 ing the conditions? In the one case it is a question 
 of natural surroundings, in the other it is a ques- 
 tion of atmosphere. We can change the material sur- 
 roundings, we can charge the moral atmosphere with 
 purity, and righteousness. The work below is the work 
 
 3
 
 34 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 of physical reconstruction, out of which may come 
 moral sanitation. The work above is altogether that 
 of moral sanitation, the work alike of pulpit, press, and 
 society, and all together. The immediate work above 
 and below, and all the way between, so far as it is con- 
 cerned with conditions, is the work of social righteous- 
 ness. Let me remind you of the great sociological par- 
 able of our Lord, the parable of the sower, a parable 
 which deals with the apparent wastes of life, the seed by 
 the wayside, that among the thorns, that on the shallow 
 earth. But why should the seed be in unprofitable 
 places? Why not fence the sown ground, why not 
 uproot the thorns, why not deepen the shallow soil, and 
 then wait the harvest ; not an equal harvest, but as nearly 
 equal as on any good ground, some thirty, some sixty, 
 some an hundred fold. 
 
 But more positively still, social righteousness as I 
 conceive of it, rests its argument, it stakes the very pos- 
 sibility of its success, upon the interest which it may 
 awaken of man in man, of a man in his fellow. I said 
 at the beginning that the chief difficulty in establishing 
 social righteousness lies in the extraordinary demands 
 which it makes for just this kind of interest, it is so much 
 easier to be interested in small things than in great. 
 But nothing which has had to do with the life of men 
 has ever had any power or success, until it has become 
 seriously, and profoundly, and passionately interested in 
 that life. I use the word interest, rather than concern, 
 or pity, or even love, because that is the word which 
 expresses precisely what I mean. There are so many 
 ways of rendering formal and mechanical service under 
 the incentive of what we call christian love, which fall 
 so far short of our way of doing the things we are inter-
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 35 
 
 ested in, that I want to get something which represents 
 just that thing. It is the tremendous interest in men 
 as sinners which underhes the work of the Salvation 
 Army, the only people, as Cardinal Manning used to 
 say, who have a passion for sinners simply because they 
 are sinners. It was the interest which Mills and his 
 comrades felt for the heathen of unknown lands, as 
 they were idealized to their minds, which created the 
 missions of our century. It was the interest of the 
 Puritan, and of all lovers of liberty in his time, in men 
 as the subjects of political and religious freedom, which 
 led him and them on beyond their own freedom to that 
 of other men and other peoples. 
 
 The interestingness of humanity is something which 
 has been overshadowed in our time by the conception of 
 utility. We have thought of people at large for what 
 they could do, not for what they were in themselves, as 
 individuals, or groups, or communities. A kind of 
 interest has been created by the school of realism, but 
 it has been mostly of one sort, so that when we read the 
 stories which come to us from the hamlets of Scotland, 
 we say, "this is idealism; people are not so interesting 
 as that." Happily "Ian Maclaren" has been here to 
 deny the charge. "No," he said, "this is realism. I 
 have just as much right to be realistic in the good, as 
 Zola has to be realistic in the bad. This is the way I see 
 men whom I have known." 
 
 It is through this principle of interest carrying with 
 it identification, sympathy, helpfulness, faith, that social 
 Christianity is now beginning to work through the 
 social settlement. The process is plain, first to qual- 
 ify one's self by training and sympathy to see people 
 as they are: then to live among them, day by day, in
 
 86 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 season and out of season: then to try to draw out the 
 people among whom one Hves toward one another, to 
 create the neighborhood: then to try to change the 
 environment, to get better surroundings, sanitary tene- 
 ments, and streets; if need be to bring in books, art, 
 music, some cheering, refining influence; to co-operate 
 with all charitable and religious agencies in doing bet- 
 ter work for the neighborhood, seeing to it in every pos- 
 sible way that the people are protected from fraud, and 
 trained toward independence and self-respect, and that 
 every man learns how to help his neighbor. The social 
 settlement is yet in the stage of experiment, at work 
 under limitations, such as the lack of perseverance in 
 residents, the lack of equipment, the lack of public rec- 
 ognition. But it has principles which will certainly 
 come to the front in the service of social righteousness. 
 
 Such is my conception of social righteousness. I have 
 tried to show you what it means, what it requires, and 
 how it works. 
 
 Not much can be expected of it in the way of a clear 
 and direct result until it is able to produce a habit of 
 mind which will be receptive of its teachings and sensi- 
 tive to its requirements. 
 
 It will be obliged to do battle with theories and with 
 methods, which by intention or by indifference, or by 
 ignorance, are hostile to its spirit. 
 
 Its aim, like that of all righteousness, is the righteous 
 life, but its chief work is to so determine the conditions 
 which affect character, as to make it harder for men 
 to sin, and easier, because a simpler and clearer thing, 
 for them to do well. 
 
 And for its work it requires of those who would be 
 its prophets and apostles nothing less than a consum-
 
 SOCIAL RIGHTEOUSNESS 37 
 
 ing passion for their fellow men. Its greatest danger, 
 perhaps greater than that incident to any other form of 
 Christianity, is institutionalism. If it can be guarded 
 from that, if it can be kept from being reduced to some 
 temporary or even permanent specialization, if it can 
 be held as the complement of personal righteousness, — 
 its outgoing, constructing, unifying, reforming and 
 therefore regenerating life, — it will come to be seen and 
 known of men as a power of God unto salvation: and 
 to attain that end is enough for any righteous man, or 
 for any form of righteousness.
 
 IV 
 
 THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OF THE MODERN 
 
 CITY 
 
 Address at the Semi-Centennial of the City of Manchester, Septem- 
 ber 6, 1896 
 
 You have judged it a fitting thing to give the open- 
 ing session of this commemorative week to the recogni- 
 tion of the spiritual hfe of your city. You have judged 
 rightly. The modern city, though founded in indus- 
 trialism, or built upon commerce, and set toward every 
 form of material development, has its spiritual life: 
 otherwise its history were quickly told in figures and 
 statistics. We must not allow ourselves to be deceived 
 by appearances. The modern, by contrast with the 
 ancient or medicEval city, seems to be non-religious and 
 secular. The contrast which gives this result is super- 
 ficial. Religion, of its own notion and for its own ends, 
 never built a city. The religious spirit has moved men 
 to great secular tasks, including discovery, colonization, 
 and conquest, but it has not directed their energies to 
 the making of cities. The instinct of worship, however 
 expressed, cannot explain that strange mingling of 
 diverse peoples and races and religions which is the 
 characteristic of the great municipality, ancient or mod- 
 ern. And even when the people have been of one race 
 and of one religion, the chief motive for massing the 
 popuhition at a given center has not been the spiritual 
 motive. The site of the most religious city of the world, 
 "whither the tribes went up, tlie tribes of the Lord to
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CITIES 39 
 
 the testimony of Israel," was chosen for defense. And 
 when war ceased to be the determining reason for the 
 location and development of cities, then commerce and 
 trade came in as the determining cause, just as now it 
 is industrialism. 
 
 But while it is not the genius of religion to build 
 cities, nor indeed to bring men together in the mass in 
 any permanent form, the great concern of religion, per- 
 haps for this very reason, is with the city. The voice 
 of the Lord is always crying to it. Whatever the 
 "world" meant to the prophet of the old order, as some- 
 thing to be overcome, whatever the "world" meant to 
 the apostle of the new order, as something to be re- 
 deemed, that the "city" now means to Christianity, as 
 something to be feared and loved, to be sei*ved and mas- 
 tered. The supreme question which confronts Chris- 
 tianity as a religion, and which confronts it equally as 
 a civilization, is the question of the moral and spiritual 
 outcome of the cities of Christendom. 
 
 It is peculiarly the question before our American 
 Christianity. Notwithstanding the rapid massing of 
 the population at centers, usually at the call of capital, 
 we have not become used to the idea of the city. Man- 
 chester stands about midway in the list of tabulated 
 cities. But you are just celebrating your semi-centen- 
 nial. There are other communities within our fellow- 
 ship which are much younger. Cities have grown in 
 fact much faster than in idea, in the understanding, that 
 is, on the part of the people of their nature and sig- 
 nificance. 
 
 What is a city, in the modern sense and under mod- 
 ern conditions ? A city is a self-centered community, of 
 various if not of diverse population, thoroughly organ-
 
 40 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 ized, having resources within itself sufficient for 
 increase, secure in the safeguards of order and justice, 
 equipped with the means not only of material but of 
 social and spiritual advancement, and great enough in 
 itself in numbers, in resources, and in character to affect, 
 if not to dominate, the life of the individual citizen. 
 Incorporation does not make a city, neither do num- 
 bers, neither does wealth. A city is that combination 
 of forces which really makes a new unit of power. It 
 is in fact the most powerful unit which is today at work 
 upon the individual life, more powerful than the home, 
 or the state in the larger meaning, or the church. It is 
 so powerful that it creates a kind of provincialism. The 
 greater the city the more difficult it is for the average 
 citizen to escape from his environment. The city edu- 
 cates and enlarges him to a certain point, makes him, as 
 we say, more cosmopolitan, and then defines, restricts, 
 and controls him. He reads the world through the col- 
 umns of the local press, he measures the outer movement 
 of industry and trade by the effect upon the prevailing 
 business, he judges people at large by the social stand- 
 ard with which he has become familiar. Such is the 
 modern city, in its influence over the average life which 
 forms a part of it. We are just beginning to under- 
 stand and feel its power. Such, therefore, is the moral 
 significance of the civic fact which we celebrate during 
 the present week. 
 
 I think that I can render you no better service at 
 this hour than to speak to you of the Spiritual Life of 
 the ]\Iodern City. 
 
 I use the term spiritual, rather than religious, sim- 
 ply because it is more inclusive. We must widen our 
 definitions if we are to hold them. If we are to keep the
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CITIES 41 
 
 ancient terms we must make them broad and free. Civ- 
 ilization, for example, seemed to be a term of inherited 
 breadth, but how grandly its meaning was enlarged in 
 the recent address of Lord Chief Justice Russell. *'Civ- 
 ihzation," he said, "is not dominion, wealth, material 
 luxury: nay, not even a great literature and education 
 widespread, good though those things be. Its true 
 signs are thought for the poor and suffering, chivalrous 
 regard and respect for woman, the frank recognition 
 of human brotherhood irrespective of color or nation or 
 religion, the narrowing of mere force as a governing 
 factor in the world, the love of ordered freedom, abhor- 
 rence of what is mean and cruel and vile, ceaseless devo- 
 tion to the claims of justice." 
 
 That sentence could not have been penned in its 
 entirety a century ago. Civilization means more today, 
 and religion means more, and to make sure that I get 
 the wider meaning, I prefer to speak in the terms 
 of the spiritual life. I want to affirm the presence, the 
 reality, and the increasing power of the spiritual life 
 of the modern city. I want to unfold, so far as I may 
 be able, the working of that life under the action of 
 Christianity upon the city, and of the city upon Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 As I have already intimated, the modern city, if 
 judged by appearances, stands for materialism. Who 
 sees the things of the spirit as he enters its gates? Here 
 and there a church, or some institution of beneficence, 
 may come under his notice, but how still and powerless 
 they are in the rush and tumult of the street. The peo- 
 ple whom he meets are for the most part busy in the 
 production of wealth, or in the search after it : some in 
 the display of it: no one appears to be indifferent to
 
 42 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 it. The whole life of the city seems to be absorbed in 
 one pursuit, you may give it what name you will, you 
 may call it business, you may call it industry; the one 
 impression of it all upon the mind of a stranger is that 
 of the supremacy of the material over the spiritual. 
 
 Where are the things of the spirit? What are the 
 signs of its presence ? 
 
 The true inquirer will not look first among the things 
 which are evident. He will not wait till Sunday to 
 begin his search. If the spiritual has any real power, 
 it will be able to live in the midst of the material, work- 
 ing in and through it all, and directing it to higher ends. 
 The inquirer, therefore, into the spiritual life of a com- 
 munity will go down at once into the work of the peo- 
 ple. He will seek to know the local standards of the 
 profession, the business, the industries of the town, the 
 relation between employers and employed, the spirit in 
 which the daily task is wrought ; and then he will want 
 to know equally what becomes of the gains of work, 
 whether expressed in income or earnings, how much of 
 it is spent in mere luxury, or debasing pleasures, how 
 much in an honest and generous livelihood, or a noble 
 charity. He will follow men to their homes that he may 
 assure himself of their purity and peace. He will go 
 into the alleys and outskirts of the city to see who may 
 be there on errands of mercy, who are watching by the 
 sick, who are relieving the suifering. He will mingle 
 with children in their studies and sports, and note their 
 manners, temper, and training. He will go into the 
 courts of justice, and follow out the administration of 
 law, to determine how far it is firm, evenhanded, and 
 consistent, a steady and sure restraint ujoon vice. He 
 will take part in the recreations and amusements of the
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CITIES 43 
 
 people to see if they are natural, open, clean, and fresh. 
 And when he has made these studies he will have 
 reached some pretty definite conclusions in his own mind 
 about "the state of religion" before he visits the 
 churches. And yet when he visits these he will not for- 
 get that there is a life of faith as well as of works, a life 
 born out of penitence and forgiveness, a life of pro- 
 found and vital beliefs, of personal consecration to a 
 personal Master and Redeemer, of devout and thankful 
 acknowledgment of the one living and true God. 
 
 Such an inquiry as is thus suggested would bring 
 out, I am convinced, in unexpected proportions, the 
 spiritual life of your own and of the average modern 
 city. It would raise some doubts, it would leave some 
 unanswered questions, it would create not a little disap- 
 pointment, it would cause some dark and painful experi- 
 ences, but it would give a fine lesson in social perspec- 
 tive. An unrighteous, corrupt, vile minority, however 
 small, is a disgrace and a shame to a christian city. But 
 it is one way of supporting and increasing that minority 
 to allow it to show for more than it is. If the goodness 
 of a city could be written out as vividly as its badness, 
 if the ninety and nine within the social fold could be 
 made as interesting as the one who has gone astray, if 
 the story of a virtuous and happy home had the same 
 kind of fascination as the tale of scandal, if it would 
 cause as much of a sensation to find one upright, cour- 
 ageous, wide-hearted. God-fearing man, as to find a 
 betrayer or a hypocrite, then virtue would have the 
 same publicity which now accompanies vice. I would 
 not be guilty of minimizing the evil of a city, nor of 
 making light of its materializing tendencies, but I would 
 declare the things unpublished, unnoted, and therefore
 
 44 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 unmeasured, which stand for its spiritual life; the pre- 
 vailing integrity, fidelity to the common duties, the self- 
 denying affection of the true home, the charity which 
 suffereth long and is kind, the courage which on occa- 
 sions doubles the power of justice, the sincerity of the 
 honest servant of his Master and worshipper of his 
 God. 
 
 You may have read the "picture," as he terms it, 
 which Edward Everett Hale has drawn in his own inim- 
 itable way under the title, "If Jesus Came to Boston." 
 It is the story of a Syrian stranger, as he appears to 
 be, who comes to the city searching for a lost brother. 
 The search is not unnaturally long, but it is long enough 
 to show the variety of agencies, and helpers, and friends, 
 at work for the recovery of the lost. The sentence in 
 which the stranger returns his thanks, when the search 
 is over, throws off the guise in which he had appeared, 
 and answers the half implied question of the title: 
 "What you have been doing to the least of these my 
 brethi-en and sisters, you have done it unto me." 
 
 The spiritual life of a city, as expressed in charity, 
 stands revealed at the touch of every kind of want or 
 suffering. It is the very complexity of that life which 
 hides it. A single charity, one philanthropist, would be 
 conspicuous. John Eliot preaching to the Indians at 
 the Falls of Amoskeag seems the embodiment of the 
 Gospel. He was, just as Jolin Stark at Bennington 
 was the embodiment of the spirit of the Revolution. 
 But the Gospel which Eliot proclaimed has since gone 
 out into all the world, and the spirit which Stark illus- 
 trated has since made a race free. 
 
 jNIany of us recall a man, as he was in his prime, a 
 tall and alert figure, a gracious presence in our streets,
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CITIES 45 
 
 who for more than forty years fulfilled among us the 
 office of a christian minister, and the no less responsible 
 office of a christian citizen. I suppose that no name is 
 more closely identified with the religious history of 
 Manchester, or more representative of its earlier moral 
 tone and character, than the name of Cyrus Wallace. 
 It is an honor to his memory, as it has been to our advan- 
 tage, that his pastorate and his citizenship covered so 
 many years of honorable life, of eloquent speech, and 
 of sustained influence. And yet during the past fifty 
 years scores of men from various pulpits, and with dif- 
 fering views, have uttered the fundamental truths of 
 the common Christianity, and thousands upon thou- 
 sands of our citizens have declared in their daily lives, 
 by speech, at the polls, everywhere and by all means, 
 the principles of social and political righteousness. The 
 plain fact is that the spiritual life of a city cannot be 
 summed up in any one man or in many men, in any 
 one church or in many churches, in any one institution 
 or in many institutions. It is a diffused and distributed 
 fife, and though of far less significance than might be 
 desired or even expected, it is, as I have affirmed, a 
 reality and a growing power in the modern city. 
 
 I have been speaking thus far in general terms. 
 What now shall we say is the actual working of the 
 spiritual life of the city under the action of Christianity 
 upon the city, and of the city upon Christianity? It 
 is impossible that two such forces should act upon one 
 another without producing some peculiar and distinct 
 result. Cliristianity cannot use precisely the same 
 means or do precisely the same work, or mean precisely 
 the same thing apart from its central truth, within the 
 city and without. The modern city creates conditions,
 
 46 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 to which Christianity must conform, if it would save or 
 even help the city. 
 
 There are several aspects in which the actual work- 
 ing of Christianity in the spiritual life of the city comes 
 before us. One aspect, — it is perhaps the most evident 
 and the most striking, — is the amount of energy which 
 must be directed to the w^ork of recovery. The city 
 wastes. It is prodigal of life. It is actively wasteful. 
 It exhausts, it wears out, in some cases it devitalizes and 
 destroys. No corporation which uses machinery is 
 obliged to maintain such extensive repair shops as the 
 modern city. These are its reformatories, its hospitals, 
 and, for that matter, its churches. 
 
 Consider in this connection the peculiar function of 
 the pulpit of the modern city, how much of its effort 
 must be directed to the restoration of spiritual force, or 
 the reinvigoration of faith. The same men and women 
 appear before the preacher Sunday by Sunday, upon 
 whose lives every day of the week has made its serious 
 draft. There is scarcely one among them who has not 
 passed through some experience which has tended to 
 reduce love to man, or faith in God. It is one great 
 office of the preacher to recover the lost faith or love, 
 to heal the hurt of the world. The message which he 
 brings may take on such language as it may please him 
 to give, but it must be full of spiritual health, it must 
 be charged with spiritual life. The gospel which he 
 utters may or may not be shaped in philosophical 
 thought, it may or may not be touched with emotion, it 
 must have power to invigorate. If I were asked to 
 name the one distinctive thing for which the pulpit of 
 the modern city must stand, I should say at once, 
 inspiration.
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CITIES 47 
 
 See, too, in like manner how much of the christian- 
 ized charity of the city is directed to the recovery of 
 spiritual as well as of physical losses. The poverty of 
 the city is of its own type. There is nothing quite like 
 it to be found elsewhere. The poverty of the country, 
 or of the frontier, is by contrast little more than hard- 
 ship, the absence of comfort, the endurance, at times, of 
 want. It was the poverty of Lincoln and Garfield. 
 How different the poverty of the city, the old Roman 
 poverty, the poverty of enfeeblement, or of profligacy, 
 the decay, as we say, of fortune or of family. The min- 
 istry to the poor of the city is for the most part a minis- 
 try to the weak and worn. Its object is not to restore 
 their fortune, — they may never have had any, — it is to 
 recover them. In many cases this is impossible. Noth- 
 ing remains but to fulfill the apostoKc injunction — 
 "We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of 
 the weak." Herein lies the patience of the true charity 
 of the city. 
 
 Or think yet again how surely the work of recovery 
 passes over into that of rescue. This means infinitely 
 more than relief, it means deliverance, sometimes from 
 associations and surroundings, more often from habits 
 which have become another self. Nothing shows so 
 clearly how necessary this work is, how essential it is to 
 the Christianity of the city, as the fact that whenever 
 it is neglected, whenever the existing orders of Chris- 
 tianity rise above it, instantly a new order is established 
 which makes this work its special business. The latest 
 order of Christians which has set itself to this task is 
 the Salvation Army, which justifies its existence by its 
 "passion for sinners." It is only the passion for sin- 
 ners which can overcome in them the passion for sin.
 
 48 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 And the existence always, in some form, of some body 
 of Christians, charged with this passion, shows the con- 
 stant draft which the city makes upon Christianity in 
 the work of recovery. It may be impossible to locate 
 the responsibility for tliis demand. It is enough to 
 state the fact. 
 
 Another aspect of the direct working of Christianity 
 in the spiritual life of the city appears in the form of 
 collective or organized righteousness. When Abraham 
 arrested his mighty pleadings before the Lord, in be- 
 half of the doomed city of his kinsman, with the final 
 petition, "Peradventure there be ten righteous men: 
 wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of ten?" he 
 anticipated the absolute conditions of moral and spir- 
 itual reform. For the mere use of example one right- 
 eous man would be as good as twenty. His solitary, 
 unshared righteousness would be awfully impressive. 
 So, as I can conceive, Abraham himself would have 
 towered aloft in Sodom. But if example fails in the 
 midst of evil, then righteousness, singlehanded and 
 alone, is powerless. 
 
 It has been said that if men were to come together 
 today in any great numbers without a religion, they 
 would be obliged at least to evolve the ten command- 
 ments. Society would be impossible without these. 
 But grant the ten commandments, who will enforce 
 them? This of course is the question in every city, for 
 the city, in an indirect way, organizes evil; evil, that is, 
 becomes a part of the trade and traffic of the city. If 
 it were merely a question of dealing with human pas- 
 sions, as they exist in the individual, if these passions 
 were not utilized in the interest of gain, if they were 
 not commercialized, society might rely chiefly upon
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CITIES 49 
 
 moral means for their restraint, or for their conversion 
 into moral power. It is the trade in them which demands 
 another treatment. It is the men, for the most part, 
 who in themselves stand at a remove from these pas- 
 sions, cold-blooded, self controlled, and relentless, who 
 defy the commandments, and through them, society. 
 Against such a class of men, to be f6und in every great 
 city, if not the product of it, there is no sufficient oppos- 
 ing force save that of organized righteousness. Organ- 
 ization without righteousness is futile, and righteous- 
 ness unorganized is equally futile. An historian writ- 
 ing of a certain period in Enghsh history says, "These 
 were hard times for bad men to hve in, good men were 
 so terribly and formidably active." It is the activity of 
 goodness, if weighted with judgment, and made firm 
 through organization, which ensures the ends of civic 
 righteousness. 
 
 That the increasing task of the Christians of the city 
 lies in this direction no one can doubt. To so organize 
 public sentiment, with such breadth of view and yet 
 with such definiteness of aim, with such inclusiveness 
 that no rightminded and really earnest citizen will be 
 left out, and with such constancy of purpose that enthu- 
 siasm and effort will survive a given campaign, this is 
 becoming a recognized part of the business of christian 
 citizenship. 
 
 I call your special attention to the bearing of this 
 aspect of the Christianity of the city upon the ques- 
 tion of religious unity. I have said that the city is act- 
 ing upon Christianity, just as Christianity is acting 
 upon the city. This action is in some respects restric- 
 tive. The city is at least defining the work of Christian- 
 ity, if not modifying its types of character. But in this
 
 50 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 matter of religious unity the influence of the city is 
 broad and constructive. The cit}^ can afford a multiplic- 
 ity of denominations better than the country, but it can- 
 not afford the denominational spirit. That is too costly 
 a luxury for religion anywhere. So long as christian 
 behevers and worshipers differ in the emphasis which 
 they wish to place upon particular forms of belief or of 
 service, there are manifest advantages from such lib- 
 erty, provided it does not prevent the liigher unity. The 
 city enters the protest of its own great spiritual life, 
 the moment a practical working unity is forbidden in 
 the name of authority or in the name of liberty. It lifts 
 its moral necessities before the separated and divided 
 forces of righteousness, and asks if this condition must 
 needs be. Who creates it ? Who justifies it? It passes 
 no judgment upon questions of polity or questions of 
 faith, it respects the sacredness of inspiration and the 
 sacredness of institutions, but it asserts through all its 
 pleading necessities the supremacy of righteousness. 
 
 The city, in its action upon Christianity, is thus be- 
 coming one of the great unifying forces in religion. A 
 result is being achieved under its demands for which 
 other agencies have proved insufficient. I do not over- 
 estimate the effect of its influence. It does not accom- 
 plish, or even forecast ecclesiastical unity. That must 
 come, if at all, from within. It must have an inward, 
 not an outward, compulsion. But moral and religious 
 unity, co-operation for work, alliance for conflict, these 
 are the contribution of the modern city to Christianity. 
 
 Among so many illustrations of this fact, I hesitate 
 to give an example. But there is one near enough at 
 hand, and so pertinent that I refer to it. For several 
 years the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CITIES 51 
 
 able to maintain a firm, consistent, and efficient posi- 
 tion on the practical issues of temperance. This result 
 has been brought about by the union of all the forces 
 which make up the higher life of the city. The voice of 
 labor, of business, of the university, and of the church 
 has been one and the same. The union among the 
 churches has been especially noticeable, because natural, 
 sustained, and complete. It has represented all polities 
 and all faiths. Catholics and Protestants have spoken 
 from the same platform, and have worked together at 
 the polls. And when recently one of the bravest and 
 most earnest champions of the cause, the minister of a 
 certain denomination, was called to a western city, the 
 clergy of every faith, and the citizens of every party 
 came together to bid him God speed. Such here and 
 there is the present fact. Such is the growing hope for 
 the influence of the city upon Christianity. Organized 
 righteousness is one step, it is a long step, toward 
 religious unity. 
 
 There is another aspect in which the actual working 
 of Christianity in the spiritual life of the city is becom- 
 ing distinctive, namely, the production of unusual types 
 of character. We have been accustomed to look to the 
 country for individuality. We have said that the city 
 makes men conventional, molds them to its own type, 
 and so makes them alike. I believe that this distinction 
 is still true in large degree. We have also been accus- 
 tomed to look elsewhere than to the city for the more 
 devout forms of religious life. Paul, indeed, addressed 
 the Christians of Corinth as called to be saints, but 
 the response was not such as to create a precedent in 
 favor of the saintliness of the city. In one respect, how- 
 ever, the balance of religious power as between locali-
 
 62 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 ties has changed. The prophet no longer comes from 
 the desert. The message which he bears is not only to 
 the city, but from within the city, and from the city to 
 the country at large. The great prophetic denuncia- 
 tions of wrong, the curse of slavery, the crime of cor- 
 ruption, have come from the pulpit and from the press 
 of the city. The city is becoming the home, the moral 
 birthplace, of the reformer. 
 
 The types of character, however, which I have in 
 mind as I speak, are more strictly personal. They are 
 represented by men as individuals or in groups. 
 
 The Christianity of the city is developing a type of 
 character strong in the power of resistance. The city 
 is a repository of trusts. Its citizens are becoming in 
 large degree trust bearers. As such they are exposed 
 to extraordinary temptations. Some fall before tempta- 
 tion, but the proportion is small, and out of those who 
 stand, there are constant examples of those who stand 
 grandly, with a magnificent resolution and tenacity. 
 Every one who knows such men, knows that they are 
 worthy of the title borne by one of the heroes of the 
 war, — "The Rock of Chickamauga." The tides of finan- 
 cial battles roll against them in vain. When the battle 
 is over they have held their ground. They are at their 
 post. 
 
 Let us not underestimate the negative virtues, the 
 virtues of the Old Testament, the virtues of men 
 trained under the ceaseless iteration of the command, 
 "Thou shalt not." They give security to our institu- 
 tions. They are the safeguard of the national honor. 
 There are times when the country rests upon the con- 
 servatism of the cities. There are national issues which 
 the cities as such are apt to ignore or neglect, or upon
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CITIES 63 
 
 which they act unintelligently. The pohtical judgment 
 of a city is not always up to the standard of the country 
 at large. But when issues are at stake affecting the 
 stability of institutions, the rights of inheritance and 
 possession, the credit of individuals and of the govern- 
 ment, the city is not reckless. And to the charge of self 
 interest which may be urged, the reply is sufficient, that 
 at such a time whoever saves himself and defends his 
 own, thereby defends every other man and saves the 
 state. 
 
 And closely akin to this type which is characterized 
 by the power of resistance, another, and perhaps finer, 
 type is gradually forming. It is that of character under 
 self-restraint, reaching at times to self-denial and sac- 
 rifice. Consider the temptations which today confront 
 young men of fortune in the city. They have the choice 
 of self-restraint or profligacy. Some choose profligacy. 
 These are the most serious menace we have to the sta- 
 bility of democratic institutions. The mere display of 
 wealth is aggravating to a democracy, especially if the 
 wealth displayed can show no equivalent in some form 
 of the public good. The flaunting of wealth in the 
 eyes of men, the sign of shame, is not only beastly, it 
 has a political significance, it is destructive of every 
 principle on which the Republic is based. 
 
 But on the other hand, suppose that the man who has 
 this open choice does not choose to be a profligate. Sup- 
 pose he holds himself in restraint, and listens to higher 
 ambitions, and gives himself and his fortune to noble 
 ends, shall no credit be given to him commensurate with 
 the shame which attaches to his brother? Such 
 choices are being made constantly. The city is to be 
 credited with the good as well as with the bad choices.
 
 64 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 If it allures with its vices, it appeals through its wide 
 and far reaching opportunities. And when the appeal 
 is heard and obeyed, a type of character is developed 
 which is unique. It cuts across that self-seeking type 
 which is continually seeking and using the city for gain 
 or advantage. It represents what the young ruler 
 might have represented if he had given his possessions 
 to the poor and followed Christ. The man of today 
 obeys that injunction of the Master, not by parting 
 company with his possessions, but by giving himself in 
 and through them to the public good. 
 
 Such types of character as these are peculiar to the 
 city. They can hardly be developed elsewhere. They 
 are the outcome of its temptations and opportunities. 
 
 The final aspect of the working of Christianity in and 
 through the spiritual life of the city, to which I refer as 
 being peculiar and distinctive, appears from time to 
 time in the moral and religious enthusiasms of men in 
 the mass. The city alone can reveal in its just propor- 
 tions the enthusiasm of humanity. The great bishop 
 of North Africa, wearied with the distractions of the 
 cities and sick at heart of their conventionalities, took 
 his appeal on one occasion straight to the individual 
 soul. "I summon thee, O Soul, not as thou art in the 
 groves and academies, not as thou art in the market- 
 place, but as thou art at the cross roads, unlettered and 
 unlearned, naked and alone." He had his authority for 
 such an appeal in the very constitution of the human 
 soul. It was made to stand by itself before God. "So 
 then every one of us must give account of himself to 
 God." But there is an instinct in every man which 
 craves a place in the great human brotherhood. At 
 times we all long to lose ourselves in it. We want to be
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CITIES 65 
 
 caught up into the higher moods and swayed by the 
 wider passions which are the property not of men as 
 individuals, but of humanity. The properties of water 
 are the same in all places. The ocean alone feels the 
 tides. Men in their individual and associated lives have 
 movement and current. The tides are in humanity. 
 And we catch something of their ebb and flow, as the 
 local mass of which we are a part begins to be moved by 
 a common impulse. The moral uprising of a city has in 
 it the heave and swell of the sea. 
 
 I have heard once and again, in the graphic words of 
 Dr. Fenn, the story of the uprising of Manchester at 
 the fall of Sumter, when men were lifted by one com- 
 mon movement on the full swell of patriotism. That 
 one event changed in a moment the moral tone and tem- 
 per of the city. Men walked these streets with another 
 bearing, they wrought their daily tasks with a more 
 serious purpose, they talked one with another in a lan- 
 guage which had a meaning, they prayed face to face 
 with God. Whether they went to the field or stayed at 
 their work, they fought the battles of the Republic in 
 their own souls. Every city of the North was swayed 
 by the same emotion. It was as if the foundations were 
 broken up, and deep was calling unto deep. 
 
 The spiritual life of a city may show a yet deeper and 
 more spiritual possession. I appeal to any man who 
 has seen and felt the spirit of God descending upon a 
 city, and resting upon it. A whole city, feeling at its 
 heart the peace of God, the strife of tongues still, enmi- 
 ties and jealousies and hate subdued, the love of neigh- 
 bor for the time as natural as the love of self, the things 
 of the spirit as plain as the things of sense, the heart of 
 the dull made quick to the truth, the doubts and fears
 
 56 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 and unbeliefs of men lost in the reality of faith and the 
 joy of forgiveness, what is all this but the earthly 
 realization though for the time, of the city of God, a 
 vision of the new Jerusalem come down from God out 
 of Heaven? 
 
 Brethren and friends of this christian city: In speak- 
 ing to you of the spiritual life of the modern city, I have 
 spoken out of an impulse, not yet spent, from the spir- 
 itual life of your own city. Coming here at the oj)ening 
 of my ministry, a learner rather than a teacher of the 
 mysteries of the Kingdom of God, I came to see, as I 
 then beheved, the things of the spirit in tliis community. 
 Looking back over a score of years, I am confident that 
 I was not deceived. What things I was then taught by 
 experience to recognize as belonging to the spiritual hf e 
 of a city, these same things I have learned to recognize 
 elsewhere with a clearer vision and with a larger faith. 
 Our churches are not separate from the workshop, the 
 ofiice, the school, the college. The men with whom we 
 worship are the very men with whom we walk the street, 
 at whose side we work, with whom we lay the plans of 
 our business enterprises, with whom we study in our 
 search after knowledge and truth. Let us not rule God 
 out of any part of his world. Why should not He make 
 His habitation wherever men build their homes, and 
 do their work, and fight their battles? What has reli- 
 gion to fear from the modern city, except it be some 
 kind of faint-heartedness or doubt or disloyalty on the 
 part of His church? 
 
 I congratulate you upon the assurances, the guar- 
 antees, you have for christian service and christian cit- 
 izenship in this city. The record of the past as you have 
 told it in vour churches is an honorable record. But
 
 SPIRITUAL LIFE OF CITIES 57 
 
 Manchester is still in the formative state. The fifty 
 years which are past have not so determined its spir- 
 itual life that it may not be broadened and deepened in 
 every part. Open your minds and hearts yet more and 
 more, I pray you, to the spiritual capacity of your city, 
 so that its material supremacy, while thereby ennobled 
 and ensured, may yet be overshadowed by the power of 
 the city for righteousness.
 
 THE CONSCIENCE OF THE NATION 
 
 Sermon on the Liberation of Cuba, College Church, Hanover, 
 
 April 22, 1898 
 
 There is an ancient prophecy which forecasts the 
 time when the world will recognize and acknowledge 
 the conscience of nations. The nation which has the 
 bravest, the most trustworthy, the most thoroughly or- 
 ganized and developed conscience, other things being 
 equal, will have the right of way. "Open ye the gates," 
 runs this joyous prophecy, "that the righteous nation 
 which keepeth truth may enter in." 
 
 I wish to speak to you today, under the incentives of 
 the experience through which we are passing, concern- 
 ing this conscience of the nation. It is really the deter- 
 mining factor in the present situation. Whichever way 
 the immediate issue before us may turn, the strain of the 
 decision will fall upon the national conscience. If, 
 through any resources of statesmanship yet left, war 
 may be averted, the conscience of the nation will be held 
 to the task of securing the end for which war seemed 
 to be necessary. We have undertaken to say, we have 
 said, that the inhumanity, which has been practiced in 
 Cuba under the name of war, must be stopped. War is 
 terrible, but it is not necessarily inhuman. Inhumanity 
 has no right to the name of war. President Cleveland 
 affirmed the obligation of the American people to stay 
 this "useless sacrifice of human life." President 
 McKinley, upon taking office, reaffirmed this obliga-
 
 CONSCIENCE OF THE NATION 59 
 
 tion as a more imperative and still nearer duty : and in 
 his recent message he declared with a stronger emphasis, 
 "In the name of hmnanity, in the name of civilization, in 
 behalf of endangered American interests which give 
 us the right to speak and to act, the war in Cuba must 
 stop." The American people thus stand conmiitted to 
 a most serious business. The step proposed may be in 
 advance of existing international law. International 
 law is made by the actual advance of some one nation in 
 the direction toward which all are tending. We have 
 taken a position from which we cannot retreat in honor, 
 to be maintained, if through peace, no less resolutely 
 than through war. 
 
 And if war is the more probable and, as it now seems, 
 the near alternative, then the burden which rests upon 
 the national conscience is no less serious. It must guar- 
 antee the restriction of the war to the one purpose for 
 which it was invoked. This is no easy guarantee to ful- 
 fill, for war once begun for high ends passes on rapidly 
 towards secondary ends. This war begun in the interest 
 of the common humanity will, if unrestrained, pass 
 straight on to the end of national aggrandizement. We 
 repudiate today, with one accord, the thought of the 
 annexation of Cuba. Shall we continue to repudiate 
 that idea as we realize the cost of war? Shall we find 
 a sufficient recompense for the losses incurred, and the 
 new debt added to our liabilities, in the consciousness 
 of a humane and righteous duty discharged? Or, to 
 take another test, Senator Hoar has made the sugges- 
 tion that "it is well understood that the aspiration of 
 Gomez is for a black republic in the West Indies. If 
 he should get control of Cuba," he goes on to say, "and 
 if Hayti and San Domingo join him, and j^erhaps
 
 60 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 Porto Rico, he aspires to give an example to mankind, 
 showing how men of the colored race may rule them- 
 selves as equals, socially and politically and in all other 
 ways, in freedom and honor." Should this aspiration 
 prove to be the natural and fit outcome of the struggle, 
 will the nation, north and south, honor it, and be con- 
 tent with the issue? 
 
 These and like tests confront the national conscience, 
 from whatever point of view we approach the issue. 
 Have we a national conscience which can bear the strain 
 which is coming upon it ? This is a far greater question 
 than that of peace or war. It goes with either. And it 
 takes hold upon the future of the country. Spain 
 has far less at stake, and Cuba, than the United States. 
 Spain may lose a province, and Cuba may not realize 
 the aspirations of its leaders: the United States has 
 committed itself by this act to a far reaching and irrev- 
 ocable policy. By as much as its future is greater, and 
 apparently longer than that of other peoples concerned, 
 by so much is its interest more vital and profound. 
 
 I have had occasion elsewhere to remind some of you 
 that we are rapidly becoming a world-power. The step 
 which we now propose to take is a long step into the 
 world. Cuba is virtually in Europe. Whatever we do 
 there, even in the name of humanity, touches the na- 
 tions, it touches still more sensitively the races. It is 
 already the Anglo-Saxon versus the Latin. Our action 
 may necessitate further advances; it may determine 
 future alliances. I see no escape from this wider 
 responsibility. We cannot afford to purchase our iso- 
 lation at the price of courage or of humanity. We must 
 go forward. But I would be sure that you do not 
 underestimate the moral significance of each advancing
 
 CONSCIENCE OF THE NATION 61 
 
 step. Many of you will live to see results, which now 
 seem to be remote if not impossible. That is no reason 
 why we should falter or be afraid. It is a reason why 
 we should be sober minded, sure of our motives and 
 methods, and, above all, determined that the national 
 conscience shall assert its authority, and take command 
 in this whole procedure. Therefore, the subject which 
 I am urging upon your thought today, the conscience of 
 the nation as the director and arbiter of the impending 
 struggle. 
 
 Let us go out a little way from the immediate issue 
 to consider the full import of our subject. The con- 
 science of nations is a term which we have not held by 
 inheritance. The idea itself, as a working principle, 
 is being slowly evolved under the conditions of modern 
 civilization. The conception of the state as a moral 
 person is not new. The Old Testament is full of 
 it. Greek philosophy taught that the "end of the state 
 is not only to live but to live nobly." Puritanism 
 affirmed through Milton that a "nation ought to be but 
 as one huge Christian personage, one mighty growth or 
 stature of an honest man, as big and compact in virtue 
 as in body." But the practical idea of a conscience in 
 the state, organized and developed to ensure this con- 
 ception, is comparatively new. Underneath all national 
 ideals, however high they may have been, there has 
 always lurked the sentiment that the nation was not 
 to be held to the ordinary distinctions of right and 
 wrong. The sentiment is not to be wondered at. The 
 nation as it rises before us in its majesty, does seem to 
 be something other than we are in self-determining 
 power, more worthy of being a law unto itself. And 
 this sentiment is heightened by the fact that the nation
 
 62 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 is empowered to use means which are not entrusted to 
 private hands. The nation can make war. But war 
 involves the art of deception. If this art can be 
 employed in war why not in diplomacy? It is not to 
 be wondered at, I say, that the conscience of nations is 
 something not easily recognized and acknowledged. 
 Modern statesmanship has never endorsed the extreme 
 position of Machiavelli, extreme even for him, that "it 
 is frequently necessary, for the upholding of the state, 
 to go to work against faith, against charity, against 
 humanity, against religion," but it has been apt to rest 
 midway in the axioms, "Whatever policy requires, jus- 
 tice sanctions," or "There are no crimes in politics, only 
 blunders." Gradually only, and with difficulty, have 
 we reached the theoretical position that a nation, our 
 nation, ought to sj^eak the truth like a man, and ought 
 to do right like a man. 
 
 And singularly enough in this struggle of modern 
 civilization to organize conscience in nations, there has 
 been less help than might have been expected from two 
 natural sources of aid, religion and liberty. Religion 
 has too often sanctioned actions which have been dis- 
 tinctly wrong. It has sometimes advised, and at other 
 times uplield the principle, that the end justifies the 
 means. And even now, whenever a christian nation 
 does violence to the rights of a pagan nation, and there- 
 by opens the way to missions, we are apt to refer to the 
 act as one of the overrulings of Providence, and let it 
 go at that. The conscience of the church is still blunt 
 to the primary distinctions of right and wrong in mat- 
 ters affecting the spread of Christianity. 
 
 And modern liberty, in its heroic struggle for human 
 rights, has not always built up the conscience of the
 
 CONSCIENCE OF THE NATION 63 
 
 nation it has created. The result has sometimes been 
 sentiment rather than conscience. It is impossible even 
 at this day to analyze the French Revolution and find 
 its absolute moral content. Here again we ought not 
 to be altogether surprised at the result. We could not 
 reasonably expect that previous conditions would bring 
 forth a symmetrical development of conscience. Every 
 nation has had some one supreme and absorbing end to 
 gain, like religious freedom or political equality. Until 
 that was gained nothing else could be considered in its 
 proper value. Now the conditions are changed. The 
 advanced nations have secured the first objects of 
 national aspiration. Religious toleration is a substan- 
 tial and assured fact. Political rights are in full exer- 
 cise. These nations are magnificently equipped with 
 the advantages of religious and political freedom. 
 
 The new demands upon national life, upon the life of 
 the great nations, are of another kind. They all have 
 duties in common, duties to one another, the duty of the 
 strong to the weak, a joint responsibility it may be, a 
 separate responsibility it may be, for some incompetent 
 sovereignty, a common concern in regard to declining 
 civilizations and degenerate peoples, a like interest in 
 the new wealth created by science or brought to light 
 by discovery, and an equal obligation for the advance- 
 ment of learning, justice and truth. Here is the train- 
 ing school for the conscience of nations. No nation has 
 as yet become proficient under this training, but results 
 have already been secured. International law has been 
 advanced, arbitration has been introduced, disturbing 
 ambitions have been held in check, war has been miti- 
 gated, and diplomacy has been brought nearer to the 
 common standards of truth. Even the concert of
 
 64 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 Europe has a moral intent, and it has certain moral 
 results to show, albeit it falters in great emergencies 
 through jealousy and distrust. 
 
 And now we have come to take our part under this 
 new discipline of the nations. The national conscience 
 has already been under training. No nation ever passed 
 through a severer moral discipline than that through 
 which we passed in the overthrow of slavery. How can 
 I make that earlier discipline real to the men of another 
 generation? Let me call up these words from the sec- 
 ond Inaugural of Mr. Lincoln — written after four 
 years of war : 
 
 "The Almighty has his own purposes. 'Woe unto 
 the world because of offences, for it must needs be that 
 offences come: but woe to that man by whom the 
 offence cometh.' If we shall suppose that American 
 slavery is one of these offences, which in the providence 
 of God must needs come, but which having continued 
 through his appointed time, he now wills to remove, and 
 that he gives to both North and South this terrible war 
 as the woe due to those by whom the offence came, shall 
 we discern therein any departure from those divine 
 attributes which the believers in a living God always 
 ascribe to him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we 
 pray, that this mighty scourge of war may soon pass 
 away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the 
 wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty 
 years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every 
 drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with 
 the sword; as was said three thousand years ago, so 
 still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are 
 true and righteous altogether.' " 
 
 In these words of humility and penitence the heart of
 
 CONSCIENCE OF THE NATION 65 
 
 the nation found utterance. The national conscience 
 was on its knees before God. The experience of today- 
 is different. We are not now called to atone for 
 offences, to pay the cost of unrequited toil, or undergo 
 the penalty for injustice and greed. Were such the 
 case we should at least have the advantage of a chas- 
 tened spirit. The present work to which we believe we 
 are called is a more delicate, if not a more serious work. 
 It is to set another nation's house in order, to rebuke 
 another's inhumanity, to ensure freedom beyond the 
 limits of our own territory. Are we in the spirit to do 
 this business? I do not ask, have we the power, or the 
 courage, or even the enthusiasm. The question which I 
 put at the beginning is continuously in order. Have we 
 a national conscience equal to the task? Or better the 
 question, because answerable, — have we a national con- 
 science which can be made equal to the task? That I 
 must believe, otherwise I cannot understand how God 
 has put the task upon us. I cannot believe that it is 
 mere vainglory, or mere revenge, or mere passion of any 
 sort, which is now stirring the heart of the nation at 
 large. 
 
 What shall we do then to make sure that the con- 
 science of the nation is made equal to its business ? First, 
 let every conscientious citizen put himself in a respon- 
 sible, rather than in an indifferent or critical attitude to 
 the Government. The tendency with us all is to insist 
 too much upon the incidents in proportion to the sub- 
 stance of a great issue. Unconsciously we become the 
 partisans of a method. There are better and poorer 
 methods. A given method may be right or wrong 
 according to time and place. Personally, I have 
 believed that the method of statesmanship ought to have
 
 66 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 undisputed and unvexed opportunity before the resort 
 to war. But that question is now practically settled. 
 The President has said that he can go no further until 
 there has been put into his hands full authority for war. 
 
 "In view of these facts and considerations, I ask the 
 Congress to authorize and empower the President to 
 take measures to secure a full and final termination of 
 hostilities between the government of Spain and the 
 people of Cuba, and to secure in the island the estab- 
 lishment of a stable government capable of maintaining 
 order and observing its international obligations, insur- 
 ing peace, tranquility and security to its citizens as well 
 as our own, and to use the military and naval forces of 
 the United States as may be necessary for these 
 purposes." 
 
 Personally, I believe that intervention is more con- 
 sistent with the end proposed than recognition. Recog- 
 nition seems to me to be the weaker and more question- 
 able policy. But the difference is still one of method. 
 It does not cover the question at issue. That again has 
 been determined. The nation has practically decided 
 that it is its duty to relieve distress and to restore order 
 in Cuba, and however that is done, the nation must be 
 prepared to take the consequences, which at present no 
 one can foresee. Neither method can prevent compli- 
 cations, nor guarantee speedy withdrawal. The pacifi- 
 cation of Cuba by the United States will not be the 
 work of a day. The essential duty of citizenship, — this 
 is the principle I advocate, — is that of identification 
 with the great purposes of a nation, provided they are 
 right. It corresponds to the duty of protest, provided 
 they are wrong. Between the two there is no respon- 
 sible position. If you believe, as I do, that in this matter
 
 CONSCIENCE OF THE NATION 67 
 
 the nation is essentially right in its purposes, you will 
 agree with me also in saying that method should be held 
 in right proportion to the end. And further, that every 
 man should put himself clearly and openly into some 
 relation of responsibility. Otherwise what do we more 
 than those whose indifference or unconcern about the 
 public welfare we are wont to condemn? 
 
 I chanced last evening to open Mulford's Nation, 
 and to read, I think it must have been for the first time, 
 this passage. It made so much impression upon my 
 own mind that I read it to you. 
 
 "Hegel says, the mob in a nation is the force which 
 acts without, or apart from, the organization of the 
 whole. There may then be an ignorant or a learned 
 mob, a mob of men of fashion or of men of science, but 
 the spirit is the same, and in its severance from the 
 organic people there is the same essential vulgarity. 
 This has an illustration of singular force in one of the 
 poHtical plays of Shakespeare. When Caius Marcius 
 turns to the crowd in Rome, and denounces them as 
 the detached and disorganized rabble, in whom there 
 is nothing of the organic unity of the people, the disdain 
 of the Roman is in the words — 'Go, get you home, you 
 fragments.' And those who in the conceit of culture, 
 or of wealth, or of higher interests, or of spiritual 
 endowments, withdraw from the normal political action 
 of the nation, are obeying the impulse of the mob, and 
 are as the very fragments for whom the Roman patri- 
 cian felt such unmeasured scorn." 
 
 "The normal political action of the nation" — how 
 imperative are its demands at all times. How much 
 more imperative when it passes into great acts which 
 either rise out of or return into the national conscience.
 
 68 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 Indifference, aloofness at such a time makes a man a 
 "fragment" ; or to use the more vital figure of our Lord, 
 "he is cut off as a branch and withers." 
 
 Second, let every conscientious citizen support the 
 men who stand for the conscience of the nation. The 
 nation owes nothing whatever to any other kind of men 
 from the beginning of its history until now. Adven- 
 turers, soldiers of fortune, ambitious rulers, conscience- 
 less statesmen, — to what one does the nation stand 
 indebted? The two names typical of the Republic, 
 commanding the great crises in its life, are Washington 
 and Lincoln — strong men, slow men, as other men of 
 their time thought who ran themselves out of breath in 
 their petty haste; patient men, capable of enduring 
 Valley Forge or Gettysburg; firm men, unmoved by 
 criticism or popular clamor; courageous men, with the 
 courage of faith, able to see the end from the begin- 
 ning ; self-sacrificing men, able and willing to lay every 
 personal ambition, and every partisan advantage upon 
 the altar of country, — these are the men who made this 
 Republic what it is, who established its reputation, who 
 gave it stability at home and authority abroad. These 
 are the men who trained this democracy. Do you sup- 
 pose that under any other training, this nation would 
 have held its peace, and possessed itself in a self-respect- 
 ing quietness, while the court of enquiry was calmly 
 investigating the wreck of the Maine? 
 
 Let us honor our past in the present, our dead in the 
 living. And if God has seen fit to add further to this 
 succession of distinctly American leaders in the person 
 of the President of the United States, let us recognize 
 the succession and support him, as we think we would 
 have supported his predecessors. This is no time for
 
 CONSCIENCE OF THE NATION 69 
 
 criticisms, or comparisons, least of all is it the time to set 
 one department of the government over against another. 
 But it is the exact time for the American people to say 
 what they want in men who are to guide them through 
 this crisis. It is the time to say whether they want men 
 of like quality with those who established the traditions 
 of the Republic, or whether they want men by compari- 
 son less American in spirit and in method. We are to 
 be tested, we must remember, in this emergency as well 
 as our leaders. And as the months go by, and events 
 take place which will try us, it will appear to others if 
 not to us, whether we as a people are capable of main- 
 taining our reputation and of preserving our traditions. 
 And finally, let every conscientious citizen try to 
 measure in right proportion the things which are actu- 
 ally called for in this exigency of the Country. The 
 call has been made for money. It has been quickly hon- 
 ored. Other calls of a like nature will be made. These 
 will be honored. Taxes will be imposed, and will be 
 borne without complaint. Under present appearances, 
 it does not seem that the immediate call for men will be 
 large. As it is made known trained men will respond, 
 and if later, others are needed, they will put themselves 
 at the service of the nation. What more will be called 
 for? The very thing that I have been holding up 
 before you this morning, the conscience of the 
 nation. Moral integrity, moral purpose, moral re- 
 straint, these are the necessities of the hour. These are 
 the difficult necessities. It is easier to get money, or 
 ships, or men, than to get sufficient conscience for this 
 war. The moment war is declared the first thing to do 
 is to send some men to the rear, all mere adventurers, 
 all partisans, all traders on their country's fortune or
 
 70 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 honor, all seekers after their own things and not the 
 tilings that be of the nation. Let it be understood at the 
 outset that this war is none of their business. 
 
 What ! is this war to be used to any advantage of an 
 individual, or of a party, or even of the nation, to help 
 any man's business, to sell newspapers, to quicken 
 special industries, to affect the price of stocks, to main- 
 tain the Republican party in power, or to give the 
 Democratic party a better chance, to add to the prestige 
 of army or navy, to annex Cuba to the United States? 
 There is but one answer to these questions, which will 
 surely arise, each and all of them. Commit this war to 
 the conscience of the nation. There is where it belongs, 
 if true to its professed object. This war has one, and 
 but one professed and acknowledged justification. If 
 it can be held to that purpose — and only the conscience 
 of the nation can hold it there — it will leave us a self- 
 respecting nation. It may entitle us to the greater 
 respect of the nations. Some nations perchance may 
 say of us, as it was foretold should be said of Israel, if 
 true to its traditions — "Surely, this great nation is a 
 wise and understanding people." "Open the gates, that 
 the righteous nation, which keepeth truth, may enter in."
 
 VI 
 
 THE REVIVAL OF CIVIC PRIDE IN THE 
 COMMONWEALTH 
 
 Address at Dedication of State Library Building, Concord, N. H. , 
 
 January 8, 1895 
 
 I ask at once in your presence, as you are assembled 
 to dedicate this building to the uses of the State of New 
 Hampshire, How shall we ensure to the state or com- 
 monwealth a rightful part in the present revival of civic 
 pride throughout the country? 
 
 The chief effect of that revival, as we are now con- 
 scious of it, is the glorious assurance of nationality. 
 "We the people" have at last become the nation, and we 
 know it. It has not been an easy matter for us to reach 
 this supreme consciousness. As late as 1811 Josiah 
 Quincy made this confession from his seat in congress: 
 "Sir, I confess it, the first public love of my heart is the 
 Commonwealth of Massachusetts. There is my fire- 
 side; there are the tombs of my ancestors." That was 
 the utterance, not of South Carolina, but of Massachu- 
 setts, in the national house of representatives, twenty- 
 three years after the adoption of the constitution. No 
 Massachusetts man, no man, I trust, from any state, 
 would utter that sentiment now. The events of our 
 generation, in which some of you were actors, have 
 wrought a mighty change in our opinions and in our 
 feelings. The nation sits enthroned today in the hearts 
 of the people. The most interesting and the most 
 inspiring expression of civic pride is this calm but proud
 
 72 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 consciousness of nationality. We are beginning to real- 
 ize to ourselves the great conception of Milton: "Not 
 many sovereignties united in one commonwealth, but 
 many commonwealths in one united and entrusted sov- 
 ereignty." 
 
 The present revival of civic pride may be seen at 
 work, if not equally, yet with marked effect, at the other 
 extreme of our political organization, in the municipal- 
 ity. Next to the national feeling, the municipal feeling 
 is at present the strongest. Something of this feeling 
 is due of course to the recognized peril of the cities. It 
 is in many cases the sense of danger which tests the 
 depth of our affection, which may discover the fact itself 
 to us. Probably no city in the country has had, in pro- 
 portion to its importance, less municipal pride than the 
 city of New York, but he must be less than an ahen, 
 whether resident for longer or shorter time, who does 
 not now feel the responsibility of citizenship. The sense 
 of responsibility, however, is not the chief sign of munic- 
 ipal pride, but rather the increasing sense of oppor- 
 tunity. The city is beginning to stand for more than 
 size, it represents every possible advance and improve- 
 ment. The period of silly rivalries and competitions 
 about numbers has been out-grown, and account is being 
 taken of solid and substantial growths. Men are seek- 
 ing to be identified not only in personal interest, but 
 in reputation and name, with their respective cities. 
 Schools, libraries, museums, parks, bearing the names 
 of individual donors, are the visible evidence of an 
 enlarged municipal enthusiasm, while the surer though 
 less conspicuous sign is found in the fact that here and 
 there a citizen of acknowledged capacity is willing to 
 forego further gains in his business or profession, that
 
 REVIVAL OF CIVIC PRIDE 73 
 
 he may answer in person the demand for honest and 
 capable government. The ardent imagination of Mr. 
 Depew interprets a popular tendency, when he predicts 
 that the second office in the United States will soon be 
 that of mayor of greater New York. 
 
 Now in this revival of civic pride, so manifestly 
 affecting the nation and the city, what of the state, the 
 old commonwealth, the original substance and life out of 
 which in due time the nation was born, and from whose 
 permanent and abounding vitality cities are now spring- 
 ing forth? Evidently the day for the reassertion of 
 rights once surrendered is forever past, and no 
 encroachment upon the interests of the growing com- 
 munities may be allowed. But the commonwealth 
 remains, worthy of an equal place in the honorable pride 
 of its citizens with that held by the nation or a city. 
 
 And among us the opportunity, if not the necessity, 
 for some very practical expression of this pride of state, 
 is apparent in the fact that the influence of New Hamp- 
 shire is not overshadowed by that of a great municipal- 
 ity within its borders. With us the state is not in bond- 
 age to the city, nor subordinate to it. Neither can the 
 state throw off its responsibility to provide for the 
 higher wants of its citizens upon any one locality, 
 equipped with all the modern appliances of progress — 
 the library, the museum, the university. In few states 
 of the nation are the resources so variously, if not 
 equally, distributed as in our own. Every section of it, 
 east and west, south and north, has a share in its history. 
 The whole state had its pre-existence in the province. 
 And under the incoming of the later industries, and the 
 consequent re-distribution of population, the ancient 
 equality has not been altogether destroyed. It is the
 
 74 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 state, not a city, which still offers the great attraction 
 to visitors from far and near. It is the state, not any 
 one localit}^ which holds undeveloped resources out of 
 which new industries may spring for the support of new 
 populations. It is the state at large which shelters the 
 great schools, which send out the sons of New Hamp- 
 shire into other states, and which draw to their training 
 the sons of all the states. It is, in a word, the state, the 
 old commonwealth in its entirety, not a city, not any 
 localized center, by means of which we are to maintain 
 the honor of our inheritance, and keep step with the 
 march of the nation. 
 
 I welcome therefore, as a citizen of New Hampshire, 
 the occasion on which we dedicate in the name of the 
 state another building, the choicest of its outward pos- 
 sessions, to be henceforth one more visible reminder of 
 the real presence and personaHty of the commonwealth. 
 I rejoice especially in the object of this building, which 
 shows in so representative a way the enlarging functions 
 of the state. It answers in part, by illustration at least, 
 the question with which I began — How shall we ensure 
 to the commonwealth its share in the present revival of 
 civic pride? 
 
 I go on then to speak of the maintenance of the state 
 library as one of the means through which we may show 
 our pride of state, and also one of the agencies through 
 which we may develop the higher interests of the com- 
 monwealth. 
 
 It may seem almost too obvious for me to say, that it 
 is through the agency of the library, that the state is 
 best able to avail itself of its own historv. But the full 
 meaning of this statement does not appear in the utter- 
 ance of it. The history of a great past is made avail-
 
 REVIVAL OF CIVIC PRIDE 75 
 
 able only to the degree in which it can be reproduced in 
 spirit in the continuous life of a people. But what is 
 the continuous life of a people? What is the continu- 
 ous life of the people of New Hampshire? Not the 
 unbroken succession of families. Not the local increase 
 of the native stock. Names once significant in the 
 annals of the state have disappeared, or appear only in 
 remoter regions. Families of wide connection and of 
 extended influence remain as remnants. Others, let us 
 rejoice, survive in the fullness of their strength, and 
 gain upon their heritage. But if the state, if any one of 
 the older states, were dependent upon the original stock 
 it would exist as a fragment of its former self, unless it 
 could call home its own. The state continues to live 
 through the incoming of the new, through constant 
 accessions from various and unforeseen sources. This 
 continuity of life is absolutely dependent upon the 
 process of assimilation, the moral part of which lies in 
 the power of the state to impress its principles, its his- 
 tory, itself, upon those who may choose to share its 
 fortunes. 
 
 Pardon me if I pause to assert and emphasize the 
 fact, that there are none among us upon whom the 
 great men and the great events of our history are mak- 
 ing a deeper impression than upon the more receptive 
 minds of the new population. We ignore or under- 
 estimate this fact in times of social depression. We for- 
 get the philosophy which underlies it. Noble traditions 
 lose their power when held in too easy and familiar 
 possession. Inspiration does not long abide in what has 
 become to anyone the commonplace. But the familiar 
 deed springs into newness of life as often as it gains a 
 fresh hearing. It is not alone the new seed, it is the
 
 76 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 new soil, which explains the harv^est. Again and again 
 have I watched the kindling of eager minds, coming 
 from other states, as I have told the early story of Dart- 
 mouth, that heroic romance in education, when there 
 was nothing in personal inheritance or personal asso- 
 ciation to awaken the mind, nothing but the contact of 
 an inspiring history with a quick intelligence. We 
 grievously mistake if we suppose that history appeals 
 only to those who are the natural heirs to the deeds 
 which it records. History never fails in its appeal to 
 men as they come and go, provided the sources are kept 
 full and open, so that it may be rewritten to the mind of 
 each generation. Here is the advantage in part of such 
 a library as tliis, in distinction from the ordinary pri- 
 vate, educational, or public library. We build here 
 upon foundations already laid a great storehouse for 
 originals, documents of every sort illustrative of early 
 and later history, dispatches, records, reports, addresses, 
 letters, nothing of this nature too small or too remote to 
 be neglected. This is not the material for a circulating 
 library. It has another use and another value. Here 
 is the material on deposit which gives worth to the cur- 
 rent literature of its kind. You open here a home and 
 a workshop for the investigator, the scholar, the writer, 
 the man who is to come hither with knowledge and 
 imagination, capable of translating this ancient life into 
 the speech and life of today. So you make the history 
 of the state available in ever recurring variety of form. 
 For, as I have intimated, it is of the very genius of his- 
 tory, that it should be written to an age, and therefore 
 its story be continually retold with new motive and in 
 new setting. The age which sings the Iliad to the notes 
 of camp and battle and seige, is not content till it has
 
 REVIVAL OF CIVIC PRIDE 77 
 
 sung the Odyssey in the strains of love and home and 
 kindred, the arts of peace, and the common ways of men. 
 Every considerable period of history presents various 
 aspects. We want to know them all to know the period. 
 We want to know, of course, the story of discovery, and 
 adventure, and war ; we want to know also the record of 
 political struggle, and religious advance, and educa- 
 tional development, the growth of the arts and indus- 
 tries. There is the true source and reason of events, the 
 mere narration of which we sometimes think makes his- 
 tory. History in its highest form is the discovery of 
 cause and reason, it is the explanation of actions and 
 events. We read the memorable speech of the 
 "Defender of the Constitution" through wliich he post- 
 poned secession for thirty years, and made it thereafter 
 more possible to save the Union. Is that speech of Mr. 
 Webster's to be explained by his own greatness? Not 
 at all. His father had made it before him. At that 
 critical hour when the convention of New Hampshire 
 met to adopt or reject the constitution, when its vote to 
 adopt would complete the number of states necessary 
 to form the Union, when the conventions of New York 
 and Virginia then in session were anxiously waiting the 
 result, couriers having been stationed by order of Ham- 
 ilton to carry the news from Concord to Poughkeepsie, 
 and on to Richmond, in that convention where the result 
 was in serious doubt. Colonel Webster arose and uttered 
 this sentiment (the language may show the revision of 
 a later hand ) — 
 
 "Mr. President: I have listened to the arguments for 
 and against the constitution. I am convinced that such 
 a government as that constitution will establish, if 
 adopted — a government acting directly on the people of
 
 78 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 the states — is necessary for the common defense and 
 the general welfare. It is the only government which 
 will enable us to pay the national debt, the debt which 
 we owe for the Revolution, and which we are bound in 
 honor fully and fairly to discharge. Sir, I shall vote for 
 its adoption." 
 
 The reply to Hayne was the echo of the speech of the 
 New Hampshire farmer. It was the same spirit which 
 urged the adoption of the constitution in that hour of 
 doubt, which, in the hour of its danger, rose to its 
 defense. The speech was in the blood. 
 
 The constant and honorable boast of New Hampshire 
 has been of the quality of the men whom she could fur- 
 nish to the nation. One historian writes of a given 
 national administration, and that one of the best, that 
 at its time New Hampshire could have furnished from 
 the number of her own public men, the full equivalent 
 for those who held the offices of president and vice-presi- 
 dent, and also of those who held seats in the cabinet. 
 Grant it. Who were behind these men? Who made 
 them possible? As we have seen in an illustrious in- 
 stance, such men do not explain themselves. You might 
 as well try to explain the flow of the Merrimack as it 
 sweeps these meadows on its way to the struggle and 
 toil below, without pointing to the hills, as to attempt to 
 explain the public men of the state without going back 
 into the life of the people. What we ask, therefore, 
 first of all for this library, is that it shall be made com- 
 plete to the last degree in whatever pertains to the his- 
 tory of the people of the state ; that it shall be a reposi- 
 tory, not only for public documents, but also for private 
 papers; that it shall reach out after all facts, however 
 transmitted, which have a bearing on vital questions of
 
 REVIVAL OF CIVIC PRIDE 79 
 
 state interest ; and that it shall be able to trace the great 
 events in which the state has had a part, and the great 
 men whom it has sent forth, back to the causes which 
 determined or produced them. What we want, in a 
 word, is a library which shall explain New Hampshire. 
 
 A more direct, if not equally obvious, use of the 
 library for the advancement of the state, is to be seen in 
 the very great aid which it offers toward intelligent leg- 
 islation, the interpretation of the laws, and general 
 administration. Doubtless we have in this use of the 
 library the chief intent of its founders. The statute 
 under which the library is administered provides first 
 that it shall be "for the use of the governor and council, 
 officers of the state government, the legislature and the 
 clerks thereof, the judges of the supreme court, and 
 such other persons as the trustees may determine" ; and 
 afterward in fixing the duties of the trustees, it pre- 
 scribes that "they shall procure for the library full sets 
 of the statutes and law reports of the United States, 
 and of the several states; histories, including those of 
 the counties and towns of the state whenever published ; 
 maps, charts, works on agriculture, political economy, 
 the arts and natural sciences, copies of state papers and 
 publications relating to the material, social, and reli- 
 gious conditions of the people, or bearing upon the busi- 
 ness and objects of legislation, and such other works as 
 they may deem suitable, works of fiction excepted." 
 
 Naturally this is a law library in its largest intent and 
 purpose. The provision which has been made in this 
 building for the sessions of the supreme court empha- 
 sizes this purpose, as does also the mention of the duty, 
 first among those prescribed for the trustees, "of pro- 
 curing for the library full sets of the statutes and law
 
 80 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 reports of the United States and of the several states." 
 It is a matter of congratulation, that in the comparison 
 which this array of statutes and reports invites, the 
 reports of New Hampshire hold by common consent so 
 high and honorable a place. Indeed this was to have 
 been expected, if we recall the names, which, in the 
 quaint language of a former generation, "reflected the 
 gladsome light of jurisprudence," — the names of 
 Weare, Bartlett, Langdon, Livermore, Woodbury, 
 Bell, Smith, Parker, Perley, and so many of their asso- 
 ciates, an honor one and all to any bench. 
 
 It does not fall to my lot to speak of the relation of 
 the state to its bench or courts, but without venturing 
 beyond the province of a layman, I may fitly call atten- 
 tion to the present demand for the more general knowl- 
 edge of what may be termed the hterature of the law, 
 the knowledge of statutes and reports, as indispensable 
 to wise legislation. As any one can see, the relation 
 between the federal and state authority is becoming 
 at certain points complicated and sensitive. No past 
 political conditions have ever involved issues of greater 
 perplexity than those involved in present economic and 
 industrial conditions. Decisions are rendered almost 
 every month by some one of the United States courts 
 affecting the interests of corporations and of labor in 
 every state of the Union. Not long since, in a western 
 state, I chanced to listen to an after-dinner speech from 
 one of the younger judges of the United States court 
 of appeals, in which, though a man of remarkable wit, 
 he put aside at once the pleasantries of the hour that he 
 might impress upon the company the very great seri- 
 ousness of the questions upon which the federal courts 
 were called to pass in determining the rights of
 
 REVIVAL OF CIVIC PRIDE 81 
 
 property and the rights of sei-vice. The discussion was 
 as earnest as an utterance of the pulpit. And between 
 the states the lack of uniformity in the very principles of 
 legislation is becoming in some cases not only serious 
 but grievous. One has but to refer in illustration to 
 subjects so widely removed from one another as taxa- 
 tion and divorce. At such a time the value of a state 
 library which gives ready and complete information on 
 all points of current decisions and statute law cannot 
 be overestimated. A library with these facilities seems 
 as much a part of the equipment of the legislature as 
 of the courts. It has a distinct moral influence. 
 Through its system of exchange it keeps open com- 
 munication between the states. It enables us to realize 
 the closeness of the fellowship of the body politic. "If 
 one member suffers, all the members suffer with it." 
 
 The statute, however, which wisely gives precedence 
 to law in the furnishing of the library, makes generous 
 provision for other subjects which have to do with the 
 material and social development of the state. I see no 
 reason why this provision should not be fulfilled, as far 
 as the annual appropriations may allow. The teachers 
 of the state have already asked that a department of 
 pedagogy may be opened. Why should not requests 
 be urged from other sources? V^hy, for example, 
 should not the library be made tributary to our great 
 industries? Where should one interested in any one of 
 these expect to look for careful information except to 
 such a library as this ? Where else within the state could 
 one hope to find it? Technical departments are to be 
 found to a certain extent in our educational libraries; 
 and here and there the public library of a city may pro- 
 vide some books of this character on a given industry.
 
 82 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 But to what source ought one to turn for such discrim- 
 inating and well-directed information on the industries 
 of the state as to the state library? Here again I must 
 remind you that we have no great center to which we 
 can look except to the state itself. And in so far as the 
 state may see fit to answer this demand, let me suggest 
 that whenever any department of this kind is set up, the 
 fact be made known, and a classified list of the books 
 in the department be published and circulated. Gradu- 
 ally and without undue expense, the state library may 
 become an authority upon many matters of industrial 
 and economic value. 
 
 Allow me the further suggestion that such works as 
 have to do most immediately with the resources of the 
 state be duplicated, and distributed at convenient cen- 
 ters, usually in connection with a town library, but 
 under the control of the state library. Such a distribu- 
 tion would create among our citizens a habit of thinking 
 about the state and its interests. It would provide 
 material in advance for our legislators. It would add 
 to that general intelligence which they bring to their 
 duties a special knowledge on many points, which there 
 is httle time to gain during the session of the legislature. 
 It would be a step for the state to take out among the 
 people, arousing them to a greater interest in their citi- 
 zenship. Like the attempt of which I have spoken to 
 make the library available for recovering the history of 
 the state, it would make the library more available for 
 its present and future advancement. A great library, 
 of any kind whatever, is more than a repository. That 
 is its second use. The first and supreme object is to 
 inform, incite, awaken. Rightly used, it is one of the 
 creative agencies of civilization.
 
 REVIVAL OF CIVIC PRIDE 83 
 
 Assuming that the specific uses of a state library are 
 such as have been indicated, namely, to give the state 
 the advantage among its citizens of its own history, and 
 to aid the state appropriately in the making and inter- 
 pretation of its laws, and the development of its 
 resources, it remains for me to speak of the library as 
 standing for the identification of the state with the 
 whole intellectual life of the people. In the language of 
 the Governor's inaugural, "its relations to our educa- 
 tional system should be intimate." I take the apt sug- 
 gestion of the term. Intimacy of relationship rather 
 than domination or control is the characteristic of the 
 New England states in their educational policy. The 
 distinction in educational policy between the earlier and 
 later commonwealths is marked. The later common- 
 wealths, almost without exception, have created elab- 
 orate educational systems, culminating in a university, 
 which they support and control. The earlier common- 
 wealths demand popular education as the basis of citi- 
 zenship, and within certain limits they carefully provide 
 for it, but they seek to arouse the public spirit of individ- 
 ual citizens, and to develop private munificence. Hence 
 the peculiar phenomena, to be seen on every hand, at- 
 tending the intellectual development of New England; 
 great schools, colleges, and universities founded and 
 maintained by endowments ; the fortunes of private cit- 
 izens returning in part to their native towns in the gift 
 of libraries; voluntary associations springing up in all 
 parts of the community for the mutual advantage and 
 improvement of their members. Meanwhile the state 
 is no mere onlooker, no indifferent or curious spectator, 
 its interests elsewhere, itself intent on other and lower 
 ends. The state is the watchful guardian, the solicitous
 
 84 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 friend, the helper and patron. Its interest in whatever 
 concerns the intellectual life of the people is active, con- 
 stant, and altogether beneficent. The state acts by vari- 
 ous methods, now working through legislation, as when 
 it reaffirms more vigorously the principle of compulsory 
 intelligence, now entering into co-operation with the 
 communities under its care, as in the library system of 
 our own state and of Massachusetts, now granting 
 immunities and privileges to institutions of learning 
 when necessary to their freedom, not hesitating if need 
 be to offer the helping hand, and now teaching by exam- 
 ple, as by this occasion, and through the dignity and 
 worth of its standards, broadening the public thought, 
 and elevating the public taste. Such, in its traditions 
 and increasing practice, is the New England common- 
 wealth in the intimacy of its relationship to the intellec- 
 tual life of the people. It was a statesman, you recall, 
 not a theorist, a mere scholar, or poet, who said, "The 
 state is a partnership in all science, a partnership in all 
 art, a partnership in every virtue. And as the end of 
 such a partnersliip cannot be obtained in many genera- 
 tions, it becomes a partnership not only between those 
 who are living, but between those who are living, and 
 those who are dead, and those who are yet to be born." 
 
 It is impossible to overestimate the impression which 
 the state is able to make upon its citizens through this 
 noble union, this high partnership in great interests. 
 Nothing else can rouse them to such a degree of civic 
 pride. 
 
 The state, we must remember, does not always appear 
 before us in this aspect. So many of its functions are 
 negative and repressive. It is through the state that 
 we deal with crime. Much of its legislation is the itera-
 
 REVIVAL OF CIVIC PRIDE 85 
 
 tion of the commandments. There is a majesty in this 
 aspect of the state, and there is benignity. The other 
 side of law is security, order, peace. Still it is not 
 through its repressive force that we respond most 
 heartily to the power of the state. 
 
 Through other functions the state is concerned chiefly 
 with material interests. These interests are vital. 
 Nothing concerns any man more than his daily work, 
 the work itself, and the result of it in his livelihood. 
 But the actual power of the state to affect business is 
 far less than that of the general government. In every 
 state election the issue broadens into the field of national 
 politics. No citizen looks exclusively to his own com- 
 monwealth for the adjustment of those conditions which 
 determine his work, his business, or his investments. 
 
 The state is excluded from the province of religion. 
 The experiment once tried in that direction will never 
 be repeated. The one reservation which the individual 
 citizen has made for himself for all time is liberty of 
 conscience, in every possible expression of it, and in all 
 its results. 
 
 The open field into which the state may enter, where 
 it may exercise unhindered its higher ministry, where 
 it may illustrate this noble partnership, is education, the 
 development of the intellectual, and, through that, of 
 the moral life of the people. The essential contribution 
 of New Hampshire, as we fondly believe, to the life of 
 the nation, has been mental character, not simply brain 
 power, not simply conscience, but character informed 
 and developed by the trained mind. That has been the 
 ground of our boasting. We have no other to compare 
 with it. It can have no equivalent and no substitute. 
 We may cherish local associations in the state with a
 
 86 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 sentiment which will idealize even its rugged and barren 
 hills. We may respect the authority of the state as it 
 guards our rights, and protects our interests. But the 
 one source of civic pride for the state is the maintenance 
 of its extraordinary intellectual and moral history. It 
 is the remembrance of that, and that above all else, 
 which quickens the blood, and stirs the spirit within us. 
 May this day which is set apart in recognition of one 
 of the higher functions of the state recover and restore 
 to us this former ideal. And accepting the inspiration 
 and teaching of the present hour, may we understand 
 better what is the abiding duty, and what the lasting 
 honor of the sons of this ancient commonwealth.
 
 VII 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE DURING THE PERIOD 
 OF INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION 
 
 Address before Members of the Present and Past Legislatures of 
 THE State, Concord, N. H., June 30, 1896 
 
 The state of New Hampshire has been during half 
 the period of its existence under the government of 
 Legislatures which are represented in this Reunion. 
 The time of your official service, if reckoned backward, 
 would cover the Convention which adopted the Consti- 
 tution of the United States, and gave New Hampshire 
 its place among the original thirteen. The members 
 who in 1840 took their seats in these legislative halls 
 were nearer in time to the men of that Convention than 
 they were to many of those with whom they now sit 
 in this legislative Reunion. But they were nearer in 
 time only. Social and economic changes were even then 
 impending which were to inaugurate a new period of 
 legislation, because they were to revolutionize so many 
 of the interests of the state. The legislative history 
 of New Hampshire, though unbroken and continuous, 
 is therefore separated through these two outward 
 causes into two nearly equal periods, the latter of which 
 falls within the lifetime and within the personal recol- 
 lection of those present. I take note of the change in 
 the objects and in the character of legislation within 
 these two periods. 
 
 The legislation of that earlier period was character- 
 ized by a certain simplicity which could not be carried
 
 88 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 over into the new conditions. The state inherited from 
 the Revolution its share of the questions which vexed 
 the general government, and local questions were con- 
 tinually coming to the front. But they were all of the 
 same general nature. They had to do with the applica- 
 tion of practical principles already accepted, or with 
 the development of the state along lines which had been 
 marked out. New Hampshire grew like every 'New 
 England community. We must not forget, in these 
 days of boasting on the part of the newer states, that 
 New Hampshire grew rapidly in its early days. The 
 tide of immigration set this way. Dr. Belknap esti- 
 mated that in nineteen years, seven of which includ- 
 ed the War of the Revolution, the population of the 
 state doubled; and that from 1790 to 1830 the rate of 
 increase varied from ten to tliirty per cent for each 
 decade. The population was homogeneous. Each col- 
 ony which pushed its way along the valley of the Con- 
 necticut was prepared to set up a township the moment 
 it took possession of its grant. All the settlements in 
 the state were not characterized by the same independ- 
 ence, but they all conformed to the same general plan. 
 The pursuits of the people were practically the same. 
 Agriculture was the common industry. And for the 
 greater part of this period there was no competition. 
 The agricultural states this side of the Mississippi be- 
 gan to come into the Union as late as 1816-1820. Not a 
 state on the other side of the Mississippi, north of Mis- 
 souri, antedates the time of the reconstructive period in 
 the history of New Hampshire. There was little or no 
 intimation of any change in the industries of the peo- 
 ple. The substitution of machinery for human strength 
 was accepted gradually, as a convenience, but there was
 
 INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION 89 
 
 no conception of the actual manufacture of power such 
 as we now witness without wonder. 
 
 Here then we have the local conditions of that earlier 
 time, — a homogeneous people, the absence of compe- 
 tition, and an apparently fixed industry. The essential 
 issues were still political, engendering, it is true, some 
 personal enmities, but not disturbing the general wel- 
 fare. Fortunate for the state, fortunate for us, were 
 the conditions of that early and formative period, con- 
 ditions of simple and natural growth, the occupation of 
 new territory, the extension of agriculture and trade, the 
 opening of highways, the establishment of schools and 
 churches ; in a word, the ordinary conditions of the set- 
 tlement and development of a country by a free, vigor- 
 ous, and intelligent people. Fortunate those years of 
 comparative repose for the application of the new polit- 
 ical principles to a growing commonwealth, and for the 
 formation of the political character of its citizens. 
 
 These years were in striking contrast with those which 
 were to follow, years which I have called those of recon- 
 struction and readjustment. The state was then called 
 to pass through the most serious test of its vitality to 
 which it could be subjected. Under the opening of rich 
 and almost boundless agricultural regions, where the 
 prodigality of nature seemed to scorn the toil of man, 
 the values, upon which New Hampshire rested, gradu- 
 ally lessened until they were well nigh lost; and more 
 disastrous still, the people themselves sent their sons 
 and daughters after the new wealth. The abandonment 
 of the old farms began. Then came in the new indus- 
 tries to which the people were unaccustomed, and in 
 which they could find no large place for employment, 
 industries bringing in their own population, strange in
 
 90 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 language, customs, and religion. Then came the neces- 
 sary redistribution of the old population, the formation 
 of new centers, and the consequent withdrawal in many 
 cases from the old. And in the midst of all this confu- 
 sion and change came the sudden and sharp call to arms, 
 the summons to the state to give its men and its treasure 
 to save the nation. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that in this long season 
 of uncertainty and confusion, and in many respects of 
 discouragement, some lost heart and accepted the super- 
 ficial verdict of decay and decline. The changes were 
 such as to appeal to sentiment. There were those who 
 could not find, nor be expected to find, in the prosperity 
 of the rising industrial city an equivalent to the 
 departed glory of the old shire town with its stately 
 homes and its gentle folk. The boy who had left the 
 hill farm of his fathers, returning rich in western acres 
 or city lots, could not be expected to look without emo- 
 tion u23on the deserted homestead, even though his steps 
 had been the first to leave the trodden ways. Nor could 
 the traveler from distant states, without local traditions 
 or associations, be expected to enjoy the scenery which 
 had drawn him thither, without noting here and there 
 on the landscape the spire of an unused church, and 
 moralizing on the scene in the columns of his city paper. 
 All this was to have been expected. It was inevitable. 
 But, as you well know, there is another and very dif- 
 ferent aspect of this situation. The story of these past 
 years when read aright has not been a story of decay 
 and decline, but of reconstruction and readjustment. 
 To my thought, the insight, the energy, the persever- 
 ance, the courage, the faith, with which the result has 
 been achieved, have been magnificent. It has been like
 
 INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION 91 
 
 the change of front in the full tide of battle, this read- 
 justment of the old state to its new duties and oppor- 
 tunities, in the midst of the turmoil and competition 
 of the time, without lowering its educational or moral 
 standard, or failing to honor a single demand of the 
 national government in the hour of its peril. The story- 
 has been told in part in the journals of successive Legis- 
 latures, in the language of debate and statute. I retell 
 it in your hearing — because it is worthy of being re- 
 told — in a language with which I am more familiar, the 
 language of that social and economic science which takes 
 careful note of all changes affecting the hfe of commu- 
 nities and states as they occur, and which seeks to inter- 
 pret them in the light of the accomplished fact. 
 
 The fundamental problem which presented itself to 
 the people of New Hampshire at the opening of the 
 period of reconstruction was the industrial problem. It 
 has continued to be the fundamental problem through- 
 out the entire period. In 1840 New Hampshire was 
 almost entirely an agricultural state; but it had then 
 become evident that the farmer of New Hampshire 
 could not compete with the farmer of Illinois. If the 
 rich lands of the nearer west had not been oj)ened, and 
 canals had not been cut to bring their harvests into 
 eastern markets, farming in New Hampshire would 
 have been more profitable than at any previous time. 
 The demand for its products would have increased with 
 the growth of population in this and neighboring states. 
 Farming ceased to pay in proportion to the general 
 increase in the national wealth, because the same labor 
 could secure far greater results elsewhere. Relatively 
 the state could not maintain itself on the basis of agri- 
 culture. As this fact became more and more apparent
 
 92 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 the sense of discouragement began to be felt throughout 
 the state. How could it have been otherwise? What 
 could then have been done to meet the situation? No 
 change of methods, no improvement in farming, could 
 have availed against such tremendous odds. Before 
 agriculture could resume its place new conditions must 
 come in, new markets near at hand, ready transporta- 
 tion, a better science, and the economy of machinery. 
 
 Meanwhile attention was turned toward the utiliza- 
 tion of other resources whose value was just beginning 
 to be seen. More wealth had been flowing through the 
 state year by year in the waters of the Merrimack than 
 had been taken out of the soil on its banks. The waters 
 of Winnepesaukee were worth more by far than the 
 land wliich they covered. The discovery and apprecia- 
 tion of this new wealth in the unutilized water power 
 of the state brought in the epoch of manufacturing. It 
 was the material salvation of the state. It began at 
 once to stay the tide of emigration into other states, 
 and to bring in a population which was peculiarly its 
 own. It has been the increasing source of prosperity. 
 The gross value of the product of our manufacturing 
 industries has risen from $23,000,000 in 1850 to $85,- 
 000,000 in 1890. The number of workmen employed 
 has increased within the same time from 27,000 to 
 63,000, and the annual wages paid from $6,000,000 to 
 $24,000,000. I think it a reasonable estimate to put 
 the number of people who are the immediate outgro^vth 
 of the manufacturing interest at 100,000, about one- 
 fourth of the entire population of the state. 
 
 Has New Hampshire then become a manufacturing 
 state, relegating agriculture to a secondary place? By 
 no means. The capital employed in farming is still
 
 INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION 93 
 
 twice as great as that employed in manufacturing. The 
 value of farms alone, without buildings, implements or 
 stock, is nearly equal to the capital of the manufactur- 
 ing corporations. The only disadvantage in the con- 
 trast lies in the fact that whereas the value of manufac- 
 turing property has steadily increased, the value of 
 farm property has been fluctuating. It was higher in 
 1870 than it was in 1850 or 1860, and higher than it is 
 now. The total number of farms has decreased slightly 
 within the past decade, and also the total amount of 
 acreage under improvement. But this fact signifies 
 very little. It appears equally in Illinois, and to a far 
 greater extent in New York. The question of aban- 
 doned farms, of which so much account is made from 
 time to time in the daily prints, is a very insignificant 
 question. An abandoned farm may be, as has been 
 said, a sign of progress. Some farms now deserted 
 ought never to have been cultivated: others have been 
 given over to gain the greater profit from concentra- 
 tion. A very suggestive comparison has been made 
 by the Secretary of the State Board of Agriculture 
 in a report prepared for the United States Depart- 
 ment. 
 
 "Along the banks of small streams," he says, "in all 
 sections of New England may be found evidences of 
 the existence, at some former time, of shops and fac- 
 tories devoted to various purposes. Later, the improve- 
 ment in manufacturing methods had a tendency to cen- 
 tralize power and capital, supplanting hand labor with 
 machinery, and hundreds of mill sites were abandoned 
 for cheaper production and better paid labor in large 
 establishments. No one claimed any decline in manu- 
 facturing by reason of this change. Many farms
 
 94 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 located on rugged hill-tops and in remote sections, 
 which under the former system of agriculture and style 
 of living yielded their owners satisfactory returns, have 
 been abandoned so far as cultivation is concerned. 
 Although they met the requirements of their time, they 
 could not be utilized by the advanced system of agri- 
 culture, and were wisely turned to pasture, or devoted 
 to the growth of wood and lumber. This transforma- 
 tion was as significant of progress as in the case of 
 shops and factories." 
 
 The real question is. Can farming in New Hampshire 
 now be made to pay, quite irrespective of the past ? The 
 old conditions which, as we saw, made it such discourag- 
 ing business, have given place to conditions which are 
 certainly different and more helpful. The western 
 farmer is now the greatest sufferer from competition. 
 He must use up a large portion of his crop to get the 
 remainder to the market. Meanwhile the market has 
 been coming nearer and nearer to the door of the New 
 Hampshire farmer. Cities and towns have been spring- 
 ing uf) in close proximity to many of the better farm- 
 ing sections. From forty to fifty thousand people take 
 possession of the state every summer, whose wants must 
 be met, and who leave an estimated return of from six 
 to eight milHons of dollars. The raih'oads have opened 
 routes into various parts of the state for the quick deliv- 
 ery of milk and fruits. And as a safeguard against 
 extortion from the shipper, the farmer has his recourse 
 to the creamery or the canning factory. Men of means 
 and leisure have been meanwhile buying farms not for 
 making money, but for improving stock and for trying 
 experiments, all of which, whether favorable or unfa- 
 vorable, are in the interest of the farmer. And the
 
 INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION 95 
 
 state and national governments maintain schools and 
 experiment stations to the same end. 
 
 I do not presume to invade the province of my friend, 
 the President of the New Hampshire College of Agri- 
 culture and the Mechanic Arts, nor of the vigorous and 
 alert Secretary of the Board of Agriculture, but as a 
 student of the economic situation, I cannot overlook nor 
 fail to take account of the changed conditions which 
 affect the agricultural interests of the state. I do not 
 affirm that all farming now pays, but the conditions, 
 which at first operated to take away the profit, have 
 been so far reversed that they are now working toward 
 a profit. Whether they have reached that point, it is 
 not for me to say, but the outlook is manifestly far dif- 
 ferent from what it was a generation ago. Ex-Gov- 
 ernor Goodell has stated on the authority of the State 
 Treasurer that farming towns have much larger depos- 
 its per capita in savings banks than the cities and larger 
 towns where manufacturing is carried on. Selecting 
 towns in various parts of the state, he instances West- 
 moreland with $309.27 per capita, a purely agricul- 
 tural town, and Rye, with $415.26 per capita, a summer 
 resort, against Manchester with $176.99 per capita, and 
 Nashua with $206.36 per capita. I grant the insuf- 
 ficiency of statistics to meet any large situation. I 
 understand the contention that a bank may not be the 
 most profitable place in which a farmer may invest his 
 surplus earnings, but these and like facts are beginning 
 to go on record to show that some kinds of farming do 
 pay. There are sections of the state which show it in 
 improved land, and stock, and barns and houses. The 
 day of farming adapted to New England, intensive 
 rather than extensive, with small acreage, high culture.
 
 96 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 and quick markets, is at hand, if it has not fully 
 arrived. 
 
 The industrial problem of New Hampshire, which 
 fifty years ago seemed bej^ond solution, has, I believe, 
 been solved. The state knows its resources and how 
 to handle them. The policy of legislation has on the 
 whole been broad, progressive, and intelligent. The 
 industries of the state have been organized and reorgan- 
 ized, until at last a New Hampshire lad instead of ask- 
 ing, where shall I go to earn a livelihood, may ask him- 
 self, why shall I not stay at home? 
 
 The industrial problem has been attended, during 
 these years, by another of equal significance, namely, 
 the social problem. By the social problem I mean espe- 
 cially the question of the redistribution of the old pop- 
 ulation and the assimilation of the new. New Hamp- 
 shire is no longer a state of scattered hamlets, neither 
 is it a state of cities. It has become rather a state of 
 compact, well equipped, and prosperous towns and vil- 
 lages. I doubt if our citizens have taken note of the 
 extent of this growth, or have estimated its social sig- 
 nificance. The national census of 1890 classifies the 
 towns of the country in three divisions: those over 
 25,000; those between 25,000 and 2,500; and those 
 between 2,500 and 1,000. Of the first class New 
 Hampshire has but one. Of the second 26, but of the 
 third class the state has far more than its natural pro- 
 portion, showing its advance over many of the states 
 still made up so largely of scattered and practically 
 unorganized conmiunities. The whole number of 
 towns in the United States, ranging from 1,000 to 
 2,500, is 2,060. The proportion of New Hampshire 
 should be 47. The state actually has 72, 25 more than
 
 INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION 97 
 
 its proportion, and a gain of 14 since 1850. Add to 
 these the 26 in the second class, and you have nearly 
 three-fourths of the population of the State organized 
 into about one hundred communities, illustrating under 
 different degrees of progress the same social aim and 
 the same social conditions. And if you withdraw Man- 
 chester with its 44,000 from the remainder, you have 
 left but about one-fifth of the population of the state 
 which may not be said to be thus organized. There is 
 a difference, as I have intimated, in the material prog- 
 ress of these communities, but nearly all are aiming at 
 the same general result, a result which as it has been 
 reached by the greater part may be expressed in the 
 following terms: good sanitary conditions, including 
 pure water, and drainage; streets and sidewalks prop- 
 erly laid out, and properly shaded and lighted; a well 
 graded system of schools culminating in a high school 
 or academy ; a public library supported by the town or 
 by private generosity; churches under voluntary sup- 
 port; frequent and easy communication with the outer 
 world; and in general, those social advantages which 
 ought to correspond with the development of such com- 
 munities in the art of self-government. 
 
 I pause for the moment to dwell upon the social 
 advance which is indicated by this redistribution of the 
 population, which has been and is still going on in our 
 state. The old political unit in New England was the 
 township. So long as that remained the practical 
 working unit, or better, so long as the idea which it 
 involved was in the supremacy, a large degree of social 
 unity was retained. The incoming of the city, the great 
 city, into our American civilization, broke up that 
 unity. It became the one center in place of many. It
 
 98 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 drew to itself from all sources, and made no returns, 
 corresponding to its drafts. It changed habits and it 
 changed ideals. A great city is essentially and neces- 
 sarily undemocratic. It is the home of political irre- 
 sponsibility and of social indifference. Democracy 
 rests upon a certain degree of personal responsibility 
 and upon a certain degree of social equality. In a 
 great city you reach your neighbor whom you want to 
 know through a club, you reach the neighbor who needs 
 you through a board of charity. You discharge your 
 political obligations, when once you are aroused to the 
 exercise of them, by supporting some extemporized or- 
 ganization for fighting a ring. The one theory which 
 the city, in idea and in fact, with its violent social con- 
 trasts, and its indifference to political issues, does not 
 illustrate and never can be made to illustrate is the 
 equalizing and unifying principle of the American 
 democracy. It has its inestimable value to the country 
 at large. That goes without saying. It opens the 
 market to all talent, it is the storehouse of art, it speaks 
 with authority on every question outside those which are 
 political, it is capable of a moral enthusiasm which 
 humanity can express only in the mass. This is its 
 value. But we pay the price for it in terms of political 
 concern and of social unity. 
 
 I count it therefore of untold advantage, that through 
 the redistribution of population at the smaller centers, 
 even though it be by calling in from the outposts, we 
 are recovering those original political and social values 
 which were being absorbed and lost in the cities. A 
 village or town community, after the growing New 
 Hampshire type, thoroughly organized, well equipped, 
 alert in its intellectual life, acting directly man upon
 
 INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION 99 
 
 man, and family upon family, and all upon interests 
 of common concern, is a laboratory in which the prob- 
 lems of society, state, and church are being solved. It 
 is coming to be so understood. I could name town after 
 town in the state which might be cited as an example in 
 the art of good-citizenship, where men have acknowl- 
 edged and satisfied through time, money, and interest, 
 their civic responsibilities and their social obligations. 
 A stranger cannot walk the streets of such a town with- 
 out a sense of pride in the endeavor of its citizens, and 
 of assurance from the manifest result of their labors. 
 
 And in meeting this part of the social problem much 
 has been done toward the other part, namely the assim- 
 ilation of the new population. New Hampshire has 
 suffered far less than might have been expected from 
 having had so considerable a part of its population, 
 probably one-fourth, in a state of flux, through the out- 
 going of so much of the native stock, and the incoming 
 of so many from new peoples consequent upon the rise 
 and growth of the factory system. In 1850 the native 
 population stood to those foreign born in the proportion 
 of 303,577 to 14,250; in 1890 the proportion stood 
 304,190 native to 72,340 foreign born.* The relative 
 growth of the foreign above the native population is not 
 as large in reality as in appearance, owing to the fact 
 that a part of the former growth represents a transient 
 rather than a permanent residence in the state. Still the 
 foreign growth is really large in proportion to the whole 
 increase, and the reason why the process of assimilation 
 has been so satisfactory is due to two causes: first, the 
 distribution of the new population at so many centers ; 
 
 ♦Abstract Seventh Census, page 62. Population Part I, 12th Census^ 
 page 485.
 
 100 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 and second, the completeness of the process of assimila- 
 tion with the earliest immigration. The figures given 
 represent the foreign born. But we now number 
 among our citizens many of the second and third gen- 
 eration, who with their Americanized spirit have done 
 much to aid in incorporating and assimilating the newer 
 comers. I have frequent occasion to see men of this 
 type, sons of an earlier irmnigration, taking their place 
 among college men, and so identified with them in 
 spirit, and method, and aim, as to be well nigh indis- 
 tinguishable. 
 
 I am convinced that under such legislation as has 
 been taken during your terms of service, wise, discrim- 
 inating, and tolerant, under the wide distribution which 
 has taken place throughout the state, and under the 
 business and educational opportunities which have been 
 so fully opened, the process of assimilation of the new 
 with the old has been rapid and sure. I believe that 
 New Hampshire could not have met the physical or 
 moral losses from emigration without the physical and 
 moral gains from immigration. And in the long run 
 I think it will appear that the state has not deteriorated 
 in its virility. 
 
 It would be impossible to speak of the problems which 
 have confronted the state, calling for constant legis- 
 lative action without referring to the educational prob- 
 lem. New Hampshire has had too much at stake in 
 the matter of education to omit the consideration of 
 her schools at any session of the legislature. Probably 
 the action taken has not always been as liberal and far 
 reaching as could have been desired, but it has been on 
 the whole consistent and reasonabl}" progressive. If 
 the criticism has been passed that the little schoolhouse
 
 INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION 101 
 
 with its short terms and meagre training turned out 
 some very strong men, the reply has been made and 
 accepted, that it could not do it again, that it was not 
 doing it now, and that you might as well expect rich 
 harvests from a scanty sowing, or the finished product 
 from unskilled labor, as educational results from totally 
 inadequate means. Wherever communities have been 
 highly organized the public school system has seldom 
 failed to accomplish its work. The constant problem 
 has been how to develop the schools of unorganized com- 
 munities, how to reach the child of the remote district, 
 how to pay the teacher of the small and uncertain 
 school. Great progress has been gained through uni- 
 fying and grading the schools of the different towns 
 and cities, through improvements in school houses and 
 school apparatus, and above all, through the training 
 of teachers. But the educational demand is never 
 satisfied. What seems at times like experimenting is 
 only one way of advancing. 
 
 When I was asked to prepare this address I was 
 assured through the Committee that such a service 
 "would tend to knit more closely the ties which now 
 bind the Commonwealth to the College in whose pros- 
 perity we are all so deeply interested." I reciprocate 
 your generous sentiment then expressed. I acknowl- 
 edge in your presence the policy of the state toward the 
 higher institutions of learning which it shelters, and 
 especially toward Dartmouth College, in such immuni- 
 ties and privileges as have been granted to it, in con- 
 formity with the usage of all states toward like institu- 
 tions of learning, and in the direct aid which has been 
 once, and again, and again extended to the college. In 
 many ways the state and the college are inseparable —
 
 102 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 inseparable in history, inseparable in fortune. We 
 have many of the greater names, of which we boast, in 
 conmion. We have given alike our sons to other states 
 and to the country. We are at work side by side under 
 the same conditions, and toward the same general ends. 
 If I had not believed in the future of New Hampshire 
 I should not have accepted the presidency of Dart- 
 mouth. If one should decline, the other would decline — 
 the college in attendance, the state in reputation. It 
 is not proposed that either shall decline, but rather that 
 working on courageously and in harmony, state and 
 college shall maintain their noblest traditions. 
 
 I have not yet touched upon the most serious matter 
 which confronted the people of the state during the 
 period of reconstruction, a matter which in one form 
 could not be reached by legislation, but which in another 
 form called for continuous and careful legislative action. 
 I refer to the contribution out of the life of the state 
 to the life of the nation, first through emigration, and 
 second through the support of the war. I do not hesi- 
 tate to put these together because the vital drain on 
 the state has on the whole been greater through emigra- 
 tion than from the war. In 1870, 124,972 persons, who 
 were born in New Hampshire, were living in other 
 states and territories of the Union. There was not a 
 single state or territory which was not indebted to New 
 Hampshire. With the states of Maine and Vermont 
 there was a neighborly exchange, with little advantage 
 on either side. With Massachusetts it was different. 
 New Hampshire gave 47,753, and received but 16,510. 
 To the states over the Hudson and beyond, it was al- 
 most entirely a free gift — to New York 9,211, to Ohio 
 3,329, to Illinois 8,213, to Michigan 3,633, to Wisconsin
 
 INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION 103 
 
 4,908, to Iowa 5,057, to Minnesota 3,272, to Kansas 
 1,158, to Missouri 1,384, to California 2,720, with lesser 
 numbers to the southern and far western states. 
 
 This enumeration you will bear in mind is of persons 
 born in New Hampshire. No account has been made 
 of their descendants. But these figures as they stand 
 are plaintive and eloquent. They tell the story, better 
 than words, of sacrifice, and loss, of sundered family 
 ties, and abandoned homes. They tell the story, better 
 than words, of prosperity, and abundance, of new homes 
 and rich fields, of rising towns and growing states. 
 They explain without need of comment the one retro- 
 grade step in this very year 1870. They explain also, 
 in part, the boastful numbers of older and newer states, 
 the steady advance of the country in population from 
 the Atlantic to the Pacific. They have a moral signifi- 
 cance. They declare, according to their value in the 
 general contribution of New England, the reason why 
 good order kept pace with the advance of population in 
 each new state, why school and church sprang up along 
 its pathway, why freedom was entrenched at every step 
 in justice. They show how it was, and why it was, that 
 the great political issue which led up to the War was 
 met and decided for liberty. They explain in no slight 
 degree the issue of the war itself. The old Greek found 
 the symbol of the colonies which he sent out in his ships 
 in the legend of one of the river nymphs of the mother 
 country, who, as she disappeared with the river empty- 
 ing into the sea, reappeared in a fountain in an adjacent 
 island. The genius of the New England civilization 
 might seem to be lost as it mingled with many men of 
 many types, but when the time called in far off states 
 for the old New England spirit it was sure to reappear.
 
 104 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 pure and undefiled, as at Plymouth Rock or Bunker 
 Hill. 
 
 The contribution of New Hampshire, through emi- 
 gration, to the population and wealth and liberty of the 
 nation cost, and cost dearly, and ought not to be over- 
 looked in any study of the period which we are now 
 considering. Not that we would have had a more nig- 
 gardly policy. New Hampshire holds a stronger place 
 in the nation today by virtue of her lavish gifts than 
 would otherwise have been possible, but she has gained 
 it at the price of local growth and enlargement. If one 
 would estimate her real and absolute possessions he 
 must reckon her holdings in other states. 
 
 The second contribution of New Hampshire to the 
 life of the nation is too familiar, too sacredly familiar, 
 to demand extended statement. The army which New 
 Hampshire put into the field numbered 33,427 men, of 
 whom over 11,000 were disabled, and over 5,000 left on 
 the field. This is not the place to make mention of 
 their deeds. It is enough to say that through them 
 New Hampshire gained her rights on all the great 
 battlefields of the south. And if her holdings in the 
 west are costly, much more precious are her holdings 
 in the south, for which she paid in the blood of her 
 sons. It was the task of our generation to create this 
 army and send it to the front, to borrow money on the 
 credit of the state, and to make provision through suc- 
 ceeding years for the payment of the debt. How well 
 that task was fulfilled is told in the messages of the war 
 governors and their immediate successors, and in the 
 legislative acts which are on record. The enormous war 
 debt, both of the state, and of cities and towns, has been 
 reduced to manageable proportions, and in the case of
 
 INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION 105 
 
 most of the towns entirely wiped out. The very dec- 
 ade which saw a decHne in population was the decade 
 which put the army into the field and began the pay- 
 ment of the debt. It is when New Hampshire is put 
 to such a test as tliis, that one is able to take some meas- 
 ure of its unfaltering courage and its unflinching 
 loyalty. 
 
 Such are some of the social and economic aspects of 
 the history of the state during the period which I have 
 termed the great period of reconstruction. I have 
 not referred to the religious aspects of the period 
 because these do not come within the outlook of the 
 state. Church and state are distinct. The state ful- 
 fills its great duty to religion when it guarantees abso- 
 lute freedom of worship and rights of conscience. It has 
 been a part of the responsibility of citizenship to main- 
 tain this duty of the state, and to maintain all other like 
 guarantees of freedom, — freedom of speech, freedom 
 of the press, and freedom of assemblage. Each new 
 generation comes under obligations to guard all rights 
 of person and property, to ensure the public peace and 
 good order, and to defend the purity of the ballot. But 
 new duties fell to our immediate predecessors and con- 
 temporaries corresponding to the social and economic 
 changes upon which we have dwelt. As the new indus- 
 trial life was to be carried on chiefly through corpora- 
 tions, it became incumbent on them to define their pow- 
 ers, so as to ensure the security of capital, and the rights 
 of labor. As the labor of woman was to be a larger 
 factor in industry and business, it became necessary 
 to enlarge her rights of property. As the population 
 was to be so largely redistributed, towns and cities 
 were to be incorporated, and such political divisions
 
 106 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 provided as would give efRciency to local government. 
 As the people were outgrowing previous systems of 
 public instruction, the schools were to be advanced, and 
 provision made for the higher education. And above 
 all, the task which none could have anticipated, or if 
 anticipated none would have dared to undertake, was 
 put into their hands to transform the citizens of the 
 state into soldiers, and send them out in the name of a 
 sovereign state to defend the higher sovereignty of the 
 nation. 
 
 And now that we have passed in review over the 
 period of reconstruction and readjustment in the his- 
 tory of the state, and have seen how its resources have 
 been developed, its industries re-established, and its 
 population reorganized, let us take advantage of our 
 present point of view, to make a brief inventory of the 
 wealth of New Hampshire, new and old. 
 
 I begin with its inalienable endowments, endowments 
 of all the powers of nature, in whose strength and con- 
 stancy lie the source of our individual wealth and whose 
 very beauty brings us tribute from afar. The rivers and 
 lakes and mountains of New Hampshire are wealth, as 
 truly as if they were prairies, or vineyards, or mines. 
 And they are inalienable. As they are not quoted in 
 the markets, they are not subject to the markets. Men 
 may come and go with their transient fortunes, stocks 
 may rise and fall, but they remain the enduring, 
 unchanging, inalienable wealth of the state in its sover- 
 eignty. 
 
 I add to the inventory the history of the state as a 
 part of its working capital. Natural endowments may 
 be made valueless by the character of the people who 
 possess them. Values rest upon institutions, and insti-
 
 INDUSTRIAL RECONSTRUCTION 107 
 
 tutions are determined by those who make them. Hero- 
 ism at the beginning of national existence is of ines- 
 timable worth, for it is a guarantee of freedom. When 
 John Langdon gave his fortune to fit out a regiment 
 under John Stark, "to stay," as the record runs, "the 
 progress of the enemy on our western frontiers," the 
 act was an assurance for all time that New Hampshire 
 would be made habitable, safe, and free. No wonder 
 that Burgoyne wrote in despair after his defeat, "The 
 New Hampshire Grants abound with the most active 
 and rebellious race on the continent." Rebellion then 
 meant freedom now, and law, and government, and all 
 institutions which give value to life, and worth to pros- 
 perity. You cannot fix the price of real estate by the 
 richness of its soil alone, you fix it also by its proximity 
 to school and court and church. You want security. 
 Security has its origin, if you go back far enough, in 
 heroism. 
 
 I add the industries of the State as now reorganized 
 and developed. If anything which I have said about 
 the present industrial life of New Hampshire has any 
 value, it lies in the fact that the State has passed through 
 the crucial test of its industries. Some states are yet 
 to pass through that test. We have passed beyond the 
 period of exaggerated and uncertain values. Noth- 
 ing is speculative. We know our resources, not in full 
 measure, but in kind and quality. There is every rea- 
 son to believe that they will increase in value. The 
 country is now so far occupied that resources which were 
 passed by for "easier chances" are having the advantage 
 of the return of capital and labor for their development. 
 A second wave of improvement has begun to move over 
 the country, and it starts from the older states.
 
 108 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 And last, in this inventory of wealth, I name the 
 people themselves. If labor is the ultimate source of 
 all wealth, then a strong and inventive and willing peo- 
 ple have the chief source of wealth in themselves. It is 
 both the physical and the spiritual quality in the pro- 
 duction of material wealth which tells in the final result. 
 When a people has become thoroughly materialized it 
 ceases to be greatly productive. The incentives to pro- 
 duction cease to act. The disposition to enjoy becomes 
 greater than the disposition to create. Material suc- 
 cess depends upon the ability to resist materialism. The 
 sons of New Hampshire have been strong in the power 
 of this resistance. That fact alone explains their suc- 
 cess. They have not yet succumbed to the demoraliz- 
 ing influence of lower surroundings. Wherever they 
 go they still carry themselves as if they were breathing 
 their native air, and had sight of their native hills. 
 
 On occasion of a debate in the Lower House of Con- 
 gress on the admission of one of the newer states, a 
 member from over the Mississippi said, boasting of the 
 richness of its soil, "Why, sir, if you should take it to 
 New England you could sell it by the peck for seed." 
 The humor of the saying is not lost upon a New Eng- 
 lander, least of all upon a New Hampshire man, but he 
 has his reply. That, he says, is not the kind of seed 
 which New Hampshire has been in the habit of adver- 
 tising in the markets. Whatever she may need to buy, 
 the kind of seed that she has had to offer has been that 
 divine seed with which she has been planting states and 
 peopling the Republic, and by the grace of God, she 
 proposes to continue in the business.
 
 VIII 
 
 THE ORIGIN OF THE DARTMOUTH 
 COLLEGE CASE 
 
 Speech in Response to the toast " Dartmouth College," at the Ban- 
 quet OF the Bar Association of New Hampshire in Celebration of 
 the Centennial of Chief Justice Marshall, Manchester, N. H., 
 February 4, 1901 
 
 In 1801, the year in which Chief Justice Marshall 
 took his seat, Mr. Webster graduated at Dartmouth. 
 Seventeen years later the case of the "Trustees of Dart- 
 mouth College vs. Woodward" came before the 
 Supreme Court of the United States. The decision 
 was rendered in the following February. The college 
 had then been in existence fifty years and the Supreme 
 Court thirty years. 
 
 In speaking to the toast, "Dartmouth College," I 
 turn at once to the Dartmouth College Case because it 
 was through this case that the college came into direct 
 relation to Chief Justice Marshall. I do not however 
 assume to speak in your presence of the legal proce- 
 dure, nor of the significance of the judicial decision. I 
 speak rather of the origin of the case according to facts 
 with which I may be more familiar than some of you. 
 How did it happen that this college of the wilderness, 
 founded to further a great philanthropic end, unvexed 
 by financial disputes, how did it happen that this col- 
 lege, alone among the colleges of its time, found its way 
 into the Supreme Court of the United States? How
 
 110 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 did it happen that this college of the Province of New 
 Hampshire, which drew its chartered life from the Brit- 
 ish Crown, came to owe its continued existence to the 
 illustrious Virginian whom we celebrate tonight? 
 
 The Dartmouth College Case grew out of the pecul- 
 iar, the unique origin of the college itself. Unlike 
 most of the historic colleges Dartmouth originated in 
 the consecration, the faith, the zeal, and the courage of 
 one man — Eleazar Wheelock. Harvard grew out of 
 the public sentiment of the Massachusetts colony. It 
 was established by vote of the General Court of the 
 colony. The name which it bears represents a most 
 gracious and pleasing personage, but the relation of 
 John Harvard was contributory rather than initiative, 
 consisting in the gift of his library and half of his estate 
 two years after the founding of the college. Yale 
 grew out of the sentiment of the churches of the 
 Connecticut colony. Certain ministers came together 
 and gave out of their libraries books to start a college 
 library. Seventeen years later the name of the college 
 was adopted in honor of Elihu Yale, in consideration 
 of his benefactions. Eleazer Wheelock was in a very 
 distinct and personal way the founder of Dartmouth 
 college. He established and for fifteen years main- 
 tained at Lebanon, Connecticut, the Indian school of 
 which the college was in due time the outgrowth. He 
 sent a pupil of that school, Samson Occom, to England 
 to raise funds, securing through his agency subscrip- 
 tions to the value of £10,000, which became in reality 
 though not in form the first endowment of the college. 
 He negotiated with John Wentworth, Governor of the 
 province of New Hampshire, for the removal of the 
 school to this province, and by the aid of the Governor
 
 ORIGIX OF DARTMOUTH CASE m 
 
 secured the roval charter. At sixtv vears of acre he 
 transferred the school to Hanover, moulded it into a 
 college for Enghsh as well as Indian youths, and for 
 the remaining years of liis Hfe continued his work as 
 founder through his official services as the first presi- 
 dent. These various activities are recognized and in 
 part rehearsed in the charter of the college. I know of 
 no other charter which strikes and holds to the end the 
 personal note. It is the purpose of Wheelock and his 
 already accomplished work which constitute the suf- 
 ficient reason for the charter, and also for the special 
 powers which it confers upon liim. cliief among which 
 was the right and authority to appoint his inmiediate 
 successor. 
 
 "And further we do by these Presents for us our 
 Heirs and Successors, create make constitute nominate 
 k appoint our Trusty and well beloved Eleazar Whee- 
 lock Doctor in Divinity the Founder of said College to 
 be President of said Dartmouth College and to have the 
 immediate care of Education &: government of such 
 Students as shall be admitted into said Dartmouth Col- 
 lege for instruction & education and do -^411 give &: grant 
 to him in said Office full power authority & right to 
 nominate appoint constitute & ordain by his last will 
 such suitable & meet person or Persons as he shall chuse 
 to succeed him in the Presidency of said Dartmouth 
 College & the person so appointed by liis last Will to 
 continue in Office vested with all the powers pri^'ileges 
 Jurisdiction & authority of a President of said Dart- 
 mouth College that is to say so long and untill such 
 appointment by said last Will shall be disapproved by 
 the Trustees of said Dartmouth College." 
 
 Acting upon this provision of the charter Dr.
 
 112 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 Wheelock appointed as his successor his son, John 
 Wheelock, then a Lieutenant Colonel in the Continental 
 Army, serving on the staff of General Gates in New 
 Jersey. The clause in his will covering the appointment 
 is as follows: "I do hereby nominate, constitute, and 
 appoint my said son John Wheelock to be my successor 
 in said office of President of my Indian Charity School 
 and Dartmouth College, with and into which said School 
 is now incorporated. And to him I give and grant all 
 my right, title, and claim to said Seminary and all 
 the appurtenances, interest. Jurisdiction, power, and 
 authority to, in, and over the same belonging to me, as 
 the founder of it, or by grant in the charter to me, or 
 by any other ways or means whatsoever." 
 
 I have no doubt that in this provision of the charter 
 of Dartmouth College granting to Eleazar Wheelock 
 as the founder the right to appoint his successor, and in 
 the results which followed the exercise of this right, we 
 have the origin of the Dartmouth College Case. 
 Unwittingly the charter created the condition for such a 
 controversy. Unwittingly Dr. Wheelock filled out the 
 condition by the appointment of his son. More than un- 
 wittingly, for it was with very great reluctance that the 
 appointment was accepted, Lieutenant Colonel Whee- 
 lock gradually became involved in contentions, local, 
 semi-official, and finally, official which culminated in 
 the legal controversy. It is difficult to say how much 
 should be charged to the temperament and training of 
 Colonel Wheelock. One quahfying fact to be borne in 
 mind is the fact that his administration covered nearly 
 forty years, and forty years is a good while for any man 
 in executive position, whatever may be his temper or 
 training, to keep down personal or official contentions.
 
 ORIGIN OF DARTMOUTH CASE 113 
 
 Naturally the personal characteristics of the second 
 president Wheelock were not the same to the eye of 
 friend and of foe. So far as we can form a judgment 
 of him at this day, he appears to have been a man of 
 equal positiveness with his father, lacking his breadth of 
 view and range of sympathy, but more insistent upon 
 the formalities of his position. Administration was not 
 altogether congenial to him, and he was not a great 
 teacher. The most marked inconsistency in his career 
 lies in the fact that, while being justly charged with 
 negligence in the financial management of the college, 
 he was thrifty in his own affairs, being possessed at his 
 death of about $100,000, a sum which it was claimed by 
 his enemies made him "the wealthiest man in New 
 Hampshire." There is no evidence however of any 
 appropriation of college funds, or of their use for per- 
 sonal ends. If we eliminate any one or all of the per- 
 sonal characteristics of Colonel Wheelock which may 
 have been contributory to the controversy, it is quite 
 easy to see that there were sufficient elements of conten- 
 tion in the situation itself. On the one hand the inher- 
 itance from the administration of the elder Wheelock 
 was entirely that of a personal and paternal govern- 
 ment. The younger Wheelock was simply asked to 
 take his father's place. There were no other traditions 
 attaching to the place than that of personal government. 
 Nobody at the time had any other conception of 
 the administration of the college. When other and 
 broader ideas came in, after the lapse of two or three 
 decades, especially through changes in the Board of 
 Trustees, then occasions arose and multiplied for dif- 
 ferences, disagreements, and contentions. The changes 
 in the Board of Trustees during the first fifty years of
 
 IH PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 the college from the date of its founding, 1769, to the 
 decision in the Dartmouth College Case, 1819, were 
 very marked. This Board, consisting of twelve men, 
 was made up at the first, in about equal parts, of the 
 political associates of Governor Wentworth in New 
 Hampshire, and of the ministerial friends of Dr. 
 Wheelock from Connecticut. The War of the Revolu- 
 tion falling within the first decade changed almost 
 entirely the composition of the Board. Two only of 
 the charter members remained through the ten years' 
 administration of the first president. Governor Went- 
 worth withdrew at the outbreak of hostilities in 1775. 
 The Connecticut members gradually withdrew, owing 
 in part to their local interests in their own colony. The 
 college thus separated from its English patrons, and 
 from many of its supporters in the other colonies, 
 became for the time isolated. Dr. Wheelock was 
 obliged to rely more and more upon his personal friends, 
 among whom may be mentioned John Phillips of 
 Exeter. Vacancies in the Board as they occurred were 
 filled by friends, and in two cases by relatives. The 
 Board of Trustees in existence at the death of the elder 
 Wheelock in 1779, which urged the succession upon his 
 son, was in realit}^ though apparently without design, 
 organized to perpetuate the family control of the col- 
 lege. Within twenty years the names upon the Board 
 as then constituted disappear, with two exceptions, and 
 thereafter quite a different type of trustee comes into 
 prominence — Nathaniel Niles, Judge of the Supreme 
 Court of Vermont, elected in 1793; Thomas W. 
 Thompson, Member of Congress, in succession, in both 
 branches, 1801 ; Timothy Farrar, Judge of the Court 
 of Common Pleas of New Hampshire, 1804; Elijah
 
 ORIGIN OF DARTMOUTH CASE 115 
 
 Paine, Esquire, of Vermont, 1806; Charles Marsh, 
 Esquire, U. S. District Attorney and Member of Con- 
 gress, 1809 — an acquisition of legal ability which gave 
 the Board a distinctly legal character, and which pecul- 
 iarly fitted it, as occasions might arise, for controversial 
 action. 
 
 The occasion for open conflict between the president 
 and the majority of the trustees did not arise till after 
 some years of friction and suppressed conflict within 
 the Board. It is necessary to keep this fact in mind in 
 order to understand the sudden and vigorous outbreak 
 of hostility. A state of feeling had been engendered 
 which led to results quite out of proportion to the spe- 
 cific causes put in evidence. In April, 1815, a pamphlet 
 appeared entitled "Sketches of the History of Dart- 
 mouth College and of Moor's Charity School." The 
 pamphlet was anonymous, but it was evident that it was 
 instigated if not prepared by President Wheelock. It 
 was in effect an arraignment of the trustees for the 
 attitude of the majority toward his administration, 
 ''prostrating," as it charged in general, "the chartered 
 rights of the presidential office," and specifically accus- 
 ing the trustees of the "misapplication or perversion 
 of funds" in the use of the endowment for the Phillips 
 Professorship of Divinity. There was httle ground for 
 the accusation that the treatment of the Phillips founda- 
 tion involved the misuse of funds. What the trustees 
 did was to add to the duties of the Phillips Professor 
 of Divinity, that of preacher to the College Church, but 
 in so doing the trustees virtually took part in a local 
 church quarrel, which action on their part gave rise to 
 the altogether erroneous impression, which still remains, 
 that the origin of the controversy was chiefly rehgious.
 
 116 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 The Legislature of New Hampshire met in June. 
 President Wheelock presented a memorial to the Leg- 
 islature in which he charged the majority of the 
 trustees with having "forsaken the original principles 
 (of the charter) and left the path of their prede- 
 cessors"; that by improper "means and practices" they 
 had "increased their number to a majority controlling 
 the measures of the Board"; that they had "applied 
 property to purposes wholly alien from the intention of 
 the donors"; that thev had "transformed the moral and 
 religious order of the institution by depriving many of 
 their innocent enjoyment of rights and privileges for 
 w^hich they had confided in their faith; and that they 
 had broken down the barriers and violated the charter 
 by prostrating the rights with which it expressly invests 
 the presidential office." The memorial concluded with 
 the prayer that "you would please by a committee 
 invested with competent powers, or otherwise, to look 
 into the affairs and management of the institution, 
 internal and external, already referred to; and, if 
 judged exjjedient, in your wisdom, that yoM would 
 make such organic and model reforms in its systems and 
 movements, as, under Divine Providence, will guard 
 against the disorders and their apprehended conse- 
 quences." Previous to this memorial and before the 
 controversy in the Board had become public. President 
 Wheelock had proposed to the trustees that the Leg- 
 islature should be asked to inquire into their differences 
 with a view to arbitration. The trustees claimed that 
 there was nothing to arbitrate. At this stage of the 
 controversy the broad question of the legal right of the 
 Legislature to interfere in the affairs of the college had 
 not arisen. The committee appointed by the Legis-
 
 ORIGIN OF DARTMOUTH CASE HT 
 
 lature in response to the "memorial" was received with- 
 out dispute, and given all facilities for its investigation. 
 
 The clause in the charter of the college which gave 
 the founder and first president the power to appoint 
 his immediate successor also conferred upon the 
 trustees the power of removal. The person so ap- 
 pointed was to continue in office "so long and untill 
 such appointment shall be disapproved by the Trustees 
 of Dartmouth College." On the 26th of August the 
 trustees made reply to the charges in the "Sketches" 
 and in the "Memorial" by stating their reasons for "dis- 
 approving" of the appointment of President Wheelock, 
 and by removing him from office. In this counter- 
 charge the trustees claimed that President Wheelock 
 had sanctioned "a gross and unprovoked libel upon the 
 Institution through the publication of the 'Sketches' "; 
 that "he had set up claims which in their operation 
 would deprive the corporation of all its powers"; that 
 he had interfered improperly and unfairly in the disci- 
 pline of the students; that he "had been guilty of mani- 
 fest fraud in the application of the funds of Moor's 
 School" in foisting an assumed Indian upon the Scotch 
 fund; and that he "had in various ways given rise and 
 circulation to a report, that the real cause of the dissatis- 
 faction of the trustees with him was a diversity of reli- 
 gious opinions between him and them, when in truth 
 and in fact no such diversity was known or is known to 
 exist, as he has publicly acknowledged before the Com- 
 mittee of the Legislature appointed to investigate the 
 affairs of the College." 
 
 Therefore they resolved, "that the appointment of 
 Dr. John Wheelock to the Presidency of this College, 
 by the last will of the Reverend Eleazar Wheelock, the
 
 118 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 Founder and first President of this College, be, and the 
 same is hereby, by the Trustees of said College, disap- 
 proved"; and further, "that the said Dr. John Whee- 
 loek, for the reasons aforesaid, be, and he is hereby, 
 displaced and removed from the office of President of 
 said College." 
 
 In reviewing the charges preferred by either side, one 
 can but feel, whatever may be his sympathies, how 
 insufficient they were to bear the weight of the subse- 
 quent contention. So it appeared at the time to the 
 clear and sagacious mind of Jeremiah Mason. The 
 action of the trustees in the removal of President 
 Wheelock was taken against his direct and very explicit 
 advice. The only explanation of the origin of the 
 Dartmouth College Case, which to my mind seems at 
 all adequate, is to be found in the local situation at the 
 time. The college was then in a state of transition 
 from one order or type of government to another. This 
 state of transition was unduly prolonged, each year 
 showing greater and greater friction. The conflicting 
 elements in the Board of Trustees engendered personal 
 feelings which at last became more divisive than any 
 possible causes of controversy. Personal government 
 requires a great personality. Possibly another Eleazar 
 Wheelock might have maintained the old order through 
 the forty years following the death of the founder. 
 But John Wheelock, though a man of no mean ability, 
 lacked the authority to prolong the old order, and the 
 insight and temper to initiate the new. Had his admin- 
 istration closed with the first twenty years it would have 
 been termed on the whole a successful administration. 
 The new men and the new policies, which came in with 
 the beginning of the century, created a situation to
 
 ORIGIN OF DARTMOUTH CASE 119 
 
 which he could not adjust himself, and which he could 
 not master. John Wheelock did not live to see the issue 
 of the contention which developed in the closing years of 
 his administration. He died April 4th, 1817. The deci- 
 sion in the Dartmouth College Case was rendered Feb- 
 ruary 2d, 1819. It is a fact worthy of note as bearing 
 upon the nature of the controversy between the presi- 
 dent and the trustees that the successor of President 
 Wheelock, as the head of the university which was 
 established to replace the college, was the Reverend 
 William Allen, the son-in-law and executor of Presi- 
 dent Wheelock. Had the attempt to supplant the 
 college with the university succeeded, the family suc- 
 cession would have been carried over into the third 
 generation. 
 
 Without venturing upon the legal aspects of the con- 
 troversy I may be allowed the opinion, held by many 
 historical students, lawyers and laymen, that the Dart- 
 mouth College Case, when once it was made up on the 
 issues upon which it went before the Court, was to reach 
 its pre-destined conclusion in the dominating mind of 
 John Marshall. It is difficult to see how he, with his 
 legal and poHtical training, could have reached any 
 other decision, or how, under his compelling personal 
 influence the court could have reached any other deci- 
 sion. Notwithstanding the circumstances which sur- 
 rounded the case, giving it, as our Toastmaster has said, 
 a high dramatic character, it seems to me that if the set- 
 ting could have been changed, and even the parties to 
 the controversy, and perhaps the very management of 
 the case, the conclusion would have been the same. I 
 give due credit to the indefatigable enterprise of the 
 trustees, to the sagacity of President Brown, to the
 
 120 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 legal ability of Jeremiah Mason, and to the argument of 
 Mr. Webster with its marvellous combination of logic 
 and emotion, and yet I must acknowledge the greatest 
 indebtedness of Dartmouth College for its continued 
 existence to Chief Justice Marshall. Whether one con- 
 siders him in his judicial attitude to the case, or as a 
 representative of the political interpretation of the con- 
 stitution then coming into supremacy, he seems to have 
 been the fore-ordained arbiter of the fate of the college. 
 
 Fortunately the two great parties in the case, the 
 state and the college, found in the controversy the 
 ground of mutual respect. The state did not enter of 
 its own motion into the conflict. The president of the 
 college appealed to the state to interfere in its affairs. 
 The state was never exactly in the position of a prose- 
 cuting agent. The bitterness of feeling natural to a 
 semi-political contention was soon lost in the sense of 
 the greatness of the legal issues involved. Though 
 defeated in the Court of final resort, the State of New 
 Hampshire has taken increasing pride in having fur- 
 nished the country such an issue, with such far reach- 
 ing and widespread results, and also in the part which 
 her sons took in the legal arguments. The college, 
 though in a very marked way nationalized by the 
 process, came to regard the state with a deeper interest, 
 and to recognize more clearly its obligation to the state. 
 Whatever animosities may have been engendered, they 
 have long since disappeared, leaving state and college 
 of one mind as to the honor which accrued to each from 
 the struggle, and of one purpose in furthering the end 
 which each then held and still holds in common. 
 
 You will pardon, as I close, a reference to the sin- 
 gular fortune which at the first attended Dartmouth
 
 ORIGIN OF DARTMOUTH CASE 121 
 
 College in its corporate personality. It had immediate 
 access to the high places of the world into which it was 
 born. Before it had fomid a shelter in the wilderness, 
 it had been introduced to the Royal Chamber of Great 
 Britain, and had gained welcome entrance to the most 
 honored families of the mother-land, from one of which 
 it bore back its corporate name. Within half a century 
 it had found its way into the Supreme Court of the 
 United States, and in connection with the struggle 
 which determined its own destiny, gave to the country 
 the name of the case which was to affect the legal, polit- 
 ical, and economic interests of the country for many 
 generations. The college of today has an honorable 
 pride in the college of the early days which found its 
 place in this high company. Of the names which make 
 up this company there is none which Dartmouth holds 
 in more honorable or more grateful remembrance than 
 the name of John Marshall.
 
 IX 
 NATIONAL UNITY 
 
 A Speech on the Transfer of Battle Flags following the Presenta- 
 tion OF Memorial Tablets by the State of New Hampshire to 
 THE U. S. S. Kearsarge and the U. S. S. Alabama, Portsmouth, 
 September 18, 1900 
 
 Explanatoet Note 
 
 On February twenty-third, 1899, General William P. Chadwick of Exeter, 
 a member of the House of Representatives, New Hampshire Legislature, 
 offered the following resolution in the House: 
 
 "Whereas one of the nation's new battleships under construction by the 
 Government, and now nearing completion, has received the name Kearsarge, 
 Resolved that in behalf of the people of New Hampshire, the Governor be 
 asked to appoint a committee of citizens of the State to procure and present 
 for the use of the "Kearsarge" a worthy testimonial, which shall bear with 
 it the affectionate love of the people of New Hampshire for this noble ship, 
 which because of the name it bears must become of all the battleships New 
 Hampshire's special pride." 
 
 The Committee appointed by Governor Rollins representing each county 
 of the State consisted of William P. Chadwick, Exeter; Sumner Wallace, 
 Rochester; Thomas Cogswell, Gilmanton; John Demeritt, EflBnghara; 
 Frank S. Streeter, Concord; Charles T, Means, Manchester; Francis C. 
 Faulkner, Keene; Seth M. Richards, Newport; William J. Tucker, Han- 
 over; Thomas H. Van Dyke, Stewartstown. Through its chairman, General 
 Chadwick, the Committee issued a statement to the citizens of the State. 
 
 "The time has come when the Commission, charged by the State of New 
 Hampshire with the duty of procuring and presenting to the new battle- 
 ship Kearsarge a gift worthy of that historic name and worthy of the state, 
 should lay its matured plan before the people of the state, asking their 
 prompt and constant co-operation and support. 
 
 "In the building up of the new navy the excellent rule has been adopted 
 of naming the battleships — the great ships of the line — for the several 
 states of the Union. In 1896 an exception was made to this rule. Immedi- 
 ately after the wreck of the old Kearsarge it was proposed to Congress 
 by Mr. Herbert, of Alabama, then Secretary of the Navy, that the newest 
 of the battleships then authorized receive the name of Kearsarge. This 
 excellent exception was approved by Congress and the historic name was
 
 BATTLESHIP INSCRIPTIONS 123 
 
 perpetuated. The same Congress provided for the building of another first- 
 class battleship, which received the name Alabama. 
 
 "It was a foregone conclusion that the Kearsarge should be honored by 
 a gift which should worthily reflect New Hampshire pride and New Hamp- 
 shire sentiment. The Commission could have stopped here, and procured 
 merely a worthy gift for New Hampshire's battleship. But it felt that 
 if only this were done New Hampshire would have lost a unique oppor- 
 tunity to perform a graceful act, an act which should have a national as 
 well as a local significance. The Commission therefore asks the people 
 of New Hampshire to make a presentation to the Kearsarge and to the 
 Alabama. 
 
 "When the two great battleships, Kearsarge and Alabama, are about to 
 enter the service of a united nation, can New Hampshire do a more worthy 
 act than add to the glory which surrounds the name Kearsarge by making 
 it a pledge between New Hampshire and Alabama that they and these two 
 noble ships are united for the defence and welfare of a common country? 
 
 The proposed gift to the Kearsarge will be a large bronze bas relief, to 
 be placed on the forward turret between the two 13-inch guns. 
 
 "The sculptor is Mr. Bela W. Pratt, of Boston, who has done much of the 
 important work for the Congressional Library at Washington, for Yale 
 University, and for other great art interests. Mr. Pratt has given his 
 close attention to the Kearsarge memorial for the past few months, and 
 regards it as his greatest work. 
 
 "The gift for the Alabama will probably be a large design in bronze 
 appropriately inscribed, to be placed on one of the turrets. Dr. Tucker, 
 of Dartmouth College, has been asked by his colleagues on the Commission 
 to prepare the inscription." 
 
 In accordance with the above request the following Inscription was pre- 
 pared for the U. S. S. Kearsarge. It was placed upon the large bronze 
 bas relief below the two figures with clasped hands, representing the 
 reunited North and South. 
 
 From the State of New Hampshire to the 
 
 U. S. S. Kearsarge 
 
 To Maintain Justice Honor Freedom 
 
 In the Service of a Reunited People. 
 
 The Memorial to the U. S. S. Alabama took the form of a large bronze 
 tablet carrying the following Inscription: 
 
 The State of New Hampshire to the 
 U. S. S. Alabama 
 This Tablet, Companion to That on the 
 U, S. S. Kearsarge, Placed Here by Courtesy 
 of the State of Alabama Perpetuates in 
 Enduring Peace Names Once Joined in 
 Historic Combat.
 
 124 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 At the Banquet which closed the day of public presentation an incident 
 of peculiar significance was introduced. Addresses had been made by the 
 Presiding Officer, General Streeter, by Governors Rollins and Johnston, by 
 Secretary Long, of the Na^y, and by Ex-Secretaries Chandler and Herbert, 
 by Secretary Gage, of the Treasury, and by Admiral Farquhar, Command- 
 ing Officer of the North Atlantic Squadron, when Governor Rollins arose 
 and addressing himself to Governor Johnston, said: 
 
 "Governor Johnston, I hold in my hand two pieces of bunting, worn and 
 faded and stained by storm and battle: but they were once borne at the 
 head of regiments of brave men; once two thousand stalwart youths fol- 
 lowed wherever their folds gleamed in the wind. We do not know the 
 names of the regiments that bore them; we do not know the states from 
 whence they came; all we know is that they waved above Battery No. 5, in 
 front of Petersburg, through all that hot and terrible siege, and that they 
 were captured gallantly by the brave and fearless men of the Thirteenth 
 New Hampshire. The man who personally took one of them was Private 
 Peter Mitchell of Conway, N. H., who shows by his presence that he 
 acquiesces and joins in what I am about to do; and the other was cap- 
 tured by Sergeant James R. Morrison, now of Pomona, Fla. 
 
 "When this celebration was first conceived and its dual character planned, 
 General Chadwick, the chairman of the committee, suggested to me that 
 it would be a pleasant thing to return any southern battle flags the State 
 might possess. Upon investigation we found that such flags had been 
 nearly all turned over to the national Government at the close of the war, 
 but these two flags were stored in the vaults at the state house, and upon 
 communicating with the captors, the officers and the men of the Thirteenth 
 Regiment, we found them very willing that they should be returned. 
 
 "I, therefore, sir, in behalf of the State of New Hampshire, of the 
 Thirteenth regiment, and of Private Peter Mitchell and Sergeant Morrison, 
 return to you, representing the South, these mementoes of the bravery of 
 both our peoples. And I ask you to ascertain to what regiments and 
 states these flags belong, and to return them to those who followed where 
 they led the way. 
 
 "This action on the part of my State is meant as a token of our love and 
 friendship, and a testimony to your courage and bravery." 
 
 Unfortunately the reply of Governor Johnston, which was marked by 
 much feeling, was not reported. 
 
 The speech which immediately followed, concluding the Banquet, has 
 been reproduced from brief notes. 
 
 Mr. Toastmaster, Governor Rollins, and Governor Johnston: 
 
 The heart of the nation has been waiting for such an 
 act as that which we have just witnessed, embodying as 
 it does so completely the spirit of this memorable day.
 
 BATTLESHIP INSCRIPTIONS 125 
 
 North and South alike have been ready to break 
 through the restraints and reserves which naturally fol- 
 low upon a civil war, and to reassert that feeling which 
 is deeper than the feelings engendered by strife. The 
 time has now come, we cannot be mistaken in believing, 
 to break the silence of these past years, generous and 
 healing though it has been — but not by words. Words 
 cannot restore what deeds have taken away. It is the 
 office of the fit and sincere act to bring back the old 
 friendship. I count it the honorable and timely dis- 
 tinction of the states of New Hampshire and Alabama, 
 a distinction which will certainly have its place in his- 
 tory, that they are able to lead the way in this really 
 significant interchange of sentiment. Other states have 
 been more conspicuously related to one another through 
 their earlier past, as notably Massachusetts and Vir- 
 ginia. But the fortune of the recent war, shall I not 
 say the comradeship of one of its greatest events, has 
 given us our opportunity, and we have dared to take it. 
 We have dared to call up the most thrilling, perhaps the 
 most separating incident of the war; we have dared to 
 bring together names which had thrust men farthest 
 apart; we have dared to evoke the memory of a fight 
 fierce and bitter unto death; and having done this what 
 remains to be ignored, or evaded, or held back? The 
 restoration of these flags is not a charity, it is not even 
 a courtesy. These flags go back to you, men of Ala- 
 bama, by the logic of the situation, and with them go 
 our hearts. 
 
 I am asked to speak a brief closing word, after this 
 act, to the toast — "The United States" — the most sig- 
 nificant name among the nations, for it is a name which 
 embodies a principle and a history, a name which has
 
 126 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 thus far been justified and maintained only through 
 perpetual sacrifice. The sentiment of unity, I do not 
 say the principle but the sentiment of unity, is the soul 
 of our national life. We cannot exist as a nation with- 
 out a passion for unity, second only, if at all, to the pas- 
 sion for liberty. No nation of modern times has had an 
 inner life like our own. Few nations have had any 
 inner life compared with the outer life of conquest and 
 empire. But from the very beginning the thought of 
 the people of this country has been turned inward, and 
 the point of solicitude, concession, and at last struggle, 
 has been unity. At first it was unity simply as a means 
 to an end, the end being freedom as expressed in inde- 
 pendence, but sometimes it seemed as hard to ensure the 
 means as to reach the end. The struggle leading up 
 to the Revolution, and through it, was the struggle for 
 unity quite as much as for liberty. I marvel more and 
 more at the enduring patience, the constant forbearance, 
 the unfailing sacrifices which wrought their sure result 
 in our national independence. Liberty was won we say 
 at Bunker Hill, at Trenton, at Yorktown: yes, but 
 more clearly in the silent determination of consenting 
 hearts, in the generous concessions of statesmen and sol- 
 diers, in the mutual support of the colonies, in the 
 unbroken will of a people set on freedom. Liberty was 
 won when Washington stood under the Cambridge elm 
 and without dissent took command of the meagre but 
 united band of patriots from North and South. Vic- 
 tory rested in that calm, steadfast, compelling nature. 
 For seven years it waited, but it was as sure as was his 
 life, the central and commanding figure among men who 
 knew no fear, who would not yield to dissensions, who 
 would be one to the end.
 
 BATTLESHIP INSCRIPTIONS 127 
 
 And yet when the immediate end came, and the thir- 
 teen strugghng colonies became the United States of 
 America, there began to be felt at once that great con- 
 cern as to how the Union might be saved. It was not 
 an unwarranted concern. It affected every interest of 
 the nation. There was not a debate in Congress, how- 
 ever remote the subject might be — the tariff, acquisition 
 of territory, education — which was not sensitive to the 
 danger which threatened the Union. Before a genera- 
 tion had passed the political situation became tense. 
 Then concession followed concession: compromise fol- 
 lowed compromise. The effort to preserve the Union 
 became pathetic. As the years went on, pathos deep- 
 ened into tragedy. Pubhc careers, the careers of many 
 of our greatest statesmen were sacrificed. Personal 
 friendships were sundered. Gradually we became to 
 the outward appearance thoroughly sectionalized. At 
 last the national tragedy came upon us. A generation 
 went down into suffering and sorrow. To what end? 
 For freedom? Yes, again for freedom, and in many 
 ways through a nobler and more unselfish struggle than 
 the first. I think that none of us would deny that the 
 civil war marvellously enlarged the idea of liberty, and 
 refined its quality. But back in all of our hearts was 
 the conviction that the nation must live. We could not 
 believe that it was in the plan of God, we would not 
 believe that it was really in the heart of man that the 
 nation should die, that the nation should cease to be the 
 United States. The ineradicable, the indestructible 
 passion for unity was in us all whether we fought for it 
 or against it. 
 
 And now that the struggle to gain the Union and to 
 save it is over, who does not rejoice in the established
 
 128 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 integrity of the nation. Who does not feel the new 
 sense of power, the new sense of security, the new sense 
 of freedom. "We the people" are more than ever "we 
 the states." We are no longer afraid to claim or to 
 admit our mutual rights. Every state born out of the 
 original compact, every state created out of acquired 
 territory, every state now in the making, knows that it 
 has the assm-ance of its safety and the promise of its 
 greatness in the fact that it is an integral part of the 
 United States. We may not minimize the perils which 
 beset the future of the nation. No nation can guar- 
 antee its own future. But of the vital forces which 
 are to conserve our national life we have put the 
 two greatest to the proof. We have the right to believe 
 that these will abide in their saving strength. When 
 the prospect was far otherwise than it is today, when the 
 perils to the Union were more evident than its safety, 
 one man among us, native to these hills, who walked 
 the streets of the city where we are met, uttered in the 
 national Congress the memorable word of hope. Surely 
 we cannot doubt the perpetuity of a nation which we 
 have seen founded and refounded in "liberty and 
 union." We of all men can least deny ourselves the 
 hope that "liberty and union," which are ours by the 
 rights of inheritance and by the rights of sacrifice, will 
 abide with us according to the prophetic vision, "one 
 and inseparable."
 
 X 
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 
 
 Address at the Unveiling of the Statue in State House Yard, Con- 
 cord, N. H., April 25, 1903 
 
 Reputation rests upon long accumulations of char- 
 acter and service: fame sj)rings out of the deed of the 
 moment. And yet it is easier to acquire reputation 
 than it is to achieve fame. The two are not inconsist- 
 ent. The man of reputation may become famous, but 
 not simply by virtue of those things which give him rep- 
 utation. Somewhere within the years of character and 
 service there must lie the pregnant moment out of which 
 comes the utterance or the deed which thrills men or 
 which makes them think. The man of fame, on the 
 other hand, ought to be in himself evidently sufficient to 
 say the word or to do the deed which makes him famous. 
 He ought to be able to stand undiminished in the light 
 which the accomplished act flashes back upon him. It is 
 pathetic when the great act separates itself from the 
 actor, and leaves him behind, or when in his changing 
 career the man falls away from the hero. 
 
 Fame, to carry the distinction a little further, is more 
 rare than reputation because of the extraordinary and 
 sudden demand which it makes uj)on personal power. 
 It is for the most part inseparable from the passing 
 opportunity, or from the opportunity which if per- 
 manent is out of common reach. Possibly the man of 
 thought may take his time to become famous. Discov- 
 ery may wait on investigation. The man of action must
 
 130 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 always be the man of the occasion, and occasions 
 demand that concentration and final use of personal 
 power of which few men are capable, even among those 
 who have power. The number of really capable aspir- 
 ants after fame is at no time large. It is not the ab- 
 sence of opportunity which restricts so much as it is the 
 absence of that last element of personal power, the 
 clearer insight or the more daring courage, which can 
 command the opportunity when it arrives. 
 
 The high distinction, however, of fame is that it rests 
 longest and most lovingly upon those who deserve best 
 of their fellow men. It expresses not simply the 
 admiration and wonder of men but their gratitude. 
 Gratitude is on the whole the surest test of a lasting 
 fame. So mankind marks this "surv^ival of the fittest" 
 by perpetuating their names, by rehearsing their deeds, 
 by committing to the care of the noblest of the arts their 
 very features and form that they may still have their 
 place among living men. 
 
 The memorial of Commodore Perkins has now passed 
 into the custody of the State of New Hampshire. The 
 gift of his wife and daughter, it has become the prop- 
 erty of us all, open henceforth to the public view. The 
 man whom it commemorates is before us. The record 
 of his deeds, above which he stands, tells us why he is 
 here. 
 
 I congratulate the citizens of the state, and especially 
 the residents of this city, upon the possession of this 
 statue. The genius who has enriched other states by 
 his works has wrought no inferior work in this his first 
 contribution to his native state. The same touch which 
 idealized the "Minute Man" of the Revolution has 
 shaped the real and the actual in this hero of the later
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 131 
 
 struggle. Many a lover of art, it is safe to predict, who 
 has made his pilgrimage to other places where this 
 sculptor has wrought will come hither on a like errand : 
 many a man who walks these streets will find himself 
 irresistibly drawn here even in the midst of the weari- 
 ness of the day's work: many a boy from city or coun- 
 try coming here in mere curiosity will stay longer than 
 he meant to stay, not knowing why, and will come 
 again, not knowing why, till little by little he begins to 
 learn the power of art to interpret heroism. So much 
 are we indebted to the medixmi, through which we can 
 best express our gratitude to our noble dead, and be- 
 queath something of their essential nobleness to poster- 
 ity. 
 
 It remains to me to attempt to retell in simple words, 
 and in its own setting, the story of the New Hampshire 
 lad, who before he had reached the age of thirty had 
 made for himself a lasting name, and had added a new 
 lustre to the honor of his state. At fifteen enrolled as 
 a midshipman at Annapolis, at twenty-eight he had 
 earned the title of "the hero of Mobile Bay." I shall 
 try to show how the intervening years led up to this 
 height of fame: and also how the years which fol- 
 lowed gave that solid support in reputation upon 
 which the fame of the earlier years rests securely. The 
 sources of information are open to all in the reports, 
 histories, and public prints, which have to do with the 
 Civil War, but I desire to make special acknowledgment 
 of the letters of Commodore Perkins, preserved by his 
 mother, and edited by his sister, and of the tribute so 
 generous and so full paid by his gallant brother-in-arms, 
 himself a son of New Hampshire and worthy of a like 
 place in its history — Rear Admiral Belknap.
 
 132 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 The presumption is always in favor of the well born. 
 All honor to the man who announces himself to the 
 world. All honor to the man who makes his own begin- 
 ning, whose first step is to escape from his environment, 
 who makes his future out of the contrast with his past. 
 The very antagonisms of such an origin may create per- 
 sonal power. But the advantage is still with the well 
 born, for a part of his birthright is freedom of spirit. 
 The absolutely self-made man is seldom free from the 
 tone of bitterness, or of pathos, which runs as a refrain 
 through his life. The difference between him and other 
 men of equal success is usually a difference in tone. 
 The joyousness of childhood, which was never his, is 
 always missing. The great things which go before 
 other men, and begin life for them have no place in his 
 life, and in their absence the spirit has no retreat into 
 memories which can cheer and gladden it. 
 
 The characteristic of George Hamilton Perkins was 
 his freedom of spirit. He was born free. He was a 
 child of nature. His home was dear to him, present or 
 absent. All the beginnings of his life, all his early 
 surroundings, went to make up the fibre of his nature 
 and to give it tone. His courage was natural, almost 
 unconscious. He did not dare to do the things which 
 boys are wont to do, he did them. And as a man, when 
 really brave things were to be done, he simply did them. 
 His moral courage took the character of his natural 
 courage, simple, prompt, unhesitating, unconscious. I 
 find in his letters no morbid apprehension of danger, no 
 premonitions, no hesitancies. All is healthful, natural, 
 free. 
 
 And this same freedom of spirit declared itself in 
 unfailing good humor. "Always keep your men and
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 133 
 
 yourself in good heart," he said to De Long as he 
 started for the North Pole. Here lay in part the secret 
 of his own leadership. He kept his men in good heart 
 because he kept himself in good heart. He carried into 
 action more than coolness, a certain exhilaration of 
 spirit which was yet utterly different from the thought- 
 less joy of the fray. Fighting was always sad business 
 to him. It simply could not repress the buoyancy of 
 his nature. 
 
 There was a close connection between his passionate 
 love of kindred and his loyalty. He could not separate 
 between his love of home and his love of duty. I know 
 of nothing finer than the constancy and tenderness of 
 this young man's affection for his mother. It was bound 
 up in his love of country. One the eve of the battle of 
 Mobile Bay he wrote to his mother, "I know I shall not 
 disgrace myself, no matter how hot the fighting may be, 
 for I shall be thinking of you all the time." 
 *'0 Mother, Mother, I wish I could put my arms around 
 your neck and receive your blessing and good-by once 
 more." And this after the first engagement: "For 
 your sake I am glad to say that the Chickasaw has won 
 for herself a name. I tell you this because I thought 
 you would like to hear it. It is now nothing but fight, 
 fight, fight, all the time. I can only tell you that I am 
 well." Is it not of high advantage to be well born if 
 that means the endowment of a free and brave spirit, 
 and the inspiration of early associations in the hour of 
 duty? 
 
 But the advantage of being well born may be easily 
 lost if it is not followed by the even greater advantage 
 of being well trained. It is difficult to measure the 
 significance of the great callings in which men are
 
 134 PUBLIC MINDEDXESS 
 
 trained until we see their effect upon the fortune of a 
 given life. Here was a fresh, gladsome, brave boy, sat- 
 isfied with the ordinary routine of study and sport, but 
 with his future entirely undetermined. The offer of an 
 appointment for him to the Naval Academy was made 
 to his parents. The offer was somewhat reluctantly 
 accepted. Doubtless the chief meaning of its accept- 
 ance to young Perkins lay in the new surroundings, in 
 that mixture of routine, discipline, and fun which the 
 old graduates of the Naval Academy recall to us with 
 so much of genuine feeling. The real meaning of the 
 change was the commitment of a lad to a great and 
 imperative calling. He had been taken out of the unor- 
 ganized and undirected life around him, that his own 
 life might thenceforth have order and direction. Such 
 is the power of every high calling, of all the professions, 
 over the individual life. They organize, train, and then 
 direct it. But nowhere is the training so distinct and 
 absolute as in the Navy. Nowhere is it so difficult to 
 pass from the unorganized life which lies around a pro- 
 fession into the organized life within. The higher 
 grades in the Navy are practically inaccessible from 
 the ranks, not necessarily because of social disqualifica- 
 tions, — men enter Annapolis without social standing, — 
 but because of the lack of scientific and professional 
 training. The Naval Academy is entirely democratic 
 in its terms of admission, but through the necessities of 
 its scientific and professional training it becomes an 
 aristocracy closer and more exclusive than can be found 
 elsewhere in this country. The Navy as a profession 
 has its limitations like all exclusive forms of hfe, but no 
 one can fail to see its high moral bearings. It keeps the 
 life entrusted to it in close contact with such moral
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 135 
 
 terms as obedience, honor, and duty. When the fitting 
 opportunity comes, the life thus trained is ready for 
 heroism. Character and training aHke need oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 It was in 1856 that young Perkins graduated from 
 Annapohs. Two years later he took his final examina- 
 tion for the grade of passed midshipman. Even then 
 there was no indication that his opportunity was at hand. 
 By a singular coincidence, however, the chief service 
 which he rendered previous to the war, his entire service 
 after passing to the full grade of midshipman, was asso- 
 ciated indirectly with the cause of the war. He was 
 assigned for duty as acting master to the steamer 
 Sumter, which was to join the United States squadron 
 stationed off the west coast of Africa to co-operate with 
 a British squadron for the suppression of the slave trade. 
 
 It is a fact, which has doubtless passed out of the 
 remembrance of most of those before me who were con- 
 versant with the events leading up to the Civil War, 
 that the decade from 1850 to 1859 was marked by a 
 serious agitation in the South for the reopening of the 
 slave trade. The movement naturally originated in the 
 Gulf or adjacent states, and found its chief support 
 there. In 1857 the committee of the South Carolina 
 legislature, to which the governor's slave-trade message 
 was referred, declared in italics, "The South at large 
 does need a reopening of the African slave trade." In 
 Georgia an attempt to expunge the slave-trade prohibi- 
 tion from the state constitution lacked but one vote of 
 passage. In Louisiana a bill passed the house of repre- 
 sentatives, authorizing a company, indentured for 
 fifteen years, to import two thousand five hundred 
 Africans. The bill needed but two votes of passing the
 
 136 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 senate. It is not probable that a majority of the peo- 
 ple, even of the Gulf states, were in favor of the reopen- 
 ing of the trade, but the movement itself was strong and 
 constant, and was productive of increasing results. In 
 1860 Stephen A. Douglas declared that "there was not 
 a shadow of doubt that the slave trade had been carried 
 on quite extensively for a long time back, and that there 
 had been more slaves imported into the Southern states 
 during the past year, 1859, than had ever been imported 
 before in any one year, even when the slave trade was 
 legal. It was his confident belief that over fifteen thou- 
 sand slaves has been brought into this country during 
 the past year." 
 
 It is, of course, a simple coincidence, but a most sug- 
 gestive one, that we have in the first assignment of 
 young Perkins to responsible duty, such a vivid glimpse 
 of the situation immediately preceding and compelling 
 the Civil War. I say compelling, for in what other 
 way than through war could the nation have resisted in 
 the long issue the pressure of those economic conditions 
 under which men were beginning to demand the revival 
 of the slave trade; under which so sane a man as 
 Alexander H. Stephens was led to declare to his constit- 
 uents in his farewell address in 1850: "My object is 
 simply to bring clearly to your mind the great truth — 
 that without an increase of African slaves from abroad, 
 you may not expect or look for many more slave states. 
 If the policy of this country, settled in its early history, 
 of prohibiting further importations or immigrations of 
 this class of population, is to be adhered to, the race of 
 competition between us and our brethren of the North 
 in the colonization of new states, which heretofore has 
 been so well maintained by us, will soon have to be 
 abandoned."
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 13T 
 
 It is perhaps not to be wondered at that at the time 
 of the assignment of young Perkins to duty on the 
 West African coast, there was Httle effectiveness in the 
 attempts made to suppress the slave trade. The failure 
 to accomplish anything is a matter of constant com- 
 plaint in his letters. "We meet a good many slavers," 
 he writes soon after arrival, "which carry on the traffic 
 as palm-oil traders, and there are a great many vessels 
 engaged in the slave trade; but under the present sys- 
 tem it is almost useless for us to try to do anything to 
 stop the slave trade. Our cruisers cannot do much under 
 our laws, and the English make the principal captures." 
 Doubtless something of the contrast between the effi- 
 ciency of the British and the American cruisers was 
 due to the difference in the positions of their respective 
 governments in regard to the right of search, but doubt- 
 less more was due to a difference in the disposition of 
 the governments. In following out their instructions 
 the captains of American cruisers were obliged to 
 release ship after ship of whose illegal character there 
 was no doubt. The cruise became under these condi- 
 tions monotonous and discouraging, because futile. 
 "Our vessels," he writes under date of April 15, 1860, 
 "cruise very little now after slavers. The captain 
 thinks it useless under existing laws. A few days ago 
 we overhauled a barque all ready to take her negroes on 
 board, but after detaining her two days our captain 
 decided there was nothing on board that was not on her 
 manifest and so let her go. The clipper ship Night- 
 ingale has just gone ashore with two thousand negroes 
 on board. If she gets them to Havana they will bring 
 on an average six hundred dollars apiece; so you can 
 calculate how much money will be made on her. This
 
 138 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 Nightingale is a powerful clipper ship, and is the prop- 
 erty of its captain, Bowen, who is called the prince of 
 slavers. The first time I was up the Congo, the Sumter 
 went up fifteen miles after a slaver under his command, 
 called the Sultana. I had information that slavers were 
 fitting out up the river, and told the captain, and he 
 took the Sumter up. We found the barque Sultana 
 and the brig Kibby with their slave decks all laid and 
 everything perfectly ready for that cargo. We took 
 both of the ships and detained one of them three days, 
 and then after all our captain let her go, declaring 
 against every proof that there was nothing in the ships 
 but what was in their manifest. Of course these ships 
 at once filled up with slaves and escaped — calmly sailed 
 off — there was no 'escape' about it, and with the money 
 Bowen made from the sale of those slaves he has pur- 
 chased this Nightingale, one of the fastest clipper ships 
 known." 
 
 It was in the midst of this disheartening business that 
 rumors came to the squadron of the outbreak which pre- 
 ceded the rebellion. Under date of February 13, 1860, 
 he writes, "The mail brings us today very exciting news, 
 all about the Southern insurrection. I cannot take 
 much stock in it, nor credit such an awful thing as any 
 prospect of the dissolution of the Union." For more 
 than a year the men on the cruise were in a state of 
 suspense, the news reaching them only in most irregular 
 ways, but through such word as came to hand young 
 Perkins was forming his opinion and settling into his 
 principles of action. "I do not say much," he writes 
 on May 1, 1860, "but I feel and know that if I had the 
 power I would act. I am thankful to see by the papers 
 that the North has at last become of pretty much one
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 139 
 
 mind as to the course to be pursued in regard to the 
 rebellion, that it must be put down and the Union must 
 be saved." 
 
 On July 1, 1860, the Sumter was ordered to proceed 
 at once to New York, with Mr. Perkins advanced to the 
 position of executive officer. "This old Sumter," he 
 said, "is pretty well used up, and they have not thought 
 Jier fast enough to chase slavers. But as I am now first 
 lieutenant of her, her power of speed will be thoroughly 
 tested on her run home," a promise which he made 
 good, making the run in thirty-six days, the quickest on 
 record at the time. 
 
 Summing up the results of the two years' cruise, saved 
 from an utterly inglorious result by the capture of a 
 slaver just before starting homeward, he says in his 
 humorous vein, "As I have been both navigator and 
 caterer of the mess, I have been making some calcula- 
 tions and find that since we left New York we have run 
 over fifty thousand miles, and that five of us have eaten 
 three thousand chickens." 
 
 Such, in brief statement, was the introduction of 
 Commodore Perkins to his career. The story which 
 follows seems hke a mere thread shot into the warp and 
 woof of the events of the war, but it is a thread of light. 
 It is the story of a young man just now approaching 
 his twenty-fifth birthday, concerning whom the record 
 often repeats itself, — "he was the youngest officer in 
 command." It is the story of a young officer promoted 
 from one post of danger to another. It is the story 
 which reaches its end, not in rank, but in duty and 
 achievement. 
 
 The war, as we have seen, was well under way when 
 Lieutenant Perkins reached this country. As soon as
 
 140 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 he had recruited his health he was ordered as first lieu- 
 tenant to the Cayuga, then fitting out at New York and 
 known as one of the ninety-day gunboats. The Cayuga 
 was under orders when he joined her, but there was a 
 delay of several weeks in sailing, due no doubt in large 
 degree to the fact to which Lieutenant Perkins refers 
 in one of his letters, that none of the officers except the 
 captain had ever been to sea before in a man-of-war; 
 and that here were ninety-five green hands among the 
 crew to be broken in and gotten into some kind of 
 discipline. 
 
 It was March 31, 1862, when the Cayuga reached her 
 destination at Ship Island to take her place in the fleet 
 there assembling, under the command of Captain 
 Farragut, for the campaign of the lower Mississippi. 
 The blockade of the Mississippi had been established 
 within two months after the opening of the war, but as 
 late as the spring of 1862 the river was in the possession 
 of the Confederates from Cairo to the Gulf. The task 
 of opening the river from above was entrusted to Cap- 
 tain Foote. Captain Foote was greatly assisted in his 
 plans by Captain Eads through the peculiar type of 
 gunboat which he had invented for river draft. The 
 plan proposed for the opening of the lower Mississippi 
 was the scheme of Assistant Secretary Fox of the Navy. 
 The chief defenses of New Orleans, some ninety miles 
 below the city, were forts Jackson and St. Philip on 
 either side of the river, forts constructed by the govern- 
 ment and greatly strengthened by the enemy. It was 
 the daring project of running the forts, chiefly with 
 wooden ships, and capturing New Orleans, which was 
 entrusted to Farragut. The forts were not the only 
 defense of the approaches to the city. Across the river
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 141 
 
 between the forts was a huge cable of rafts anchored at 
 frequent points to hold it against the current. Above 
 the forts lay the powerful ironclads, Louisiana and 
 Manassas, with a complement of river boats which had 
 been made ready for attack or defense. There was 
 great activity in building other and more powerful iron- 
 clads. It was in part to anticipate their construction 
 that the plan of running the forts was devised. Farra- 
 gut arrived at Ship Island in the Hartford on February 
 20th, but it was not until April 23d that he was able to 
 get everything in readiness for the attack. On the 
 afternoon of that day he visited the different ships of 
 the fleet to make sure that his orders were understood. 
 At two o'clock on the following morning the signal to 
 advance was given from the flag-ship. The Caj^uga, 
 which had been made the flag-ship of Captain Bailey's 
 division of the fleet, was ordered to take the lead, and the 
 ship was put in charge of Lieutenant Perkins as pilot — 
 a rare tribute to the courage, judgment, and skill of this 
 young oflicer, who had never been in action and who had 
 never seen a length of the way over which he was to 
 lead the fleet. The story of the advance must be told 
 in his own modest but graphic words. "Captain Har- 
 rison paid me the compliment of letting me pilot the 
 vessel, and though it was a starlight night we were not 
 discovered until we were well under the forts; then 
 they opened a tremendous fire on us. I was very 
 anxious, for the steering of the vessel being under my 
 charge gave me really the whole management of her. 
 The Cayuga received the first fire, and the air was filled 
 with shells and explosions which almost blinded me as I 
 stood on the forecastle trying to see my way, for I had 
 never been up the river before. I soon saw that the
 
 142 PUBLIC MIXDEDNESS 
 
 guns of the forts were all aimed for the mid-stream, so 
 I steered close under the walls of Fort St. Philip, and 
 although our masts and rigging got badly shot through, 
 our hull was but little damaged. After passing the last 
 battery and thinking we were clear, I looked back for 
 some of our vessels, and my heart jumped up into my 
 mouth when I found I could not see a single one. I 
 thought they all must have been sunk by the forts. 
 Then, looking ahead, I saw eleven of the enemy's gun- 
 boats coming down upon us, and it seemed as if we were 
 'gone' sure. Three of these made a dash to board us, 
 but a heavy charge from our eleven-inch gun settled 
 the Gov. JMoore, which was one of them. A ram, the 
 Manassas, in attempting to butt us, just missed our 
 stern, and we soon settled the tliird fellow. Just then 
 some of our gunboats, which had passed the forts, came 
 up, and then all sorts of things happened. There was 
 the wildest excitement all around. The Veruna fii'ed a 
 broadside into us instead of the enemy. Another of our 
 gunboats attacked one of the Cayuga's prizes, — I 
 shouted out, 'Don't fire into that ship, she has surren- 
 dered!' Three of the enemy's ships had surrendered 
 to us before any of our vessels appeared, but when they 
 did come up we all pitched in and settled the eleven rebel 
 vessels in about twenty minutes. 
 
 "The Cayuga still led the way up the river, and at 
 daylight we discovered a regiment of infantry encamped 
 on the shore. As we were very close in, I shouted to 
 them to come on board and deliver up their arms, or we 
 would blow them all to pieces. It seemed rather odd 
 for a regiment on shore to be surrendering to a ship! 
 They hauled down their colors, and the colonel and com- 
 mand came on board and gave themselves up as pris-
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 143 
 
 oners of war. The regiment was called the Chalmette 
 regiment, and has been quite a famous one. 
 
 "Soon after this the commodore came up in the Hart- 
 ford and ordered us all to anchor and take a little rest 
 before attacking New Orleans, which was now within 
 twenty miles. By this time our ship had received forty- 
 two shots in masts and hull, and six of our men had been 
 wounded. All this time, night and day, fire-rafts and 
 ships loaded with burning cotton had been coming down 
 the river, and surrounded us everywhere. Besides 
 these, the bombardment was continuous and perfectly 
 awful. I never expect to see such a sight again. The 
 river and shore were one blaze, and the sounds and 
 explosions were terrific. Nothing I could say would 
 give you any idea of these last twenty-four hours. 
 
 "The next morning, April 25, we all got under weigh 
 again, the Cayuga still leading, and at about nine o'clock 
 New Orleans hove in sight. We called all hands and 
 gave three cheers and a tiger!" 
 
 The first news of the passage of the forts came in a 
 message through the Confederate lines. It ran as fol- 
 lows: "One of the enemy's gunboats, the Cayuga, above 
 the forts." To follow the fortune of one man in a 
 great fight may seem to violate the sense of proportion 
 as much as the message which put the Cayuga alone 
 "above the forts." But this is our present interest. 
 We are not studying the history of a campaign nor of a 
 battle, but the career of a young man and how he bore 
 himself in his first fight. He was given a place of rare 
 responsibility. The result shows that he was worthy 
 of it. 
 
 The passage of the forts left New Orleans not only 
 defenseless, but humiliated and exasperated. The city
 
 144 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 was entirely unprepared for this quick change of for- 
 tune. There had been no sobering effect of a siege, only 
 the irritating effect of a blockade. It was like a blow 
 to a man in comparative health, unable to resist, but able 
 to feel. As the fleet stood before the city on the morn- 
 ing of the 25th, the whole city was wrought up to the 
 highest tension of feeling. The process of destruction 
 was everywhere going on. The store houses and ships 
 were in flames. The army of defense had withdrawn. 
 The mob was in possession. 
 
 At noon Captain Bailey was ordered to proceed to the 
 city hall to demand the formal surrender of the city. 
 He chose Lieutenant Perkins as his escort. The two 
 went alone. As they landed they were greeted with 
 jeers, imprecations, and threats. The mob grew more 
 violent as they passed from the levee into the streets out 
 of immediate sight of the ships. Every step added to 
 their danger. It was a far more perilous trip than the 
 passage of the forts. Mr. George W. Cable, who was 
 an eye-witness of the scene, has described it in these 
 words: "About one or two o'clock in the afternoon (as 
 I remember) , I being again in the store with but one 
 door ajar, came a roar of shoutings and imprecations 
 and crowding feet down Common street, 'Hurrah for 
 Jeff Davis! Hurrah for Jeff Davis ! Shoot them! Kill 
 them! Hang them!' I locked the door on the outside, 
 and ran to the front of the mob, bawling with the rest, 
 'Hurrah for Jeff Davis!' About every third man there 
 had a weapon out. Two officers of the United States 
 Navy were walking abreast, unguarded and alone, look- 
 ing not to right or left, never frowning, never flinching, 
 while the mob screamed in their ears, shook cocked 
 pistols in their faces, cursed, and crowded, and gnashed
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 145 
 
 upon them. So through the gates of death those two 
 men walked to the city hall to demand the town's sur- 
 render. It was one of the bravest deeds I ever saw 
 done." 
 
 The command of Farragut covered the Gulf. His 
 squadron was known as the Gulf squadron. His first 
 orders were "to clear the Mississippi." This he now 
 proceeded to do, though contrary to his own judgment. 
 Proceeding up the river he ran the batteries at Port 
 Hudson and Vicksburg, but it soon became evident that 
 the river could not be held until the army was ready to 
 co-operate in full measure. So long as Vicksburg 
 remained in the hands of the Confederates the river 
 could not be made free. It seemed advisable to with- 
 draw the fleet from above New Orleans. The general 
 disappointment was doubtless expressed by Lieutenant 
 Perkins, as he saw the movement from his position at 
 the mouth of the Red river: "We had received orders 
 to proceed up the Red river, but this morning we saw 
 all the Commodore's fleet coming down the Mississippi 
 from Vicksburg with all the troops, and there is a 
 change of program. It seems the Commodore has 
 received positive orders from the department to take 
 the fleet to Pensacola and prepare for more important 
 service. I am sorry Commodore Farragut's winding 
 up in this river has turned out so. I cannot help think- 
 ing that if the department had sustained him the river 
 would have been cleared long ago." 
 
 After the capture of New Orleans it was evident that 
 the next important work of the Gulf squadron would 
 be in Mobile Bay. It was so understood by the Con- 
 federacy; with this understanding the city and harbor 
 were put in the best possible state of defense. No more 
 
 10
 
 146 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 powerful fortifications were to be found along the 
 Southern coast. But the chief reliance was placed upon 
 the construction of ironclads. The largest naval sta- 
 tion in the South was at Selma, one hundred and fifty 
 miles up the Alabama river. The best engineers in 
 the Southern navy were sent there to superintend the 
 construction of new vessels. Admiral Buchanan, who 
 commanded the Merrimac in her encounter with the 
 Monitor, was ordered from Richmond to build another 
 ironclad on the model of the Merrimac, but of superior 
 power. The result was the Tennessee, the most for- 
 midable ironclad built in the South. Four gunboats 
 were at the same time in process of construction. 
 
 The impatience of Farragut while these preparations 
 for attack as well as defense were going on can easily 
 be understood. His call for men, for ships, above all 
 for ironclads, grows almost pathetic: "Can you not 
 spare me one of the many ironclads off Charleston or 
 on the upper Mississippi?" But the exigencies of the 
 war held him back. More than a j^ear was to elapse 
 after the capture of New Orleans before the new fleet 
 could be gathered in Mobile Bay. Meanwhile the usual 
 and common^^lace work which follows a great victory 
 was to be carried on, that of minor expeditions along the 
 coast and up the rivers, policing and blockading. 
 
 There seems to be no fit provision in our Navy or 
 Army for the recognition of particular acts of superior 
 judgment or of heroism, except through promotion in 
 rank, which is liable to work an injustice. The skill 
 and courage which Lieutenant Perkins displayed in his 
 first action entitled him to that kind of recognition for 
 which men in the service of other nations receive dis- 
 tinguished marks of honor. But there is one recogni-
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 147 
 
 tion of such conduct which does not wait upon any for- 
 mal honor. It is the confidence of brave men who know 
 the worth of courage. "Perkins," said General 
 Weitzel, who was organizing an expedition of ten thou- 
 sand men and a fleet of gunboats to go up through the 
 bayous into Red river, "Perkins, you are the only man 
 I know of fitted to go through the desperate fighting 
 we shall have ; but with you in command of those gun- 
 boats and me with my troops, we can face the devil, and 
 are bound to win. But unless you will go with me, I 
 have my doubts about succeeding, and I shall think 
 twice before I go." 
 
 Word came to Lieutenant Perkins that he had been 
 ordered to take command of the Berwick Bay fleet with 
 the Arizona for his vessel, but before the expedition 
 could be organized Berwick Bay was captured and the 
 plan was abandoned. Remaining in service on the 
 Cayuga, Lieutenant Perkins was made at the close of 
 the year lieutenant-commander, a new grade created 
 by Congress, and was soon after given command of the 
 New London during the absence of the commanding 
 officer, and upon his return was transferred to the 
 command of the gunboat Scioto, — the best command 
 at that time in the squadron for an officer of that 
 grade, according to the authority of Admiral Bel- 
 knap, — and assigned to duty on the blockade 
 off the coast of Texas. He continued in this unevent- 
 ful and somewhat commonplace service for nine months, 
 when he was ordered home on leave of absence to recruit 
 his health. It was at this juncture that, learning of the 
 impending attack on Mobile, he asked to be allowed to 
 remain on duty and to take part in the attack. The 
 request was most gratifying to Admiral Farragut, who
 
 148 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 at once acceded to it, and put him in command of the 
 Chickasaw, one of the ironclads of the fleet. The 
 Chickasaw was one of Captain Eads' boats, built at St. 
 Louis, and just from the works. She was hardly com- 
 plete enough for service when she arrived off Mobile. 
 Her new commander gave all his energy and skill to 
 putting her and her crew into condition. The crew con- 
 sisted of one hundred and twenty-five men and twenty- 
 five officers. She carried four eleven-inch guns, and 
 had two turrets. It required fifteen engines to work 
 her. The preparation of the ship for the fight was 
 not confined to its material condition. The night 
 before the fight the commander called his officers into 
 the cabin and addressed them: "Gentlemen, by this time 
 tomorrow the fate of this fleet and of Mobile will be 
 sealed. We have a duty to perform and a victory to 
 win. I have sent for you to say that not a drop of wine, 
 liquor, or beer is to be drunk on board of this vessel 
 from this hour until the battle is over and the victory 
 won, or death has come to us. It is my wish that every 
 officer and man shall go into battle with a clear head 
 and strong nerves. I rely upon you to conform with 
 this requirement, confident that the Chickasaw and her 
 crew can thus best perform their whole duty." 
 
 The fleet on the day of attack, August 5, 1864, con- 
 sisted of twenty-one wooden ships and four ironclads. 
 The old wooden ship Hartford was still the admiral's 
 ship. The four ironclads went into battle in the order 
 of the seniority of their commanding officers — the 
 Tecumseh, Captain Craven; the Manhattan, Com- 
 mander Nicholson; the Winnebago, Commander Stev- 
 ens; and the Chickasaw, Lieutenant-Commander Per- 
 kins. The chief concern of the wooden ships was with
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 149 
 
 the forts. The defense of the fleet against the power- 
 ful Tennessee, under Admiral Buchanan, lay with the 
 ironclads. There was every reason to fear that the 
 Tennessee might repeat in Mobile Bay the work of the 
 Merrimac in Hampton Roads. It was the ambition 
 of Captain Craven of the Tecumseh, which was in the 
 lead, to meet and disable the Tennessee. As Admiral 
 Farragut said of him, "his heart was bent on it." With 
 this object in immediate view, and fearing through a 
 turn of the Tennessee that the ram would pass out of 
 his reach, he boldly set the course of his ship over a bed 
 of torpedoes. The ship went on, neither the monitor 
 nor the ram firing a gun until they were within one hun- 
 dred yards of one another. Then came a dull, sullen 
 explosion, and the Tecumseh began at once to sink. 
 But there was time enough to show the heroism of her 
 commander. As he and the pilot rushed instinctively 
 for one narrow way of escape. Captain Craven drew 
 back, "You first, sir." As the pilot said on his escape, 
 "There was nothing after." 
 
 The loss of the Tecumseh broke the line of battle, 
 which Farragut quickly recovered by pressing to the 
 front with the more rapid wooden ships. According 
 to the accounts of the naval experts, the battle which 
 was now on showed some of the most magnificent sea- 
 manship of the war. Success often hung upon the 
 boldness of orders which Farragut alone could have 
 issued. But as Captain Drayton said to him in the 
 first lull of the fight, "What we have done has been 
 well done, sir, but it all counts for nothing as long as the 
 Tennessee is there under the guns of Fort Morgan.'* 
 "I know it," Farragut rephed, "and as soon as the peo- 
 ple have had their breakfast I am going for her." The
 
 150 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 Tennessee did not wait for the attack, but herself 
 resumed the offensive. Then came the general order, 
 "Attack the ram not only with your guns, but bows at 
 full speed," and to the monitors, "Attack the Ten- 
 nessee." 
 
 The time of the monitors was now fully come, espe- 
 cially of the Chickasaw as the least disabled of the 
 three remaining. Lieutenant-Commander Perkins 
 carefully felt his way around the great ram to find its 
 most vulnerable point. That proved to be the stern, 
 and there he doggedly stuck to the end of the fight, 
 keeping up a terrific fire from the eleven-inch guns of 
 his ship. As the record of the naval historian reads, 
 "From that time Lieutenant-Commander Perkins was 
 never more than fifty yards from his antagonist, and 
 frequently the vessels were in actual contact. He 
 planted fifty-two eleven-inch shot on the Tennessee's 
 casemate, most of them on the after end, where the 
 greatest injury was done and many plates were started. 
 A well-directed shot from the Chickasaw jammed the 
 Tennessee's stern-port shutter so that the gun could 
 not be run in or out, and it was not long before the 
 rudder-chains, which were exposed on the deck of the 
 Tennessee, were shot away. Relieving tackles for 
 steering the ship were adjusted, but these, also, in a 
 short time were carried away. Seeing that the battle 
 was against him and that there was no hope of contend- 
 ing successfully against the fleet, Buchanan now 
 ordered Captain Johnston to steer for Fort Morgan, 
 with a view of seeking the shelter of its guns. Buchanan 
 at this time was directing a gun, when a shot from the 
 Chickasaw jammed the shutter so that it could not be 
 moved. He sent to the engine-room for a machinist
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 151 
 
 to push out the pin of the shutter, hoping that it would 
 fall away, thus leaving the port open; and while the 
 machinist was endeavoring to do this a heavy shot 
 struck the edge of the port-cover outside where the man 
 was working. The same shot mortally wounded one 
 of the gun-crew, and drove the washers and nuts across 
 the deck with such force as to break Buchanan's leg 
 below the knee. He was carried to the surgeon's table 
 below, and while his wound was being dressed he sent 
 for Johnston (who after the accident to the pilot had 
 been directing the movements of the ram from the pilot- 
 house) and said: "Well, Johnston, they've got me. 
 You'll have to look out for her now." 
 
 It soon became evident to Captain Johnston that it 
 was useless to prolong the struggle. After advising 
 again with Admiral Buchanan he went on the casemate 
 and put out a white flag, when at 10 a. m. the firing 
 ceased. Through the courtesy of Commander Perkins 
 the surrender was actually made to Captain LeRoy of 
 the Ossipee. This is Commander Perkins's statement: 
 "When Johnston came on the roof of the Tennessee 
 and showed the white flag as signal of surrender, no 
 vessel of the fleet was as near as a quarter of a mile, 
 but the Ossipee was approaching, and her captain was 
 much older than myself. I was wet with perspiration, 
 begrimed with powder, and exhausted by long-con- 
 tinued exertion. I drew back and allowed Captain 
 LeRoy to receive the surrender, though my first lieu- 
 tenant, Hamilton, said to me at the time: 'Captain, 
 you are making a mistake.' " 
 
 When the surrender was made Commander Perkins 
 took the Tennessee in tow and delivered her alongside 
 the Hartford.
 
 152 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 Thus closed a sea fight second only in dramatic inter- 
 est to the fight of the Merrimac and Monitor. To no 
 single ship, not to the Chickasaw, belongs the whole 
 glory of any one part of the conflict, but its share was 
 glorious and has gone into history. The testimony 
 from friend and foe assigns to Lieutenant-Commander 
 Perkins the fatal work of that heroic struggle. The 
 Tennessee's pilot asked, "Who commanded the monitor 
 that got under our stern?" and added, "He stuck to us 
 like a leech. We could not get away from him. It 
 was he who cut away the steering gear, jammed the 
 stern-port shutters, and wounded Admiral Buchanan." 
 Captain Johnston of the Tennessee said, "If it had not 
 been for that black hulk hanging on our stern we would 
 have got along well enough; she did us more damage 
 than all the rest of the Federal fleet." Admiral 
 Buchanan said the Tennessee would have defeated the 
 entire fleet if it had not been for that monitor, which 
 seemed to move by magic. It would turn around three 
 times to the Tennessee's once and seemed to be every- 
 where. The services of Lieutenant Perkins in this bat- 
 tle made such an impression on Captain James B. Eads, 
 the builder of the Chickasaw, that he said, "I would 
 walk fifty miles to shake hands with the young man who 
 commanded her." The following extract is from the 
 report of Rear Admiral D. G. Farragut, of August 12, 
 1864: "Our ironclads from their slow speed and bad 
 steering had some difficulty in getting into and main- 
 taining their position in line as we passed the forts, and 
 in the subsequent encounter with the Tennessee from 
 the same causes were not as effective as could have been 
 desired, but I cannot give too much praise to Lieuten- 
 ant-Commander Perkins, who, though he had orders
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 153 
 
 from the Department to return North, volunteered to 
 take command of the Chickasaw, and did his duty 
 nobly." 
 
 It was nearly a month before Fort Morgan and all 
 the fortifications of the Bay came into the possession of 
 the government, but with the fight of Mobile Bay the 
 great work of the Gulf squadron ended. Admiral Far- 
 ragut was soon afterwards relieved of duty, and 
 returned to the North, the command devolving on Com- 
 mander Palmer. Lieutenant-Commander Perkins re- 
 mained in command of the Chickasaw until July ninth 
 of the following year, when he was relieved of com- 
 mand and ordered home. On sick leave he had volun- 
 teered for the Mobile campaign, but remained in con- 
 stant service for thirteen months. 
 
 At the conclusion of the war Commander Perkins 
 took up in dignity and with efficiency the various duties 
 to which he was assigned from time to time at home 
 and abroad. These duties do not generally test the 
 commander, but they do test the man. He bore the 
 tests of his manhood as he had borne the tests of hero- 
 ism. The promotion which might have naturally been 
 expected, and which his friends in the Navy and with- 
 out waited for, did not come, but no word of complaint 
 ever crossed his lips. He continued to do his duty as 
 if it had been fully recognized. He carried about with 
 him the same cheer which had marked his early life. 
 In all things and everywhere he declared himself to the 
 full a gentleman. His fame has the constant and last- 
 ing support of his reputation. In 1896 through the 
 efforts of the United States senators and congressmen 
 from New Hampshire Mr. Perkins was given the rank 
 of Commodore without pay.
 
 154 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 There were many points in the early life of Coromo- 
 dore Perkins of dramatic interest, some of which might 
 have been seized upon for public presentation: the 
 youthful figure standing at the bow of the Cayuga in 
 the early dawn, leading the fleet in the passage of the 
 forts ; the companion of Captain Bailey in the perilous 
 march through the streets of New Orleans; the com- 
 mander of the Chickasaw delivering over the Tennes- 
 see to his ranking officer on the Ossipee. But the 
 sculptor has done wisely in putting before us the man 
 in his maturity. Commodore Perkins was more than 
 any one or all of the incidents which declare his fame. 
 He stands before us the man of capacity, great in action, 
 great in reserve. As one recalls his history, as one 
 looks upon the man, one feels assured that had he gone 
 over into the service of the late war the fame of his 
 later years would have equaled that of his earlier years. 
 
 In placing the statue of Commodore Perkins, a hero 
 of the Civil War, upon these grounds, the State of 
 New Hampshire makes no comparison with other heroes 
 of this or of other wars. The act is representative. It 
 is the simple acknowledgment by the State of New 
 Hampshire of that patriotism, whenever and wherever 
 shown, which has its highest expression in heroism. 
 And if it is asked why this revival, after the lapse of a 
 generation, of the memories of a civil war, my answer 
 is still the same. Heroism is priceless; the reminder 
 of it is always timely. No nation may conserve its 
 unity at the cost of sentiment. We have come together 
 as a people, not by ignoring the great deeds of the past, 
 nor by retiring those who wrought them. There has 
 been liberty of remembrance and of expression North 
 and South.
 
 COMMODORE PERKINS 155 
 
 A few years since I went out for the afternoon from 
 Washington to Alexandria. My errand was to see old 
 Christ Church because of its association with Washing- 
 ton. But on my way my eye caught sight of a statue in 
 one of the public squares. It was a statue, simple and 
 unadorned, of a Confederate cavalryman, standing with 
 drooped head, with his slouch hat under his left arm. 
 It bore no name, but it told its story, the story of a lost 
 cause. I came back to it again and again. My errand 
 was quickly done that I might return once more. I 
 acknowledged, because I felt, the sentiment which it 
 was meant to inspire, the sentiment of respect for the 
 heroism of a lost cause. 
 
 Let no false sensitiveness retire the heroism of the 
 cause which won. In allowing and honoring that lib- 
 erty which neither forbids nor denies to any the pathos 
 of an irrevocable past, let us not withhold in any meas- 
 ure the glory of that heroism which made possible the 
 future of a reunited land.
 
 XI 
 THE OWNERSHIP OF LAND 
 
 Address at the Thirty-First Annual Session of the New Hampshire 
 Grange, Dover, N. H., December 20, 1904 
 
 In responding to your invitation to take part in the 
 annual meeting of the State Grange of New Hamp- 
 shire, let me assure you that I do not presume upon 
 your courtesy to the extent of attempting to instruct 
 you in the duties of your Order, or in the methods 
 of your work. I do not envy the man who, in these 
 days of specialized training, undertakes to tell other 
 men what he does not know, and what they quickly see 
 he does not know, about their business. At the same 
 time, for the very reason that we are being specialized 
 away from one another, we ought to be able to know 
 how others regard us ; to know, for example, what value 
 the public puts upon our work in the midst of the rapid 
 changes which are going on in the valuation of the 
 industries. There is more danger on the whole from 
 the undervaluation than from the overvaluation of 
 almost any calling. And if in any calling there ap- 
 pears to others to be an undervaluation at some partic- 
 ular point, the reminder of the fact is certainly pertinent 
 and may be useful. 
 
 I venture, therefore, to speak to you from the outside 
 point of view, of the growing appreciation by the pub- 
 lic mind of ownership in land. 
 
 There are three kinds of power to which our times 
 attach special value. First, personal power, as seen
 
 RETURN TO LAND OWNERSHIP 15T 
 
 in the means which are taken to ensure it. We are all 
 trying to lift ourselves and our children out of the com- 
 monplace. The recognized means of gaining distinc- 
 tion in a democracy is education. We educate, there- 
 fore, with a view to personal power. We have come as 
 a people to beheve in the truth of the saying that 
 "knowledge is power." 
 
 Second, the power of organization. The value set 
 upon this kind of power comes largely from industrial- 
 ism. The last generation gave us the self-made man. 
 The self-made man has little or no chance today, — the 
 smaller trader in the great cities, the non-union man at 
 the industrial centers. The self-made man has virtu- 
 ally given place to the organizing, or to the organized, 
 man. 
 
 Third, the power which attaches to ownership. Pos- 
 sessions have always been reckoned a source of power, 
 but their peculiar value hes today in their utility. We 
 ask of money, as we ask of men, what can it do? We 
 think of money, that is, chiefly as capital. We should 
 not rate the man who has a million dollars in specie 
 locked up in his vaults as at all comparable in power 
 with the man who has half that amount in productive 
 capital. 
 
 Now in the present revaluation of the possessions of 
 men, viewed as sources of power, there is, as I have said, 
 a growing appreciation of ownership in land. I do not 
 mean necessarily that land is selling for more, though, 
 in the aggregate, this is of course true, but rather that 
 the value of land can be translated more and more 
 clearly into terms of social and political and moral 
 power. And when you put this statement into the con- 
 crete, it means that influences are at work, from out-
 
 158 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 side his business and in a sense apart from his own 
 efforts, to give the farmer a relatively higher and higher 
 place in the social order. 
 
 In support of this view, I call your attenfion in the 
 first place to the persistence with which governments 
 hold to the idea of the political value of private owner- 
 ship in land, its value to good citizenship. Apart from 
 guaranteeing the education of the schools to its citizens, 
 the one thing which the government makes provision 
 for is private ownership in land, and the end in each 
 case is practically the same. I do not wonder that it 
 took a long while to commit the government to this idea, 
 to incorporate it into our governmental system. It was 
 a stupendous scheme, involving very radical principles. 
 To illustrate from a scheme of an entirely opposite 
 character, it was as great and as radical a thing in its 
 time to distribute the public lands among private own- 
 ers as it would be today for the government to assume 
 the ownership, say, of our railroads. Mr. Clay was 
 entirely warranted in saying in the Senate in 1832 that 
 "no subject, which had presented itself to the present, 
 or, perhaps, any preceding Congress, was of greater 
 magnitude than that of the public lands. Long after 
 we shall cease to be agitated by the tariff, ages after 
 our manufactures shall have acquired a stability and 
 perfection which will enable them to cope successfully 
 with the manufactures of any other country, the pub- 
 lic lands will remain a subject of deep and enduring 
 interest." More of course was involved in the ques- 
 tion of the public lands than finally appeared in the 
 Homestead Bill of 1861, but the Homestead Bill of that 
 date was the culmination of the long contention. When 
 Mr. Lincoln put his signature to the bill he gave effect
 
 RETURN TO LAND OWNERSHIP 159 
 
 to one of the great acts of his administration, an act 
 which, as you recall, grants to every applicant, who is 
 the head of a family or above the age of twenty-one, 
 one hundred and sixty acres of public lands, free of 
 charge, except for registration fees, on the sole con- 
 dition of actual settlement and cultivation. 
 
 Nothing, I repeat, is so unique or so radical in the 
 relation of the government to the people as this distri- 
 bution of public lands for private ownership. Next in 
 importance to compulsory education, free of charge, 
 as an agency in building the nation, stands this open 
 offer of a homestead. 
 
 I have spoken of the persistency of the government 
 in this policy. It is not a transient idea. Having 
 nearly exhausted its supply of productive lands, the 
 government is carrying out the same policy in reclaim- 
 ing waste lands chiefly in the arid portions of the coun- 
 trj^ By the terms of the scheme for the reclamation of 
 arid and semi-arid lands, which Mr. Roosevelt urged 
 in one of his earlier messages and which the editor of 
 the World's Work says will prove to be the great act 
 of his administration, it is provided that sections of from 
 40 to 160 acres are to be sold at such rate as shall cover 
 the cost of improvement, the ownership to be, as under 
 the homestead bill, in the hands of the settler. The set- 
 tler pays a rental for ten years on the irrigation plant, 
 after which time he becomes a stockholder, to the value 
 of his rights. 
 
 What is the object of the government in this distri- 
 bution of public lands for private ownership? The 
 primary object is not revenue. That was the object 
 of the system which the present system displaced. The 
 primary object is citizenship. The government regards
 
 160 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 ownership in land as a better guarantee of good citizen- 
 ship than anything which it is in its power to effect. 
 Otherwise it would be warranted, according to the prin- 
 ciple on which it is now acting, in starting men in some 
 other kind of business. 
 
 This is the moral and political valuation which the 
 public mind, expressing itself through the government, 
 puts upon your calling. Other governments than our 
 own go even further. Denmark has just enacted a law 
 which enables any farm laborer between the ages of 
 twenty-five and fifty to borrow nine tenths of the value 
 of a house and of from three to twelve acres of land, 
 provided he has saved the one tenth necessary for the 
 first payment. A sum presumably sufficient for this 
 state loan fund has been set apart. So desirable above 
 any other class are those whom the state terms "house- 
 men." 
 
 The state is right, here or anywhere, in this estimate 
 which it puts upon the moral value of ownership in land. 
 It is a kind of ownership which locates and identifies a 
 man. You cannot identify a man so closely by stocks 
 or by any kind of personal property. There is a church 
 in New York City which was remodeled at great 
 expense by one of its members who had made largely by 
 a sudden rise in the preferred stock of the Chicago, 
 Milwaukee & St. Paul Railroad. That church is known 
 as "St. Paul preferred," but I do not know that the 
 donor ever gained a like distinction. 
 
 Ownership in land is the only guarantee of continuity 
 in the family life apart from the possession of very 
 great wealth. Wealth can found and perpetuate a 
 family, but in the ordinary fortunes of business and the 
 trades which take the fortunes of the cities familv life.
 
 RETURN TO LAND OWNERSHIP 161 
 
 does not last for many generations. We take note of 
 the abandoned homes of the country. You cannot take 
 note of the abandoned homes of the city. The history 
 of the average home hfe of the city is written in water. 
 The government, I say again, is right in the moral 
 valuation which it puts upon ownership in land. When 
 a shrewd man invests his money in some enterprise of 
 possible advantage to the public, the street looks on 
 doubtfully and says of him, in its own slang, "he is not 
 doing this for his health." That is precisely what the 
 government is making this investment for, for its 
 health, to keep up its physical and moral vitality. 
 
 I call your attention again to the significance of the 
 private investments in land which are following the 
 invasion of the country by the city. Every return tide 
 of summer travel in New England leaves a permanent 
 deposit in the ownership of land. What is the chief 
 significance of this investment? It has a very definite 
 social value. A man who has an estate in the country 
 gains thereby a certain distinction. Ownership of a 
 place in the country is coming to count for more socially 
 than ownership in the city. There is seldom any finan- 
 cial gain in it. The city business has to pay for the 
 country home, and still more for the farm. The return 
 goes back in social value. It is the one investment of 
 its sort which pays socially. You put your money into 
 a coal mine or into a kerosene well, you get back more 
 money, but no social return. The investment of city 
 money in country places is a part of a social movement 
 which is of equal advantage to city and country. 
 
 I am limiting myself in what I am now saying to one 
 point — the new social value which is being put upon 
 ownership in land. I am not saying that there is not 
 
 11
 
 162 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 a great difference between the summer view of nature 
 in our latitude and the view, or experience, of nature the 
 year round. A traveler in Wales said to an old farmer, 
 who hved just under Mount Snowdon, "How you must 
 enjoy Hving here!" "Well," said he, "if you had hved 
 here for eighty winters, as I have, and had the old fel- 
 low a sneezin' and a spittin' at you most of the time, you 
 wouldn't think so much of him as you appear to." I 
 am not saying either that owning land is farming. But 
 the man who gets into a business half way may add 
 something to the value of it. Owning stock in a rail- 
 road is not running the road, but it helps a good deal 
 toward that end. 
 
 The distinction of the purchase of land is that if it 
 is bought for residence, though only for a part of the 
 year, the purchase carries with it certain social obHga- 
 tions. The man who buys the farm adjacent to you 
 becomes thereby to a certain degree your neighbor, and 
 to a certain degree a citizen of your town. You go 
 down into Wall Street and buy stock in the Steel Trust 
 or, if you don't like that investment, in the Pennsyl- 
 vania Railroad. What social obhgation do you assume 
 by the transaction? How much of a neighbor do you 
 become to the man whose name is registered next to 
 yours on the books of the company? In the one case, 
 in the purchase of land, the purchase carries the man 
 with it and gives to the community the partial advan- 
 tage at least of himself and of his family. In the other 
 case, in the purchase of stock, the purchase does not 
 carry the man with it: he is not recognized, only his 
 money, unless his purchase implies the backing of some 
 great financier. Just how much this private invest- 
 ment in land for residences is benefiting the state of
 
 RETURN TO LAND OWNERSHIP 163 
 
 New Hampshire financially I cannot say. It is not the 
 immediate point which I am urging. I am urging the 
 immediate point that in so far as that kind of investment 
 is increasing the social value of the state, it tells at first 
 hand upon all owners of land. It makes ownership in 
 land, of which of course the chief object is farming, 
 more desirable in its social relations. 
 
 I call your attention still further to the fact, coming 
 now much nearer to the business point of view, that in 
 the revaluation of the industries, which is all the while 
 going on, farming is beginning to share in its turn in 
 the wealth of scientific discovery. I speak of scientific 
 discoveries, not of inventions. Farming has had its full 
 share in the economies, in the conveniences, and in the 
 expansions made possible by invention. But the great 
 scientific discoveries have worked for the most part to 
 the advantage of other industries. Industrialism, as 
 we term the great working force of the last century, has 
 been the outgrowth of the development of the physical 
 sciences. It has felt the continual impulse of discov- 
 ery. The inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and 
 Crompton could never have built our cotton mills with- 
 out the discovery of Watts. And from the discovery 
 of steam as a power to the discovery of electricity as a 
 power, the benefit has gone pretty much one way. 
 Nearly all discovered power has been harnessed to 
 machinery. The time seems to be at hand when agri- 
 culture has as much to expect relatively from the biol- 
 ogist as the mechanic arts have already received from 
 the physicist. Both may continue to expect much from 
 the chemist. We know, of course, the indispensable 
 value of nitrogen to the soil, especially to wornout soils. 
 If the scientists can succeed in restoring nitrogen to the
 
 164 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 soil in sufficient amount, with little cost in money or 
 labor, then they will revolutionize farming as surely as 
 the introduction of steam revolutionized manufactur- 
 ing. It is too early for even the expert to say how 
 much may come out of present experiments in the inoc- 
 ulation of soils, but it is not too early to say that the 
 experimentation now going on is of the sort which fol- 
 lows discovery, not invention alone. It is as yet impos- 
 sible to estimate the value of the discovery of the 
 nitrogen-fixing power of certain bacteria, but if the bac- 
 teria do anything like the amount of work laid out for 
 them, they will rival, within their sphere of operation, 
 the work of electricity. In any event we have the right 
 to believe that discoveries are impending in the biolog- 
 ical and physiological laboratories of the country which 
 are to give a new meaning to agriculture. But here 
 again I make no estimate of the return in dollars and 
 cents. I am more intent upon what I may call the 
 intellectual impulse which is beginning to take effect. 
 During the past generation it must be conceded that the 
 greater intellectual incentives have urged young men 
 into other pursuits than farming. Quite apart from 
 the return in money, work elsewhere has been more 
 interesting than on the farm. The proportion of brain 
 work to hand work has been larger in some of the trades 
 and arts than in farming. It seemed to pay better as 
 a matter of mental interest to carry on one's technical 
 education towards some other occupation than that 
 which the boy recalled from his farm life. It now seems 
 as if no occupation could be more interesting, from the 
 side of investigation and experiment and advanced 
 study, than farming. Science seems about to open new 
 f)aths through our fields and forests quite as enticing as
 
 RETURN TO LAND OWNERSHIP 165 
 
 any which have led us, thus far, toward the office and 
 the shop. Science seems about to be coming to the 
 rehef and refreshment and quickening of those who, 
 with a great patience, have borne these long years the 
 burden and heat of the day. 
 
 In this brief discussion I have kept away from two 
 questions which might naturally arise, but which I am 
 not competent to answer; questions also which, were I 
 competent to answer, I could not discuss without leav- 
 ing unsaid the thing which I wished most to say in your 
 presence. If you want to know, apart from your own 
 experience, whether farming as now carried on in New 
 Hampshire pays or not, I must refer you to our hon- 
 ored Governor who, as governors come and go, will 
 remain, I trust, at the head of the agricultural interests 
 of the state. And if you want to know just how much 
 better farming can be made to pay under better meth- 
 ods, I must refer you to my friend. President Gibbs of 
 Durham, who will be able, I am sure, to give you a more 
 and more satisfying answer year by year. 
 
 What I have wished to say, and what I have under- 
 taken to say is, that in the revaluation of the callings of 
 men under modern conditions there are a good many 
 values — new values, some of them — which must be 
 taken into account in answering the question in its 
 broadest form concerning any calling, "Does it pay, or 
 will it pay?" I have tried to impress upon you the 
 values which are attaching to your calling, as seen under 
 one aspect of it, namely, the growing appreciation by 
 the public mind of ownership in land — moral and po- 
 litical values which are now well recognized, social 
 values which are becoming apparent, and values which 
 the new sciences are laying at your doors.
 
 166 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 It has been my fortune, my good fortune as I think, 
 to have been at work thus far in what are usually classi- 
 fied as among the non-paying businesses of the world. 
 Perhaps it is for this reason that I have been led to put 
 a pretty high estimate upon certain values which are in 
 danger of being overlooked. I should say, as the result 
 of my observation, that values may be divided into two 
 classes, remunerative and rewarding, values which point 
 to the market price and values which turn a man's 
 thoughts within. Farming seems to me to combine, in 
 its immediate future at least, both of these values. I 
 believe that it can be made more remunerative. I am 
 sure that it can be made more rewarding. 
 
 If I understand the spirit and aim of your Order, you 
 propose to see to it that as the business of farming 
 becomes more remunerative, the life of the farmer and 
 of his family becomes more rewarding. You stand for 
 the values which lie in increasing respect for one's self 
 and for one's calling, in quickened intelligence, in wid- 
 ening sympathy, and in patriotic devotion. 
 
 Believing that these are the objects which you have 
 set before yourselves, I can offer you no better wish 
 than that you may reach them.
 
 XII 
 "THE MIND OF THE WAGE EARNER 
 
 ?> 
 
 Address before the Twentieth Annual Convention of the Officials 
 OF Labor Bureaus op America, Hon. Carroll D. Wright, Pre- 
 siding. 
 
 What I have to say is in the nature of some reflec- 
 tions upon the "mind of the wage earner," an expres- 
 sion which I borrow from the opening sentence of the 
 recent work by John Mitchell on Organized Labor; 
 "The average wage earner has made up his mind that 
 he must remain a wage earner."* I would not take 
 this generalization in any unqualified way. The 
 author has himself qualified it by the use of the word 
 "average." But when reduced to its lowest terms it is, 
 I think, the most serious statement which has been made 
 of late concerning the social life of the country; for it 
 purports to be the statement of a mental fact. If Mr. 
 Mitchell had said that in his opinion the conditions 
 affecting the wage earner were becoming fixed condi- 
 tions, that would have been a statement of grave import, 
 but quite different from the one made. Here is an 
 interpretation of the mind of the wage earner, from one 
 well qualified to give an interpretation of it, to the effect 
 that the average wage earner has reached a state of 
 mind in which he accepts the fixity of his condition. 
 
 *The paragraph from which this quotation is made is as follows: "The 
 average wage earner has made up his mind that he must remain a wage earner. 
 He has given up the hope of a kingdom to come, where he himself will be a 
 capitalist, and he asks that the reward for his work be given him as a working 
 man. Singly, he has been too weak to enforce his just demands, and he has 
 sought strength in union, and has associated himself into organizations."
 
 168 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 Having reached this state of mind the best thing which 
 can be done is to organize the wage earner into a system 
 through which he may gain the greatest advantage pos- 
 sible within his accepted hmitations. I am not disposed 
 to take issue with the conclusion of the argument ( I am 
 a firm believer in trade unions), but I do not like the 
 major premise of the argument. I should be sorry to 
 believe that it was altogether true. And in so far as it 
 is true, in so far, that is, as we are confronted by this 
 mental fact, I believe that we should address ourselves 
 to it quite as definitely as to the physical facts which 
 enter into the labor problem. 
 
 If "the average wage earner has made up his mind 
 that he must remain a wage earner," we have a new 
 type of solidarity, new at least to this country. No 
 other man among us has made up his mind to accept 
 his condition. The majority of men are accepting the 
 conditions of their daily work, but it is not an enforced 
 acceptance. This is true of the great body of people 
 engaged in farming, in mercantile pursuits, and in most 
 of the underpaid professional employments. In the 
 social order one of two things must be present to create 
 solidarity, pride or a grievance. An aristocracy of 
 birth is welded together by pride. It perpetuates itself 
 through the increasing pride of each new generation. 
 An aristocracy is an inheritance not of wealth, for some 
 "families" are very poor, but of an assured state of 
 mind. An aristocrat does not have to make up his 
 mind, it has been made up for him. An aristocracy is 
 in this respect entirely different from a plutocracy. A 
 plutocracy is at any given time merely an aggregation 
 of wealth. People are struggling to get into it and 
 are continually falling out of it. There is no mental
 
 "MIND OF THE WAGE EARNER" 169 
 
 repose in a plutocracy. It is a restless, struggling, dis- 
 integrating mass. It has no inherent solidarity. 
 
 Next to pride the chief source of solidarity is a griev- 
 ance. The solidarity may be transient or permanent. 
 It lasts as long as the sense of grievance lasts. Some- 
 times the sense of grievance is worn out : then you have 
 to invent some other term than solidarity to express the 
 deplorable condition into which a mass of people may 
 fall. But whenever the sense of dissatisfaction is wide- 
 spread and permanent, it deepens into a grievance 
 which creates solidarity. The human element involved 
 is at work to intensify and perpetuate itself. 
 
 Now when it is said that "the average wage earner 
 has made up his mind that he must remain a wage 
 earner," the saying assumes unwillingness on his part, 
 the sense of necessity, and therefore a grievance which, 
 as it is communicated from man to man, creates a soli- 
 darity. If you can eliminate the grievance, you break 
 up the solidarity. The wage earner then becomes, like 
 the farmer, the trader, the schoolmaster, a man of a 
 given occupation. The fact of the great number of 
 wage earners signifies nothing in a social sense, unless 
 they are bound together by a grievance, unless they have 
 made up their mind to some conclusion which separates 
 them from the community at large or the body politic. 
 
 We have come, it seems to me, to the most advanced 
 question concerning "labor," as we find ourselves in the 
 presence of this great mental fact which Mr. Mitchell 
 asserts. What can be done to so affect "the mind of 
 the wage earner" that it will not work toward that kind 
 of solidarity which will be of injury to him and to 
 society ? 
 
 It is, of course, entirely obvious that a greater free-
 
 170 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 dom of mind on the part of the wage earner may be 
 expected to follow the betterment of his condition. 
 This betterment of condition is the one and final object 
 of the trade union. I doubt if one-half of that which 
 the trade union has gained for the wage earner could 
 have been gained in any other way. I doubt if one- 
 quarter of the gain would have been reached in any 
 other way. Trade unionism is the business method of 
 effecting the betterment of the wage earner under the 
 highly organized conditions of the modern industrial 
 world. 
 
 But trade unionism at its best must do its work within 
 two clear limitations. In the first place, every advance 
 which it tries to make in behalf of the wage earner as 
 such finds a natural limit. The principle of exclusive- 
 ness, of separate advantage, is a limited principle. At 
 a given point, now here, now there, it is sure to react 
 upon itself, or to be turned back. Organization meets 
 opposing organization. Public interests become in- 
 volved. Moral issues are raised. The co-operating 
 sympathy of men, which can always be counted upon in 
 any fair appeal to it, turns at once to rebuke and 
 restraint if it is abused. The wage earner in a democ- 
 racy will never be allowed to get far beyond the average 
 man through any exclusive advantages which he may 
 attempt by organization. 
 
 In the second place, trade unionisms can deal with 
 the wage earner only as a wage earner, and he is more 
 than a wage earner. There comes a time when he can- 
 not be satisfied with wages. The betterment of his con- 
 dition creates wants beyond those which it satisfies. 
 The growing mind of the wage earner, like anybody's 
 mind, seeks to widen its environment. It wants con-
 
 "MIND OF THE WAGE EARNER" 171 
 
 tact with other kinds of minds. When once it becomes 
 aware of its provinciaHsm it tries to escape from it, a 
 fact which is clearly attested in the broadening social 
 and political relations of the stronger labor leaders. 
 
 But while I believe that trade unionism is the busi- 
 ness method of enlarging the mind of the wage earner 
 through the betterment of his condition, I think that the 
 time has come for the use, or adaptation of other means 
 which may give it freedom and expansion. 
 
 One means of preventing a narrow and exclusive 
 solidarity of wage earners is greater identification on 
 their part with the community through the acquisition 
 of local property. Mobihty is, in the earlier stages of 
 the development of the wage earner, the source of his 
 strength. He can easily change to his interest. No 
 advantage can be taken of his fixity. He can put him- 
 self, without loss, into the open market. He can avail 
 himself at once of the highest market price, provided 
 his change of place does not affect injuriously his fellow 
 workers in the union, an exception of growing concern. 
 
 But in the more advanced stages of labor the wage 
 earner gains the privilege of localizing himself, and in 
 so doing he takes a long step in the direction of full and 
 free citizenship. A good deposit in a savings bank adds 
 to his social value, but that value is greatly enhanced 
 by exchanging it for a good house. 
 
 I am aware that in advocating the acquisition of local 
 property I touch upon the large and as yet undeter- 
 mined question of the decentralization of labor. If the 
 great cities are to be the home of the industries, then 
 this idea can be realized in only a partial degree through 
 suburban homes. But if the industries are to seek out 
 or establish smaller centers, then the wage earner has
 
 172 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 the opportunity to become more distinctly and more 
 conspicuously a citizen. 
 
 Another means of giving freedom and expansion to 
 the wage earning poj^ulation, in place of a narrow and 
 exclusive solidarity, is by giving to it ready access to 
 the higher education. There is no reason why the 
 former experience of the New England farmer and the 
 present experience of the western farmer should not be 
 repeated in the family of the intelligent wage earner. 
 The sons of the New England farmer who were sent to 
 college identified their families with the state and 
 church, and with all public interests. 
 
 They lifted the family horizon. I have said that this 
 experience may be repeated in the families of the wage 
 earner. It is being repeated. Let me give you an 
 illustration with which I am familiar. The students 
 at Dartmouth are divided about as follows, according 
 to the occupation of their fathers: Forty per cent are 
 the sons of business men, twenty-five per cent of profes- 
 sional men, fifteen per cent of farmers ; of the remain- 
 ing twenty per cent, more than half are the sons of wage 
 earners. The per cent from the shops now equals that 
 from the farm. I have no doubt that this proportion 
 will hold in most of our eastern colleges and uni- 
 versities. The home of the wage earner is becoming a 
 recruiting ground for the higher education, which 
 no college can afford to overlook. As Professor 
 Marshall, the English economist, has said, "Since the 
 manual labor classes are four or five times as numerous 
 as all other classes put together, it is not unlikely that 
 more than half of the best natural genius that is born 
 into the country belongs to them." And from this 
 statement he goes on to draw the conclusion that "there
 
 "MIND OF THE WAGE EARNER" 173 
 
 is no extravagance more prejudicial to the growth of 
 the national wealth than that wasteful negligence which 
 allows genius which happens to be born of lowly par- 
 entage to expend itself in lowly work." So much for 
 the necessity of fresh, virile, and self-supporting stock 
 to the higher education, if it is to discharge its obligation 
 to society. 
 
 Virility is as essential to educational progress as it is 
 to industrial progress. I am in the habit of saying that, 
 from an educational point of view, it is on the whole 
 easier to make blue blood out of red blood, than it is to 
 make red blood out of blue blood. 
 
 The reaction from the higher education upon the 
 family of the wage earner is yet to be seen, but no one 
 can doubt its broadening influence. As the represent- 
 atives of these families become more numerous in our 
 colleges and universities, and as they have time to make 
 a place for themselves in all the great callings, they will 
 of necessity lift those whom they represent toward their 
 own level. Some of them will become captains of in- 
 dustry. I believe that in that capacity they will also 
 become leaders of labor. For, as it seems to me, the set- 
 tlement of the relations of capital and labor is to be 
 more and more not in the hands of men who have been 
 trained away from one another, but in the hands of men 
 who have been trained toward one another. If we are to 
 have industrial peace we must have the industrial virtues. 
 These virtues are honesty in work and in the wage of 
 work, absolute fidelity on both sides in keeping agree- 
 ments at whatever cost, and above all, that sense of jus- 
 tice which can come only through the ability of one man 
 to put himself in another man's place. This last virtue 
 ought to be the product of the intellectual and ethical
 
 174 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 training of the schools. It is their business to teach us 
 how to think rightly, as well as how to feel rightly to- 
 ward our fellow men. 
 
 I mention another source of freedom and breadth and 
 power to the wage earner, a source which is common to 
 all, namely, satisfaction in his work. The wage is not, 
 and never can be, the sufficient reward of labor. This 
 is just as true of the salary as of the wage. The differ- 
 ence at present lies in the fact that the person on a low 
 salary is apt to take more satisfaction in his work than 
 the person on a high wage — the school teacher on $800 
 or $1,000 a year in distinction from the mechanic on $4 
 or $6 a day. The present ambition of the higher wage- 
 earner seems to incline more to the pecuniary rewards 
 of his work than to the work itself. Doubtless this 
 tendency is due in no slight degree to the fact that the 
 wage earner is brought into constant and immediate 
 contact with the money-making class. He sees that the 
 value of the industry is measured chiefly by its profits. 
 Sometimes the profits are flaunted in his face. At all 
 times the thing most in evidence to him is money. I 
 deprecate this constant comparison between the work- 
 man and other men whose chief reward is money. The 
 old time professions still live and maintain their position 
 through a certain detachment from pecuniary rewards. 
 The exceptional doctor may receive large fees, but his 
 profession forbids him to make a dollar out of any dis- 
 covery which he may make in medicine. The excep- 
 tional minister may receive a large salary, but his pro- 
 fession puts the premium upon self-denying work. 
 Even the law is more distinctively represented by the 
 moderate salary of the average judge, than by the 
 retainer of the counsel for a wealthy corporation. The
 
 "MIND OF THE WAGE EARNER" 1T5 
 
 skilled workman, the artisan, belongs with these men, 
 not with the money makers. In allowing himself to be 
 commercialized he enters upon a cheap and unsatisfying 
 competition. His work is an art, and he has the possi- 
 ble rewards of the artist. Under mediaevalism the 
 guild and the university were not far apart. I should 
 like to see the relation restored and extended. 
 
 I am not speaking in this connection of the unskilled 
 laborer. There is a point below which it is impossible 
 to idealize labor. The man who works in ceaseless and 
 petty monotony, and under physical discomfort and 
 danger, cannot do anything more than to earn an honest 
 hvelihood, if, indeed, he receives the Hving wage. But 
 he is as far removed from the advanced wage earner of 
 our day as he is from any of the well-supported and 
 well-rewarded classes. For him we are all bound to 
 work, and to act, and to think, not as an object of our 
 charity, but as a part of our industrial brotherhood. 
 And whenever a great labor leader, be he John Burns 
 or John Mitchell, goes to his relief and tries to give him 
 self-supporting and self-respecting standing, we should 
 count it not a duty but an honor to follow the leading. 
 But equally do I hold it to be a duty and an honor, 
 on the part of the wage earner that as he advances in 
 intelligence, in pecuniary reward, and in position, he 
 should take his place without any reservation whatever 
 among those who are trying to meet the responsibilities 
 which attach to citizenship in a democracy. 
 
 I have not attempted to enter at all in this brief 
 discussion into the technical aspects of your work, 
 but I am aware that I have covered ground en- 
 tirely familiar to you. Very likely your broader judg- 
 ment and clearer insight into details may modify
 
 176 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 some of my positions or make them untenable. But 
 viewing the present disposition and purpose of the best 
 intentioned leaders in the ranks of organized labor, with 
 many of whom you have to do, I am convinced that 
 their avowed object is not commensurate with their 
 opportunity. I am convinced that the interpretation 
 put upon the mind of the wage earner, if it represents 
 a present fact, ought to suggest a duty toward the mind 
 of labor. That duty is to give it freedom, breadth, 
 expansion, to incorporate it into the common mind of 
 aspiration and hope, the American type of mind. In 
 saying this I do not overlook or minimize the impera- 
 tive duty to raise the lowest wage earner to the highest 
 place to which he can be lifted, and to give a future 
 to his children and to his children's children. I would 
 urge in the full apostolic sense the old apostolic injunc- 
 tion, "We that are strong ought to bear the infirmities 
 of the weak." But I would not stop with this duty. I 
 would make the wage earner as he grows stronger a 
 helper all round, a partner in all the serious work of the 
 republic, an active power in that commonwealth which 
 draws no line within the wants or hopes of man.
 
 XIII 
 
 THE REPEAL OF THE CHARTER OF THE 
 NEW ENGLAND BREEDERS' CLUB 
 
 Address at a Meeting of Citizens of Manchester, N. H., January 
 
 14, 1906 
 
 The New England Breeders' Club is a chartered 
 institution of the State of New Hampshire. The fact 
 regarding it now before the people of the state is the 
 fact of occupancy. The institution is here, established 
 within our borders, intrenched in its chartered rights, 
 with large investments already made, and with prepara- 
 tions well in hand for its first season. The question of 
 its admission to the state is not the question before us. 
 If that question of a year ago could be recalled, if it 
 were still an open question, if it had ever been an open 
 question, it would have taken, or would now take, no 
 longer to deny it a place in the state than it took to give 
 it a place in the state. 
 
 The New England Breeders' Club is not here by acci- 
 dent. The ease with which it found its way into the 
 state is a mark of the intelligence of its promoters, but 
 it does not measure their intelligence. Their experi- 
 ence, their skill, their resources of every kind have 
 hardly as yet been drawn upon. These are largely in 
 reserve for use in resisting any attempt at dislodgment, 
 and if successful in this resistance, for use in evading 
 the law. Let not the people of the state repeat the 
 mistake already made of underestimating the craft or 
 power of this institution. 
 
 12
 
 178 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 We must approach the issue then with which we are 
 now confronted through this fact of possession. We 
 have to deal with something chartered, estabHshed, and 
 making ready to operate. Hence the question that Hes 
 at the very threshold of all discussion and of all effort. 
 Have we sufficient law to control this institution and 
 restrict its operations within legitimate ends? If we 
 have, if the Supreme Court shall so decide, provided 
 it is asked for a decision, then the moral forces of the 
 state must be aroused to secure a vigorous and relent- 
 less enforcement of the law. If we do not have law 
 enough, law which can be guaranteed by the sufficient 
 authority, then we must have more law, and the sooner 
 we proceed to make it the better. The recall of the 
 Legislature in special session to repeal the charter of 
 the New England Breeders' Club would accomplish an 
 insufficient result, should it do this only, and not proceed 
 straightway to enact laws against gambling in connec- 
 tion with race-tracks, sufficient to prevent any illegiti- 
 mate operations of the New England Breeders' Club, 
 should it return and incorporate under the general laws 
 of the state. A special session of the Legislature 
 might retrieve a great mistake, and incidentally it might 
 do much to clear the air of personal suspicions, but it 
 would not do the business of the hour, it would not 
 bring its business up to date, unless it should give us 
 laws called out by, and commensurate with the present 
 emergency. The immediate and ultimate question, as 
 it seems to me, in this whole matter is the question of 
 law, about which we want, as nearly as possible, abso- 
 lute certainty. 
 
 Here is the significance of the petition of the Com- 
 mittee of Twelve now before the Governor and Coun-
 
 NEW ENGLAND BREEDERS' CLUB 179 
 
 cil. The petitioners ask for an authoritative and deci- 
 sive answer to this question. The Governor and Coun- 
 cil, acting upon this petition, may act in one of two 
 ways. They may refer the question of the sufficiency 
 of existing laws to the Supreme Court, or declining 
 such reference, they may assume the responsibility, as 
 the executive officers of the state, of trying to prove by 
 the enforcement of existing laws that these are sufficient 
 to prevent gambling, in the sense of betting on the races, 
 in and around the Salem race-track. The sub-commit- 
 tee of the Committee of Twelve did not understand 
 from the consideration of the opinion of the Attorney 
 General (kindly submitted to it before formal presenta- 
 tion) , and we do not imderstand from the reconsidera- 
 tion of it, since it appeared in print, that the Attorney 
 General offered his opinion to divert an appeal to the 
 Supreme Court, nor do we understand that the opinion 
 is urged to the extent of guaranteeing the sufficiency of 
 the law for the purposes of executive action. If the 
 Governor and Council shall deem it wise to decHne a 
 reference to the Supreme Court, or if, in the event of 
 reference, the Supreme Court shall decline to answer, 
 or if, in the event of its consideration of the question 
 referred, it shall decide that we do not have sufficient 
 law for dealing with the operations of this Club, then 
 the way seems to me straight and clear for an appeal 
 for a special session of the Legislature. The sub-com- 
 mittee virtually say this in their petition to the Governor 
 and Council: 
 
 "If it shall be determined that the means at our dis- 
 posal are inadequate to meet the exigencies of the situ- 
 ation, you will then be in position intelligently and 
 fearlessly to decide the question which will inevitably
 
 180 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 arise, — whether it is your duty to call a special session 
 of the Legislature to repair legislative errors and 
 omissions of the past, by repealing the obnoxious char- 
 ter or removing its objectionable features, and by pro- 
 viding laws which shall beyond all question cover all 
 possible forms of race-track betting, with such adminis- 
 trative features as shall make them capable of prompt 
 enforcement, and with such penalties as have elsewhere 
 been found effective. 
 
 "Whenever the legislature may assemble, it should 
 know the precise evils to be remedied, and the limita- 
 tions, if any, upon its powers to remedy them. It 
 should not pass laws which may afterwards be held to 
 be beyond its legislative powers; nor should it be 
 deterred from the adoption of proper measures by the 
 cry that its contemplated action is 'unconstitutional.' 
 It should know the extent and the limits of its powers, 
 and the precise exigencies of the occasion calling for 
 their exercise. 
 
 "We cannot too strongly urge upon you the impor- 
 tance, before this corporation shall be established and 
 in operation on New Hampshire soil, and so strongly 
 intrenched in its position that it can be dislodged only 
 by the most strenuous efforts, if at all, of assuring your- 
 selves and the people of this state that we are in a 
 position to control with a strong hand the operation of 
 this, to us, unfamiliar institution." 
 
 Now that we have really discovered what the situa- 
 tion is, — it has been a slow process — it seems almost im- 
 possible that we should waste further time in uncer- 
 tainty as to the grounds of action. So long as we do 
 not know what it is necessary to do, we are weak. When 
 we know what we can, or cannot do, further delay is
 
 NEW ENGLAND BREEDERS' CLUB 181 
 
 culpable. Personally, I have believed from the first, 
 and still believe that the Legislature through which this 
 institution was unwittingly let into the state should 
 have the opportunity of retrieving the mistake. When 
 any open minded man has made a mistake, involving 
 serious consequences, his first impulse is to correct it. 
 We often get the wisest actions from those who in 
 their simplicity are closest to nature. An old colored 
 preacher, to whom it was pointed out, as he came down 
 from the pulpit, that he had given the wrong meaning to 
 his text, upon being convinced of his error, went straight 
 back into the pulpit and cried out in a great humihty, 
 "The Lord help dis old man to unpreach dat sermon." 
 Let us, by all means, if it be possible, give the Legisla- 
 ture the chance to uncharter this institution. And hav- 
 ing done this, let it improve the occasion to make 
 laws, if we need them, which shall be equal to this or 
 any like emergency. And as I intimated a moment 
 ago, I believe that the recalling of the Legislature will 
 give the fit opportunity for direct personal statement 
 on the part of men who have no reason for concealing 
 the truth, but who lack the fit occasion for personal 
 statement. 
 
 Whatever interpretation, however, the Governor and 
 Council may put upon this opinion, or upon the argu- 
 ment of the petitioners, for reference to the Supreme 
 Court, we are not to anticipate that there will be any 
 desire on their part to evade the broad and serious ques- 
 tion before them, and, therefore, pending their action, 
 we may proceed to address ourselves as citizens to the 
 underlying question, — Why should we concern our- 
 selves about the chartering of the New England 
 Breeders' Club and the establishment of its race-track 
 at Salem?
 
 182 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 It is not an agreeable task for any man to turn aside 
 from his chosen and urgent work to take up some other- 
 wise neglected duty which belongs, in common, to aU 
 citizens. But unless men are willing to do their duty as 
 citizens, in an emergency, I do not know how the Gov- 
 ernment can do, or can be expected to do, its duty 
 effectively. Law cannot take command of new moral 
 situations, except as it can act in a bracing moral 
 atmosphere. The supporting power must be an aroused 
 public sentiment. The motives which may create this 
 public sentiment will vary, certainly in their intensity. 
 In this case many citizens will act chiefly for the honor 
 of the state or for the public good. Others, among 
 whom you are to be reckoned, have an added motive 
 from the danger which lies at your very threshold. 
 There is not a city in the lower Merrimack which is not 
 threatened by this invasion. There is not a shop, or a 
 store, or an office, or a home in all this region which is 
 not in danger from this new and fascinating dishonesty. 
 
 And yet a good many citizens are asking, why should 
 we concern ourselves about this business? Why not 
 wait and see what will happen? What is there which 
 calls for this agitation in advance? 
 
 It is not possible to make men feel a future calamity. 
 No prophet has ever been able to do that. But it ought 
 to be possible to undeceive thinking men who are indif- 
 ferent to an impending danger, and to prepare their 
 minds for action when the time for action arrives. As 
 one, therefore, of those who have been asked to investi- 
 gate the organization and purpose of the New England 
 Breeders' Club, and whose duty must largely rest at 
 this point, I will tell you briefly, though at the risk of 
 repetition, why I beheve that this Club should not be
 
 NEW ENGLAND BREEDERS' CLUB 183 
 
 quietly accepted as a chartered institution of the State 
 of New Hampshire. 
 
 In the first place, it is evidently not what it claims 
 to be. It claims to be an organization for "raising, 
 importing, and improving the breed of horses and other 
 domestic animals in the state of New Hampshire." 
 That is not, and never was, its essential object. It 
 introduced itself into the state as an organization under 
 the management of New Hampshire men. It proved 
 to be an importation from New York. It offered a 
 charter, apparently proof against gambling in all forms. 
 Its charter was virtually a copy of a New York law 
 devised to allow and sanction gambling, under which 
 eight race courses in the state of New York have been in 
 successful operation for ten years as gambling institu- 
 tions. The presumption created by this process of 
 studied concealment and misrepresentation cannot be 
 explained away to the satisfaction of any honest minded 
 man. When a man has been imposed upon, when a 
 man's state has been imposed upon, he is in no mood for 
 smooth words. 
 
 In the second place, not only is the New England 
 Breeders' Club evidently not what it claims to be, it is 
 in part only what it appears to be. It appears to be an 
 organization for legitimate sport, and that it is in part ; 
 and in so far as it is that we have no concern with it. 
 Personally I may go further than some of you in my 
 advocacy of out-of-door sports. I believe in them. 
 Recreation is not enough. Sport, organized sport, has 
 a legitimate place in our modern life. The game which 
 interests the public as well as the player is on the whole 
 a healthy stimulus. I do not say that our great public 
 games are free from evils. I do not say that our aca-
 
 184 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 demic sports are free from evils. I am not here to utter 
 cant. But I do claim that there is a vast difference 
 between an evil, like that of betting, which may be inci- 
 dental to any contest (men may bet on an election) , and 
 that same evil organized into a sport and made by the 
 majority the sport itself. And this organization of 
 the evil of betting into the sport until it becomes the 
 chief element in the sport itself, is what the race track at 
 Salem means. The five dollar enclosure for betting is 
 just as much a part of the institution as the track itself. 
 I do not know that the proprietors and managers of the 
 New England Breeders' Club have ever sought to con- 
 ceal the fact that they propose to bet on the races, they 
 and their friends. What they propose avowedly to do 
 is to retire book-making and pool-selling. Book-mak- 
 ing and pool-selling make betting democratic and there- 
 fore vulgar. The distinction in the avowed code of the 
 club is a social distinction. Within the enclosure bet- 
 ting ; without the enclosure gambling. 
 
 It is just this attempted distinction between vice 
 which is vulgar and vice which is gilded, of which the 
 American people are becoming weary. Social pharisa- 
 ism is not a whit better than religious pharisaism. 
 Things do not change their nature by changing their 
 name. Gambling does not cease to be gambling through 
 any sifting of the people who gamble, nor through any 
 refinement of the art. When District Attorney Jerome 
 attacks and breaks up Canfield's, he attacks and breaks 
 up a gambling house for gentlemen. 
 
 There is moreover a certain recklessness in the use of 
 social influence which is characteristic of organizations 
 like the New England Breeders' Club. It is a part of 
 the unseemly vanity of the idle rich and of their craze
 
 NEW ENGLAND BREEDERS' CLUB 185 
 
 for publicity. Why should this club set itself up at a 
 point in this state accessible to nearly one half the pop- 
 ulation of New England ? Why should this club plant 
 itself in the midst of the industries of the lower Merri- 
 mack? Why should its devotion to betting, under the 
 guise of sport, be carried out regardless of the effect of 
 its practices upon the vast numbers whom it expects to 
 attract to its grounds? 
 
 One cannot go far in this questioning about reckless- 
 ness without going over into the suspicion of purpose 
 and design ; but accepting for the moment these men at 
 their best, allowing them the benefit of their denials, 
 what are they here for? By what rights, private or 
 social, or pubhc, do they introduce their corrupting 
 speculation, and unwholesome excitement? By what 
 right do they change the atmosphere of this valley from 
 that of sober but cheerful industry to that of unrest, 
 speculation, and unwholesome excitement? By what 
 right do they flaunt their superfluous and idle wealth in 
 the face of the toiling earners of the daily bread? It is 
 just such reckless, wasteful business as this, which is 
 causing men elsewhere to ask what society calls dan- 
 gerous questions, to think what society calls dangerous 
 thoughts, to do what society calls dangerous things. 
 
 What appears to be a sport, and what is in part a 
 sport, is in reality, and in the greater part, nothing but 
 gambling ; and the greater the social distinction attach- 
 ing to it, the greater the temptation. There is no evil 
 spirit which can be set loose in a community which will 
 do its work so quickly, so surely, and so thoroughly as 
 the gambling spirit. It is the spirit which seeks 
 entrance into this community under the most deceptive 
 and attractive guise. I believe that the majority of
 
 186 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 men in this state who want the sport do not want 
 it imbedded in a gambling institution. I believe 
 that among the men who might not hesitate to 
 bet at a race, there are many who as citizens of this 
 state do not want this institution here. For the differ- 
 ence is wide, and manifest, between an evil which may 
 be incidental to any sport, and that same evil (in this 
 case betting), organized into a given sport, and made 
 the essential part of the sport itself. 
 
 In the third place, contrary to what it claims to be, 
 contrary also in greater part to what it appears to be, 
 the New England Breeders' Club is a commercialized 
 institution, belonging by its history and its affiliations 
 to a great gambling system operating throughout the 
 country. This is no ordinary gentlemen's club, made 
 up of summer residents, for purposes of private amuse- 
 ment. It sets up an amusement, at the moral expense 
 of the public, for private gain. The gambling business 
 of the country, so far as it is associated with racing asso- 
 ciations and jockey clubs, is a monopoly, or if it is not 
 a monopoly it is not for lack of effort to make it such. 
 Here lay in part the significance of President Harri- 
 son's veto of a bill similar in character to the charter of 
 the New England Breeders' Club. It is this monop- 
 olistic system which is trying the doors of our legisla- 
 tures as occasion may offer, the system which has 
 recently suffered repulse in the states of Pennsylvania, 
 Ohio, and Missouri. Its principles are the same every- 
 where; its methods vary only according to its evasions 
 of law ; the men who operate the system are in good part 
 the same. The Governors of the New England 
 Breeders' Club are well known figures on the various 
 race-tracks of the country where gambling flourishes
 
 NEW ENGLAND BREEDERS' CLUB 187 
 
 unchecked. The subordinates who manage affairs at 
 the races, and preside at the various functions, are inter- 
 changeable. And yet we are asked to beheve that in 
 the setting up of this establishment at Salem, at an 
 expense equal to that of other properties of a like 
 nature, we are asked to believe that in the operation of 
 this particular part of the system, the principles which 
 obtain elsewhere are to be disowned, the methods which 
 obtain elsewhere are to be discarded, and that this estab- 
 lishment is to be operated with a very great doubt as 
 to its being able to make the ends meet, but with a view 
 at any cost of furnishing healthful amusement for the 
 people in the neighborhood of Salem ! 
 
 I do not care to presume upon your time, or seem to 
 distrust your intelligence, by further exposition of the 
 character of this institution which has begun its char- 
 tered existence in our state. When once we are con- 
 vinced of the character of an institution of this sort, 
 nothing is gained by familiarity with its more repulsive 
 details. There is this, however, to be said, that through 
 the invasion of our state by this great gambling system, 
 we are brought into sympathy with other states which 
 have suffered or are suffering at its hands. Certainly 
 if it should come into operation here, you would read 
 with different eyes the record of defalcations and sui- 
 cides, of loss of employment and failures in business, 
 and of the breaking up of homes, which follows the 
 annual season of every chartered race-track in the state 
 of New York — the models of the course at Salem. God 
 forbid that our sympathy should wait upon experience. 
 We are also reminded to the degree of impression, as 
 we begin to realize the grasp which this institution 
 already has upon our state, of the immense power of
 
 188 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 corrupt and corrupting wealth. This power is no 
 longer an abstraction. We have not yet shaken it off. 
 The test is yet to come. It may be humiliating to us, it 
 is humiliating to us, as citizens of this state that for any 
 reason New Hampshire was chosen as the seat of the 
 New England Breeders' Club. Let the sense of humil- 
 iation remain upon us till we have taken measures suffi- 
 cient to recover the honor of the state.
 
 XIV 
 
 THE TREATY OF PORTSMOUTH IN 
 
 RETROSPECT 
 
 Address at the Unveiling of Commemorative Tablet in the Navy 
 Yard at Kittery, Me., September 5, 1906 
 
 The unveiling of the tablet which records the date of 
 the signing of the Treaty of Portsmouth, brings back 
 the day itself with a distinctness which is almost vivid. 
 The days which had inmiediately preceded, as many of 
 you will recall, had been days of grave suspense. 
 Enough was known outside the sessions of the envoys 
 to make it evident, not only that the questions at issue 
 were becoming more and more acute, but also that the 
 personal feeling attending the discussion was becoming 
 more and more tense. The representatives of the press, 
 especially those from abroad, who had been trained to 
 study and interpret the various phases and moods of 
 diplomatic controversy, gave us naturally, as the result 
 of their daily observations, changing and often conflict- 
 ing reports. The procedure, as it appeared to those 
 without, was not a slow, steady advance from point to 
 point toward a probable conclusion, but an uncertain 
 though strenuous effort which might at any moment ter- 
 minate in disheartening failure. No one knew the 
 actual powers of the envoys themselves, what influ- 
 ences, financial or other, might interfere with their per- 
 sonal choices, or what absolute authority might inter- 
 pose to command their decision. Every one interested 
 had to take counsel with himself as best he could, accord-
 
 190 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 ing to his reasoning based on the course of events, or 
 according to the scanty though suggestive bits of infor- 
 mation which were continually coming to hand, or 
 according to his own temperament. Of all the persons, 
 whom I chanced to know who were indirectly concerned 
 with the proceedings, or who were close spectators, the 
 only one who was consistently hopeful to the very end 
 was his Excellency, Governor McLane. 
 
 When, therefore, the announcement of the signing of 
 the Treaty came with such startling suddenness, the joy 
 of the news was that of a great relief rather than that 
 of an assured result. The feehng of suspense simply 
 gave way to anxiety. Men began to ask what was the 
 meaning of the settlement? The terms of the settle- 
 ment were evident, what did they mean? Would the 
 nations, rulers and peoples be satisfied with the agree- 
 ment ? Was the agreement to be peace, substantial and 
 lasting peace? 
 
 The answer to this question is very much clearer in 
 the retrospect of the year than it was at the time. 
 When the treaty was signed, Russia was suffering too 
 keenly from defeat to allow any terms of settlement to 
 be acceptable. The people of Japan were expecting an 
 indemnity, and anything less in the way of settlement 
 was sure to be a bitter disappointment. Whatever 
 judgment may be passed upon the diplomatic struggle, 
 it cannot be said that the result of it, as expressed in the 
 terms of the treaty, was popular with either nation. 
 The reaction, affecting the immediate fortune of the 
 chief agents, was in fact pathetic. Baron Komura 
 encountered marked popular disfavor upon his return, 
 though his action was officially approved, and subse- 
 quently confirmed by his appointment as ambassador
 
 THE TREATY OF PORTSMOUTH 191 
 
 to England. Count Witte, in spite of his brilliant 
 diplomatic service, was not acclaimed by the people of 
 Russia on his return, and he did not long retain the full 
 confidence of the Czar. The interest which each had 
 awakened by his personality — Komura, reserved, seri- 
 ous, the scholar in diplomacy; Witte, accessible, skill- 
 fully bold and aggressive, the man of affairs — :^he inter- 
 est which each had awakened and which followed after 
 both, was that of respectful and affectionate sympathy, 
 as each went his way to new responsibiHties and to new 
 trials. In no sense could any one have affirmed at the 
 time of its acceptance that the treaty was a finality. 
 
 But what might not have been accomplished by the 
 treaty through its terms of settlement, the treaty did 
 accomplish as a fact. It ended the immediate confllict, 
 and, in so doing, it became a new point of departure for 
 both Russia and Japan. It set free for each people the 
 internal forces which were ready for action. Immedi- 
 ately upon the adoption of the treaty each nation 
 became entirely preoccupied with its own affairs. 
 Russia and Japan are today as clearly unrelated to one 
 another by dangerous questions of mutual concern as 
 any two nations of Europe. The preoccupation of 
 each nation with its own imperative concerns is the guar- 
 antee of peace, a condition made possible and brought 
 into evidence by the treaty. 
 
 I quote from a recent letter of a correspondent in 
 Japan, who has returned to his native land after an 
 absence of ten years: "The general appearance," he 
 says, "(in all things) is that the nation is straining its 
 nerves to do more than it can actually do, simply because 
 it must. There are weak spots on every side, and there 
 is hardly any surplus power in anything." It is evi-
 
 192 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 dent that the spirit of sacrifice, which was so magnifi- 
 cently illustrated in the war, must be still further shown 
 in the recovery and advancement of the nation. The 
 part which Japan aspires to take in the development of 
 the Far East requires a corresponding development of 
 her own resources. Nothing but years of peaceful 
 development can make Japan the arbiter of the East. 
 
 The task before Russia seems more formidable and 
 more exacting. It is possible to measure the economic 
 reconstruction of a nation. It is impossible to calculate 
 in any certain terms the political regeneration of a peo- 
 ple. The political regeneration of Russia may come 
 through revolution. It may come through the orderly 
 processes of legislation. In either event the problem 
 can be solved only by the protracted concentration of 
 the nation upon itself. No diversion of power, as 
 through a foreign war, can meet the issue. The imme- 
 diate future of Russia is pledged to its own political life. 
 
 So far then as the Treaty of Portsmouth has given to 
 the world a guarantee of peace, it has furnished that 
 guarantee chiefly through the opportunity and the 
 incentive which it gave the two great nations at war to 
 go their separate ways, in fulfillment of their imperative 
 individual necessities. 
 
 But what shall we say of the return to our own nation 
 for the part which it took in bringing about the Treaty 
 of Portsmouth? We have made as a nation two ven- 
 tures into the larger life of the world, first when by the 
 fortune, if not by the accident of war, we took posses- 
 sion of the Philippines, and again when at the invitation 
 of the President of the United States the warring states 
 of the East were brought together on this spot to confer 
 upon the conditions of peace. I have spoken of the
 
 THE TREATY OF PORTSMOUTH 193 
 
 Conference as the result of the invitation of the Presi- 
 dent. It was more than an invitation which he sent to 
 the rulers of Russia and Japan. It was an earnest 
 though dignified appeal in behalf of the nations them- 
 selves, and in behalf of the wide kinsliip of nations. I 
 cannot overestimate the educating power of this action, 
 with its attendant result, upon the people of this coun- 
 try. In our occupancy of the Philippines we assumed 
 great obligations, international as well as national. We 
 put ourselves under the eye of the world, where our 
 behavior would be judged by standards new to us. The 
 responsibility which we then undertook has had increas- 
 ingly a sobering effect upon the nation. 
 
 The effect of the bringing hither of the representa- 
 tives of Russia and Japan upon so momentous an errand 
 was different. In a superficial way it appealed to our 
 imagination, perhaps to our vanity. But in a far 
 deeper sense, at least to all thoughtful minds, it broad- 
 ened the vision of this people and taught us the great 
 lesson of humility. The nations, which came together 
 on this spot through their envoys, represented races 
 which have in their keeping, perhaps as much as 
 we or our kindred, the future of the world. In the 
 modern sense they are yet nations in the making. It is 
 from the nations which are still in the making that we 
 have most to fear, or to hope, as it is from the nations 
 that are made, the finished nations, that we have most 
 to learn. History teaches that power lies with the last 
 comer. It is the unspent force among nationalities or 
 races which has in it the latent power of rule. Such a 
 force may suffer waste as in Russia, it may require econ- 
 omy as in Japan, but it belongs to the future. 
 
 It was a timely and much needed lesson taught the 
 
 13
 
 194 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 American people by the coming together of these rising 
 peoples, that not we alone belong to the future. It was 
 a timely and much needed lesson which came to us from 
 actual contact with national characteristics which we 
 had not understood, and from actual contact with na- 
 tional virtues to which we had not attained. I doubt if 
 any act of hospitality on the part of any government 
 ever gave back so large a return in the instruction of its 
 people, as the invitation of President Roosevelt to the 
 powers of Russia and Japan to convene upon this ter- 
 ritory, and to settle their contention in the presence of 
 this people. The tablet which blends so happily the em- 
 blems of the United States with those of Russia and 
 Japan illustrates none too strongly the international 
 bearing and results of the Treaty of Portsmouth. 
 
 I congratulate you. Rear Admiral Mead, that the 
 event which we commemorate today took place during 
 your period of service, and under your immediate care, 
 as Commandant of the Navy Yard. I congratulate all 
 of you who through official or personal relation to this 
 locahty have thereby been identified with so beneficent 
 and so far reaching an event. It is yet to be written, 
 but the page of history on which it shall be written lies 
 open, that here, within these walls, business was trans- 
 acted, which gave new life to nations coming hither from 
 afar, and which taught the people of the land among 
 whom for a little time they sojourned how to measure 
 their own place beside the coming peoples of the world.
 
 XV 
 
 WHAT HAS PATRIOTISM THE RIGHT TO 
 DEMAND OF EDUCATION? 
 
 Address at Union League Club, February 22, 1906 
 
 I think that you will agree with me as I say that patri- 
 otism camiot be completely defined in terms of senti- 
 ment. Patriotism is obedience. When the duty is 
 instant and definite it means, of course, the surrender of 
 self to country. Patriotism is then an act, involving all 
 the consequences to the individual of an act. But when 
 we cannot satisfy patriotism by an act, then it follows 
 hard after us with its inexorable question as to how we 
 are to conduct ourselves generally, how we are to man- 
 age our affairs, how we are to set our ambitions with a 
 view to the good of the country. When patriotism does 
 not speak the language of the imperative, as in times of 
 national peril, its most effective language is the lan- 
 guage of the interrogative, How about your business, 
 your influence, your thinking in its every-day bearing on 
 the public welfare? 
 
 It is in this spirit that I interpret the question to 
 which I am to speak : — What has patriotism the right to 
 demand of education? I accept the question as per- 
 sonal to myself and to men of my business. I do not 
 feel called upon to tell you, who are in other kinds of 
 business, what patriotism demands of you. Probably 
 if I should attempt the task you might recognize the 
 fitness of three-fourths of what I should say; but criti-
 
 196 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 cism, like art, to be effective must be all right, never off 
 key or tone. As a bright woman once said to Mr. 
 Smnner, who in his omniscience was criticising a musical 
 performance, "Why, Charles, what are you talking 
 about; if you should try to sing Old Hundred you 
 couldn't sing more than seventy-five." 
 
 So, then, as for myself and for men of my kind, what 
 does patriotism demand of us in our business of educa- 
 tion, especially of the higher education? 
 
 First of all, I should say that patriotism has the right 
 to demand of us that we do our best to keep not only 
 the idea, but the fact of democracy, free and open to all 
 men. Education is a leveling-up process. There are 
 other like processes. But some of them have already 
 broken, and are no longer working as formerly upon the 
 lower ranges. The most serious word which has been 
 written in our generation, in so far as it declares a fact, 
 is the opening sentence in the recent book of John 
 Mitchell on "Organized Labor" : "The average wage- 
 earner has made up his mind that he must remain a 
 wage-earner." If this be true, whatever may be the 
 cause, then organized industry has ceased to be the aid 
 and helper of democracy. For democracy requires, as 
 the first necessity of its existence, mobility of condition 
 as opposed to fixity of condition. The moment the 
 average man of any class ceases to aspire, and accepts 
 his condition as fixed, that moment he ceases to express 
 in himself the spirit of democracy. 
 
 Turning to education, and especially to the higher 
 education, I find that the leveling-up process is at work 
 here without any break. The mental movement is 
 going on through the ranks of the people, and the path 
 of intellectual progress is open from the lowest place to
 
 THE RIGHTS OF PATRIOTISM 19T 
 
 the highest. There is not a college or a university, so 
 far as I know, however richly it may be endowed, which 
 acknowledges any distinction except that of brains, and 
 which is not, therefore, as much the home of the poor 
 man as of the rich man. Even the incidents of the 
 higher education tend to equalize men. One justifica- 
 tion for athletics is that they are tremendously demo- 
 cratic. College estimates and college honors go, as the 
 almost invariable rule, with the man. Indeed, as it 
 seems to me, the interests of the higher education are 
 bound up in democracy. Our colleges and universities 
 must have their recruiting stations everywhere, at every 
 point of mental possibility, otherwise they will be scant 
 in intellectual power. The intellectual life must have its 
 roots in virility. I have had occasion to say elsewhere — 
 it may be proper to say it in your presence — that from 
 an educational point of view it is on the whole easier to 
 make blue blood out of red blood than it is to make red 
 blood out of blue blood. But the higher education can- 
 not afford to ignore intellectual power of any kind, I 
 had almost said of any quality. It needs the powers 
 which come to it through generations of culture, and it 
 needs the powers which come to it fresh from nature. 
 All of which is but saying that education, if true to its 
 own interests, must keep alive the idea, and keep open 
 and free the fact of democracy ; and in so doing it meets 
 and satisfies the first demand of patriotism. 
 
 I should put as the second demand of patriotism upon 
 education — a demand which I am by no means sure that 
 we are meeting with the same success as the one which 
 we have considered — that our colleges and universities 
 train men on the side of mental conscience. There are 
 a great many men of good intentions whose consciences
 
 198 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 never seem to get into their brains. They know how 
 to feel rightly better than they know how to think 
 rightly. Or, what is more often the case, they ignore 
 the moral element in their thinking, that is, in their opin- 
 ions, their plans, their schemes of life. Education is no 
 safeguard against this indifference to honest thinking, 
 unless honest thinking is made an equal element of edu- 
 cation with acute thinking. 
 
 I quote from a letter which recently fell under my 
 notice, written to a great benefactor of education. 
 "Now and then," says the writer, "quite possibly too 
 often, I find floating through my mind doubts about the 
 purely moral value of so much education as is now being 
 provided for. Nearly every time I mix in business 
 affairs I have the fact forced upon my observation that 
 college graduates are quite as dishonest and as expert 
 sharpers as their less fortunate and more ignorant 
 brothers. I fear that I am gradually being forced to 
 the adoption of a new motto — fewer churches, less learn- 
 ing and more honesty. How do you like it?" That 
 was the impatient, half earnest word of a well-known 
 lawyer, a gallant soldier and reformer, and a lover of 
 books beyond most scholars. 
 
 I take the truth which hes in the banter. It is 
 entirely possible to disconnect the processes of thought 
 from their moral consequences. It is really very hard 
 to weave moral fiber into the warp and woof of our 
 thinking. It is harder to be just in our opinions than 
 it is to be accurate in our calculations, but justice toward 
 men means precisely what we mean by accuracy in 
 respect to things. When we treat human nature as we 
 treat nature, the law of gravitation, for example, we 
 are at work very close to the golden rule. Respect
 
 THE RIGHTS OF PATRIOTISM 199 
 
 for our fellow men is, on the whole, the best kind of 
 sympathy. And the indoctrinating of all students into 
 this primary quality is, I believe, one of the chief func- 
 tions of the higher education, especially in the training 
 of men for leadership. 
 
 There are three training schools among us for polit- 
 ical leadership, about as far apart as you can space 
 such training, and each school has the danger of its 
 environment. These three training schools are the 
 saloon, business, and the college. It is quite useless to 
 ignore the first, when a man of this training has it in his 
 power today to dictate the nomination of one of the 
 national parties for the presidency. This dictator is one 
 type of the political leader. It is foolish to overlook 
 the training which creates the type. The saloon is the 
 center of comradeship, and so the place for personal 
 influence, later for personal authority, then for organ- 
 ization, finally for political combination. We think of 
 the sordidness of the surroundings. The real peril lies 
 in the narrowness of the training which inculcates sim- 
 ply loyalty to one's set. The "gang" is social, the 
 "ring" is mercenary. The social becomes the merce- 
 nary through its narrowness. Honor does not extend 
 to the outside man. The interests of a city or of the 
 nation do not enter into the sphere of thought, except 
 in the rare circumstance when a leader extricates himself 
 from the mental condition of his political training. 
 
 In quite a different way we may come to suffer in 
 our thinking for the best ends of the state from the 
 mental environment of business. We may come to see 
 things more clearly and in larger proportion than we 
 see men, and so to act and legislate for things rather 
 than for men. The opening of markets is a great civihz-
 
 200 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 ing agency, in some instances the greatest, but if pushed 
 without regard to local condition it may mean the clos- 
 ing of markets. The flooding of India with foreign 
 goods has driven the native people back into agricul- 
 ture. It constitutes a grievance which makes British 
 rule there still one of the uncertainties of the remote 
 future. 
 
 In still another way the academic mind may fail to 
 make its proper contribution to the state. When men 
 say that a question is academic they mean, of course, 
 that it is not yet worth the attention of the street. 
 There is not much danger today that the academic mind 
 of this country will not adjust itself to the ways of the 
 world. The greater danger lies in the fact that the 
 adjustment is apt to take place too early in the process 
 of training. In the change, in such large degree, of the 
 subject-matter of the higher education to subjects of 
 immediate utility, the moral element seems to have been 
 relegated to a second place in modern education. There 
 can be no doubt but that success is a word nearer to edu- 
 cation than it used to be, and that duty is a more remote 
 word. Success is, of course, the cheaper word. It is 
 cheapening our generation, which, but for that, would 
 be one of the very greatest generations in the world's 
 history. The moral problem of education is how to get 
 the thought of duty well set in the whole process of 
 mental training. I think that we are gaining, because 
 we are coming to understand that the morahty of the 
 intellect is not altogether a question of the subject on 
 which the intellect is exercised, and we are also learning 
 that in so far as the subject is material to moral train- 
 ing, we have in the matter of modern education sub- 
 jects of the most vital concern to human life. If the
 
 THE RIGHTS OF PATRIOTISM 201 
 
 old education led us to think of man, the new leads us 
 to think of men, and right thinking toward men ought 
 to serve the uses of the state quite as much as right 
 thinking about man. 
 
 There is one other demand which patriotism has the 
 right to make upon education in a more marked degree, 
 perhaps, than upon any other agency, namely, that it 
 should give distinction to the national character. No 
 one is satisfied, in thinking of his country, Avith the com- 
 monplace. You cannot so enlarge the idea, you cannot 
 give it such bulk and volume, as to gain the quality of 
 distinction. We want to have fine things attach them- 
 selves to our national reputation. We want to feel that 
 the capacity for fine things is in us as a people. There 
 is no American of today who is not secretly, if not 
 openly, proud of the fact that the nation can produce a 
 man capable of guiding its diplomacy in the politics of 
 the world, or a man capable of the new and strange work 
 of ruling a great dependency with justice, or a man 
 capable of reorganizing its military service to the last 
 demands of the national power. These are not exhibi- 
 tions of the commonplace. They are outside the com- 
 monplace and above it. They are on the plane of dis- 
 tinction. 
 
 I am far from saying that education is the only source 
 or measure of the capacity of the people for doing fine 
 things. The capacity, when individualized, declares 
 itself with the unexpectedness of genius. There is not 
 an industry or trade or business or calling, of smy hon- 
 est sort, which may not at any moment show a man, or 
 put forth an act bearing the mark of distinction: and 
 j^et, say what we will, we all know that the lasting dis- 
 tinction of a people lies in its power to think great
 
 202 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 thoughts and to leave them as the endowment of the 
 race. It is intellectual power applied to high themes, or 
 to high ends, which alone can satisfy the finer demands 
 of patriotism. On my last visit to England I chanced 
 to go into the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. 
 It is not bigger, as some of you will recall, than a 
 department library in a great university, but as the 
 curator took me from alcove to alcove and uncovered, 
 first the manuscript of Lord Bacon's Novum Organum, 
 and then, in turn, the manuscript of Milton's Paradise 
 Lost, the manuscript of Newton's Principia, a canto of 
 Byron's Childe Harold, Tennyson's In Memoriam, and 
 Thackeray's Henry Esmond — all the product of one 
 college in one university — I said to myself, "England 
 may multiply her wealth, and increase her navy, and 
 expand her empire, and she will still live more surely in 
 the names which will outlast her power." Turning to 
 our own country, the surprising thing about our aca- 
 demic training is the variety of its intellectual product, 
 sometimes in the same college, sometimes in the group. 
 I represent a little group of old-time colleges, which 
 illustrates, as many another group might, this variety of 
 intellectual power of which I am speaking. One of my 
 neighbors gave us Hawthorne and Longfellow, and a 
 little later Thomas Reed and Chief Justice Fuller; 
 another gave us Emerson, Holmes, and Lowell, and 
 two Presidents; another Storrs and Beecher; another 
 Garfield and Armstrong; another Olney and Hay; and 
 my own, according to a somewhat different order still, 
 Thaddeus Stevens, Salmon P. Chase, Rufus Choate, 
 and Webster. These all, even those who are living, 
 were the product of the old training. They antedate in 
 their training the modern university. Out of the ris-
 
 THE RIGHTS OF PATRIOTISM 203 
 
 ing universities will come the same results and more, not 
 great men alone, but great discoveries, the re-endow- 
 ment of the nation with the new wealth of science. 
 
 When Phillips Brooks preached his memorable 
 Fourth of July sermon in Westminster Abbey he said 
 that the cry of one nation to another the world over was : 
 *'Show us your man." That is the cry which ought to 
 run as a challenge from every part of the working life 
 of the nation to every other part, from industry to com- 
 merce, from commerce to education, from education to 
 religion, and back again. The man whom we should 
 like to show, we who are in the business of education, is 
 the man great, not as he separates himself from other 
 men, but great as he is able to take up the most of other 
 men into himself, type in liimself of a true democracy; 
 great also because he is not unwilling, or afraid, or 
 unable to put his conscience into all his mental opera- 
 tions ; and great again by the distinction of quality, with 
 a capacity for saying or doing things with the unmis- 
 takable fineness of power. I do not expect that we 
 shall overwhelm the country in any department of its 
 life with this type of men, but I do think that we shall 
 meet our obligations to the country and come a little 
 nearer to this end, as we try to carry on the business of 
 education as a patriotic duty, under the incitement of 
 days like these.
 
 XVI 
 
 THE HISTORIC COLLEGE: ITS PLACE IN 
 THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM 
 
 Inaugural Address Dartmouth College, June 26, 1893 
 
 Some of the more careful obsei'\^ers from abroad, who 
 have described our national characteristics, have pointed 
 out one exception to the otherwise confident and exuber- 
 ant tone in which we are wont to speak of our institu- 
 tions. They have noted the fact that we fall into the 
 language of apology, and even of depreciation, when 
 we refer to our higher institutions of learning. The 
 common school system of the country is much exploited 
 in our speech, as they observe, on account of its relation 
 to our pohtical idea and the working of our political 
 machinery. It is when we talk of our colleges and uni- 
 versities that we seem to temper our speech under the 
 evident sense of their immaturity. And yet it is at this 
 very point of the higher learning that one of our most 
 recent foreign critics bids us revise our judgments, and 
 put a different estimate upon the relative value of our 
 achievements. "If I may venture," Professor Bryce 
 says, "to state the impression which the American uni- 
 versities" — under which term he includes the more 
 advanced colleges — "have made upon me, I will say that 
 while of all the institutions of the country they are those 
 of which the Americans speak most modestly, and 
 indeed deprecatingly, they are those which seem to be
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 205 
 
 at this moment making the swiftest progress, and to 
 have the brightest promise of the future."* 
 
 I am not unmindful, as I make this quotation, of the 
 sweeping criticism of Dr. von Hoist in his address at the 
 first convocation of the University of Chicago, t to the 
 effect that there is in the United States not a single 
 university in the sense attached to this word by Euro- 
 peans, every institution bearing this name being a com- 
 pound or hybrid of college and university, or a torso of 
 a university. But widely as these critics seem to differ 
 in view, and especially in tone, their criticisms are not 
 altogether inconsistent. For the immediate point of 
 comparison with Mr. Bryce is not the American and 
 European university, but the rate of progress which we 
 as a people are now making through our colleges and 
 universities compared with the general progress of the 
 country. The comparison at this point is, I think, 
 unmistakable. The present advance in the educational 
 development of the country is far greater than in its 
 social, or political, or even religious development. I 
 have elsewhere referred to the present as an educational 
 epoch, as distinctly marked as any material or moral 
 epoch which may have preceded. Every sign points 
 that way, though the most evident signs are not of neces- 
 sity the most significant. Any one can see where the 
 current of beneficent wealth is flowing ; any one can see 
 the estabhshment and enlargement of the great schools ; 
 but more significant than these signs, to those who are 
 in a position to discern it, is the spirit of the new scholar- 
 ship, which craves the severest personal discipline, 
 employs the most rigorous methods, and is content only 
 
 *The American Commonwealth, vol. ii., p. 353. 
 
 t Published in Educational Review, February, 1893.
 
 206 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 with truth at the sources ; and more significant still, the 
 hunger and thirst of the multitude, that growing appe- 
 tite for knowledge among all classes, which is beginning 
 to compete with the passion for money. 
 
 Now, among the direct results of this vast educational 
 movement, there is one result which, though in a sense 
 of secondary importance, claims our special attention, 
 namely, the re-distribution or re-classification of the 
 liigher institutions of learning. A process is now going 
 on which is testing the capacity, and determining the 
 scope, and fixing the relative grade, of these institutions. 
 As clearly as if the question were put to each one, what 
 position do you propose to take, under what limitations 
 do you propose to work, what exact end do you propose 
 to satisfy, the logic of events is forcing an answer. 
 Indefiniteness of purpose, irresolution, inaction at this 
 time on the part of those in control, will certainly cost 
 any existing institution its rank, and quite possibly its 
 existence. 
 
 What, then, I ask, as the object of our direct concern, 
 is the legitimate place, under the new educational condi- 
 tions, of the historic college, obviously distinct from the 
 teclmical school, and also distinct, though not as obvi- 
 ously, from the university? I ask the question, of 
 course, in supreme thought of our own college, and my 
 answer will fit most immediately its conditions. And 
 yet I have in mind, as I speak, that large and honorable 
 fellowship in which we stand. Dartmouth College 
 belongs to a group of foundations, now of historic dig- 
 nity, which have retained the name, and which continue 
 to exercise the functions, of the college, in distinction 
 from the school of technology or the university. With 
 the exception of William and Mary College, which
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 207 
 
 divides with Harvard, though at long distance, the 
 honors of the seventeenth century, and with the possi- 
 ble exception of the College of New Jersey, and Brown 
 University, — my doubt here being in regard to the 
 proper classification, not as to the date, — Dartmouth is 
 the oldest of this particular group. Its charter dates 
 from the provincial era, bearing the signature of George 
 III. In close company, however, in time, were 
 Rutgers, Hampden- Sydney, Union, Williams — which 
 celebrates its centennial the present year — Bowdoin, 
 and Middlebury, all falling within the last century. 
 These are illustrations of what I have termed the historic 
 college. The college idea, the type which they intro- 
 duced into our American educational economy, has 
 shown a remarkable persistence. It reproduces itself 
 with httle variation in the newer states, and competes 
 not unsuccessfully with other types. There are many 
 weak colleges throughout the country, as there are many 
 weak educational institutions of every name. But it is 
 doubtless fair to say that the idea is vital and germinant. 
 It is a somewhat significant fact that, in the organiza- 
 tion of the higher education of women, the independent 
 endowments follow chiefly the college type. 
 
 The question, which I have proposed as to the legiti- 
 mate place of the historic college in the present educa- 
 tional development, may be brought into clearer discus- 
 sion if I divide it, and ask, 
 
 First, What is the essential and permanent character- 
 istic of the college? 
 
 Then, What is the capacity of the college to meet the 
 widening demands of the new education ? 
 
 And finally, and with special reference to our own 
 environment, What relation may a college sustain to
 
 208 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 associated institutions without attempting the functions 
 of a university? 
 
 What is the essential and permanent characteristic of 
 the college? In my conception of it, it is best expressed 
 in one word, homogeneity. To say that a college must 
 have unity is to say no more than ought to be said of 
 any great educational body. A university has a unity 
 as well defined as that of a college, but it is made up of 
 heterogeneous elements working in separate ways and 
 towards divergent ends. Concessions must be made to 
 these diverse elements, which affect the whole internal 
 economy of a university, making it entirely different 
 from that of a college. Discipline, for example, is 
 reduced to a minimum by the elimination of questions 
 which, under other conditions, might be of vital impor- 
 tance. 
 
 The homogeneous character of the college finds an 
 extreme but very expressive illustration in the colleges 
 which make up the English universities. An Oxford 
 or Cambridge man is such only by second designation. 
 He is first of Trinity, Kings, Enmianuel, Oriel, Merton, 
 Balliol. Hence those remarkable groups of young men 
 which have been formed from time to time in each uni- 
 versity, and out of which have sprung many of the 
 greater political and religious movements of England. 
 
 The analogy of the colleges in the English universi- 
 ties holds good only at a single point. The system 
 itself is absolutely unique. But as the college idea was 
 transplanted into American soil, and as each college 
 grew up, not in a cluster, but separate and alone, draw- 
 ing its scanty nourishment from its immediate surround- 
 ings, and exposed to all the vicissitudes of the colonial 
 and early national life, the idea which they represented
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 209 
 
 in common was naturally intensified in the history of 
 each. The New England college took its own strength 
 and its own shape from the circumstances of its origin 
 and development. 
 
 As I am to speak altogether of the historic colleges, 
 which are still colleges and expect to remain such, I may 
 make a passing reference to those colleges, most of them 
 of even an earlier date, which have exchanged, or are 
 now exchanging, the college idea for that of the univer- 
 sity. The change on their part seems to me to be 
 entirely justifiable because natural, or in some way 
 necessary. It is being wrought out by them under con- 
 ditions which make it feasible, or in response to 
 demands which express an obligation. Most of them 
 occupy central positions, represent various interests, 
 and are already equipped for the initial work of a uni- 
 versity. And yet I count it of untold value that these 
 ancient colleges, which with our heartiest godspeed are 
 now parting company with us on the way to their own 
 future, were permeated and possessed in their growing 
 life by the college ideal. And as compared with insti- 
 tutions whose foundations are now being laid on another 
 level, and which are never to be known as having been 
 other than universities, there are, I beheve, compensa- 
 tions and advantages which will grow more rather than 
 less apparent in favor of those institutions which are 
 reaching the same level through a college history. 
 
 The causes which have been operative in- preserving 
 to the colleges, of which I am to speak, their essential 
 characteristic are not remote, nor difficult to find. They 
 may be said to exist as much in their history as in their 
 idea, except as the idea made the history. Indeed, it is 
 to be assumed that this homogeneity is due in part to 
 
 14
 
 210 PUBLIC MINDEDXESS 
 
 moral causes, and that it is to be maintained in part 
 through these causes. 
 
 Perhaps the most evident cause of their continued 
 homogeneity has been the perpetuation in some form of 
 the original impulse. The colleges originated in a 
 common impulse. Broadly stated, the impulse was 
 religious, the force, that is, behind the colleges was the 
 spirit of consecration, of service, and of sacrifice. Most 
 of them were established to carry on the Christian min- 
 istry, because that seemed at the time to be the channel 
 of the best service. Dartmouth College was a graft 
 upon a missionary stock. The pilgrimage of that early 
 Indian preacher over the seas, bearing his letters to 
 George Whitefield, introduced to the Earl of Dart- 
 mouth and other Enghsh philanthropists, and gaining 
 an audience with his Majesty the king, has become the 
 romance of our history. But in its time it was no 
 romance. The result of that pilgrimage was ten thou- 
 sand pounds, the name which the college bears, and the 
 interest and goodwill which secured the charter. The 
 charter itself bears the impress alike of the political 
 sagacity of John Wentworth and the apostolic zeal of 
 Eleazar Wheelock. It is at once broad and serious, 
 full}^ abreast of the present in its spirit of intellectual 
 freedom, and glowing still with the religious feeling 
 which inspired it. 
 
 What was true of Dartmouth was equally true, 
 though in a less picturesque wa)% of the other colleges : 
 and one distinction which they have since had in common 
 has been the perpetuation in some definite form of this 
 original impulse. I do not for a moment deny the 
 utmost seriousness of purpose, or earnestness of 
 endeavor, to any class of educational institutions. I
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 211 
 
 arrogate nothing unreal or arbitrary in the name of 
 rehgion. But there is a clear difference in the method 
 and in the result of intellectual training, as you strike 
 at the beginning the rehgious note, or the note of utility, 
 or the note of culture. In other words, the college dif- 
 fers widely from the technical school, and measurably 
 from the university, in the provision which it allows and 
 makes for the working of the rehgious element. I am 
 aware that the presence of this element may give rise 
 from time to time to vexing questions of administra- 
 tion. In respect to these contingencies I have little 
 concern. For the principle of action is clear both on its 
 negative and positive side. Religion must not be set 
 to do the menial tasks of the college; it must not be 
 made an instrument of discipline; it must not become 
 through any kind of indifference the repository of obso- 
 lete opinions or obsolete customs ; it must not fall below 
 the intellectual level of the college ; it must not be used 
 to maintain any artificial relation between the college 
 and its constituency. Religion justifies the traditions 
 which give it place within the college, as it enforces the 
 spirit of reverence and humility, as it furnishes the 
 rational element to faith, as it informs duty with the 
 sufficient motive and lends the sufficient inspiration to 
 ideals of service, and as it subdues and consecrates per- 
 sonal ambition to the interests of the common humanity. 
 The college fulfills an office which no man, I take it, will 
 question, as it translates the original and constant reli- 
 gious impulse into terms of current thought and action, 
 making itself a center of spiritual hght, of generous 
 activities, and, above all, of a noble, intellectual, and 
 religious charity. 
 
 Another cause contributing to the homogeneous char-
 
 212 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 acter of the historic college is to be found in the limits of 
 its constituency. The actual area covered by the col- 
 lege is more restricted than that of the university. A 
 college is in its very nature a localized institution, 
 bounded either by territorial limits or by the reach of its 
 working idea. The constituency, therefore, of a given 
 college is a constant quantity. It cannot even be trans- 
 ferred to a neighboring institution. If any college in 
 the group to which we belong should go out of exist- 
 ence, there would be a very considerable and irretriev- 
 able loss. But, as I have said, a college may be local- 
 ized by its territory, or by its working idea. This latter 
 distinction may give it an extended, while it gives it also 
 an assured, constituency. Williams College, for exam- 
 ple, is without a territory, but it has its idea. My 
 friend. President Carter, is in the habit of saying, as 
 the college sends out a class, that he does not know 
 where the next class will come from, or whether it will 
 come at all. The college of Hopkins and Garfield and 
 Armstrong can never want for a constituency. There 
 is an invisible realm over which a college holds sway by 
 the power of its traditions and history, the names of its 
 nobler alumni, the ideals which it puts forth, the work 
 which it is seen to accomplish. No man can define these 
 outer possessions, but they are a part of the growing 
 inheritance. Students are drawn, not simply by solici- 
 tation, but more surely by affinity. Like begets like. 
 A constituency once established, wherever it may be, 
 reproduces itself in steadfast loyalty, and reacts upon 
 the college to preserve its essential character. 
 
 And it is because of this power of a college to protect 
 its life, and to extend its influence by the force of its 
 working idea, that I do not share the fears entertained
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 213 
 
 by some as to the future of our New England colleges 
 under the changes in the home population. The col- 
 leges themselves have very much to say, if they will, as 
 to what the real nature of the change is to be. They are 
 not hopelessly dependent upon the old stock, if they 
 have the insight to interpret and the patience to develop 
 the new. History teaches the lesson, which no educated 
 man should allow himself to ignore, that in the order of 
 Providence it is the privilege of great institutions, like 
 the church and the school, to replenish and invigorate 
 their life by the constant introduction of new and unde- 
 veloped material. Not the chosen races alone, but the 
 gentile, the alien, the barbarian, have their place in the 
 higher social economy; not immediately as such, but as 
 they become mentally naturalized. So men come and 
 go, and populations change, but institutions abide, and 
 preserve their character, if they use their privilege. 
 
 But without doubt the chief cause of the homogeneous 
 character of the colleges lies in the simplicity of their 
 function, namely, to teach. I am about to borrow the 
 distinction which John Henry Newman* has made at 
 this point, though with a large qualification. He draws, 
 as you recall, the careful distinction between the dif- 
 fusion or extension of knowledge, and its advancement. 
 The advancement of knowledge he assigns to institu- 
 tions like the Royal Academies of Italy and France, or 
 the British Association; the diffusion or extension of 
 knowledge, to the universities. In the comparative 
 absence of such societies as exist abroad for the advance- 
 ment of learning, we have assigned that task largely 
 to the universities, and the teaching function more; 
 distinctively to the colleges. Or, to be more exact, we 
 
 * Preface to The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated.
 
 214 PUBLIC MINDEDXESS 
 
 relegate to the secondary school the early disciplinary 
 work, the formation of habits of study, — the actual mak- 
 ing of the mind ; we carry over something of this disci- 
 plinary work to the college, and assign to it the further 
 task of expanding, liberaHzing, and informing, — the 
 teaching function : we carry over much of this function 
 to the university, and commit to it the special business of 
 research, investigation, discovery, — the absolute ad- 
 vancement of learning. Now, while some such divi- 
 sion of intellectual labor actually exists, and applies as 
 indicated to the college, it must be accepted with this 
 broad qualification. No man is fully prepared to teach, 
 in the sense of communicating knowledge, who is not 
 himself at work at the sources. Professors are not mere 
 intermediaries. Contrary to the assertion of Cardinal 
 Newman, elsewhere expressed, that to discover and to 
 teach are separate functions seldom united in the same 
 person, I believe that discovery stimulates teaching, and 
 that teaching necessitates discovery. The teaching 
 ideal is undergoing a very radical change. The ideal of 
 yesterday was the man of many and easy accomplish- 
 ments. The ideal of today is the man of single-minded, 
 thorough, and if possible, original knowledge. Doubt- 
 less we may go to our own extreme, but we cannot 
 return to the former pattern. 
 
 There has been preserved on our files the original 
 "Agreement" between the first president Wheelock, 
 acting for the trustees, and Mr. John Smith, one of the 
 early tutors, who was promoted to the professorship of 
 languages in the college. The agreement begins as fol- 
 lows : "Mr. Smith agrees to settle as Professor of Eng- 
 lish, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Chaldee, etc., in Dartmouth 
 College, to teach which, and as many of these and other
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 215 
 
 such languages as he shall understand, or as the 
 Trustees shall judge necessary and practicable for one 
 man, and also to read lectures on these as often as the 
 President and tutors with himself. shall judge profitable 
 for the Seminary." This is not precisely the model of 
 the later agreements. Within the limited time which I 
 have been able to devote to the interests of the college 
 since my election to the presidency, it has been my spe- 
 cial aim to promote the twofold object of extending 
 the departments and dividing the labor ; and the policy 
 thus indicated will be pushed to the utmost limit which 
 the funds of the college will permit. As I conceive the 
 situation, the greatest incentive to good teaching is time 
 to study. Apart from the immaturity of far too large 
 a proportion in the teaching force in some of our col- 
 leges, nothing is so much to be deplored as the wasteful 
 overworking of the maturer minds in a faculty. And 
 this I say, not now in the interest of university work, but 
 in the interest of college work. Teaching is that divine 
 art which takes its authority and its inspiration from the 
 certainty and the abundance of the thing known. The 
 glorious gift of communication, even when most per- 
 sonal, is always proportionate to the conscious reserves 
 of knowledge. The personality of a teacher, what is it ? 
 Not the man himself, but the man living at the heart and 
 in the secret of nature, of history, of literature, of truth. 
 And what is teaching, except making, or letting, nature 
 itself speak to the asking mind — and no less, history, 
 and literature, and truth? Here is the relation of mas- 
 ter and scholar, paraphrased in the matchless words of 
 the older Scriptures, "him that awaketh and him that 
 answereth." And this is the distinctive function of the 
 college, research, investigation, discovery, with time and
 
 216 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 facilities for their accomplishment, but all tributary to 
 the one supreme end of teaching. 
 
 If I may now assume that I have shown that the dis- 
 tinction of the college lies in its homogeneity, and that 
 I have rightly interpreted the causes which are at work 
 to preserve that distinction, we are ready to take up the 
 next part of our question and ask, What is the capacity 
 of the college to meet the widening demands of the new 
 education? Is there anything in the subject-matter, or 
 method, or general discipline, introduced by the new edu- 
 cation, which excludes the historic college from a share 
 in it, or remands it to an inferior place? The answer 
 to this question changes somewhat our point of view. 
 
 Thus far we have been concerned more with the con- 
 trast between the college and the university. We shall 
 now be concerned more with the contrast between the 
 college and the school of technology. Yet for the 
 moment we remain in the former field. By long tradi- 
 tion there are certain subjects requiring continued and 
 specialized treatment which have been put quite without 
 and beyond the college curriculum. These subjects 
 have been chiefly connected with the great professions. 
 It is now to be noted that there is a tendency to throw 
 back a considerable amount of elementary work from 
 the professional schools into the colleges. Allowance 
 is made both in time and in the larger choice of studies, 
 in the schools of medicine and of theology, and in some 
 cases of law, for those who have taken elementary 
 courses in the colleges. A college student may, if the 
 college so provides, elect his way, up to a certain point, 
 into a professional school. But for the most part the 
 subject-matter of the professional schools must be alto- 
 gether different from that of the college.
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 217 
 
 Exception must also be made in reference to those 
 subjects which are still in too tentative a form to offer 
 proper material for instruction. Subjects are today 
 under investigation in the universities which are as yet 
 unorganized and unformulated, but which, when organ- 
 ized and formulated, will take their place in the college 
 curriculum. Examples of subjects which have just 
 passed this stage, and are now beginning to find their 
 way into the colleges, are to be found in several of the 
 branches of natural and social science. We have here 
 a pertinent illustration of the work of the university as 
 related to that of the college. It is one function of the 
 university to develop and organize new subject-matter 
 for the college curriculum. 
 
 But the chief question at this point, as I have inti- 
 mated, is in regard to the relation of the college to the 
 new subjects, chiefly in the natural and physical sci- 
 ences, for which special provision is now being made 
 through the schools of technology. What ought to be 
 the attitude of the college toward the subjects of the 
 new learning, and toward the method of the new train- 
 ing? My answer is twofold, and equally positive in 
 both parts. The college needs the new education in 
 subject-matter and in method, and the new education 
 needs the discipline of the college. 
 
 In saying that the college needs the newer subjects, 
 and the methods which they bring with them, I am 
 speaking in behalf of what we term a liberal education. 
 If by that term we mean the education which enlarges 
 and disciplines the mind irrespective of the after busi- 
 ness or profession, then we cannot ignore or omit the 
 training which attends the exact study of nature. The 
 broader and finer qualities which belong to the habit of
 
 218 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 careful observation, the patient search for the immedi- 
 ate and sufficient cause of phenomena, the imagination 
 which creates working hypotheses along which the mind 
 theorizes its way into the realm of fact, — these certainly 
 are the qualities of an educated mind. We may not be 
 able to subscribe entirely to the statement, but we can- 
 not fail to see a certain reasonableness in the claim of 
 Virchow, that "mathematics, philosophy, and the nat- 
 ural sciences give the young minds so firm an intellec- 
 tual preparation that they can easily make themselves 
 at home in any department of learning." 
 
 Certainly unexpected results have already followed 
 from the scientific training. No one would have ven- 
 tured to prophesy that one result would be the art of 
 literary expression. Yet such has been the case. With 
 few exceptions, the greater scientists among us are tak- 
 ing their place in literature. They are recovering the 
 original qualities of style, — simplicity, clearness, vivid- 
 ness. Some of them have caught with remarkably 
 close ear the accents of the English tongue. The liter- 
 ary development of the scientists has been as unexpected 
 as the absence of the philosophical temper. 
 
 Or, if by a liberal education we mean the introduction 
 to the broader ranges of thought, we cannot leave out 
 the study of nature, or of man as a part of nature. Not- 
 withstanding some of the materializing effects of this 
 study, it has its own office in the humanizing and even 
 spiritualizing of the human intellect. "I have never 
 been able," President Eliot has said in these reverent 
 words, "to find any better answer to the question. What 
 is the chief end of studying nature? than the answer 
 which the Westminster Catechism gives to the question. 
 What is the chief end of man? — namely, to glorify God
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 219 
 
 and to enjoy Him forever." Bred as I was in the old 
 learning, and loyal to it as I am in all my feeling, my 
 professional observation has taught me the value of that 
 type of mind which is formed by the study of the nat- 
 ural sciences. I have learned to welcome the methods of 
 thinking, the point of view, and a certain reality in the 
 apprehension of truth, although more restricted in its 
 range, which I have found to characterize the students 
 of theology, who have had the scientific habit. And 
 if I were to repeat my professional training, while 
 keeping as before in the old courses, I should not omit to 
 gain the clear and careful knowledge of some one of the 
 sciences as a part of the better discipline which is now 
 possible to the Christian ministry. 
 
 Of course the very practical problem arises. Where is 
 the room for the old and the new? The sufficient and 
 only answer to this problem is the elective system. 
 Under a complete and continuous prescribed course the 
 college must shut out the new, or give a smattering of 
 the old and new. The elective system, if properly regu- 
 lated and consistently applied, insures thoroughness 
 within a reasonable variety of study. But the elective 
 system is not a mere expedient. It holds a principle. 
 One part of the college discipline is the development of 
 the power of intelligent choice. The only question is in 
 regard to the proper time at which the choice is to be 
 made. And here, I think, the answer is not to be found 
 in the nature of the studies, provided the order and suc- 
 cession is rightly guarded, but in the student himself, 
 the average student. Experience may modify my pres- 
 ent view, but I am not now prepared to advise the open- 
 ing of the courses at entrance upon college. The neces- 
 sary condition of an intelligent choice, as it seems to me,
 
 220 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 is a certain familiarity with college methods and oppor- 
 tunities, as compared with those of the previous schools. 
 Otherwise the student may fall back too much upon his 
 advisers, the habit of advising developing in turn into 
 a veritable system of paternalism, and thus defeating 
 the whole disciplinary end of an election. 
 
 Thus far the need on the part of the college of the 
 new education. I am equally confident that the new 
 education in its more advanced form needs the disci- 
 pline of the college. Mere specialization can offer no 
 equivalent to the advantage of a liberal education fol- 
 lowed by specialized study and work. Science itself 
 must inevitably suffer from such a course in the long 
 result, in the reputation of scientists, in the validity of 
 their conclusions, at least to minds otherwise trained, 
 and in the actual scientific product. And as respects 
 those who enter the various scientific professions, I can- 
 not see how they can take rank with men in the other 
 professions, who first liberalize and then specialize, 
 except by a like course. This is not the opinion simply 
 of an advocate of a college training. The senior pro- 
 fessor of our own Thayer School of Civil Engineering 
 has said in a report: "Those who desire to study civil 
 engineering are strongly urged to take a full collegiate 
 course, either on a classical or scientific basis. In addi- 
 tion to the knowledge of the special preparatory sub- 
 jects above named, the student will thus obtain a broad 
 and liberal training, which in civil engineering, as in 
 other professions, constitutes a preparation of the high- 
 est value." The "Engineering News" of May 26, 1892, 
 commenting editorially on these words, characterizes 
 them as "golden words, which we could wish that every 
 engineering school would adopt and make permanent;"
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 221 
 
 and then adds, "The graduate who knows nothing but 
 engineering, and has no knowledge of letters and gen- 
 eral culture to aid him, has an up-hill road before him." 
 
 The technical schools, which offer low terms of admis- 
 sion, and which afford no wide provision for general 
 culture, may be admirable schools of apprenticeship, 
 but they are not strictly scientific schools. And in so far 
 as the tendency in some of the higher schools of tech- 
 nology is toward greater specialization, the college must 
 offer its own scientific courses as a corrective. These 
 courses are altogether theoretical. The work of the 
 laboratory is not that of the workshop; neither does it 
 take its place. The claim of the college is that the 
 theoretical knowledge of the sciences, properly related 
 to other kinds of theoretical knowledge, should precede 
 the specialized application of the sciences. It is not 
 assumed that this theoretical knowledge prepares one 
 for his business or profession. There is no reason why a 
 college graduate should not take a practical graduate 
 course in a technical school. He may do that, or serve 
 his apprenticeship in connection with one of the great 
 industries. It is granted that one or the other is neces- 
 sary. The college does not assume to make immediate 
 connection with engineering or manufacturing, any 
 more than with the practice of law or medicine. 
 
 The comparison of the college with the technical 
 school brings out the fact that, while the capacity of the 
 college seems to be enlarging so that it covers an increas- 
 ing territory, its function remains single and undis- 
 turbed. It is always and everywhere the function of 
 the college to give a liberal education, beyond which and 
 out of which the process of specialization may go on in 
 any direction and to any extent. The college must con-
 
 222 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 tinually adjust itself to make proper connection with 
 every kind of specialized work, not to do it. This very 
 simple but very great function of a college is at present 
 confused, — I think needlessly confused, — by the variety 
 of the degrees which it confers. I will not now pause 
 to argue the matter, but I will express the conviction 
 that the time will come when the legitimate work of the 
 college will be represented by one degree: by which 
 statement I mean, on the one hand, that the college will 
 gradually come to do a work through every possible 
 combination of courses open to a student, which will 
 entitle him, as he takes it, to be known as a liberally 
 educated man without any differentiation from his fel- 
 lows ; and, on the other hand, that opinions will gradu- 
 ally become so equalized in respect to the relative value 
 of the different studies which find place in the college 
 curriculum that it will be acknowledged that the college 
 has but one standard, and represents through its degree 
 a single and complete unit in education. 
 
 It remains to consider that part of our question which 
 I have said was largely local, and yet which I trust may 
 be of interest to those of other colleges who are present, 
 namely, What relation may a college sustain to asso- 
 ciated institutions without assuming the functions of a 
 university? In answering this question I pass from 
 whatever is theoretical to that which is historical. The 
 policy of Dartmouth College in this matter is written 
 in its history. The history of Dartmouth College may 
 teach any like institution, which cares to learn the lesson, 
 how not to become a university. If any college has been 
 tempted in this regard, Dartmouth more. I will try to 
 tell briefly the story of its refusals, and also to show 
 what it has done, and what it proposes to do, in place of 
 becoming a university.
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 223 
 
 Naturally I might be expected to dwell upon the 
 enforced attempt to change the college into a state uni- 
 versity; but as this attempt represented the design of 
 the state to gain possession of the college, rather than 
 to change its essential nature, I pass it by. It is the 
 somewhat remarkable succession of opportunities to 
 develop from within into an aggregation of professional 
 and technical schools to which I desire to call attention.* 
 
 One of the earliest benefactions to the college was 
 an endowment towards a chair of divinity bearing the 
 honored name of John Phillips. The chair has been 
 variously utilized in connection with the religious 
 instruction of the college; but when it is remembered 
 that the pious intention of Samuel Phillips, the nephew 
 of the donor, expressed in establishing Phillips Acad- 
 emy at Andover, was made the occasion of developing 
 a theological seminary in connection with that institu- 
 tion, it is not unwarranted to suppose that Dartmouth 
 College might easily have had a like development. 
 
 In 1798 the trustees of the college voted that "a pro- 
 fessor be appointed whose duty it shall be to deliver 
 pubhc lectures upon anatomy, surgery, chemistry, 
 materia medica, and the theory and practice of physic, 
 
 *The term " university " is used in what follows in the traditional American 
 sense, — an aggregation of professional schools usually centering aroimd a 
 college. The form in which the university idea is now developing most rapidly 
 is best represented by the degree of Ph. D. In the use of method it is diffi- 
 cult to distinguish the imiversity from the college, except in degree. The 
 principle of electives, supplemented by full facilities for individual research 
 and investigation, gives approximately the results gained by the methods in 
 use at the universities. The extent to which this method may be carried in 
 graduate work in a college like Dartmouth, will depend entirely upon the 
 endowments which may be secured to this end. The actual value of gradu- 
 ate work to a student depends upon the time which can be spared on the part 
 of the professors from their vmdergraduate work, or upon the niunber of men 
 who can be introduced into a faculty with this end in view, with an equip- 
 ment in libraries and labratories to correspond.
 
 224 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 and that said professor be entitled to receive payment 
 for instruction in those branches, as hereinafter men- 
 tioned, as compensation for his services in that office." 
 In accordance with this vote such a professor was 
 appointed, lectures were given, a code of medical stat- 
 utes was adopted, and degrees were conferred, by Dart- 
 mouth College, first of Bachelor of Medicine, and after- 
 wards of Doctor of Medicine. This action seems like 
 the initiative toward a university, and it might fairly 
 be so construed, were it not that the subsequent history 
 of the Medical School has hardly justified such a rela- 
 tion to the college. Practically the administration of its 
 affairs is in the hands of its faculty. The state has a 
 property interest in the school, through an appropri- 
 ation for the Medical Building, so that it has been 
 known as the New Hampshire Medical College as well 
 as the Dartmouth Medical School. And recently its 
 interests have become specially identified with the Mary 
 Hitchcock Hospital, a distinct corporation. As, how- 
 ever, the question of the status of the Medical School is 
 now before the legal committee of the board of trustees, 
 I will not anticipate their report. I am, however, pre- 
 pared to say that, whatever may prove to be the exact 
 legal relation between the two bodies, the college pro- 
 poses to give to the Medical School the fullest and most 
 direct material aid in its power. The evidence of this is 
 to be found in the proposed enlargement of the depart- 
 ment of chemistry through an increase in its equipment, 
 and in the establishment of the department of zoology. 
 With these increased advantages on the side of the 
 college, and with the very unusual facilities offered by 
 the Mary Hitchcock Hospital, it is beheved that the 
 Medical School will not only maintain its exceedingly
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 225 
 
 honorable history up to the present time, but that it 
 will also demonstrate the practicability of a medical 
 school in the country. 
 
 Chief Justice Joel Parker, of the class of 1811, for a 
 long time Royall Professor of Law in Harvard Univer- 
 sity, contemplated the founding of a Law School in 
 connection with the college. To this end he bequeathed 
 to the college his law Hbrary, a considerable landed 
 estate in Virginia, and property to the value of $60,000. 
 When the bequest came into the possession of the 
 trustees, it seemed inadvisable to them to establish a law 
 department. Happily the terms of the will, as inter- 
 preted by them and by the executors, allowed the use of 
 the money for purposes germane to the intent of the 
 donor, within the college curriculum. It was therefore 
 decided to apply the bequest to the endowment of a 
 Parker Professorship of Law and Political Science, and 
 to kindred uses. 
 
 In 1851 the faculty received from the will of Mr. 
 Abiel Chandler, of Boston, the sum of $50,000 for "the 
 establisliment of a permanent department, or school of 
 instruction, in the college in the practical and useful arts 
 of life." Two special provisions accompanied the 
 bequest: first, the establishment of a perpetual board 
 of visitors, who should "have full power to determine, 
 interpret, and explain" the intentions of the bequest; 
 and, second, a clause to the effect that "no other or 
 higher preparatory studies are to be required, in order 
 to enter said department or school, than are pursued in 
 the common schools of New England." At the first 
 meeting of the trustees following the gift, they pro- 
 ceeded to "constitute and organize a school of instruc- 
 tion in connection with the college and as a department 
 
 15
 
 226 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 thereof, the said school to be denominated The Chandler 
 School of Science and the Arts." At first the school 
 covered only a two years' course. Gradually the cur- 
 riculum was extended, the faculty was enlarged, and 
 other endowments were received. Meanwhile students 
 were constantly presenting themselves prepared beyond 
 the requirements for entrance. It was also found that 
 a very considerable amount of work was duplicated 
 between the professors of the college and those of the 
 Chandler School. After conferences between a com- 
 mittee of the trustees and the two faculties, the trustees 
 decided to ask the visitors, as interpreters of the will of 
 Mr. Chandler, the following questions: first, whether 
 under the will the standard of the school can be so high 
 that its discipline and scholarship shall be equal to that 
 of the college, and, as a condition to this, whether the 
 terms of admission can be made to require such attain- 
 ments in the modern languages and scientific studies 
 that students entering shall already have a good degree 
 of mental discipline and attainments; and, second, 
 whether the condition of the will establishing a "depart- 
 ment or school in the college" is met by the maintenance 
 of a department and course of instruction in the college, 
 without such a separate classification of students as 
 would require them to be made responsible to a purely 
 separate faculty. The visitors, in a careful and elab- 
 orate opinion, answered these questions in the affirm- 
 ative, interpreting the clause in the will referring to the 
 common schools of New England to include the high 
 schools which prepare for college. Acting upon this 
 decision, a plan was adopted which will go into effect 
 the ensuing year, whereby the Chandler School is more 
 formally incorporated into the college as the Chandler
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 221 
 
 scientific course, carrying with it, as before, the degree 
 of B. S. Through this incorporation the endowment 
 from the Chandler fund, now amounting to about $175,- 
 000, is brought into more economical adjustment to the 
 funds of the college, though the fund will be kept dis- 
 tinct, four professors are added to the college faculty, 
 and a considerable body of students to the college en- 
 rollment. 
 
 The Thayer School of Civil Engineering and of 
 Architecture was established in 1871, during the life- 
 time of the founder, by General Sylvanus Thayer, of 
 the United States Corps of Engineers, a graduate of the 
 college in 1807. The various sums given for the school 
 aggregate $70,000. The college holds these funds 
 in trust. It has no absolute control of the school. Its 
 management is vested in a board of five overseers, which 
 is self -perpetuating, except that the president of the 
 college is the president of the board. The school covers 
 a course of two years, and represents entirely the higher 
 grades of study in civil engineering. Connection has, 
 however, been made with the scientific course of the col- 
 lege, so that it is possible for a student by careful elec- 
 tion of his studies to take the college and engineering 
 courses in five years, the senior year in the college count- 
 ing under certain rigid conditions as the first year in 
 the Thayer School. 
 
 In 1866 the legislature of New Hampshire passed an 
 act establishing the "New Hampshire College of Agri- 
 culture and the Mechanic Arts," on the basis of the con- 
 gressional land grant, and located the college at Han- 
 over, and in connection with Dartmouth College. This 
 connection was in the form of a specific contract, ter- 
 minable on one year's notice by either party at the
 
 228 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 expiration of fourteen years. In 1891 the State was 
 induced by the terms of the large bequest of Mr. Ben- 
 jamin Thompson, a native of Durham, to remove the 
 Agricultural College to that place. The buildings 
 which it occupied wliile located at Hanover have now 
 become the property of Dartmouth College, partly by 
 purchase, and partly by the virtual remission by the 
 state of its interest of $15,000 in Culver Hall. 
 
 From this brief survey of the actual course which the 
 college has pursued in its relation to associated institu- 
 tions, or to plans for such institutions, j^ou can deter- 
 mine at once its policy. That policy has not always 
 been definitely expressed, perhaps not always clearly 
 conceived, but it has been historically consistent. The 
 college has always been willing to accept in trust such 
 funds as have been confided to it for purposes related to 
 its own, though not precisely the same, and to see to it 
 that the intent of the donor was carried out in strict 
 fidehty. It has been ready to incorporate into its own 
 life such interests as have been attached to it, whenever 
 such incorporation has seemed to be of mutual advan- 
 tage. And it has sought to strengthen and support any 
 other foundation, which could be built up to the better 
 advantage of each, in comparative independence. Dart- 
 mouth College has not been ambitious to become a uni- 
 versity in name or in fact. The college has been, and is, 
 and will be, ambitious to stand, with its increasing years 
 and in its enlarging strength, as the type of the historic 
 college. 
 
 I have now said what I intended to say in respect to 
 the present place of the historic college in our educa- 
 tional system as it is becoming more clearly defined. 
 Each college has its own questions of readjustment and
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 229 
 
 development. Within the past year the phrase has 
 become current amongst us, — the new Dartmouth. I 
 mterpret the phrase to express our decision and our 
 enthusiasm in the work to which we are called in the 
 readjustment and development of Dartmouth. And 
 yet let me say at once, we cannot make too great an 
 acknowledgment of that which has been done before. 
 The chiefest factor in the new will be the old. Each 
 administration of the college, from the first to the last, 
 has made its own contribution, more often than other- 
 wise in self-denial and sacrifice. We build upon strong 
 and wide foundations. More than this, the very 
 resources with which we at least begin to build repre- 
 sent the earnings of a past generation, not of our own, — 
 the accumulations which have been waiting in trust for 
 our use. 
 
 Still, whatever may be the relative place of the past 
 and the j)resent in the existing situation, there are 
 aspects of it which are new, new not only in opportunity 
 but also in advantage and responsibility. For the first 
 time in its history the college is practically under the 
 government of its alumni. The government of the col- 
 lege is vested in a single board of twelve members, and, 
 excluding the president of the college and the governor 
 of the state, one half of the remaining number are 
 directly nominated and virtually elected by the alumni, 
 — a larger proportion than in any college in New Eng- 
 land and probably in the country. The advantage of 
 this responsible rejDresentation will depend upon the 
 character, the educational and business quahfications, 
 and the personal time available for the college, on the 
 part of the alumni trustees, and also and equally upon 
 the spirit of unity, of co-operation, and of active loyalty
 
 230 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 which it assumes in the alumni at large. I draw no 
 unwarranted inferences from this action in respect 
 either to men or money. I make no unreasonable 
 demands upon the alumni. Not every alumnus who has 
 a son to be educated can send him here. Not every 
 alumnus who has money to give can put it here. I 
 recognize other obligations. And yet in these and innu- 
 merable ways an interested alumni will make their 
 interest tributary to the college. In the breadth of the 
 opportunity it is scarcely possible to go amiss. And 
 something can be done in collective ways. The many 
 can unite for common ends. The younger alumni have 
 begun with athletics. They have already fitted up one 
 of the best athletic fields in the country at a cost of 
 $15,000, and are now preparing to renovate and equip 
 the gymnasium at a like cost. The beginning thus made 
 has been appropriate and helpful. Athletics have a 
 rightful place in the modern college. They represent a 
 discipline, a culture, an enthusiasm, which are a part of 
 the college life. Let a wise and generous provision be 
 made for this interest, not as a concession, not as a 
 means to some ulterior end, but in recognition of one of 
 the varied elements which go to make up the training 
 and the culture of the college-bred man. 
 
 It is also new in the history of the college that the 
 opportunity has come for a symmetrical enlargement. 
 The progress of the college has been continuous and 
 steady. Each period has added its own proportions to 
 the inheritance. But the additions have been made one 
 by one, and at comparatively long intervals. The 
 opportunity is now at hand to enlarge with more sym- 
 metry because with more relative completeness. This 
 is chiefly owing to the Wentworth bequest, held in trust
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 231 
 
 until it should reach $500,000, but which now becomes 
 available, under the recent appraisal, in two years. 
 Meanwhile the State has very generously anticipated 
 in part the first income which we may expect to derive 
 from the estate, by an appropriation of $7,500 for each 
 of the next two years. The annual income from the 
 Wentworth fund will be at first about $10,000, which 
 may gradually increase to a final annual income of from 
 $15,000 to $20,000. By this addition to our income we 
 are enabled to establish certain chairs of instruction 
 which will avail to enlarge and complete, for the present, 
 some of the departments of the college ; though this ad- 
 dition cannot at the best accomplish all that the college 
 now needs in the way of instruction, and of course its 
 wants will steadily increase. It is also to be understood 
 that a part of the income from this fund is to go to the 
 increase of the salaries of the professors. 
 
 The Butterfield bequest opens the way to a proper 
 grouping of the departments. It provides a home and 
 suitable support for the department it creates. It is my 
 desire to see each of the general departments in a sepa- 
 rate building ; or, when this is not altogether necessary, 
 that allied departments shall be brought together in the 
 same building, and provided with proper facilities for 
 their work. Suitable reference libraries, in connection 
 with recitation and lecture rooms, are as necessary to 
 successful teaching in the literary departments, as are 
 laboratories in the scientific department. 
 
 The material improvement of the college presents 
 both an opportunity and a problem. The beginning 
 of the problem has been most happily solved by the har- 
 monious co-operation of the precinct with the college in 
 introducing a sufficient supply of water into the town
 
 232 PUBLIC MINDEDXESS 
 
 at an estimated cost of $60,000. The town is already 
 supplied in part with pure drinking water, and with a 
 sewerage system. 
 
 But the question of the location of new buildings in 
 other than an isolated and haphazard arrangement 
 offers great perplexities. The village of Hanover is so 
 compact that there is no vacant room for a proper 
 grouping of buildings for convenience or architectural 
 effect. The building committee of the trustees is at 
 work upon this problem under the best professional 
 advice, and is agreed that no building shall be erected 
 until a plan has been prepared and adopted which will 
 secure a convenient and harmonious arrangement of 
 such buildings as the college is likely to need and obtain 
 within a somewhat extended future. 
 
 That, however, which contributes most largely to the 
 present advantage of the college is the very thing which 
 it shares with all the colleges, namely, the general 
 advance in educational methods and appliances. I 
 return for the moment to the idea with which I began, 
 that this is an educational epoch. The educational 
 spirit is abroad, informing and stimulating the intelli- 
 gence of the country; the facilities for good teaching 
 are becoming more abundant and more available ; and, 
 what is of far greater value, the material for good teach- 
 ers is rapidly increasing through the attendance of 
 students for graduate work upon our own or foreign 
 universities. So wide and abundant is the provision 
 for higher education that no one college can gain any- 
 thing at the expense of any other. The colleges are 
 moving abreast and in inspiring fellowship. 
 
 Gentlemen of the college, of the past and of the 
 present; as we in our own persons increase in years.
 
 PLACE OF HISTORIC COLLEGE 233 
 
 though it may be for long time with augmenting 
 strength, we know the inevitable limit. The life of an 
 individual cannot attain to the dignity of history. The 
 approach to that dignity marks the lessening of one's 
 future. It is not so with the Hfe of a great institution. 
 The historic college moves on from generation to gen- 
 eration into its illimitable future. Each generation 
 waits to pour into its life the warmth and richness of its 
 own, and departing, bequeaths to it the earnings of its 
 strength. The college lives because nourished and fed 
 from the unfailing sources of personal devotion. 
 
 I congratulate you, gentlemen, as the living embodi- 
 ment of the college, upon the present signs of personal 
 devotion to Dartmouth. It is evidently as true now as 
 when the words were uttered, — "There are those who 
 love it." May there be now and always the like wisdom 
 in those who are called to serve it. If that can be 
 assured, — and may God grant it, — the place of Dart- 
 mouth College in American letters and learning is as 
 secure for the future as in the past.
 
 XVII 
 
 THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE MODERN 
 
 COLLEGE 
 
 Address before the Wonolancet Club, Concord, N. H. , December 
 
 7, 1905 
 
 The colleges of this country date from the period of 
 that small group which preceded the Revolution — 
 Harvard, William and Mary, Yale, Princeton, Penn- 
 sylvania, Columbia, Brown, Rutgers, and Dartmouth, 
 each one coming into existence under the hard condi- 
 tions of colonial life — on to the period of colleges and 
 universities born in a day at the close of the last cen- 
 tury, and endowed with its wealth, of which Chicago 
 and Leland Stanford are conspicuous examples. But 
 whatever the date of their founding, all existing col- 
 leges are modern in a common sense. The modernizing 
 process has brought the whole college fraternity into 
 substantial unity of purpose and method, and especially 
 of administration — the point of emphasis in this address. 
 The process does not reach back of the Civil War, and 
 in most cases it has shown its results most clearly within 
 the past decade. 
 
 I will state briefly the conditions which have necessi- 
 tated the present attention to administrative work 
 within our colleges. 
 
 In his reminiscences of life at Harvard, Senator 
 Hoar has recently said — "I do not think that Harvard 
 College had changed very much when I entered it on 
 my sixteenth birthday in the year of 1842, in manners,
 
 COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION 235 
 
 character of students or teachers, or the course of 
 instruction, for nearly a century. There were some 
 elementary lectures and recitations in astronomy and 
 mechanics, accompanied by a few experiments. But 
 the students had no opportunity for laboratory work. 
 There was a delightful course of instruction from Dr. 
 Walker in ethics and metaphysics. There was also some 
 instruction in modern languages — German, French, 
 and Italian — all of very slight value. But the sub- 
 stance of the instruction consisted in learning to trans- 
 late rather easy Latin and Greek, writing Latin, and 
 courses in Algebra and Geometry, not very far 
 advanced." It was not, we must remind ourselves, till 
 the first of October, 1859, that Mr. Darwin sent out his 
 abstract, as he termed it, on the Origin of Species, 
 accompanying the volume with the modest prophecy 
 that "when the views entertained in this volume, or 
 analogous views are generally admitted we can dimly 
 foresee that there will be a considerable revolution in 
 natural history." 
 
 From the philosophical point of view account had 
 to be made at once of the revolutionary character of 
 modern thought, but from the administrative point of 
 view account had to be taken of the marvelous expan- 
 sion which it effected. Within our generation the sub- 
 ject matter of the college discipline has trebled in vol- 
 ume, through the incoming of the sciences with the sci- 
 entific method, and through the incoming of the new 
 "humanities" based upon history with its application to 
 economics, politics, and sociology, and upon the mod- 
 ern languages and literatures. This trebled volume of 
 knowledge has been made workable through the prin- 
 ciple of electives, a matter very largely of administra-
 
 236 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 tion. As constant study is called for today in the con- 
 struction of a curriculum in our schools and colleges as 
 in any one department of investigation or instruction. 
 A second condition grew out of the equally large 
 increase in the numbers entering upon the higher edu- 
 cation. The second condition is related to the first, but 
 not altogether as a result from it. A part of the in- 
 crease is due to social causes. If you go back to the 
 catalogue of a generation ago of any one of the earlier 
 group of colleges with which you may be familiar, 
 Hai-vard, Yale, Brown, Dartmouth, Princeton, you will 
 see that the number of undergraduates has at least 
 trebled. The contrast is much more striking, if you 
 turn to the greater state universities. I will give the 
 statistics of four for illustration, shortening the period 
 of comparison to twenty years. 
 
 1885. 1904.. 
 University of Michigan 524 2900 
 
 University of Wisconsin 313 2810 
 
 University of Minnesota 54 3700 
 
 University of Cahfornia 197 3057 
 
 In 1875 the total number of students, men and 
 women, in all the colleges and universities of the coun- 
 try was 26,353. The number in attendance last year 
 was 85,581. It should be said in passing that the chief 
 instrumentality in bringing about the increase has been 
 the high school, which has made the higher education 
 accessible to the masses. 
 
 A third condition, consequent upon those already 
 mentioned, has been the development of the college 
 plant. The physical setting of the old time college was 
 very simple, sometimes impressive, often picturesque,
 
 COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION 237 
 
 but always simple. Frequently a decade or more would 
 pass without a new building. The nature of the work 
 did not call for physical enlargement. Growth was 
 altogether intensive. Whatever may be the sentiment 
 of any one toward the older college, none of us can fail 
 to see that if it was to take an influential place in the 
 modern world its growth must be extensive. Other- 
 wise the college would remain, as some one has said, 
 "a persistent anachronism." The modern world is 
 organized in a large way. It demands what President 
 Lord used to call "scope." It does its business by first 
 securing the requisite facilities. Results must be gained 
 by the best methods, else there will be loss. Change of 
 method is in large part the explanation of the modern 
 world. We live differently, we work differently, we 
 think differently. As Mr. Balfour has recently 
 reminded us, we are obliged to do our thinking "in a 
 new mental framework." 
 
 The modern college plant is an outcome of the change 
 of method in education, and of certain changes in social 
 life. The laboratory is not another college building, but 
 a new and typical building. A college dormitory is no 
 longer so many rooms. A house without steam, or elec- 
 tricity, or a bathroom, is a house, but you do not build 
 houses that way to put upon the market. A college 
 plant may consist of more than educational facilities. 
 It may be necessary to create certain public utilities 
 which shall insure proper sanitation or general conven- 
 iences. The college of the country not infrequently 
 owns in part or wholly its water supply, its heating and 
 electric plant, its system of sewerage ; and very likely it 
 may be obliged to own and maintain an inn for the 
 special benefit of the alumni and guests of the college.
 
 238 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 I shall refer later to the financial bearings of the college 
 plant. For the moment, I speak of it as a very great 
 factor in college administration. 
 
 A fourth condition affecting the administration of 
 the modern college was the incorporation of the alumni, 
 through their authorized representatives, into the gov- 
 erning board. Alumni representation is now in some 
 form characteristic of every college which is self gov- 
 erned, and it is beginning to find a place in institutions 
 governed by the state. Representation on the govern- 
 ing board changes the relation of the alumni from that 
 of sentiment to that of responsibility. It virtually uni- 
 fies the whole body academic. In the old walled cities 
 there are places known as so and so "within," or "with- 
 out." Every college today has its "within" and its 
 "without," but they are one. And in their oneness very 
 much of the new power of a college lies. 
 
 These are some of the conditions which have given a 
 prominence to administration in academic Hfe far 
 beyond any former recognition of its necessity or value. 
 I am asked to show what the administration of the mod- 
 ern college means, in what it consists, toward what ends 
 it is set. In answering this cumulative question I shall 
 have very little to say about college administrators, not 
 out of modesty, but because they cannot be described as 
 a class. No one knows where the next president of any 
 college is to come from. He may or may not be a mem- 
 ber of the board of trustees or of the faculty. He may 
 or may not be a graduate of the college. He may be a 
 minister or a layman, and if a layman a man from some 
 of the professions, or a man of affairs. The assumption 
 is that he will be familiar with some phase of the higher 
 education, perhaps a speciahst in some department, but
 
 COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION 239 
 
 this presumption does not have the force of a tradition. 
 There is nothing to say about college presidents in the 
 abstract. No two men are set to the same task. One 
 of the most efficient of the younger college presidents in 
 the West went to Mark Hopkins for advice on his 
 election to office. "Not a word of advice will I give 
 you," said the wise old counsellor; "you will do better 
 to find out things for yourself." 
 
 But the administration of a college is something very 
 definite and tangible, very real in its objects, and rea- 
 sonably well defined in its methods. In answering then 
 the first question which naturally arises in your minds — 
 what is the chief concern in college administration, I 
 say, without a moment's hesitation, the student. Col- 
 leges and universities are human institutions. Colleges 
 are for men, not men for colleges. It is only by keeping 
 this fact constantly and sensitively in mind that we can 
 keep our institutions of learning from institutionalism. 
 This concern of college administration for some fit out- 
 come in the individual student expresses itself in vari- 
 ous forms. Speaking broadly, very broadly, the Ger- 
 man university has in mind the scholar, the English 
 college the gentleman, the American college and uni- 
 versity the citizen. This generalization if pressed too 
 far becomes untrue. But it is sufficiently evident to 
 indicate the task before our colleges and universities, 
 namely, to educate a democracy. It would be a far 
 more congenial task to most of those upon our facul- 
 ties to educate the scholar after the German fashion, it 
 would be a far easier task to determine the social stand- 
 ards of a college through those rigid inquiries which 
 guard the entrance to academic life at Oxford and 
 Cambridge, but it would not be our task. Our task is
 
 240 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 difficult because of its breadth. We are set to the task 
 of taking the average product of a democracy, of quaU- 
 fying as much of it as possible for independent scholar- 
 ship, of moulding as much of it as possible into the 
 habit of the gentleman, and of fitting it all by all the 
 means and incentives at command for the high estate 
 of influential citizenship. Whatever is done towards 
 these, or any other ends, must be done in consistency 
 with personal freedom. Personal freedom is the key- 
 note of college life. Paternalism will destroy the moral 
 power of any college. Where it saves one it weakens 
 and demoralizes the whole body. Personality is always 
 a timely and inspiring force. But this must somehow 
 be incorporated into the spirit of the college itself. It 
 must never be a separate thing. A college is a world of 
 incentives and tests, with corresponding temptations. 
 Not all can live to best advantage in this world. The 
 process of elimination is constantly going on. It is a 
 part of the business of administration to supply incen- 
 tives, mental and moral, to create a healthful and brac- 
 ing atmosphere, but equally to maintain standards. 
 Nothing is so costly in college administration as any 
 lowering of its standards in the assumed interest of 
 those who cannot or will not accept them. 
 
 There is one feature of college administration in its 
 relation to student life which is apt to be overlooked, 
 namely the necessity for taking account of leisure as 
 well as of work. It is the recognition of this fact which 
 has let into, or brought into the modern college organ- 
 ized athletics. Athletics has proved to be the best em- 
 ployment of the leisure of a college which has been de- 
 vised. It has displaced a very considerable amount of 
 mere idleness and of gross dissipation. I lay more
 
 COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION 241 
 
 stress upon its mental than upon its physical effect. 
 Physically, organized athletics affects the few, mentally, 
 it affects the whole body of students. I am well aware 
 of the charge of mental preoccupation. The charge is 
 true, but on the whole I would rather take my chance, 
 were I an instructor, with the student who comes into 
 the class room from talk about the game, than with one 
 whose leisure would be pretty sure to be taken with 
 more frivolous or more demoralizing talk. I heard it 
 said, a day or two since, that athletics had "cleansed and 
 dulled the mind of a college." I think that athletics has 
 done far more "to cleanse" than "to dull." The cleans- 
 ing of mind is evident. If the mind of a college is dull 
 in its appetite for knowledge, by comparison with the 
 reported zest of earlier times, I think that there are 
 nearer and more evident reasons for this dullness than 
 are to be found in athletics. In this general view, I am 
 sustained by the practically unanimous opinion of the 
 older members of the faculty at Dartmouth, who are 
 able to compare earlier with later periods of college 
 activities. 
 
 Having had this much to say about athletics in gen- 
 eral, I cannot fairly pass over the immediate question 
 in college athletics now before the public mind. I have 
 always taken a certain pride in foot-ball as the most dis- 
 tinctly academic among our national games. I have 
 noted the fact that it has not been taken up as a sport 
 by the rougher elements in our cities. The reason for 
 this surprising fact seems to lie in the game itself. It 
 is so strenuous, it requires so clean a physical condition, 
 it demands so much mental tension, and so much will- 
 ingness to sacrifice individual choice to the good of the 
 team, that it would be almost impossible to find men 
 
 16
 
 '2r2 rUBLlC MIXDEDXESS 
 
 able ami Avilling to play the game, outside our colleges. 
 I should not ^vant to see a game with these strong and 
 reallv noble features ruled out in favor of weaker and 
 less invigorating games. 1 believe that the same wise, 
 concerted, and determined action, through which most 
 of the evils incident to the game have been eliminated, 
 will ensure the elimination of any which may remain. 
 The o-anie has been made clean ; it can be made safe. It 
 ouLiht not to be allowed to lose academic standing. 
 
 Xext to that concern in the aihninistration of a col- 
 lege which centers in the student 1 should sav that the 
 most direct and constant interest was to facilitate the 
 work of instruction. It is the direct function of the 
 administration of a college to make it possible for every 
 member of a faculty to do his work to tlie best advan- 
 taa:e within the limitations of nmtual service, and within 
 the restrictions of the ordinary tinancial stringency. 
 
 The tirst step in facilitathig the work of instruction 
 is taken bv relieving the facultv as a whole of the details 
 of executive work. The result is etfected in two ways, 
 by putting the routine of the internal life of the college 
 in charge of one person, and by delegating as much of 
 remaining details as possible to standing committees. 
 The dean o^ a modern college controls the dailv move- 
 ment of its life, lie sets the time of day. Personally 
 he is concerned with the immediate relation of the col- 
 lege to the students, but his ottices are business ottices 
 where all the routine of administration goes on. Every 
 day's work is put on record. The standing of any stu- 
 dent can be seen at a glance bv those entitled to know. 
 The office is a clearing house for the departments. 
 
 Conmiittee work is irksome or enjoyable according to 
 the taste of the individual instructor. Faculties as a
 
 COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION 243 
 
 whole, and individual members, vary in their desire or 
 reluctance to relinquish the control of details, especially 
 those details which are intimately connected with the 
 students. The most obstructive detail is discipline ; but 
 as college discipline is now almost entirely connected 
 with deficiencies and failures in scholarship, it remains, 
 of course, a matter of interest to instructors. The ten- 
 dency, however, is to delegate discipline of all kinds to 
 some fit committee. Virtually the authority of the fac- 
 ulty is exercised and declared through delegated power, 
 leaving the faculty as a body comparatively free for the 
 discussion and application of educational methods. This 
 statement should be qualified by the fact that there has 
 come in a very great increase of executive work in con- 
 nection with the departments. Each department must 
 be organized according to its own needs. In the growth 
 of the college there must be a large increase in "direc- 
 tive power." Careful organization is the chief means of 
 saving waste and of facilitating work. 
 
 Beyond this the work of instruction is dependent for 
 its efficiency upon the general resources of the college, 
 upon the special equipment of a department, and upon 
 assistance, particularly upon the last. The constant 
 and perplexing question of administration is how to 
 keep the right proportion between instructors and stu- 
 dents. There is no unit of measurement here. Every- 
 thing depends upon the nature of the work and the 
 intellectual ability of the student. There is no such 
 thing as an average student upon whom you can base 
 a calculation. Students are of all grades intellectually. 
 The poorest students require the most instruction, that 
 is, there must be smaller divisions if these are grouped. 
 On the other hand, it may be the greatest educational
 
 244 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 economy to give a disproportionate part of the time of 
 the best instructor in a department to directing the 
 study of five men. 
 
 It is not possible to have very small divisions and 
 at the same time to give all students of every grade 
 access to the strongest men in a faculty. In the old 
 time colleges, where the classes rarely exceeded sixty 
 or seventy, a professor had a whole class in a given sub- 
 ject, and usually the whole class together. Sixty 
 would be considered a very large division (apart from 
 a lecture) in the college today. The unit for division 
 work is twenty-five, more often less than more. But the 
 process of division and sub-division in instruction neces- 
 sarily brings in the inmiature, if not inferior, instructor. 
 There are not enough superior instructors in the coun- 
 try to go round among the colleges. Money cannot 
 altogether remedy this deficiency. It was in part 
 because of this deficiency in able and stimulating 
 instructors that the lecture system was introduced in 
 connection with the increase of students. There were 
 other reasons for its adoption as transferred from the 
 lecture room of Germany, but the practical reason, 
 apart from its assumed economy, was to give all col- 
 lege students access to the best men in a faculty, or, at 
 least, under the elective svstem, to the best men in a 
 department. At the present time there is a markd reac- 
 tion against the lecture system and an equally marked 
 tendency to emphasize the sub-division of instruction. 
 The attempt is being made to guarantee the work of 
 the class room. 
 
 And where this is unnecessary, so far as the disposi- 
 tion or quality of the student is concerned, the attempt 
 is being made to impart greater inspiration and direc-
 
 COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION 245 
 
 tion through personal contact with exceptionally quali- 
 fied men who are yet in the earlier stages of their pro- 
 fessional service. Of course a college needs the best of 
 each method — the impact of the great mind, the quick- 
 ening of the mass, and personal contact with the in- 
 structor, the close and careful work of the laboratory 
 or library, the discipline of exacting attention to detail. 
 But every college is compelled to struggle toward its 
 ideal of instruction; no college is resting in the enjoy- 
 ment of it. There are, I repeat, not enough superior in- 
 structors to satisfy the demands of the higher education. 
 If salaries were doubled there would probably be an in- 
 crease, but not a sufficiency. Hence the changes which 
 are all the while taking place in the emphasis put upon 
 the methods of instruction. I should give the wrong 
 impression if I said that the higher education was in a 
 state of experimentation, but it is continual, though 
 varying problem how to secure satisfactory results from 
 insufficient means. This is at present the most acute 
 problem of administration. The variety of method 
 called for by different departments affords some relief, 
 and account must also be made of the variety of talent 
 in a faculty. The constant endeavor, however, of a col- 
 lege administrator is how to keep the right proportion 
 between instructors and students, not as a numerical 
 ratio, but as a matter of efficiency in teaching, and of 
 interest in study. 
 
 In the distribution of the time of an instructor regard 
 must be had also to his own intellectual advancement. I 
 am not speaking now of the research work of a univer- 
 sity nor of the technical work of a professional school. 
 Every college professor should have time and oppor- 
 tunity for research, investigation, original work of some 
 kind. And in exceptional cases special provision should
 
 246 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 be made for research or production. Nothing is more 
 stimulating to a faculty than work of this kind carried 
 to some high degree of excellence by one or more of its 
 members. While few are fitted to reach any high 
 degree of excellence in original work all are capable of 
 feeling the eflPect of it when attained by others. Wher- 
 ever the capacity exists, or may be developed, it is poor 
 economy which forbids suitable provision for it, in 
 regard either to the time of the instructor or to equip- 
 ment for his task. Perhaps the nearest approach to a 
 fit opportunity for personal advancement on the part 
 of all the permanent instructors in a faculty lies in the 
 Sabbatical year now granted in all the better colleges. 
 A new and rapidly growing department of adminis- 
 tration lies in the relation of a college to its constitu- 
 ency — the alumni, the parents and friends of students, 
 the state, and the public at large so far as its interests 
 extend. Every college has also its inter-collegiate rela- 
 tions. It is a part of a vast educational system. Of 
 course, it is the office of whoever may be the head of a 
 college to represent it on public occasions, to declare its 
 policy, and to adjust its formal relations to other educa- 
 tional bodies. The direct connection of parents with 
 the college is through the dean's office. But between 
 these lies a wide reach of administrative work now cov- 
 ered by a new officer, namely, the secretary of the col- 
 lege, whose business it is to present the college in proper 
 ways to its constituency, through correspondence, 
 through publications, and, as occasion may offer, 
 through personal intercourse with those who are con- 
 cerned with the affairs of the college. At Dartmouth 
 the secretary of the college is the general secretary of 
 the secretaries of classes and of alumni organizations.
 
 COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION 247 
 
 This department, as I have said, is recent, even in the 
 colleges where it has been formed, but it illustrates the 
 growth of purely administrative work. 
 
 I pass through this department of administration to 
 that which is represented altogether by the governing 
 board, namely, the financial management of a college. 
 The universities of Germany are under the financial 
 control of the state. The English colleges are man- 
 aged much more completely from within. The Ameri- 
 can college or university is under the control of the state, 
 or of a corporate body usually self -perpetuating, except 
 as modified by alumni representation. I refer in what 
 follows to the financial management of endowed col- 
 leges under the control of boards of trust. These boards 
 vary in size. The original idea seems to have been that 
 of influential representation. The modern idea is 
 efficiency. It may safely be assumed that the efficiency 
 of a board is in inverse ratio to its size. 
 
 As you may at once infer, the colleges of the country 
 were quite unprepared financially for the new burdens 
 which were to fall upon them through the increase in 
 the number of students, and through the increased cost 
 of education due to change of method and to the aug- 
 mented volume of subject matter. Furthermore it was 
 manifestly impossible to increase endowments to keep 
 pace with the new demands, especially in view of dechn- 
 ing rates of interest. The saving idea which came in 
 was the development of the college plant, through which 
 the college might increase its earning power. This 
 development of the college plant as a means of finan- 
 cial aid marks the advance in the financial treatment of 
 the modern college. Money apparently sunk in build- 
 ings and equipment re-appears in greatly enlarged
 
 248 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 income tlu'ough tuition. In the larger colleges the 
 receipts from tuition are now equal to or greater than 
 the income from invested funds. In many cases the 
 earning power of an institution has increased fivefold 
 within a generation, or even within a decade. 
 
 It is also true that as the necessities of colleges and 
 universities became apparent, and much more as their 
 capacity became apparent, they became the recipients 
 of large gifts. The period just passed has been a period 
 of endowment, as well as of increased earning power. 
 The question naturally arises, will the wealth of the 
 nation be permanently interested in education, or, more 
 exactly, in existing educational institutions? The 
 answer seems to me very doubtful. The interests of 
 wealth are changeable, especially the interests of men 
 of sudden and vast wealth. There are indications that 
 the interests of wealth are either centering in great edu- 
 cational trusts, or passing over to other and newer 
 objects of benefaction, perhaps in the region of the arts. 
 In any event, I believe that the financial future of a 
 college does not lie in some lucky access to money at 
 large, but in its steady access to permanently interested 
 money. Soon or late every college must fall back for 
 its support upon those who belong to it by inheritance, 
 or association, or indebtedness. Nothing has been more 
 suggestive at this point or more inspiriting than the 
 quiet but prompt response of the alumni of Harvard to 
 a call for a teaching fund of two and a half millions. 
 This, I say, is suggestive of the future sources of finan- 
 cial aid to our colleges. The permanent source of sup- 
 ply is interested money. It is this interest which has 
 made the appropriation of the State of New Hampshire 
 to Dartmouth College for the past years of so much
 
 COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION 249 
 
 value to the college. The heart of the state has gone 
 with it. It is this interest which made the gift of 
 Edward Tuck of such value to the college. His heart 
 was in it. It is through this avenue of possible interest 
 that Dartmouth, or any college, has the right to ap- 
 proach any man of means whom it would like to identify 
 with itself. I believe that a college has no right to ask 
 any man for his money when it simply wants his money, 
 but does not want him. That sort of business is not 
 fair play. An invitation to give ought to be also an 
 invitation to come. The roll of the benefactors of a 
 college should be as honorable as the roll of its gradu- 
 ates. 
 
 As the trustees of a college turn from the sources of 
 financial supply to the needs of the college, there are 
 two constant and pressing needs which differ from 
 others. There is always the demand for something of 
 better quality or of larger amount. It is a trite but 
 honorable saying that it is the business of a college to 
 be poor. When it has no wants which outrun its income, 
 it is a serious question about the inner life. But the 
 needs to which I now refer come with a personal pres- 
 sure. The first has to do with the pay of competent 
 instructors. I suppose we shall never reach the ideal 
 state in the support of college professors set forth in 
 the theory on which a call is extended to a minister in 
 the Presbyterian church. According to the book of dis- 
 cipline the call must read as follows: "And that you 
 may be free from worldly cares and avocations we 
 hereby promise and oblige to pay to you the sum of 
 during the time of your being and con- 
 tinuing the regular pastor of this church." It would 
 take a good deal of money to set most of us free from
 
 250 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 "worldly cares and avocations." The question of salary 
 has to do with market values and yet is distinct from 
 them. On the one hand, the man who gives himself to 
 the calling of a college teacher gives himself to a call- 
 ing for which he has to make costly preparation, a call- 
 ing which makes large social demands upon him, and a 
 calling which stimulates his tastes, but which continu- 
 ally mocks him with its financial returns. On the other 
 hand, the college which invests in him to the extent of 
 a life investment takes the risk of deterioration in per- 
 sonal enthusiasm or in some other form of personal 
 efficiency. The position has the advantage for the aver- 
 age man of the lack of competitive valuation. The 
 exceptional man of market value always fares well 
 enough anywhere. It would be a poor relief to the pro- 
 fessor in an American college to subject him to the 
 competitive tests of the German lecturer, or to open to 
 him the uncertain opportunities of the English don. 
 We pay the price of dignity, permanency, and equality 
 in low salaries. But the demand is no less real and 
 urgent for an advance of salary on some grades of 
 instruction in every college. On the whole, more money 
 is earned by the faculty of a college than is received. 
 This holds true when all considerations of a social and 
 spiritual sort are taken at their full valuation. 
 
 The other demand of this human kind comes from 
 students to whom the cost of a college education is well 
 nigh prohibitive. It is not well to make the way through 
 college too easy. A college education is worth a great 
 deal of struggle and sacrifice. But in our endowed col- 
 leges we ought to have means to relieve, without loss to 
 the college, all proper appeals for aid through scholar- 
 ships. Whenever a deficit occurs in our colleges it is
 
 COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION 251 
 
 due in good part to the draft upon their funds in the aid 
 cf men in the honorable struggle for an education. A 
 college is a business corporation, but it has a soul. If 
 administered ruthlessly or unfeelingly, it violates the 
 charter of its rights. 
 
 I have been asked to give you a descriptive view of 
 the administration of the modern college, to show the 
 nature of the change from the old to the new. Having 
 attempted to meet this wish I simply refer in closing to 
 a question which has recently been mooted — whether or 
 not a change in the method of administering our col- 
 leges and universities, like that of turning over their 
 management to the faculty, would be to their advan- 
 tage. We can all see disadvantages in the present 
 divided methods of administration. But I doubt if it 
 will ever be possible to change college administration at 
 the root. The root is in the soil in which it grew. The 
 American college, though the latest educational vari- 
 ant, is not necessarily the best. Its value hes in its 
 adaptation to its work. It will probably still do its best 
 work under those methods of administration which have 
 proved themselves more effective in practice than prom- 
 ising in theory.
 
 XVIII 
 
 THE RIGHTS OF THE PERIOD OF 
 
 EDUCATION 
 
 An Address Given at Several Gatherings of Teachers 1899 
 
 In the early summer the statue of Thomas Hughes 
 was unveiled at Rugby in the presence of very many 
 old Rugby schoolboys, and men of Oxford, and also of 
 many friends of the higher education in England. The 
 Archbishop of Canterbury presided, and the chief 
 address was made by Mr. Goschen, First Lord of the 
 Admiralty. This apparently personal event was not 
 simply a tribute to the personality of the author of 
 "Tom Brown at Oxford." Its significance lay in the 
 fact that it was a recognition and an acknowledgement 
 of the change which had taken place, within the genera- 
 tion, in the sentiment of the great schools of England. 
 The change was hardly less than a revolution, and it was 
 effected not from without, but from within, not from 
 above even, but from within. It was brought about by 
 schoolboys and undergraduates themselves under the 
 inspiration, if not under the leadership of Thomas 
 Hughes. Mr. Goschen struck the keynote of the occa- 
 sion to which I have referred, when he said that 
 "Thomas Hughes was the most distinguished schoolboy 
 that ever lived." That was a fine thing to say of a man 
 who had been known as lawyer, author, member of Par- 
 liament, and founder of a colony. But he might have 
 said still more. For Thomas Hughes gave high and
 
 THE RIGHTS OF EDUCATION 253 
 
 permanent distinction to all that life of which he was 
 the personal representative. He created a new world 
 for the play and movement of it, introducing new habits 
 and customs, new ambitions and new ideals of manhood. 
 
 What Thomas Arnold was among masters, that 
 Thomas Hughes was among schoolboys, or undergrad- 
 uates. Without Thomas Hughes the work of Thomas 
 Arnold would have passed away with his generation. 
 It would have been a personal and local work. Thomas 
 Hughes caught the ideal of the great master, and trans- 
 lated it into fact, as schoolboy at Rugby, as undergrad- 
 uate at Oxford, and finally into the young life of Eng- 
 land wherever it was in training. That ideal was so 
 single that it could be apprehended by any one, and so 
 true and fine that once understood it became contagious. 
 It was simply the assertion of the natural, the genuine, 
 the manly, as against the conventional, the artificial, 
 the unnatural if not the unmanly. Dr. Arnold, as I 
 have said, was the prophet of the new order in the edu- 
 cational life of England, but the new order was actu- 
 ally brought in through the agency of the young men 
 whom he inspired. The change was really effected 
 through the awakening of self-respect, and the sense of 
 social obligation, and loyalty to the best instincts of 
 their nature on the part of those who were within the 
 process of education. It was a change from feudalism 
 in education to democracy. 
 
 The effects of the change were manifest. It broke 
 up the old conventional relations between master and 
 scholar. It substituted character for mere authority, 
 and attainment for dogmatism, on the part of the mas- 
 ter: and honor and loyalty, in place of fear or evasion 
 on the part of the scholar. It established the principle
 
 254 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 of fair play in every school and college : it put down the 
 mean and cowardly: it taught fellows not to lie, or 
 cheat, but to be honest and plucky at any cost : it made 
 sports genuine and manly: it built up athletics in place 
 of degrading pastimes: it abolished flogging, and fag- 
 ging: it set up as the true type of the schoolboy (or 
 undergraduate) the clean, wholesome, well trained, 
 fearless, honorable fellow, who won fairly, if he won at 
 all, in study or play. 
 
 And this ideal of school life was made possible, as I 
 have been reminding you, through the awakened con- 
 sciousness of the schoolboy himself. As soon as he saw 
 that the world in which he was living was really his 
 world, having its own rights, and pleasures, and oppor- 
 tunities, and responsibilities, he became interested in it, 
 and interested in trying to make it the right kind of a 
 world. 
 
 I am grateful for the timeliness of this reminiscence 
 of Thomas Hughes as giving me the natural approach 
 to a somewhat inaccessible subject, about which I have 
 for some time wished to write or speak — namely — The 
 Rights of the Period of Education — the acknowledg- 
 ment of which represents the next advance in popular 
 education. I am convinced that whatever importance 
 we attach to popular education, we attach far too little 
 importance to the period of education, and to the moral 
 results which take place within that period. A good 
 many of our educational difficulties grow out of the fact 
 that we allow ourselves to think of the educational 
 period as a fragment, or at best as merely preparatory 
 to something which is to follow. The actual educational 
 period is a fragment with the majority, but so is life 
 itself a fragment with the majority. And yet we do not
 
 THE RIGHTS OF EDUCATION 255 
 
 allow ourselves to think of life, the life of any indi- 
 vidual, as a fragment, but always as a whole. Life 
 would be robbed of all its greater enthusiasms if we 
 thought of it in broken terms, or even in any terms 
 short of the maximum. Nothing has its first power over 
 us which we do not think of in its unity and complete- 
 ness. Education when arrested, as it is with the major- 
 ity, after a few years, means a thousand times as much 
 to them as it would mean if others were not going on 
 with it to completion. The part of the whole which 
 they enjoy is infinitely more than a little unit would 
 be, measured by their alloted time. 
 
 And in like measure as regards our thought of the 
 period of education as altogether preparatory to the 
 after life. We may lay far too much stress upon this 
 aspect of education. We may lose more than we gain 
 by over-emphasizing the preparatory idea. In the order 
 of Providence there is always a certain distinctness, 
 even separateness, in the rate of advance. We cannot 
 safely overlook it. If we try to make a child anything 
 other than a child, we simply get a prig. Even in the 
 relation of this life to the next, the divine order is, one 
 world at a time. We must have enough separateness 
 or distinctness to ensure unity, if we are to get the value 
 of any period of our lives. The period of education is 
 no exception to this rule. I urge the right of this period 
 to as distinct and separate a place as may be necessary 
 to secure its essential objects without interference, its 
 right to create a sentiment, a spirit, an atmosphere of 
 its own, and therefore the right to lay claim to time 
 without the charge of intrusion. For the boy, who is 
 hving and acting fitly in the world of the school boy, is 
 learning in the best possible way how to live and act
 
 256 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 fitly in the larger world of men, the world of citizenship. 
 The rights of the period of education ought to be 
 proportionate to the responsibilities which are put upon 
 it. If I were to reduce the object of an education, as 
 applied to the individual, to its simplest terms, I should 
 say that it aimed at three things, first, to enable the 
 individual to find himself, second to enable him to make 
 sure of himself, and then to enable him to relate him- 
 self rightly to others. These are very simple aims, but 
 they are far reaching. It is quite evident that one 
 remains essentially a child until he begins at least to 
 know himself: it is equally evident that one does not 
 reach any degree of maturity until his powers have 
 begun to work with some degree of certainty : and it is 
 evident that he has made no approach to manhood till 
 he has learned how to live with others. Self-knowledge 
 and self-reliance are the first plain, everyday, practical 
 results of an education, — the self knowledge which 
 comes from the awakened faculties, the self reliance 
 which comes from the trained faculties. We expect, in 
 a word, from the school room some intimation of that 
 mental character foreshadowed in the familiar line: 
 "Self reverence, self knowledge, self control." We 
 judge the schools by the results they give us at these 
 points. We have no patience with schools which turn 
 out dullards and blunderers. Whether the time of edu- 
 cation be long or short, we demand that the minds of 
 scholars shall be alert ; and if the time be long enough to 
 secure such a result, we demand that their minds shall 
 be accurate and reliable in their working, I grant of 
 course that no guarantee can be given for this outcome. 
 A boy may go through school and college and remain 
 uneducated; that is, his powers may not have been led
 
 THE RIGHTS OF EDUCATION 25T 
 
 out. Xow and then we find a mind which cannot be led 
 out. It must be driven out. It must come under the 
 sharp stimulus of necessity, such as usually attacks one 
 only in after life, to come to any development. There 
 are men who were failures in school who are successes in 
 the world. But they are rare, the very rare exceptions. 
 That is why we hear so much about them. The excep- 
 tional interests us more than the ordinary. Interest, 
 recognition, acknowledgment of the exceptional is 
 legitimate: the fallacy comes in, and it is always a tre- 
 mendous fallacy, when we begin to reason from the ex- 
 ceptional. 
 
 The business of education is to deliver each incom- 
 ing generation into the hands of society reasonably well 
 developed, reasonably well trained, reasonably well 
 informed, and reasonably well adjusted to the moral 
 relations of life. That is the responsibility resting upon 
 our schools and colleges. Beyond this work lies the 
 vast range of investigation open to the few, the very 
 few who have committed themselves to the high ends 
 of research and discovery. 
 
 Now if such responsibility as this falls within the 
 period of education there ought to be in the public mind, 
 a corresponding distinctness of object attaching to this 
 period. It is just as clear and distinct an object 
 to organize the mind of a generation as it is to employ 
 that mind afterwards in any given trade, or business, or 
 profession. I am not pleading for a theory of educa- 
 tion : I am pleading for the period of education. I want 
 to see a change brought about in this regard, in the 
 attitude of the public mind. An education is commonly 
 regarded as a means to an end. I would have it 
 regarded also in the light of an end in itself. A well 
 
 17
 
 258 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 organized mind is as distinct an object as character, and 
 as worthy an end as a fortune. I would change the 
 presumption in this whole matter, that whereas the pre- 
 sumption is now in favor of no more education than is 
 called for by some specific object to be gained in the 
 after life, I would have the presumption in favor of so 
 much of an education as the individual is capable of, 
 with a view to the largest thing which he can do when 
 the time of action comes. I think that we shall agree 
 that the normal man amongst us is to be the educated 
 man, in the sense in which I have used the term, the man 
 that is, who has learned to know himself, to make sure 
 of himself, and to relate himself properly to others. 
 Education in this sense is the outfit to which one is en- 
 titled, the capital with which one ought to be able to 
 begin the business of life. 
 
 It has not been found practicable to abridge the 
 period of education. In order to become educated men 
 and women in the full sense of the schools, we must put 
 behind us not less than one-third of our lives before we 
 enter upon what is termed our life work. This propor- 
 tion between mental growth and maturity, or between 
 study and production, does not essentially change from 
 one generation to another. We may economize in time 
 to some extent, we may recover considerable tracts of 
 intellectual territory which have been allowed to run 
 waste, but these savings are quickly appropriated in the 
 interest of new subjects and a more careful knowledge. 
 
 Two forces guard this period to its full limit — nature 
 and society. Nature resolutely protects the season of 
 mental growth by demanding time for play as well as 
 study, by protesting against haste, and by enforcing 
 with exact penalty the laws of growth. And society.
 
 THE RIGHTS OF EDUCATION 259 
 
 at the other end, refuses all apphcants who cannot show 
 the proper credentials. Society welcomes the child of 
 genius with his own credentials, and is appreciative of 
 all self-educated men who have results to show. But 
 her claims are becoming more and more exacting from 
 those who assume the culture of the schools, and who 
 assert the advantage of a liberal education. An edu- 
 cated man can no longer justify himself to society 
 unless he can show those results in mental character 
 which it is the business of education to insure and guar- 
 antee. For education, we are always to remember, is 
 more than instruction. The distinction has been so 
 well expressed in a recent word from Professor Jebb 
 that I venture to quote it, "It is no new thing," he says, 
 "how far and how best we can combine education, that 
 is, the bringing out of the faculties, with instruction, 
 that is, the imparting of valuable knowledge. Modern 
 life, so complex, so restless and so competitive, natur- 
 ally tends to insist first upon instruction; but as no 
 progress of science can enable men to think faster, a 
 sound economy of educational time depends on the 
 same principles as ever." 
 
 I shall refer in a moment to the various practical 
 limitations of which account must be made, in consid- 
 ering the subject before us, but just now I am intent 
 upon emphasizing the one idea in its singleness, that 
 the period of education is as distinct a period, with as 
 distinct an object, having as great a responsibility and 
 entitled to as undisputed right, as any period in our 
 lives. Let us put the idea into the concrete and see 
 what it means to accept it under practical conditions. 
 We at once ask, what is the period of education, when 
 measured by time? Suppose we allow the educational
 
 260 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 period to reach to the age of eighteen for the minimum, 
 and to twenty one for the maximum average. We 
 will not say that education should be compulsory even 
 up to the minimum age; that is not w^iat I am ask- 
 ing for; but we will assume that public sentiment 
 should be strong enough in favor of that extension to 
 put the burden of proof upon those who would deny it. 
 Suppose that in actual fact the majority in our schools 
 should reach that limit, and only the minority fall out 
 by the way. What then? What are the practical 
 objections of a definite and positive sort? Let us con- 
 sider them. 
 
 First; there is the objection from cost, the direct 
 cost in money and the indirect cost in time. All 
 education must be paid for directly through pubhc taxa- 
 tion, or through private endowment ; in the newer states 
 by the former means chiefly, in the older states by the 
 latter means beyond the range of the public schools. 
 It is impossible to calculate the precise cost of the period 
 of education if it should be virtually extended to the 
 ages of eighteen or twenty one, but I think it safe to say 
 that the cost of the advance would be no greater than 
 was the cost of the original advance into the region of 
 the higher education. It cost far more to advance be- 
 yond the three R's, into the wide territory covered by 
 the public school system than it would now cost to make 
 that territory available to all below the age even of 
 twenty one. The first cost is passed, that of establish- 
 ing the wider educational foundations, and of providing 
 facilities for advanced instruction. The increased cost 
 would consist in multiplying appliances already exist- 
 ing. It is cheaper to enlarge high schools, academies, 
 technical school, and even colleges, than to create them
 
 THE RIGHTS OF EDUCATION 261 
 
 in the first instance. The existing plants are of great 
 public value. 
 
 The question of the indirect cost, in time, the time of 
 the individual, is more serious. It costs the family with- 
 out fortune, but with children, more to give up the time 
 of the children in school, than it costs a family without 
 children, but with a fortune, to pay its share for the 
 support of the schools in taxes. It requires sacrifice, 
 often heroic sacrifice, to give up the earnings of chil- 
 dren beyond a certain age, even if nothing is paid out 
 for their education. It means a great deal often for 
 parents to give children "their time." It means a great 
 deal for parents to identify themselves to this extent 
 with the fortunes of their children. The most pathetic 
 scene in the early educational history of New England 
 is the interview between Mr. Webster while a student 
 in college, and his father, about sending his brother 
 Ezekiel to college. The farm had been mortgaged to 
 send Daniel. To send Ezekiel the scanty personal 
 property must be exhausted. The father replied, "I 
 should be willing, if it were not for your mother. I 
 must consult her." The mother who had overhead the 
 conversation at once said, "I am willing, I can trust my 
 boys." 
 
 That was the old New England spirit. It was the 
 spirit of sacrifice. It was the spirit which made New 
 England. It put a relatively large share of the family 
 capital into the education of the children. That was 
 the favorite investment of that earlier time. We can 
 see that it paid, that nothing paid like it, but it required 
 faith, and often heroism. It is at just this point that 
 there is beginning to be the most appreciable decline 
 in the old stock. There is less ambition to secure a full
 
 262 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 education for children at the cost of personal and family 
 comforts. Meanwhile the new stock is beginning to 
 show something of the same quality which the old stock 
 is losing. The families who have much to gain socially 
 are willing to make sacrifices to secure their ends. This 
 is especially true of foreigners of the second and third 
 generation. Those who have not given direct attention 
 to this change would be surprised to know how far 
 reaching it is. A clergyman in Boston, who had inves- 
 tigated the subject recently told me that there were 
 twenty-six ministers of one denomination in that city, 
 who were, as he expressed it, sons of immigrants. He 
 was one of them. That is a very remarkable result. 
 Twenty-six men in one branch of one profession, sons 
 of men who were not born in this country — a remarkable 
 showing for the second generation. But any one who 
 knows what is going on in our schools and colleges, 
 knows that there is a steady incoming of those from the 
 newer peoples who are pushing their way into the higher 
 education through the social or general ambition of their 
 parents, and this always means sacrifice, the willingness 
 as I have said, to give up the time of their children, 
 their first earning power, and in many cases the willing- 
 ness to add the aid of money. In asking for an exten- 
 sion of the period of education within the limits named, 
 I am pleading for a revival of the old spirit which gave 
 New England its educational prestige, and which must 
 be revived if New England families of the old stock are 
 to hold their birthright. 
 
 A second objection is of a more general character: 
 the extension for large numbers of the period of edu- 
 cation would withdraw too many from productive labor. 
 Here again it would be impossible to give statistics, but
 
 THE RIGHTS OF EDUCATION 263 
 
 without doubt the number would be large enough to 
 make some impression upon the labor market. Would 
 the reduction be an economic loss? Is the country in 
 need of more laborers who are minors? Occasionally 
 a great industry makes some extraordinary demands, 
 but the ordinary demand is for work, not for laborers. 
 The most exacting requirements are made by labor 
 unions to extend the time and conditions of apprentice- 
 ship to the various trades: and the steady contention 
 is for reduced hours of labor, partly with the view of 
 making work go round. The usual condition of the 
 labor market is that it is overstocked, with the liability 
 of being congested. It is wonderful how large a num- 
 ber can be withdrawn from production and allow unin- 
 terrupted if not increasing national prosperity. Ger- 
 many withdraws 600,000 men from the labor market, 
 yet Germany is today in many respects the most suc- 
 cessful commercial nation in the world. The standing 
 armies of Europe make enormous demands upon the 
 people for their support in peace as well as in war, but 
 it is an open question whether the men themselves are 
 needed for productive purposes, outside an undevel- 
 oped country like Russia. It is a serious draft upon the 
 labor market of that country to have 265,000 men of 
 twenty-one years of age conscripted each year to serve 
 for five years, making a total of nearly 1,000,000 pro- 
 ducers under arms. 
 
 The movements of old countries all look toward 
 reduction of the aggregate amount of labor, either in 
 numbers employed, or in time of service. Colonization 
 was long the favorite scheme for relieving the home 
 labor market. Now it is long apprenticeships, reduced 
 hours of labor, and old age pensions. It is interesting
 
 264 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 to note that Japan, which is coming into view as an 
 industrial nation, retires men from the activities of life 
 at a comparatively early age. A traveller who landed 
 recently at San Francisco, after having spent some time 
 in Japan, said that he saw more bald headed men on the 
 ferry boats running from San Francisco to Oakland 
 than he had seen engaged in business during his resi- 
 dence in Japan. The question of production is no 
 longer the question of numbers, but of skill, of capac- 
 ity for rapid work to match machinery, of endurance 
 under exhausting conditions, and of ability to adjust 
 oneself to others, of working in a team. There is no 
 economic reason why boys should be hurried into the 
 labor market. There may be a sufficient reason, as I 
 have said, why they should contribute to the support of 
 a given family, but no trade needs them or business. 
 No city calls for them: the country at large does not 
 need them. The best economic use to which you can 
 put boys and girls is to educate them in the sense in 
 which I have been using the term, that is, to enable them 
 to find themselves, and to make sure of themselves, not 
 to rush them into trades or business. 
 
 A third objection has to do with the character of edu- 
 cation. It is said that education unfits for common 
 work, and that for the higher grades of work or busi- 
 ness it is necessary to unlearn much which the schools 
 have taught. This objection has a certain force, but it 
 is becoming of less and less significance, chiefly because 
 the schools are becoming more practical. In fact the 
 great difficulty today in all grades of education is to 
 withstand the undue commercial tendencies of the time. 
 Education is set in all departments, apart from investi- 
 gation, toward some end of utihty. The new wealth
 
 THE RIGHTS OF EDUCATIOlSr 265 
 
 of the nation lies in the new sciences, or in the new 
 knowledge of the old sciences. There is more available 
 wealth lying in the laboratories of biology, chemistry, 
 and physics than in the gold fields of Alaska. Any one 
 who is familiar with the variety and character of the 
 courses of instruction in the better schools will see that 
 there is everything to learn, and little to unlearn, for the 
 practical uses of life. The individual may make mis- 
 takes, but the way is open from the time of first choice 
 to the end, into the actual employments which are to 
 follow. 
 
 As to the incompatibility between study and work, 
 nothing can be said apart from one's knowledge of the 
 individual. My observation is that a boy who leaves 
 school or college full of conceit and self sufficiency 
 would have shown the same results under any circum- 
 stances. Conceit is a personal quality. I have never 
 seen the discipline sufficient to drive it out. But the 
 greatest foe to conceit is knowledge, provided it can 
 have the chance to show its power. The moral effect of 
 an education is to teach self respect, and the best expres- 
 sion of self respect is in not being ashamed to work. 
 Manual work is being constantly ennobled by those who 
 see capacities in it which the untrained eye and hand 
 cannot find. Half the drudgery of the world has 
 already been brought up to the plane of labor by those 
 who have not been ashamed to stoop to lift it up. I have 
 no fear from this objection about the effect of the school 
 in unfitting for work, when once the subject is fairly 
 investigated. If it be really true, then there is no stop- 
 ping place in mental decline until we reach and accept 
 slavery as the normal condition for work. 
 
 Are there any valid objections against the endeavor
 
 266 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 to extend and enrich the period of education? Sup- 
 pose the number of those going on in the schools until 
 eighteen, or even twenty-one, were doubled, would soci- 
 ety be the loser? Would it be if the number were 
 trebled? Where will you fix the proportion between 
 those who should and those who should not have the 
 advantage of a relatively full period of study, provided 
 the world of study be made in all parts a live world? 
 
 I take the opportunity in the time remaining to speak 
 of the effect of the extension of the actual period of edu- 
 cation upon the life of the average school. In my 
 judgment it would invigorate the whole school system. 
 The most stimulating influences work from above down. 
 It is the university as the home of research that invig- 
 orates the college, it is the college with its broad courses 
 and generous activities which quickens the secondary 
 school, it is the secondary school with its close applica- 
 tion and definite object which gives quahty and tone and 
 direction to the elementary school. All this is true in 
 a strict educational sense. One of the failures of 
 American education lies in the fact that it does not 
 carry education far enough along to feel its social effect. 
 The common school is a democratic institution, but it 
 is more democratic the higher it reaches. The high 
 school is more democratic than the primary school, 
 because those who reach that grade know the meaning 
 of the common social life. The average college is the 
 most democratic institution in American society. It is 
 far more of a social democracy than the average church. 
 The tests of merit are accessible to all; the test may be 
 scholarship, it may be athletics, it may be good fel- 
 lowship. We ought, in the interest of American society 
 and politics, to bring a larger and larger number under
 
 THE RIGHTS OF EDUCATION 267 
 
 the influence of education in those grades where it works 
 most directly to the ends of our national life. 
 
 And when you pass to the influence of the upper 
 grades upon the individual you find that the influence 
 multiplies in proportion to the degree in which one 
 feels that he is a part, a necessary part, of the school. 
 That is what membership in a great school, with great 
 traditions, with large purposes, with a broad and gen- 
 erous life, means to every member of it. It makes the 
 constant appeal to his loyalty, to his honor, to his enthu- 
 siasm. When Mr. Goschen said that Thomas Hughes 
 was the most distinguished schoolboy that ever lived, 
 he meant that he was the most of a schoolboy possible 
 in his time. He lived the real life of a Rugby boy, he 
 took all the best there was out of the school and put the 
 best he had into it, unconsciously but really. 
 
 The mission of a great school is to accomplish a like 
 result in every member of it. There are a great many 
 schools which are doing this very thing. We are begin- 
 ning to recognize the fact. Every year the graduates, 
 not only of colleges but of academies and schools, come 
 together to recall the stimulus which came out of the old 
 school life, not yet a spent force. I attended recently 
 the celebration of the 150th anniversary of a church in 
 the state of New Hampshire. The figure that came up 
 out of the past with most frequent reference was that 
 of an old time school mistress in a district school, whose 
 scholars had organized themselves into an association 
 bearing her name. We want to increase this kind of 
 influence by every possible means. We want to make 
 the school as such, every school, have a spirit, a senti- 
 ment, an atmosphere that every member of it may feel. 
 We want to enlist the enthusiasm of every schoolboy in
 
 268 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 this purpose. We want to make it an object of ambi- 
 tion and pride to be a distinguished schoolboy, as much 
 so as to be a distinguished man in any business or pro- 
 fession. We can do tliis as we try to give a more ample 
 meaning to the period of education ; as we learn to look 
 upon it ourselves as a distinct unit of time, and not as 
 a fragment; as we acknowledge the fact that it has its 
 o^Ti distinct work in organizing mind and character, as 
 great as any which may follow; and as we give to this 
 world of early struggle and work and sport and fellow- 
 ship its appropriate and well earned rights. 
 
 And this result, if it come at all, must be brought 
 about from witliin. That is why I am speaking to you 
 who are teachers, or friends of education. We can 
 make just as big a place for the educational spirit to 
 inhabit as we are capable of making. Outward circum- 
 stances will gradually yield to the large and vital idea 
 of education which we believe in and know how to illus- 
 trate. I have gone into a town where the schools were 
 of no value — without efficiency in training, without 
 enthusiasm in study or even play. Again I have seen 
 that same town with a well organized system, suitable 
 buildings, and teaching that gave impulse and growth. 
 The justification for the old state of affairs was that the 
 town was stingy and the people indifferent. The rea- 
 son for the new state of affairs was that a live teacher 
 and organizer had come into the community and begun 
 his work. The community could not withstand him. 
 Interest was awakened, and money followed as a matter 
 of course. 
 
 I have seen the like result in the effect upon the 
 young life of a community, schools which were left as 
 soon as the growing boy could get away from them,
 
 THE RIGHTS OF EDUCATIOX 269 
 
 changed into schools which held him to the end and then 
 sent him to college. And the change had the same rea- 
 son. There is nothing impossible in any local situation 
 to a great teacher. Given Thomas Arnold, and you 
 have Thomas Hughes, and then in due time another 
 Rugby, another Oxford, a new educational life in the 
 countrv' at large.
 
 XIX 
 
 ARRESTED EDUCATION— HOW DISCOV- 
 ERED 
 
 Delivered at Rutland, Vt,, before the State Teachers' Conven- 
 tion 
 
 If the subject which I introduce this evening foUows 
 you out of school hours and beyond the immediate tech- 
 nique of your business, I see no reason for apology. I 
 think that I have the right to assume that we are con- 
 cerned not only with the methods of our work, but quite 
 as much with its result, and especially with the final 
 outcome of it as it appears in the general social devel- 
 opment. Of course we are intensely interested in the 
 individual future of our pupils. Every teacher follows 
 the career of those whom he has taught with pride or 
 with anxiety, until the individual is lost to view. But 
 we are interested in the direct future of our pupils in a 
 much broader way. Those who go out from our public 
 schools, whether by graduation or at any earlier stage by 
 withdrawal, become the proper subjects of a wide social 
 study, a social study in which I believe that we ought 
 to engage as a legitimate after part of our work. We 
 ought to know, that is, what becomes of those edu- 
 cational tendencies which we have developed, and 
 guarded, and tried to direct. Do they return into the 
 life of the growing boy or girl to be undistinguished or 
 lost for want of continued discipline? Do they mate- 
 rialize and harden into business capacity, and find their 
 equivalent in a certain commercial value to the individ-
 
 ARRESTED EDUCATION 271 
 
 ual and to the community? Or are they also perpet- 
 uated along more advanced educational lines, the man, 
 whatever may be his vocation, still at school in the world, 
 never quite able to outgrow the impulse which we gave 
 the boy? 
 
 Now these are not questions of statistics. I am not 
 asking how many of our pupils enter the professions, 
 how many engage in business, how many build houses, 
 how many fall back into the commonplace, how many 
 fall below that into demoralization and disgrace. My 
 question is more profound and vital. I want to know, 
 as one whose business is education, what becomes of the 
 educational impulse upon which we have been at work, 
 and which we have been trying to develop and save. Is 
 that preserved and given a chance after the days of 
 school, or does it grow weak and fail when it touches 
 the world? And if it fails whose fault is it? Is it the 
 fault of the individual, or of his education, or of society? 
 And especially as to the last, does society, as we know 
 it, make a proper educational connection with the pubhc 
 school ? Does it offer incentives and inducements to the 
 further development of the intellectual Hfe? 
 
 It is into this region of inquiry that I would lead you 
 for a little time. And to be as definite as possible, I 
 restrict myself to the single question of the educational 
 in distinction from the commercial outcome of the train- 
 ing of the public school. 
 
 In making this distinction I at once concede and 
 affirm that there is a commercial value which is the legit- 
 imate outcome of the training of the public school. It 
 is entirely proper to transmute knowledge into dollars 
 and cents. Knowledge as it is clear, and exact, and rare 
 has a market value. There should be no separation
 
 272 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 between education and life in its most necessary and in 
 its most bm'densome activities. I confess to a growing 
 respect for the man w^ho knows how to earn his hving, 
 and who proposes that his children shall know how to 
 earn their living. It is becoming more and more neces- 
 sary that every capable man shall see to it that no 
 child of his shall become a burden upon society. Society 
 is already staggering under the burden of the incapa- 
 bles, a much heavier burden than that of its actual 
 paupers. The capacity to earn an honest livelihood, 
 even though the occasion for it may not always seem to 
 be present, is the demand which society has the right to 
 make of all its members. This is the primitive demand, 
 and we can never get safely beyond it. An honest live- 
 lihood is the starting point in all our social progress, 
 and the point to which we are always obliged to return 
 whenever we ignore it. 
 
 More than this, an honest livehhood is the foundation 
 of the social sentiment of a community. The earning 
 power of a young man determines first the fact of a 
 home, and then the character of the home. The extra 
 knowledge, the additional mental discipline, which can 
 be commuted into the extra wage means more comfort, 
 more refinement, more social prosperity. There is a 
 material element in family affection. When a family is 
 too poor to be decent it is too poor to be affectionate. 
 We are never to allow ourselves therefore to think of 
 the commercial value of an education as representing 
 anything mercenary, especially in its lower stages. An 
 education which stands for an honest livelihood is the 
 foundation of the social structure within wliich the vir- 
 tues and affections, all those qualities which go to make 
 up the fine sentiment of a people, are safe. It is for
 
 ARRESTED EDUCATION 273 
 
 this reason that we ought to encourage in all ways the 
 establishment, wherever practicable, of manual train- 
 ing schools. 
 
 And yet when I acknowledge and emphasize, as I 
 now do, the cormnercial outcome of the training of the 
 public school, I wish to emphasize still more the fact 
 that there is another outcome which is more possible and 
 more practicable than we are wont to conceive, namely, 
 the educational. And I hope to show as I proceed how 
 greatly the opportunities are increasing for the expan- 
 sion and refinement of the intellectual life, when once 
 it has been awakened under the training of the school, 
 even though the process may stop short of what we term 
 a liberal education. 
 
 It is a marvellous thing, is it not, that any one of us 
 should be able to have the intellectual possession of the 
 world, able, that is, to see it with his own eyes, to hear it 
 with his own ears, to handle it with his own hands, to 
 call the world at some point or in some part his own. 
 And the marvel of this kind of ownership increases as 
 men multiply, and knowledge grows, for the faculty to 
 possess is very great, even if the creative faculty be 
 wanting, if, as Matthew Arnold says, one may not 
 "compose the poem in his soul." That one may under- 
 stand and interpret to himself in some measure the 
 outer world in which he is to live is certainly one of the 
 simplest and most primary offices of education. What 
 is it to miss altogether that understanding and inter- 
 pretation, to be as if one were living in any other world, 
 if such indifference could be called life! It is the com- 
 monplace of the preacher when he would enforce the 
 idea of a present moral responsibility, "we shall not 
 pass this way again." It should be, I think, the like 
 
 18
 
 274 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 commonplace of the teacher in enforcing the present 
 intellectual opportunity, "we shall not pass this way 
 again." Whatever may be the intellectual future of 
 any human being, none of us can repeat the conditions 
 of present knowledge. To know this world of nature 
 which is becoming more and more accessible, this world 
 of hving men which is becoming more and more inter- 
 esting, though sometimes with a painful interest, this 
 world of historic thought and achievement, this world 
 of obligation and duty and sacrifice — knowledge of this 
 sort must come while we are in and of the world. And 
 something of this knowledge is now possible and easy. 
 The average person can have a reasonable share in this 
 intellectual ownership. Unconsciously, often unwill- 
 ingly, he is put in the way to gain it. The veriest 
 truant in our streets may be brought to the sense of his 
 intellectual birthright, and made to see the value of his 
 inheritance. 
 
 I do not wish to speak in any exaggerated way of the 
 purely educational function of the public school. I 
 have already allowed that under present conditions we 
 must be satisfied, in the great majority of cases, in 
 reaching the true commercial end of the school, pro- 
 vided only that we never lower our ideals here and suffer 
 the commercial to degenerate into the mercenary. But 
 there is a growing chance, I believe, to maintain and 
 perpetuate what I have called the educational impulse. 
 Opportunities are increasing for boys and girls, for 
 young men and women, to carry on their intellectual 
 work after leaving school. Out of that large class which 
 leaves school between the ages of fourteen and eighteen 
 there are many who would continue if it were possible. 
 Their minds have been fairly organized and developed
 
 ARRESTED EDUCATION 275 
 
 for study, their ambition has been aroused, their imag- 
 ination quickened, and their taste refined. It is a per- 
 sonal grief to some of them to be obliged to forego fur- 
 ther study. Meanwhile it is becoming possible to aid 
 many of them in carrying out their unfulfilled desires. 
 The system of evening schools in the larger towns, 
 classes organized under the auspices of various associa- 
 tions, social and literary clubs, free public libraries, uni- 
 versity extension, are indications of the movement in 
 society to perpetuate the work of the public school, espe- 
 cially when it cannot be completed in the regular way. 
 The principal of the Evening High School in Boston 
 said to me this week that it was entirely possible for a 
 young man of seventeen, who, as he expressed it, knew 
 nothing, to carry on his work by day, and fit himself for 
 college in seven years. The point which I now wish 
 to urge is that we, as teachers, shall inform ourselves 
 in regard to all existing facilities for extending the 
 work of the pubhc school, that we shall encourage all 
 endeavors in this direction, and that we shall urge our 
 pupils to avail themselves of these aids whenever prac- 
 ticable ; in a word, that we shall do what we can to stop 
 the enormous waste of educational force, which has been 
 generated in the public school, for want of continued 
 employment. 
 
 I am about to speak in some detail of these educa- 
 tional aids to the public school, but for the moment let 
 me pause to remind you of the danger of a degraded 
 education. All elementary education may open the 
 mind to the evil side of the world as well as to the good 
 side. It is quite possible to over-estimate the moral 
 safeguards of education. A certain amount of mental 
 training is necessary to some kinds of vice, and to some
 
 276 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 kinds of crime. The awakening of the mind, especially 
 the imagination, introduces its own danger into the 
 yomig life. "I would have you wise," Paul wrote to 
 the men and women in Rome who were just beginning 
 to awake under the stimulus of the new faith and to 
 whom the city was therefore a more serious danger, "I 
 would have you wise to that which is good, and simple 
 concerning evil" — not simpletons, but single-minded. 
 True, the education of the book is no more dangerous 
 than that of the street without the book, and, unlike that 
 of the street, it has its own corrective : still we must face 
 the fact that we sharpen the mind to bad thought and 
 bad purpose when no care is taken as to the applica- 
 tion of mental power. The danger from a degraded 
 education lies almost entirely in the want of oppor- 
 tunity to put it to noble service; at least there lies the 
 greatest amount of preventable danger. So that our 
 interest in the more human side of our work goes over 
 into the provision which society has made, or may make, 
 or mav be made to make, for the use or continuance in 
 some form of an elementary or even higher education. 
 But quite apart from this danger of a degraded edu- 
 cation, lies the problem, with which I am now chiefly 
 concerned, of an arrested education. Every teacher 
 continually laments the loss of some of the brightest 
 minds in the school who are obliged to put the education 
 they already have to commercial uses prematurely. 
 There is no doubt that they will put it to faithful use, 
 but they cannot be satisfied with the earning power of 
 an education. The sacred fire has begun to burn, and 
 they would not quench it. The impulse within them is 
 strong and urgent for a larger knowledge and a richer 
 culture. Now is it possible for any considerable num-
 
 ARRESTED EDUCATION 277 
 
 ber of those who are obliged to leave school for work, to 
 continue to study, read, think, to carry on and develop 
 the ordinary processes of the intellectual life ? Well, an 
 illustration is better than an argument. And you will 
 allow me to take the illustrations I use from personal 
 knowledge. 
 
 I have knowledge of a club in Boston made up of 
 young men and women in about equal proportions, num- 
 bering some seventy five members. The ages range 
 from eighteen to thirty. The club is composed of sev- 
 eral nationalities, about one third being Americans, one 
 third Irish Americans, and the other third from the vari- 
 ous peoples now coming into the city. The members 
 also represent different trades and occupations, paint- 
 ers, hatters, tailors, clerks, reporters, type-writers, 
 seamstresses, and, in one or two cases, teachers. Most 
 of the number attend as far as possible the Evening 
 High School. This club, made up of seemingly hetero- 
 geneous material, but actuated by one purpose, meets 
 every Saturday evening, at the South End House. The 
 average attendance is from forty to fifty. An evening 
 may be spent in the familiar discussion of an author 
 read in common, or of an historic character. Some- 
 times the session takes the form of an intellectual experi- 
 ence meeting. What was the first thing which wakened 
 you, what book, what incident, or who, if a person, were 
 questions which recently drew out a most vivid and in- 
 structive discussion. There is an occasional diversion 
 in the way of music or art. And the present year the 
 club will attempt more directly continuous work than 
 heretofore, embracing at least one course of lectures in 
 literature, and another in natural science. In the sum- 
 mer the club makes an occasional pilgrimage, not an ex-
 
 278 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 cursion, but a pilgrimage, as notably a recent one to 
 Concord, Mass. The club, it should be said, is known 
 as the Emerson Club. 
 
 I doubt not that this club can be duplicated a good 
 many times over in the different cities of the country; 
 the more times the better for my argument. I have 
 referred in detail to this particular one, because it has 
 come under my notice, and because it illustrates, as well 
 as any, one way of perpetuating the educational impulse 
 of the training of the public school. 
 
 Another illustration, a little older, and therefore of 
 more assured value, is before me. When I entered upon 
 my professional life in the city of Manchester, New 
 Hampshire, I found there quite a body of young men 
 of my own age, or a httle older, identified in various 
 ways with the educational, literary, and social life of the 
 town, who were not college graduates, but who were 
 taking their place side by side with those who were. 
 Upon inquiry I learned that their intellectual standing 
 in the community was due chiefly to the fact that they 
 had organized, as they were obliged to leave the public 
 schools, what was then known as a lyceum, into which 
 they had put their intellectual holdings, and from which 
 they drew in time an abundant return. That was their 
 way of putting their money to the exchanger's. And 
 as a result, they earned for themselves and still maintain 
 a most enviable intellectual position in the community, 
 which they are bequeathing to their children. 
 
 Now in these and like cases no one can overestimate 
 the enrichment of life which results from these endeav- 
 ors for continued self -improvement. This world means 
 to these young men and young women something quite 
 different from that which it would mean to them, if it
 
 ARRESTED EDUCATION 279 
 
 were bounded by the shop, the store, the street, or even 
 the daily paper. There is precisely the same difference 
 in mental thrift that there is in industrial thrift. One 
 mind spends as it goes, and never has any deposit to its 
 account, much less any capital. Another mind appro- 
 priates and saves a share of the intellectual wealth of 
 the world — the only wealth of which there is enough to 
 go round, and about which there can be no question as 
 to the standard of value. And it is a wealth, too, in 
 respect to which we are to remember that he who saves 
 contributes as well as he who earns. The maker of a 
 good book evidently increases that wealth; so does the 
 reader of a good book; for intellectual wealth lies in 
 the amount of mind there is in the world. 
 
 Not to delay, however, upon these peculiar means, 
 let me urge upon you as a further means to the end 
 before us, a more complete alliance between the public 
 school and the public library. I speak of an alliance 
 between the free public school and the free public 
 library, for I am not sure that it is of advantage to 
 make the library a part of the school system of the state. 
 There are states where this is done, but with less result 
 as a rule than when the two interests are separated 
 under different managers. In your own state the 
 attempt was made, I have been told, some years ago to 
 found agricultural libraries, but with comparatively 
 little success. The books were soon scattered and lost. 
 Through the kindness of J. A. DeBoer, Esquire, of 
 Montpelier I learn that your law empowers towns to 
 establish and maintain public libraries, and appropri- 
 ate for suitable buildings or rooms, and for the 
 foundation of such a library, a sum not exceeding two 
 dollars for each of the ratable polls in such towns in
 
 280 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 each preceding year; and also to appropriate annu- 
 ally for the maintenance, care, and increase thereof a 
 sum not exceeding one dollar for each of the ratable 
 polls in the preceding year. This is the act of 1884, 
 which doubles the rates of the act of 1867, which 
 allowed one dollar for establishing, and fifty cents a poll 
 for maintaining a public library. I also learn from the 
 same source that in 1892 out of 243 towns in the state 
 92 had public libraries ; and 24 out of these 92 were free 
 public libraries.* 
 
 Massachusetts, as you are aware, has gone a step fur- 
 ther, and by the enactment of 1890 furnishes a certain 
 amount of state aid, as a stimulus to the establishment 
 of free public libraries by the towns. This act, after con- 
 stituting a board of library commissioners, authorizes 
 the payment of a sum not exceeding one hundred dol- 
 lars for the purchase of books wherever any town not 
 having a free public hbrary shall establish one. The 
 act further requires that any town accepting this aid 
 shall provide by tax the sum of $50, or $25 annually, 
 according to the valuation of the town, for the main- 
 tenance of a library. 
 
 Fifty-two towns have already complied with the con- 
 ditions of this act, so that out of the 352 towns and cities 
 of the state 227 contain free public libraries which are 
 entirely under municipal control, and 72 contain libra- 
 ries which are practically free but not altogether under 
 municipal control. There are now but 53 towns in the 
 state, and this number is soon to be lessened by four, ( a 
 little less than one fifth of the whole number,) which 
 have not public libraries. 
 
 * Without doubt more recent statistics would show a considerable increase 
 above the facts given, but the facts as given illustrate the method urged.
 
 ARRESTED EDUCATION 281 
 
 The free public library represents, I believe, the 
 next step in popular education, provided the people 
 know how to use it. It is at this point that the public 
 school must come to the aid of the library. When one 
 has been taught to read he has by no means been taught 
 how to use books. The use of books is a distinct art, in 
 a certain sense quite distinct from the art of reading, 
 and one part of the art is to know how not to read a 
 book, and yet how to get out of it all that one needs or 
 wants. A very small per cent of literature is for study. 
 Another per cent, hardly larger, is for reading, for that 
 delightful inspiration and enjoyment which comes from 
 the interchange of thought between an author and 
 reader. As for the great mass of literature, including 
 much that is of greatest value, it is simply for reference, 
 or mere acquaintance. And unless the child learns how 
 to make this distinction he will be simply overpowered 
 by books, or will read without discrimination. Indis- 
 criminate reading is intellectually demoralizing. A 
 well trained mind may choose to read a comparatively 
 foolish book, (by foolish books I do not mean humorous 
 books which are sometimes the wisest we have,) but 
 choosing to read a foolish book is a very different thing 
 from reading it because one does not know any better. 
 Desultory reading, which comes from the want of abil- 
 ity to choose what to read, or how to read, is at 
 the farthest remove from education. It untwists the 
 fibres of the mind which the training of the school had 
 begun to weave into a strong and compact force. 
 
 The teacher therefore can do an immense service for 
 those whose early training is to close with that of the 
 public school, if he shows them in simple ways how to 
 use books. That school is very poorly furnished, which
 
 282 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 does not have a small reference library, where children 
 can be taught in this art. The same connection should 
 be made between some text books and a library as 
 between other text books and nature. Nature does not 
 confuse a child taught to make the right use of it: 
 neither should the world of books. And the boy thus 
 taught may continue his education if he will in the pub- 
 lic library, rather than be left to the demoralizing effect 
 of merely desultory reading. 
 
 I go a step further and refer to the aid which may 
 come in time in solving this problem of an arrested edu- 
 cation through the working of the system of university 
 extension. Strictly speaking we are not yet ready for 
 university extension. The university method, which is 
 that of research, investigation, discovery, is hardly estab- 
 lished as yet in our higher schools and colleges. It 
 means personal and original work. It is not simply 
 hstening to lectures : it is reading, studying and experi- 
 menting with a view to producing something. It can 
 hardly be said that we have as yet in our best communi- 
 ties an amount of trained mind, outside that which is 
 already fully engaged in intellectual pursuits, which is 
 prepared for it. Intelligence is not a sufficient basis for 
 university extension to work upon. It differs, for exam- 
 ple, quite widely in its method from that of the old 
 lyceum, which had such power in forming opinion a 
 generation or more ago in New England. The aim of 
 that method was largely moral. The subjects which it 
 introduced were for the most part very earnest sub- 
 jects. Most of the lecturers were reformers. The 
 spirit of the institution was embodied in the reply of. 
 Wendell Phillips to a committee man who asked him 
 for his terms — "Let me take my subject," which was
 
 ARRESTED EDUCATION 283 
 
 always some phase of the anti-slavery question, "and 
 I'll come for nothing: for any other subject $75.00" 
 And even then it should be said that the payment of the 
 $75.00 seldom precluded the introduction of the subject 
 somewhere. 
 
 University extension has an important part to play as 
 an adjunct of the public school system. As its method 
 is adopted with proper adaptation in the lower grades 
 of instruction, the more advanced pupils of our public 
 schools may graduate into it. It combines some of the 
 best features of the club and of the class. I have no 
 doubt that it will in time absorb a considerable part of 
 the somewhat aimless leisure of the trained minds in 
 many of our smaller as well as larger communities. 
 
 It was not in the original intention of my subject to 
 speak of the increasing opportunity for making the 
 public school more tributary to what we term a liberal 
 education, but it is entirely germane to my subject, and 
 I will not close without referring to it. The channel 
 from the public school to the college is now entirely clear 
 and open. We of the colleges are continually making 
 claims upon the secondary schools, and yet we are 
 obliged to confess that the school has made greater rela- 
 tive advance during the last twenty years than the col- 
 lege. It could not well have been otherwise. The col- 
 lege is set down within fixed limits in the early years — 
 say from eighteen to twenty two. At the very best 
 therefore it can cover only a certain discipline and 
 a certain range of subject. The school has the longer 
 chance, though years of course are not alike in value, 
 for improvement in method and for advance in the sub- 
 ject matter of instruction. A pertinent illustration of 
 the relative gain of the school upon the college occurs to
 
 284 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 me within my immediate knowledge. Forty years ago 
 a scientific school was established in connection with 
 Dartmouth College by the bequest of a citizen of Mas- 
 sachusetts. The permanent condition of the founda- 
 tion was that the school should always make connection 
 with the public, or, as he termed it, common school sys- 
 tem of New England. The requirements for admission 
 should never be advanced beyond the studies taught in 
 that system, and subjects were prescribed which should 
 be taught in the school. Gradually the public schools 
 grew upon the original requirements, and finally out- 
 grew some of the subjects actually prescribed in the 
 course. Students began to come overfitted. It was 
 necessary to eliminate the subjects which they had 
 already pursued. At last the gain was so great that 
 the school was incorporated into the college as its 
 scientific course, and put on a par under certain condi- 
 tions with the classical department. The public school 
 system, that is, had earned its way into the college, 
 while at the same time the college had been making its 
 own advance. 
 
 The question then is no longer one of connection 
 between the public school and the colleges. It is partly 
 a question of pecuniary means in the case of individual 
 students, but it is chiefly a question of motive. Who 
 shall induce the boy or girl to pass over into the region 
 of a liberal education? In the majority of cases the 
 teacher more often than the parent. And if it be asked 
 why the motive should be urged — what is the real advan- 
 tage to a considerably larger number of the pupils in our 
 public schools of a liberal education — I should give an 
 answer which may perhaps surprise you, but which I 
 believe holds a vital truth. The advantage of the liber-
 
 ARRESTED EDUCATION 285 
 
 ally educated man over the self trained man lies in the 
 greater amount of the human element which he takes up 
 into his life. The self trained man may know nature, 
 or books, or the world with an equal carefulness and 
 perhaps greater certainty. I know self educated men 
 who can hold a better argument within the range of 
 their education than most college men. "Beware of the 
 man of one book," said a good authority, in warning his 
 students against the conceit of general learning. But 
 the college man ought to take up into his life, as I think 
 he does take up into his life, a great deal more of the 
 life of other men, the life of the past and of the present. 
 He lives and works under personal inspiration and 
 incentives. In place of the advantage of isolation, 
 which I grant may be at times very great, he has the 
 advantage of intellectual competitions and conflicts, of 
 intellectual partnership and friendships. The world 
 grows more human to him because he is more with men, 
 in closer contact with them. He is for a time a part of 
 a living organism, every other part of which he feels. 
 Horace Greeley used to say in his impatience, and I 
 have no doubt he had abundant reason for saying it — 
 "From college graduates and all other horned cattle, 
 good Lord deliver me." But it is apparent that the 
 conditions had changed when Mr. Dana, who, perhaps 
 more than any man of our time, took Mr. Greeley's 
 place in journalism, urgently advised a liberal educa- 
 tion as requisite to practical journalism, insisting espe- 
 cially upon the knowledge of the humanities. 
 
 This address, in which I have been able to speak 
 only in the way of suggestion, had its origin in my ob- 
 servation of the great educational waste in the intel- 
 lectual outcome of the public schools. I refer simply to
 
 286 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 the outcome. Impulses are started which are lost: 
 minds are organized in part and then the process of dis- 
 integration begins to set in : a course is begun which fails 
 to make any after connection with the world of thought. 
 Something of this waste is inevitable under present con- 
 ditions. It is impossible, after satisfying what I have 
 clearly admitted to be other functions of the public 
 school, to transfer completely its educational function 
 to other agencies. But something can be done through 
 watchfulness, invention, and influence to reduce the 
 waste. I have tried to remind you of our part in the 
 saving process. A teacher is becoming one of the most 
 permanent factors in a community, and partly for this 
 reason one of the most influential. The profession has 
 much to say, and much to do, in the solution of our social 
 problems. They will not be solved by any one agency. 
 The legislator, the producer whether by capital or labor, 
 the economist, the social and religious teacher, all have 
 their part to perform. The contribution of the public 
 school teacher to society, beyond the intelligent 
 and faithful doing of his work, lies in the following up 
 of his work. What becomes of those who go out from 
 under him? What becomes of the educational impulse 
 and tendency which it has been his greatest ambition 
 and purpose to develop? Let him add to the teaching 
 function that of the social observer. And as he sees the 
 waste of mind going on around him, the very mind upon 
 which he has been at work, let him study the methods 
 of conserving and perpetuating the legitimate power 
 and influence of the school. 
 
 Must I pause, as I close, to note the objection that 
 really the safety of society lies in this very waste of 
 which I have been speaking? Must I take up the cry,
 
 ARRESTED EDUCATION 287 
 
 repeated in a current number of one of our reviews, that 
 more education only creates more discontent, that the 
 more you educate the more you unfit, and that the grow- 
 ing unfitness of men and women for real life because of 
 education is the last straw which is to break the back of 
 the American Democracy? I will take up the objection 
 and the lament for the moment. Yes, we must face the 
 issue. Democracy, as we know it, is discontent, a part 
 of that divine discontent which leads unceasingly to the 
 betterment of the individual and of the race. There is 
 no limit to it. Unable, if we would, to arrest its course 
 in other fields, we must not draw the line at education. 
 The public safety lies that way. There is the outlet for 
 restless ambition, for social desire, for a part at least of 
 the higher striving. The education which is "of the 
 people" and "by the people" must be more and more 
 "for the people." Democracy, of all governments, 
 allows the least educational waste.
 
 THE SCHOOL OF THE C0:MMUNITY 
 
 Address at the Dedication of the High School Building, NE^\TON, 
 
 Mass., February 22, 190S 
 
 I take advantage of this occasion to speak briefly 
 upon a subject which has, I conceive, a social as well as 
 an educational significance — namely, the increasing 
 value of the local factor in the higher education, the dis- 
 tinction of the high school in that it is the school of 
 the community. 
 
 The higher education in Xew England, as afforded 
 through our colleges and universities, has been more 
 representative of schools and families than of conmiuni- 
 ties. It has been thorouo-hly democratic, but it has not 
 been evenly, thouoh it mav have been widely, distrib- 
 uted. The growth of the high school, both of the vil- 
 lage and of the city, has proved to be a most timely 
 corrective of this serious weakness in our New England 
 educational system. Other values are of course to be 
 put to the credit of the high school. I shall refer to 
 some of these before I close, but for the most part I 
 wish to speak of the social and educational effect of the 
 high school, viewed as the school of the community, 
 upon tlie higher education. 
 
 Secondary education in New Eni^land is ffoiuff on 
 chiefly under three types. First, we have the old 
 endowed schools like Phillips Andover, and Phillips 
 Exeter, schools whicli have the advantage of noble tra- 
 ditions. These schools, and others of this type, were
 
 SCHOOL OF THE COMMUNITY 289 
 
 founded not only in consecration, but in a far reaching 
 sagacity. They were intended to be more than fitting 
 schools, and have for that reason perhaps become the 
 better fitting schools. They have a vi^ide constituency; 
 some of them have a national reputation. They draw in 
 part mature students. Though not self-governing, they 
 represent the largest degree of independence on the part 
 of the students compatible with good order and legiti- 
 mate authority. They are the New England counter- 
 part of the great secondary schools of England, not a 
 reproduction, but a distinct outgrowth of New England 
 conditions and character. 
 
 Then we have as a more recent contribution to the 
 secondary school development of New England, the 
 school which is the outgrowth of the rare personality of 
 some man born to be a master, able to impress himself 
 and his ideas not only upon his pupils, but also upon his 
 associates, and so able to found a school in perpetuity. 
 And it should be added that most of the schools of this 
 type have come in under the auspices, though not, I 
 believe, under the direction of the church, which has 
 shown remarkable insight and skill in the art of sec- 
 ondary education. Examples of this type are the 
 Groton School, and St. Paul's at Concord, N. H. 
 These schools are characterized by their power to edu- 
 cate through their ideals, both social and moral. The 
 pupils are under complete control for all the direct 
 and indirect uses and influences of a school. The train- 
 ing of the home goes over into the school, but the master 
 occupies a larger place than the parent. He brings the 
 pupil under a carefully devised system of control and 
 inspiration, the object of which is to deliver a well bred 
 and well trained scholar at the door of the college. The 
 
 19
 
 290 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 constituency of this type is largely from outside New 
 England, but the type is a distinct and interesting con- 
 tribution to the secondary school development of New 
 England. 
 
 And then we have as the third type of secondary 
 school education, the high school, by distinction the 
 school of the community. Many schools of this type 
 have their great traditions, their characteristics, that is, 
 as well as age — like the Boston Latin School, the Rox- 
 bury High, and others in this immediate vicinage. Some 
 of them, too, have received in their formation or in their 
 history the stamp of some great master, and the impres- 
 sion then received has become an ideal. But as schools 
 of the community they must soon or late take the for- 
 tune of the community. The essential variation 
 between them is determined by locality. We cannot 
 stop with any classification which takes account simply 
 of good teaching and poor teaching, of large equipment 
 or scant equipment. We must go deeper. We have 
 secondary schools which represent the new social wealth 
 of the suburban community, others which represent the 
 new physical wealth, the wealth of the raw material, 
 especially in our manufacturing communities, and 
 others which are recovering the almost lost moral wealth 
 of our old rural communities. The high school of any 
 community is altogether dependent upon the sense of 
 citizenship in that community. The head of every fam- 
 ily stands in a two-fold relation to the school, as a par- 
 ent and as a citizen. As a parent he has the option, if 
 he has the means to gratify it, of sending his children 
 out of the community for their secondary education. 
 As a citizen he has no right to allow the secondary 
 school to remain in such a condition that he is obliged
 
 SCHOOL OF THE COMMUNITY 291 
 
 to send his children elsewhere. When he has fulfilled 
 his duty as a citizen in making the secondary school of 
 his community a proper place for the education of his 
 children, then he may exercise the surplus right of a 
 parent in sending his children wheresoever he will. 
 
 But this is not a homily on the duties of citizenship, — 
 I am to speak definitely of the effect which the high 
 school, viewed as the school of the community, is actu- 
 ally producing upon the higher education. 
 
 The effect is distinctly manifest at these three points : 
 
 First. It is introducing a new and valuable constitu- 
 ency into our colleges and universities. Ten years ago 
 Professor Palmer of Harvard wrote in his treatise on 
 "The New Education" — "Although Harvard draws 
 rather more than one-third of her students from outside 
 New England, the whole number of students who have 
 come to her from the high schools of these states dur- 
 ing a period of the last ten years, is but sixty-six. Fit- 
 ting for college is becoming an alarmingly technical 
 matter, and is falling largely into the hands of private 
 tutors and academies." Of course no such proportion 
 as this to which Professor Palmer refers, held good 
 within New England. But whatever may have been the 
 relative number of students entering Harvard ten years 
 ago from the high schools of New England, I am sure 
 that the proportion now must be much greater. 
 
 The two active causes which send students to college 
 are opportunity and incentive. Opportunity represents 
 those who could not otherwise go. Incentive represents 
 those who would not otherwise go. The high school, 
 as the school of the conmiunity, stands in an increasing 
 degree for both opportunity and incentive. It is dis- 
 tributing these active causes over a wider and wider
 
 292 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 area. It is putting them at work in all localities, avoid- 
 ing waste, and ensuring contact. 
 
 In some cases the high school acts as an incentive 
 simply by taking the place of some other incentive. 
 Those who are reached in this way I do not reckon 
 among the new constituency. The new constituency 
 consists of those to whom the high school stands for 
 opportunity, and the only opportunity. Our colleges 
 are becoming, therefore, through the agency of the high 
 school, more and more representative of the entire pop- 
 ulation. They have always been democratic: they are 
 now becoming thoroughly representative. Through the 
 gateway of the locaHty the sons of every race, and reli- 
 gion, and occupation, find their natural path to the col- 
 lege. 
 
 And I would emphasize the value, as I have empha- 
 sized the newness, of this constituency which the high 
 school is creating. If we are to maintain the necessary 
 proportion of rare and great men we must keep all the 
 ways open back into the remotest regions of human 
 effort, where nature, it may be, is doing her most virile 
 work. Who knows where to look — how far back, or 
 how far down — for the next statesman, or soldier, or dis- 
 coverer, or poet? No more can you tell where to look 
 for the next scholar. Scholarship, in its own interest, 
 like everything else, must keep the way open to the un- 
 known sources of genius. I commend to you the word 
 of Professor Marshall, in many ways the broadest and 
 most far sighted of our political economists : 
 
 "The laws which govern the birth of genius," he says, 
 "are inscrutable. It is probable that the percentage of 
 children of the working classes, who are endowed with 
 natural abilities of the highest order is not so great as
 
 SCHOOL OF THE COMMUNITY 293 
 
 that of the children of people who have attained or have 
 inherited a higher position in society. But since the 
 manual labor classes are four or five times as numer- 
 ous as all other classes put together, it is not unlikely 
 that more than half of the best natural genius that is 
 born into the country belongs to them: and of this a 
 great part is fruitless for want of opportunity. There 
 is no extravagance more prejudicial to the growth of 
 national wealth than that wasteful negligence which 
 allows genius that happens to be born of lowly parent- 
 age to expend itself in lowly work. No change would 
 conduce so much to a rapid increase of material wealth, 
 as an improvement in our schools, and especially those 
 of the middle grade, combined with an extensive system 
 of scholarships, which should enable the clever son of a 
 working man to rise gradually from school to school till 
 he had the best theoretical and practical education which 
 the age can give." 
 
 A second effect produced by the high school, the 
 school of the community, has been the broadening of the 
 scope of the higher education, at least of the college 
 curriculum. The old-time relation of the college to the 
 secondary school was that of an accepted domination. 
 The secondary school was assumed to exist not only for 
 the college, but to perpetuate the traditional academic 
 system. What the college said ought to be taught was 
 taught, and without question. The subject matter of 
 the new education found its way into the college partly 
 from above, through the investigations carried on in the 
 universities, and partly from below, through the grow- 
 ing demands of the high schools, which could not 
 ignore the educational conditions out of which they were 
 born. The first concession which the higher education
 
 294 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 made to these demands was the establishment of the sci- 
 entific school side by side with the college. These 
 schools when established were on a lower grade than the 
 colleges. The endowment of them in some cases — I am 
 sure of the fact in regard to the scientific school con- 
 nected with Dartmouth — stipulated that connection 
 should always be made with the public school system of 
 New England. This meant that the requirements for 
 admission should be adjusted to the actual teaching of 
 the public schools. Gradually the high school, as it 
 found a larger place in the public school system, was 
 able to advance its preparation beyond the requirements 
 of the scientific schools. It offered new material for 
 which the colleges made provision, unwisely, as it seems 
 to me, but naturally, in a course leading to an intermedi- 
 ate degree, a degree between the scientific and the clas- 
 sical. And the last result of the expansion of the high 
 school has been a corresponding widening of the door 
 of entrance, at least at Harvard. The new system of 
 admission to Harvard virtually makes allowance for all 
 subjects which are well taught in the high schools. It 
 has always been the contention of President Eliot — I 
 think it a just contention — that no courses can be 
 framed for our high schools, with the intention of fit- 
 ting for "life," which can on the whole do that work so 
 well, as the very courses which fit for college : and fur- 
 ther that it is unfair to introduce short and discon- 
 nected courses, which must throw a scholar off the line, 
 or bring him to a pause, provided he afterward wishes 
 to take a college course. 
 
 The contention has now been justified by the pro- 
 posed widening of the terms of admission to Harvard. 
 Thus through the natural growth and expansion of
 
 SCHOOL OF THE COMMUNITY 295 
 
 the high school, as representing the educational wants 
 of all classes in a given community, the college has 
 absorbed into its life, in an orderly and legitimate man- 
 ner, the wealth which lies in the new education. 
 
 A third possible effect of the high school upon the 
 higher education is to be deprecated. I refer to the 
 tendency to place the graduates of the high school at 
 once under professional training. The high school 
 has been so far advanced that it meets the requirements 
 of some professional schools. But if the graduate of 
 the high school can be admitted to the professional 
 school, it by no means follows that he can afford to take 
 the privilege. The professional school may care only 
 for technical qualifications. The man himself has other 
 interests at stake. He has before him the privilege of 
 being an educated man, as well as of being a technically 
 trained man. The question is not, can he satisfy his 
 profession, but can he satisfy himself, and those larger 
 requirements of society which are not bounded by one's 
 profession or business. I know the reply — "One cannot 
 afford the time; the process is too long. The high 
 school delivers to the college at nineteen, the college to 
 the professional school at twenty-three, the professional 
 school into the world at twenty-six, or later if one is to 
 be a specialist. That is more time than one can afford." 
 With the privilege of making an exception, I must deny 
 the premise. As Horace Greeley replied to the man 
 who demanded a job of him, on the ground that he must 
 live — "That," said Mr. Greeley, "remains to be 
 proven." 
 
 Why should one take less time to enter upon those 
 callings which are preceded by what is known as an edu- 
 cation, than to enter upon the caUings which are pre-
 
 296 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 ceded by an apprenticeship? "Mark Twain" has stated 
 the present business situation in the aphorism — "No 
 occupation without an apprenticeship; no pay to the 
 apprentice." In what business may one expect to find 
 himself thoroughly established, with full influence or 
 authority in the firm or corporation, with a generous 
 income, and possessed of a home, while as yet he is 
 within the twenties ? Is it in banking, or in manufactur- 
 ing, or in railroading, or in general trade? How much 
 farther along is the man of business at thirty, unless he 
 has inherited capital, or is of exceptional capacity, than 
 the lawyer or doctor at that age? The open fact is that 
 society is growing more complicated, its demands are 
 more exacting, and consequently personal advancement 
 is slower. Just as surely as the rate of interest is declin- 
 ing so surely are we all coming under the law of dimin- 
 ishing returns ; which means that for the same result we 
 must do harder work, or secure a better equipment; 
 which in turn means that we must take longer time. I 
 see no reason therefore why a man who proposes to 
 enter upon his life work by way of an education should 
 complain of the time required in preparation : and espe- 
 cially in view of the fact that the working time of life 
 has been so greatly extended. If society calls a man 
 later to his tasks it allows him to remain longer at them. 
 The age of retirement has been advanced. What the 
 young man in his impatience seems to be losing reap- 
 pears in the unspent force of later years. 
 
 But the exception which I make to my own argu- 
 ment is this : it is quite possible that a year of time may 
 be saved previous to the high school course. Studies 
 may be carried back, as you have carried back Latin, or 
 studies may be taught with a greater economy in the
 
 SCHOOL OF THE COMMUNITY 297 
 
 earlier stages. Of this I am not altogether sure, but if 
 it be possible, I see no further concession which need be 
 made on the score of time. And in any event, there 
 seems to me to be no sufficient reason for the present 
 complaint. We have made no gain for education or for 
 those things for which education stands, if we have sim- 
 ply advanced the high school at the cost of any part of 
 the higher education. 
 
 But I have had quite enough to say of the high school 
 in its relation to other parts of the educational system. 
 I have spoken of it as the school of the community. I 
 return to that conception, to set forth before I close 
 some of those values which belong to it in this regard. 
 
 The high school is the educational goal of the ordi- 
 nary municipality. Beyond that the local passes over 
 into the general. But within these limitations, as the 
 school of the community, in what goodly company it is 
 placed. Its allies and fellow workers are the library, 
 the museum, the club for improvement or recreation, 
 the church, the government, the home. Here, on the 
 upper range, is the great social organism moving in 
 ceaseless activity, while below, the great material organ- 
 ism, gathering up all the daily tasks of the community, 
 moves on in steady and supporting power. This is the 
 marvel of our modern civilization. And the more we 
 study it the more we see that the vitalizing and unifying 
 force is the public school. 
 
 But there are two special values upon which I must 
 at least touch, as showing the peculiar service which the 
 high school renders to the community. 
 
 It is a direct stimulus. The life which it sends back 
 day by day into the home is a fertilizing and fructifying 
 life. The home grows with the advancing boy or girl.
 
 298 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 We are none of us above this influence. It puts us into 
 contact with ideas, which if not altogether new, have the 
 freshness of a new setting, and the force of a new ambi- 
 tion or purpose. The growing mind is the best stim- 
 ulus there is in a community. In spite of its crudities, 
 and conceits, and distractions, it is the most quickening 
 and gladdening force which finds its way into our 
 homes. 
 
 And beyond the stimulus which the high school 
 carries over into the daily life of the community, I put 
 its power to give that educational impulse which will 
 outlast its own training. Nothing is more pathetic in 
 the working of our educational system than the sight of 
 so much arrested education, pupils dropping out at 
 every stage in the course. When does the educational 
 impulse take possession, and come in to stay? With 
 some early, with others late, with some not at all. But 
 it is fair to say that the course which reaches through the 
 high school is long enough to settle the question. By 
 that time the mind is well open to the world of nature, or 
 of men, or of books. Some access must have been 
 gained into the great outer or equally great inner world, 
 into which one may pass and in which he may after- 
 ward make his home. I reckon among the most refined 
 and cultivated minds within my knowledge, many who 
 have never passed in technical training beyond the sec- 
 ondary school. But the educational impulse has gone 
 on. It has taught them how to read, to study, to think, 
 to speak, to act. Travel has been to them more than a 
 pastime, music and art more than recreation, and work 
 more than drudgery. There is a deeper fellowship than 
 that which bears an academic name. It is that kinship 
 of mind which cherishes in common the divine impulse
 
 SCHOOL OF THE COMMUNITY 299 
 
 to think and to feel in the spirit of the intellectual 
 life. 
 
 It is therefore with sincerity and in honor that I offer 
 you my congratulations upon the completion and dedi- 
 cation of this building for the uses of the Newton High 
 School. The school fulfills its two-fold function, as I 
 have tried to show you, as the advanced school of the 
 community, and as a constant and growing factor in the 
 higher education. Through this school you come as a 
 community into the closest possible social unity, and 
 also into vital relations with the educational forces of 
 the land. I congratulate you upon the home which you 
 have made for the school, but more, I think, upon the 
 fact that the school has earned it and is worthy of it. I 
 read in this building, in its waUs, in its equipment, in its 
 adornment, your tribute, as citizens, to the recognized 
 authority and repute of the school of this community.
 
 XXI 
 
 THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 
 
 Address at the Dedication of the Gale Public Library, Laconia, 
 
 N. H., June 9, 1893 
 
 "We go to our shelves," Pascal says, "to take down 
 a book expecting to find an author, and lo, to our joy 
 we find a man." This is the everlasting surprise and 
 joy of the book. We are slow to believe that books are 
 human. But books are human, some of them as human 
 as any men we ever know — "books" as Emerson says 
 "which take rank in our lives with parents and lovers 
 and passionate experiences." A boy may forget his 
 early teachers. No boy forgets his first books, no boy, 
 at least of my generation, has forgotten his Arabian 
 Nights, his Robinson Crusoe, his Pilgrim's Progress, 
 his Plutarch. I wish I knew their modern equivalents, 
 or in fact whether or not there are any. And as for 
 those of us grown to the stature of men, in the midst 
 of what we call the realities of hfe, we know how com- 
 pletely we surrender ourselves on occasion to the reali- 
 ties of fiction. Some years ago I crossed the Atlantic 
 in company with a well known scholar, who was withal 
 a charming friend, and, as I should add in the circum- 
 stances, a good sailor. Day after day he grew more 
 absorbed, less and less companionable. His mind was 
 not in his conversation. On the last day of the voyage 
 the book came to light which told the secret of his 
 behavior. He had been carrying on his heart the sor- 
 rows of the Princess of Thule.
 
 THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 301 
 
 I have had this much to say at the beginning about 
 the human element in books, because, as I pass from the 
 book to the library, I want to carry over with me as 
 much as I can truthfully carry of this essential idea. 
 It cannot be said with truth that a book enters a library 
 through the single test of its humanity. A hbrary must 
 shelter a good deal which is not, in any profound and 
 vital sense, literature. But it is after all the same subtle 
 essence which makes the rare book which must pervade 
 the library. It must be, I believe that it is, the atmos- 
 phere of truth, of reality, of helpfulness, of friendship, 
 of inspiration, which we breathe as we enter the modern 
 library. 
 
 Let me take up the idea, the conception of the Public 
 Library, and try to translate it into the terms of invi- 
 tation and appeal which it is beginning to make to the 
 modern mind. My time is too short to speak of libraries 
 in their scholastic uses. I speak simply of the public 
 library as it adjusts itself to some of our mental needs, 
 and as it helps to control some of the wayward ten- 
 dencies of our ambitions and tastes. The library is en- 
 tering vitally into the process of education, and it is 
 offering itself generously for the higher uses of all of our 
 better communities. We cannot think of the library in 
 its educational uses without thinking at once of the lab- 
 oratory : and it must be confessed that at a very essential 
 point the comparison is to the advantage of the labora- 
 tory. The laboratory has been without doubt the great 
 stimulating and awakening force in modern education. 
 It has led the way into nature, as the library has not yet 
 led the way into literature or into life. And in this ac- 
 tivity it has touched the sources of moral action. It has 
 created a mental enthusiasm which has overcome lower
 
 302 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 excitements, and it has steadied the intellectual purpose 
 toward patient and enduring work. It has carried the 
 mind on from the simple verification of the laws of 
 nature, on to the repetition of its processes and moth- 
 ods, on to the discovery of new and subtle agencies and 
 forces. The fascination of science has relieved the 
 tediousness of search and the drudgery of detail. As 
 Longfellow sang of Nature, as the "nurse" of Agas- 
 siz — 
 
 "And whenever the way seemed long 
 Or his heart began to fail. 
 
 She would sing a more wonderful song 
 Or tell a more wonderful tale." 
 
 I do not know that we can claim that the modern 
 hbrary has yet wrought for literature what the labora- 
 tory has wrought for science. But within narrower 
 limits it has produced a like result. It has, for exam- 
 ple, revolutionized the study of history. It has changed 
 its classification as a subject of modern training. By 
 subject matter history belongs within the old discipline 
 and culture; but the change in the method of its study 
 has transferred it to the new education. We classify 
 history today with the sciences, not with the classics, 
 because we study history as we study science. We are 
 learning to verify, to compare, to investigate, to repro- 
 duce, and in so doing we are creating a new habit of 
 mind, of which the characteristics are accuracy of 
 method, breadth and fairness of judgment, and the love 
 of truth. I cannot overestimate the moral effect of the 
 kind of training which has been made possible through 
 the educational use of the modern library. The school 
 which employs this training can never produce the par-
 
 THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 303 
 
 tisan or the bigot. The natural product of the method 
 is the sane, generous, but certain and positive thinker, 
 and leader. 
 
 Nor must we fail to note an incidental value of the 
 modern library. Education is obliged to lay stress at 
 times upon secondary qualities simply to meet the 
 demands of society. Such a quality in urgent demand 
 today is facility. The world cannot wait for the slow, 
 unready, or unpracticed man. A man among men must 
 have facility, if he would do his full work, or gain his 
 full influence among them. But the risk here, as you 
 see, is almost as great as the demand. The tendency is 
 toward mere alertness, nimbleness of action, the quick 
 seizing of opportunity. Modern education is making 
 use of the library to correct this tendency. The library 
 is the chief means through which it seeks to create the 
 man "full and ready," ready because full. It says to 
 young men in their impatience to be at work — "You 
 must have resources if you would have facility. The 
 real question is not what you are doing at thirty but 
 what you can be at fifty." 
 
 I cannot put too much emphasis upon the new delay- 
 ing and hindering forces in modern education. Going 
 through college means today going through the library 
 and through the laboratory. Of course the great 
 teacher or master is now as always the supreme factor 
 in education, but the great teacher never shows his 
 greatness more clearly than through his power to under- 
 stand and to use the sufficient means to reach the suffi- 
 cient end. If this were a school occasion I should like 
 to dwell upon the purely educational uses of the modern 
 library. The library is a very essential part of the cur- 
 riculum of liberal study. It is a workshop, dedicated in
 
 304 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 every part to honorable uses, a place where every stu- 
 dent ought to know that he is at home. This free and 
 happy use of the library is the mark of the transition 
 from old methods of education to the new. I asked an 
 Eton boy some years ago where the hbrary was. "Upon 
 my word," he said after a moment's thought, "I don't 
 know." 
 
 But I am quite as much concerned with certain later 
 influences of the modern library as I am with its purely 
 educational uses. When it has done its work in the 
 making of our mental habits and in the furnishing of 
 our minds, we do not part company with the idea. It 
 follows us into all our pursuits as an invitation or as a 
 protest. When we cease to be students, and have not 
 become scholars, we need most of all to cherish the idea 
 for which the library stands in our modern civihzation. 
 
 I think that you will agree with me when I say that 
 the dominant ambition of our time is the lust of posses- 
 sion. Not since the days of conquest has the passion 
 been so urgent or so nearly universal. Everybody 
 thinks of possession in large terms, whether it be in 
 respect to his own affairs, or to corporate interests, or 
 to national expansion. We are all smitten with what 
 Mr. Harmsworth of the London press told us recently 
 was the disease of our newspapers, the disease of size. 
 Our ambitions and desires run to bulk. It is the same 
 thing everywhere, whether you make the reckoning in 
 dollars, or in numbers, or in land, or in power. 
 
 It is quite evident that we cannot suppress the desire 
 for possession. No one thinks of a possible return to 
 medievalism. The finer modernism does not seek for 
 spiritual mastery through renunciation. It seeks rather 
 to temper desire with insight and discrimination, to put
 
 THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 305 
 
 quality before quantity, to prevent satiety through sat- 
 isfaction. I believe that the great task before modern 
 Christianity, before modern education, before modern 
 politics, is the training of desires. If we trust to the 
 popular taste to tell us what we want, we have no option, 
 if we wish to excel, except to want more of the same 
 thing which others want. There is no longer any dif- 
 ference between men except the difference of degree. 
 But the eternal distinction between one man and 
 another lies in the grade of their desires. If their desires 
 are the same they are essentially the same. The man 
 who wants the better thing, who wants it enough to 
 strive for it, is the better man. How shall we get this 
 better man ? Not in any one way or by any one method, 
 but much can be done by trying to satisfy the desire for 
 possession through the possession of things at once 
 noble, attractive, and tangible. The library makes its 
 appeal directly to the sense of ownership. It stands 
 outside the values of the street, but it has its entirely ap- 
 preciable value. The library is infinitely more than a 
 chest of tools, even for the most skilled intellectual 
 workman. Very few educated men will ever use a li- 
 brary in this way. I have asked from time to time of 
 those qualified to judge, what proportion of men in our 
 colleges were there under the impulse and for the ends 
 of pure scholarship. The invariable answer has been 
 from five to ten per cent. But within the vast remainder 
 who are not scholars by first intention there may be, 
 there is, a very genuine appreciation of high culture. 
 The capacity is there and the taste has been measurably 
 developed. I know of no reason why a good lawyer, or 
 engineer, or banker should not find satisfaction in his 
 library, his library, I say, which he has bought book 
 
 20
 
 306 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 by book, upon which he has expended personal judg- 
 ment, which he owns from the inside. I know of no 
 reason why he should not take a certain satisfaction, and 
 find a certain advantage, above that of the scholar who 
 uses his librarj^ to win his living or to earn a name. 
 Yes, books are more than tools. Willingly as the great 
 discoverers and interpreters in the intellectual world 
 lend themselves and their work to our uses, they give 
 themselves more joyfully to our companionship. They 
 allow themselves to become ours by the inalienable 
 rights of ownership. I believe in the saving value which 
 lies in the possession of books. The public library which 
 stands open for consultation, and the public library 
 which sends out its volumes broadcast over the commun- 
 ity, have their evident values. I set forth the moral 
 value of the owned library, the library into which a man 
 puts not only his money but himself, which is the reflec- 
 tion of his desires and ambitions, which shows the marks 
 of familiar intercourse, which is an evident investment 
 in non productive but imperishable wealth. I deprecate 
 the decline of the private library. There is no substi- 
 tute for it. The hour in the club has its own relief and 
 profit, but it has no result so unique and lasting as the 
 hour in the library. Modern life means men, men, men, 
 all the day long. When the day is done, it is the same 
 routine set to a different movement. The book, which 
 is really more human than the men we meet, which does 
 not give us the answer of the street, which is not the echo 
 of our thought, the book which interprets us, challenges 
 our spirits, commands our consciences, the book which 
 broadens our judgments and enlarges our mental hori- 
 zon, the book which reaches our hearts and makes a man 
 once more a child — that is the enlivening, chastening,
 
 THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 307 
 
 deepening power which ought to have free access to our 
 homes, and become a part of our personal holdings. 
 
 But I should altogether miss the most direct, though 
 limited function of the modern library, if I did not note 
 its appeal to the creative spirit. It is a reminder to us 
 all of the place of authorship in the national life. Here 
 and there it is more, it is a distinct invitation and appeal. 
 Happy the man who hears the invitation and is able to 
 accept it, happy in his own lot, happy in the joy he 
 gives his fellows. 
 
 Nothing is on the whole so gratifying or inspiriting 
 in the intellectual life of this country as the return to 
 literature as a profession. No men amongst us are 
 quite so welcome, there are none for whom we have been 
 waiting with such eagerness, as the men of the incoming 
 generation who are revealing to us our undeveloped 
 wealth in literary resources, who are interpreting to us 
 types of character which we have seen but have not 
 known, who are showing us ideals which thrive in the 
 bare and hard reahties of our social life and who are 
 making us believe in them, who are touching us again 
 with pathos and humor, and who are rekindling on our 
 dull hearths the fires of enthusiasm and faith. It would 
 be vain to say that we have been satisfied with the mate- 
 rial advance in which we have gloried. We have not 
 really believed the comfortable words of our prophets, 
 who have told us that the genius which declared itself 
 in organization and enterprise could, if it had a mind 
 to, turn to literature. Neither have we been altogether 
 satisfied with our wonderful educational advance, more 
 marked even than our industrial advance. Education is 
 not literature. Text books are not poems. The school 
 room is not the library. It is good to see the nation at
 
 308 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 school. It is good to see the scholar rising to distinction 
 amongst us. But in all this revival of education, in all 
 this revival of learning, we are not content, we shall 
 not be content, till we see and feel once more, and in full 
 measure, the revival of literature. 
 
 But the place of a library in a community cannot be 
 defined by its special uses. Far beyond any results 
 which can be formulated lies that intangible but potent 
 effect upon a community which the years are sure to 
 reveal. Nothing adds more to the self respect of a 
 town or city than a great library. Strangers as they 
 visit Laconia will take away with them their impressions 
 of your city shaped in no little degree by the sight of 
 this new and attractive structure. You will refer to it 
 with an honorable pride. Better than all this, you will 
 grow into it, and up to it. A public library levels up. 
 It changes in time the talk of people. It creates an 
 atmosphere. Its effect is more subtle, but more positive 
 and more stimulating, than travel. Travel stores the 
 mind with agreeable memories. Reading quickens the 
 mind to thought. A well travelled man can tell others 
 what he has seen. A well read man can talk over the 
 same books with his neighbor, and get the play of mind 
 which comes out of the give and take of conversation. 
 
 The incoming of good companionable books year 
 after j^ear is like the incoming of a succession of good 
 families. You come to know them by name, by personal 
 qualities, by influence; for, as I said at the beginning, 
 books are intensely human. I do not know of anything 
 which can come into our New England towns to repair 
 the waste of the old family life of these towns more 
 effectively than a good public library. I do not know 
 of anything which can assimilate the new with the old,
 
 THE PUBLIC LIBRARY 309 
 
 and bring our population of differing speech and cus- 
 toms into more homogeneous unity than a good pubhc 
 hbrary. For we must remember that many of those 
 who are of foreign birth represent peoples which hold 
 a great place in literature. Nor must we overlook the 
 fact that among those who come to us from other lands 
 may be some true interpreters of the greater writers of 
 their races. It is no infrequent thing to find in the 
 immigrations which are filling our western states those 
 who bring with them, even in their comparative poverty, 
 the love of literature and the love of art to which we can 
 hardly furnish an equal. I should not wish to be put to 
 the test beside many an immigrant to whom Dante 
 speaks in the mother tongue, or Goethe, or who carries 
 Robert Burns or Tom Moore in his heart. 
 
 I congratulate you that in the midst of your indus- 
 tries, beside your churches and schools, within sight of 
 the great tide of travel which flows through your city, 
 you have been endowed with this building which is to 
 declare its purpose to aU who enter your gates. I con- 
 gratulate you that the gift is from within and not from 
 without. I congratulate you upon the distinction that 
 your library bears a local name. I congratulate you 
 upon those traditions of your ancient town which this 
 building is to perpetuate in the name of its donor, and 
 no less upon the hopes and promises of your new city 
 which it will help you to realize and accomplish.
 
 XXII 
 
 MODERN EDUCATION CAPABLE OF 
 
 IDEALISM 
 
 Address at the Inauguration of President King at Oberlin, Ohio, 
 
 May 14, 1903 
 
 I assume that I have your assent to these two propo- 
 sitions: first, it is the business of education to accept, 
 when it may not create, the material of knowledge ; sec- 
 ond, it is the business of the higher education to idealize 
 whatever material of knowledge it accepts. 
 
 No greater calamity, it seems to me, can befall an 
 age, apart from a moral lapse, than to have its intellec- 
 tual training detached from the mind of the age. 
 Wherever men are thinking most vigorously, there 
 those who are to follow after must be trained to think, 
 otherwise there will be in due time intellectual revolt 
 with its consequent delays and wastes. 
 
 But more knowledge, whether it be old or new, is not 
 the end of education, but rather knowledge penetrated 
 by insight and alive with motive. A fact is something 
 which has been done, something which has found a place 
 in the world of reahty. There may be that in the crea- 
 tion of a fact which declares its whole power. There 
 are deeds from which nothing can be taken, and to which 
 nothing can be added. But most facts, especially those 
 which have not been accomplished by the hand of man, 
 await questioning. When an answer comes back we 
 speak of discovery. When the full answer comes back 
 we announce a theory, a principle, a law. The under-
 
 IDEALISM IN EDUCATION 311 
 
 standing of facts, whether personal or impersonal, of 
 man's doing, that is, or of nature's doing, the relating 
 of facts to one another, the discovery of the moral incen- 
 tive in facts, make up in part the idealizing process 
 which belongs to the higher education. 
 
 Modern education differs from the education which 
 has come to us by long inheritance in the vast 
 amount of subject-matter which it has put into our 
 hands, awaiting the ideahzing process. The new sub- 
 ject-matter is in large degree the raw material of knowl- 
 edge, not having passed through the alchemy of time, 
 devoid of sentiment, and lacking in those associations 
 which make up the moral increment of knowledge. It 
 represents literatures which have not reached the final 
 form, sciences which run straight to application rather 
 than to philosophical conclusion, and theories of society 
 and government which are too serious and urgent to be 
 held in academic discussion. Manifestly the chief task 
 of the schools has thus far been that of readjustment, 
 first making a sufficient place for the new subject 
 matter, and then properly relating it to the old. 
 
 If you will review the educational work of the dec- 
 ades just passed, you will see how definitely, how com- 
 pletely I may say, adjustment has been our business. 
 The process has been carried on partly in strife and 
 contention, partly by inquiry, and partly through that 
 understanding which comes only from the actual han- 
 dling of unfamiliar knowledge. For so large an under- 
 taking the process has been rapid. Let me remind you 
 that it was on the first of October, 1859, that Mr. 
 Darwin sent out his abstract, as he termed it, on the 
 "Origin of Species," accompanying the volume with the 
 modest prophecy that "when the views entertained in
 
 312 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 this volume, or when analogous views are generally- 
 admitted, we can dimly foresee that there will be a con- 
 siderable revolution in natural history." 
 
 The process of adjustment is nearly over, so nearly 
 over that we may now, I think, address ourselves to a 
 severer but nobler task, that of idealizing our new 
 knowledge and the methods of its acquisition. And 
 the essential condition, let me say, of undertaking the 
 task is that we approach it in the right state of mind. 
 The traditional mind is not altogether in the right state. 
 It is too ready to draw offhand distinctions between cul- 
 ture and utility, too ready to ignore the ethical possi- 
 bility of the new education. What we need just now in 
 the educational world more than anything else is an 
 ethical revival at the heart of education. We shall not 
 have it until we realize more clearly the need of it. 
 
 If we should make a careful assessment of the pres- 
 ent moral values in the subject-matter of education, we 
 should be surprised, I think, to see how large has been 
 the diversion or decline of these values. I refer, of 
 course, to subjects and to the mode of their treatment. 
 The old discipline, which held the Hebrew literature 
 with its elemental righteousness, so much of science as 
 could be classified under natural theology, and a philos- 
 ophy which vexed itself with the problems of human 
 destiny, was a discipline prosecuted under the very sanc- 
 tion of religion. But when the transfer was made in 
 literature to the classics, and when the sciences began to 
 be applied, and when the end of philosophy changed in 
 part with the change of data, the subject-matter of the 
 higher education ceased to be rehgiously ethical. We 
 have been singularly unconscious of the change. 
 Under changes in form we have kept the same senti-
 
 IDEALISM IN EDUCATION 313 
 
 ment. Culture has become with us a kind of morality. 
 So long as the old discipline kept its associations and its 
 methods and gave us consistent results, we asked few 
 questions about the moral content of teaching, and 
 therefore made no comparison of values. In fact we 
 have silently abandoned the idea that the chief ethical 
 value of college instruction lies in the curriculum. The 
 reservations which we make in behalf of certain dis- 
 tinctly ethical or semi-religious subjects, are too few to 
 bear the weight of the moral obligation which the higher 
 education ought to assume. 
 
 Where then shall we look for the recovery and 
 advancement of education to its highest ethical power? 
 Chiefly, I believe, to our capacity for carrying on the 
 idealizing process through which we accustom ourselves 
 to think reverently of all knowledge, to insist upon all 
 intellectual work as a moral discipline, and to hold all 
 intellectual attainments and achievements as tributary 
 to the social good. 
 
 I believe that the finest, partly because it is the really 
 distinctive product of academic life, is the knowing 
 mind. The moral danger from it is inappreciable. 
 Pride, conceit, arrogance, if they ever attend knowl- 
 edge, are intruders and transients. They are not com- 
 panions or guests. Knowledge leads to awe, and awe to 
 faith, or to that kind of doubt which is as humble as 
 faith. It is the unknowing mind with its triviality, its 
 uncertainties, its double vision, from which we have most 
 to fear. And if we get the knowing in place of the 
 unknowing mind, it is not of so much account how we 
 get it, as that we get it. For this reason I deprecate 
 any academic discrimination against useful knowledge. 
 If utility can create the knowing mind, we want its aid.
 
 314 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 I would accept at any time the moral result of serious 
 thinking on the inferior subject in place of less serious 
 thinking upon the greater subject. 
 
 The mental gymnastics of the old dialectic had no 
 ethical value. The subject-matter of discourse might 
 be God himself, but that did not necessarily make the 
 discourse religious or moral. It was the play of the 
 mind, not its serious business. No one, I am sure, can 
 overlook the immense moral gain which has taken place 
 through the transfer of thought in so large degree from 
 speculation to sober inquiry. Very much of the change 
 is due of course to the incoming of such a vast amount 
 of new subject-matter within reach of the human mind. 
 It was natural that men should now begin to search 
 where before they had tried to conjecture, and that they 
 should attempt to prove or disprove what before they 
 had affirmed. The change of method soon became, as I 
 have said, morally significant. After the first excite- 
 ments and confusions attendant upon the change the 
 idealizing process set in. A type of mind was developed 
 which instinctively put first the love of truth. 
 
 Next to the reverence for knowledge, which is akin 
 to the love of truth, I should insist, in our idealizing 
 process, upon the morality of that more active discipline 
 which characterizes modern education. The old educa- 
 tion, as we well know, was based morally on the will 
 trained to obedience. It was not a passive training. It 
 is never passive to obey. But it was not an active disci- 
 pline in the sense in which modern training is carried 
 on. And, in so far as the material of training lay in the 
 past, the mind was set upon interpretation more than 
 upon creative or productive work. The receptive fac- 
 ulties were by no means exclusively developed, for there
 
 IDEALISM IN EDUCATION 315 
 
 was always a fine appeal to the imagination and to the 
 sensibilities, but the prescription of subjects put educa- 
 tion largely into the hands of the master. 
 
 Modern education lays the stress upon the discovery 
 of the individual to himself, preferably by himself. It 
 does not remove the period of intellectual compulsion, 
 but it reduces that period to the limits of early training. 
 It addresses itself necessarily to the will, but it changes 
 the appeal as soon as practicable from obedience to 
 choice. Its first effort is to awaken, its second and con- 
 stant effort to create the sense of responsibiUty. Edu- 
 cation is made co-operative. It is made as quickly as 
 possible the consenting, choosing action of the mind. 
 Modern education rests upon the individuality of the 
 individual, not upon his necessary likeness to others. It 
 assumes that the mind of each individual if properly 
 awakened, and left free to act, will separate itself from 
 other minds for the satisfaction of its own desires, and 
 for the development of its own powers. The logical out- 
 come of this conception is not the compulsory course 
 of study, continued beyond the necessary elements of 
 knowledge in the farther interest of discipline or of cul- 
 ture, but the elective course of study in the interest of 
 self-development and personal attainment in knowl- 
 edge. It takes the risks of intellectual freedom for the 
 sake of the greater possibilities of intellectual freedom. 
 Now the ethical quality which resides in freedom is 
 responsibility, and the intellectual expression of respon- 
 sibiUty is choice. Will the one thus choosing become 
 morally a strong man? Not necessarily. It is not safe 
 to argue from intellectual obedience, even to a creed, 
 that the further result will be complete moral character. 
 You may have the immoral scholar, as you may have the
 
 316 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 immoral believer. But the morality of the intellect is 
 not the least among the guarantees of general morality. 
 And the intellect trained by responsibihty ought to be 
 as strong morally as the intellect trained by obedience. 
 There is, I think, a certain elevation which comes to one 
 who has found and proven himself, which can hardly be 
 reached in any other way — a kind of scorn for that inca- 
 pacity for nobler things which leads one to do the 
 meaner thing. I have seen college men on their way to 
 httleness and shame so often recovered and saved by 
 the intellectual awakening through some subject of per- 
 sonal choice, a subject without any moral significance 
 in itself, that I cannot doubt the ethical value of the 
 method. I am not concerned with the moral supremacy 
 of either method. It is quite too early to determine this 
 point. What we need to do is to recognize the moral 
 element in the method, which for other ends, we have 
 adopted. We can make modern training a morality if 
 we will. The elements of moral power are present and 
 active. The full recognition of them is a great means 
 to their development. 
 
 Beyond the reverence for knowledge which is akin to 
 the love of truth, and the recognition of the moral power 
 which is latent in an active intellectual discipline, I 
 would see our modern education permeated with the 
 sense of the social obligation. The essential nobility of 
 the old education lay in the open fact that it was for 
 somebody. There was no concealment of this purpose. 
 It was graven on all the foundations of the seventeenth 
 and eighteenth centuries, and on many of those laid in 
 the nineteenth century. It was blazoned on their seals. 
 It was illustrated in the life of devotion which charac- 
 terized so large a proportion of the earlier graduates.
 
 IDEALISM IN EDUCATION 317 
 
 They sought the most direct avenues of approach to the 
 heart of humanity. 
 
 There can be no other kind of nobihty worthy of the 
 purpose of any great school of learning. A training 
 which lacks these motives, or which fails to keep this 
 aim in full view, cannot be touched with ideality. But 
 modern education meets the difficulty that it must fit 
 men for an immensely widening application of the prin- 
 ciple. Under the old education the great services were 
 delegated. Elect souls were set apart for high and 
 exceptional duties. It was the age of the prophet, the 
 missionary, the reformer, and the occasional man of 
 public career. Today it is not possible for one educated 
 man to find a place where he can be free from the social 
 obligation. It has become the task of modern education 
 to train the average man for duties which are sufficiently 
 imperative and exacting for the exceptional man. The 
 opportunity of the more devoted calhngs of other times 
 is matched in every department of life. The decision of 
 a great judge, the example of a great employer, the 
 insight of a great teacher, the self-sacrifice of a great 
 investigator, all rank among the powers which make 
 for righteousness. The "hard sayings" of our genera- 
 tion which those only who can hear them are able to 
 receive, are concerned with integrity, justice, courage, 
 charity and sacrifice. Sacrifice, I say, and to the degree 
 of christian consecration. 
 
 The highest place in our land, if to position be added 
 permanency, is a seat on the bench of the Supreme 
 Court. When a man puts by the offer of this position 
 that he may serve an alien and dependent people in the 
 interest of the common humanity, I rank this surrender 
 to duty among the consecrated examples of the foreign
 
 318 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 missionary service. And if our foreign policy as a na- 
 tion shall develop a like spirit among those who aspire 
 to, or who accept political office, we shall bring back 
 again that old fundamental unity which made of one 
 spiritual kin the servants of the church and of the state. 
 It was in view of these demands that I said a little 
 while ago that the greatest present need in the educa- 
 tional world was that of an ethical revival at the heart 
 of education. The idealizing process of which I have 
 spoken must somehow culminate in righteousness. And 
 if it be asked again, Is modern education capable of 
 such idealism? I say, yes, provided the question be ac- 
 cepted not as a question, but as a challenge.
 
 XXIII 
 
 NEW IDEALS BEFORE THE YOUTH OF 
 
 THE COUNTRY 
 
 Address before the Hampton County Teachers' Convention, Spring- 
 field, Mass. 
 
 We are witnessing one of the most interesting and 
 one of the most impressive of those social and moral 
 phenomena which from time to time arrest our atten- 
 tion, namely, a change in ideals in the midst of the activ- 
 ities of our generation. It is like the change of front in 
 the midst of battle. The ideals which were most influ- 
 ential and most persuasive among the men who have 
 virtually done their work are no longer influential and 
 persuasive among the men who are beginning their 
 work: or as it may be more exactly said, the former 
 ideals have ceased to be ideals. They exist, but not as 
 ideals. They have hardened into conventional forms of 
 activity. But no generation can be satisfied with itself, 
 or with its work, without ideals, certainly not those who 
 are entering a generation. It is the prerogative of 
 youth to see visions; and no generation can become so 
 conventionalized and commonplace that somebody will 
 not exercise the right and thereby incite his fellows. 
 
 One phase of this change in ideals has been brought 
 out sharply by so sagacious an observer as the editorial 
 writer in "Life," under date of October 4th of the pres- 
 ent year. I quote his words : 
 
 "The sentiment, so strong in the generation that 
 began to vote thirty years ago, that the chief end of a
 
 320 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 young man is to get some money, seems to have suffered 
 some abatement of strength in current years. It is a 
 sentiment to the clamor of which no reasoning man is 
 altogether deaf, but really it seems not to be so gener- 
 ally the moving sentiment of the young Americans of 
 today as of the generations that followed the Civil War 
 and closed out the nineteenth century. It has been com- 
 plained of us Americans that we are much too exclu- 
 sively bent on material acquisition, and that our whole 
 apparatus seemed to be devoted and subordinated to 
 money-making. These new young men have room for 
 something else in their heads. 
 
 "Not only is the extreme of selfish materialism disen- 
 chanting as they see it and read about it, but other sorts 
 of endeavor are attractive by contrast. Without doubt. 
 President Roosevelt's remarkable public career has had 
 great influence on the generation following his own." 
 
 I think that it would be unjust to speak of the past 
 generation as simply a money making and money loving 
 generation. I take issue with the term often used to 
 characterize that time — the commercial spirit. That 
 term should not be, it should not be assumed to be, a 
 term of reproach. The spirit of commerce is an honor- 
 able spirit, the spirit of far reaching enterprise, the 
 spirit of reciprocity. The spirit which we mean to con- 
 demn is the spirit of greed, which may exist anywhere. 
 And this, as I have just said, was not the spirit of the 
 past generation. Let me take a moment to bring back 
 the spirit which characterized that generation at the 
 beginning, and which furnished the motive power for 
 the remarkable material results which followed. The 
 generation which fought the Civil War was under the 
 constant and intense action of high moral ideals. The
 
 NEW IDEALS BEFORE YOUTH 321 
 
 discussions upon slavery, which led up to the War, 
 greatly aroused the young men of the country. The 
 debates in Congress were studied in the schools and col- 
 leges. Some of the more notable speeches like those of 
 Seward, and Sumner, and later of Lincoln, were repro- 
 duced in part in declamation and debate. When the 
 call to War came, the latent feeling which had been 
 gathering for so many years suddenly crystallized into 
 action. Then followed the years of struggle and sacri- 
 fice in which every home in the country bore its share. 
 
 It was impossible, in the nature of events, that 
 another moral crisis of equal significance should follow 
 immediately upon the conclusion of the Civil War. 
 Had there been another crisis, the moral feeling of the 
 nation could not have been maintained at the same ten- 
 sion. Fortunately in many ways, the moral crisis 
 through which the nation had passed, creating its own 
 ideals, was followed by a period of startling material 
 development. Almost immediately the scientific spirit 
 took possession of the worn and burdened minds of men 
 as a reviving force. Men in this country began in the 
 late sixties and early seventies to think about the theory 
 of "Evolution," and to discuss the questions which it in- 
 volved. Meanwhile discoveries in physical science were 
 awakening and stimulating public attention. The coun- 
 try itself was open for enterprises of greater dimensions 
 than had before been undertaken or proposed. New 
 portions of the country whose values had been unsus- 
 pected were exploited, transcontinental lines of railroad 
 were planned and undertaken, inventions, which gave a 
 new meaning to the ordinary industries, came in rapid 
 succession before the public, and a vast army of immi- 
 grants ready to match with their hands the schemes of 
 
 21
 
 322 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 inventors and promoters, poured into the country year 
 bv year. The whole situation during the decade of the 
 seventies was a challenge to the young men of that dec- 
 ade, to do pioneer work in the development of the ma- 
 terial resources of the country. They undertook their 
 task in the spirit of the pioneer, not the same as that of 
 the reformer, but of itself a very high spirit. JNIoney 
 making was not the first impulse. The great fortunes 
 which were accumulated at that time were not made in 
 the love of money, but in the joy of enterprise, initiative, 
 and newly awakened power. Many fortunes which 
 were won were lost, and the losers kept at their task 
 without complaint. It was good for men to be at work, 
 and nearly all men of any capacity felt how good it was. 
 The ideals of the time were not exactly moral ideals 
 when compared with those of the previous generation, 
 but they were ideals. Life in the thought of young men 
 of that day was neither a grievous nor a sordid thing. 
 Their ideals held them to free and generous, and, for the 
 most part, to honorable activity. 
 
 I give this interpretation of the more spiritual forces 
 which were at work at the beginning of the period of 
 material development, because I believe they were the 
 sources of its power. I repeat, in another form, what I 
 said at the beginning, that no generation undertakes a 
 great work of any sort except under the power of some 
 ideal. Ideals vary greatly, but ideals there must be, if 
 there are to be any great and far reaching results. The 
 money making spirit never gave rise to those conditions 
 out of which great fortunes were made. The springs 
 then, as always, were among the hills. But out of this 
 material development there came the opportunity for 
 easier and more remunerative results. Then the money
 
 NEW IDEALS BEFORE YOUTH 323 
 
 making spirit laid hold of men showing its influence in 
 definite forms — first, in opening the way to social and 
 political power and, secondly, in opening the way to 
 luxury. Some men made money to use it for political 
 or other organized forms of power, and some made 
 money that they, or their families, might spend it. The 
 social competition which began with the money making 
 period has continued up to the present time with more 
 or less disastrous results. But whether the result of 
 money making, detached from the earlier spirit of ad- 
 venture and enterprise requiring its own sacrifices, has 
 found its large expression in great fortunes, or in politi- 
 cal power, or in social preferment with its accompany- 
 ing luxury, the result warrants the conclusion of the 
 editorial writer in "Life." The conclusion of the whole 
 matter as shown in some of the characteristic represent- 
 atives of this later period is not attractive to young men. 
 To quote again from the article to which I have re- 
 ferred : 
 
 "It is not surprising that hkely young men, when 
 they contemplate such shapes as now stand for the big- 
 gest commercial success and observe the general con- 
 tempt that many of them inspire, and inquire into the 
 reasons for that contempt, and find them pretty sound, 
 should exclaim : 'Gracious heavens! We don't want to 
 be things like these !' " 
 
 I do not say that the spirit of initiative or of enter- 
 prise, or of high purpose, is no longer to be found in the 
 business world; far from it. There are men who illus- 
 trate that spirit today as clearly as any of their prede- 
 cessors. But it is evident that, to the minds of many 
 young men, the ideals which gave us our present pros- 
 perity are not now so far controlhng it as to make the
 
 324 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 results of it attractive. The persons in whom prosper- 
 ity has culminated are not morally stimulating or en- 
 couraging. Many of them are discontented with the re- 
 sults of their own achievements. In fact, just at present, 
 discontent seems to be the prevailing characteristic of 
 the very rich, showing itself in various forms of restless- 
 ness. The discontent of the rich is in some respects a 
 more serious criticism upon the present social order than 
 the discontent of the poor. The discontent of the poor 
 shows itself in a struggle for the betterment of social 
 conditions. The discontent of the rich shows the folly 
 of relying upon outward conditions for contentment; 
 and as this kind of discontent becomes manifest in so 
 many public ways, it reacts upon the minds of the 
 young, who are seeking satisfaction in ideals. Hence, 
 the search for other ideals than those which seem to be 
 no longer able to control the search after wealth. 
 Money making may have some very satisfying ends 
 before it, but the amount of money made is not one of 
 them. There is no longer any doubt that a very consid- 
 erable part of the high minded and reflective youth of 
 the country is in search of ideals which may give per- 
 sonal satisfaction and an inspiring career. It is the 
 most encouraging fact in our present educational devel- 
 opment. It is the fact of which at present those of us 
 who are in any way concerned with education ought to 
 take cognizance, partly that we ourselves may be of 
 good cheer in our work, and partly that through our 
 own recognition of it we may be able to interpret it 
 rightly to others. 
 
 Among these new, and as yet unformed ideals, I rec- 
 ognize those which look toward the way in which things 
 should be done rather than to the material results which
 
 NEW IDEALS BEFORE YOUTH 325 
 
 follow from the doing of them. The most noticeable 
 expression of this tendency lies in the growing passion 
 for reform. A good many men in our cities, and 
 throughout the country, seem to be determined that cer- 
 tain things shall be done in the right way — that business 
 shall be conducted honestly, that government shall be 
 conducted fairly, that blundering incompetency and dis- 
 honest sharpness shall alike be driven out of business 
 and out of pohtics. Something of this passion for 
 reform will pass away as its object is accomplished. 
 The time may be nearer at hand than we think when our 
 cities will be ruled honestly and efficiently, and when 
 our great enterprises, at least those of a semi-public 
 nature, will be conducted in the interest of the public. 
 What is the permanent principle which lies at the heart 
 of this craving for honesty in method? What will 
 remain of a constructive sort when the more insistent 
 demands for reform have been satisfied? Honesty in 
 method, truthfulness in detail, reality in the whole 
 expression of any great purpose — these make up the 
 spirit of art. All art, which has any enduring power, 
 which is really art, rests upon truth. Unconsciously 
 perhaps, but really, we are beginning to develop, as a 
 people, the true artistic spirit. We become unsatisfied, 
 then dissatisfied, then disgusted with sham, whether in 
 the form of unjust government, or of dishonesty in busi- 
 ness, or of showy and meretricious architecture, or of 
 insincere and hollow social forms, or of superficiality in 
 any of its more enticing aspects. It is a good sign when 
 people feel that offences against morals are offences 
 against taste. The growth in moral sense shows itself 
 in sensitiveness toward the violation of good form. 
 What we first feel as being inappropriate, or for any
 
 326 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 reason improper, we feel still more, if we continue to 
 think about it, as in itself wrong. A "gang" of corrupt 
 politicians gets possession of a city. Only a few have 
 occasion to see their corrupt practices, but every intelli- 
 gent and refined citizen feels the incongruity of the situ- 
 ation. The city is something great and fair, something 
 to be honored and loved. It is the home of men and 
 women and little children. It is the place of honorable 
 business. It represents the hospitality of industry, of 
 education, of religion, of art. No one can think of a 
 thing so fair as being soiled and defiled by low and cor- 
 rupt men without disgust which may deepen into wrath. 
 What is true of the city is true in a measure of every 
 great business enterprise which concerns the public, 
 especially if it has any charitable intent. What is true 
 of politics and business is true of everything which gets 
 a corporate existence. Corporations may be born with- 
 out souls, but if they do not acquire souls, we do not 
 trust them, or long tolerate them. 
 
 I believe that we are gradually emerging from the 
 materialistic into the artistic way of looking at things. 
 The artistic spirit has begun to express itself, as I have 
 said, in a certain discontent with riches. All mere ac- 
 cumulations are seen to be unsatisfying. By and by, 
 the same spirit will begin to show itself in those who are 
 struggling after merely material rewards of their labor. 
 Some little time ago, in speaking before a body re^Dre- 
 senting the interests of labor, I remarked: 
 
 "The wage is not, and never can be, the sufficient 
 reward of labor. This is just as true of the salary as 
 of the wage. The difference at present lies in the fact 
 that the person on a low salary is apt to take more satis- 
 faction in his work than the person on a high wage — the
 
 NEW IDEALS BEFORE YOUTH 327 
 
 school teacher on $800 or $1,000 a year in distinction 
 from the mechanic on $4 or $6 a day. The present 
 ambition of the higher wage earner seems to inchne 
 more to the pecuniar}^ rewards of his work than to the 
 work itself. Doubtless this tendency is due in no 
 slight degree to the fact that the wage earner is brought 
 into constant and immediate contact with the money 
 making class. He sees that the value of the industry 
 is measured chiefly by its profits. Sometimes the profits 
 are flaunted in his face. At all times the thing in evi- 
 dence to him is money. I deprecate this constant com- 
 parison between the capitalist and the laborer. The 
 comparison were far better taken between the workman 
 and other men whose chief reward is not money. The 
 old time professions still live and maintain their posi- 
 tion through a certain detachment from pecuniary 
 rewards. The exceptional doctor may receive large 
 fees, but his profession forbids him to make a dollar out 
 of any discovery which he may make in medicine. The 
 exceptional minister may receive a large salary, but his 
 profession puts the premium upon self-denying work. 
 Even the law is more distinctively represented by the 
 moderate salary of the average judge than by the 
 retainer of the counsel for a wealthy corporation. The 
 skilled workman, the artisan, belongs with these men, 
 not with the money makers. In allowing himself to be 
 commercialized he enters upon a cheap and unsatisfy- 
 ing competition. His work is an art, and he has the 
 possible rewards of an artist. Under medi^evalism the 
 guild and the university were not far apart. I should 
 like to see the relation restored and extended." 
 
 I know of no way in which we can develop more 
 surely the artistic spirit in school than by insisting upon
 
 328 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 the art of doing things well. Almost anything done as 
 well as it can be done gives the moral effect of art. In 
 the report of the Yale Faculty upon athletics, football 
 is defended and upheld very largely on the ground that 
 it represents more than almost anything else the thing 
 which is well done in college. There lies its educational, 
 and to a degree, its moral effect. For the same reason, 
 we are deriving much aid from our manual schools. 
 Some scholars are there learning, as they would not 
 learn elsewhere, the art of doing things well. If we can 
 inculcate this spirit in our schools, we shall reap the 
 high reward of our work in the love for work itself, 
 whatever the occupation may be, implanting it in the 
 mind, which will protect it ever after from the inor- 
 dinate craze for merely material results. 
 
 Among the new and as yet unformed ideals, we rec- 
 ognize further those which look toward personal devel- 
 opment as a means to contentment and satisfaction. As 
 I am now speaking not of ideals in theory, but of ideals 
 which are becoming facts, I call your attention to the 
 evidence that this particular class of ideals is receiving 
 public recognition elsewhere as well as here. Arthur 
 Benson writing in the "Academy" interprets education 
 to Englishmen as follows: 
 
 "Instead of thinking it is a process," he says, "which 
 ought to end in making men and women more simple, 
 more content, more happy, we have a vague idea that 
 it will enable us to retain our commercial superiority 
 and to keep ahead of America and Germany. The suc- 
 cess, in my belief, of German education is attested not 
 by their commercial prosperity, but by the fact that 
 Germans are genuinely devoted to intellectual and 
 artistic pleasures."
 
 NEW IDEALS BEFORE YOUTH 329 
 
 Commenting on this statement, the "New York Sun," 
 after criticising one phase of Mr. Benson's definition, 
 says : 
 
 "On the other hand, that education which looks solely 
 to preparation for earning money is certainly not edu- 
 cation at all in the true sense of the term. This is fully 
 understood by educators in this country. It is also 
 understood by many hard headed fathers. The demand 
 of men who have got rich without education, and who 
 send their sons to college, seems to be for an education 
 which shall combine the practical with the ideal. The 
 man who wakes up in the middle of life to find that he 
 cannot enjoy anything but his bath and his dinner (and 
 frequently, because of indigestion, not even the latter) , 
 who learns that the world is full of truth and beauty 
 that he cannot penetrate, does not really wish that his 
 son shall tread the same path that he has trodden." 
 
 There is no antagonism between utility as an end of 
 education and personal culture when one is properly 
 related to the other. It does not follow that because a 
 thing is useful it is therefore not beautiful and a source 
 of joy. Nature seldom developes beauty through 
 waste of power. But any education which fails to react 
 upon the mind itself is partial and insufficient. One of 
 the most useful persons whom I have ever known, whose 
 life had been a life of devoted service in other lands, 
 when asked what was the general advantage to her of a 
 college education, replied, — "It enables me to enjoy my 
 own mind. It gives me resources upon which I can 
 draw in times of loneliness, even of isolation." I 
 beheve that more and more persons of understanding 
 are coming to see the futility of simply doing things 
 without some consequent enrichment of their own lives.
 
 330 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 Here again there is a growing discontent on the part 
 of many whose lives are full of activity. The power 
 to do, although the result be a high achievement, is not 
 a completely satisfying power. The sense of personal 
 growth and enlargement, the closer appreciation of the 
 work of others, as well as of one's own work, the larger 
 and more vitalized knowledge, all or some one of these 
 things, becomes essential to people of maturity. Here 
 again by simple reaction, we are coming around to the 
 strictly educational ideal. 
 
 More attention is being given to the enrichment of 
 courses in our technical schools looking toward personal 
 culture. The movement started two or three years ago 
 toward shortening the college course had for one object 
 the introduction of the college course as a prerequisite 
 to professional study. There is always danger of a 
 certain amount of snobbishness in the use of the term 
 liberal education, meaning thereby an education which 
 is not set toward some direct end of utility. But the 
 idea itself is one of universal importance and applies 
 quite as much to secondary education, or even to ele- 
 mentary education, as to colleges and universities. The 
 idea is that of making the individual of most value to 
 himself. It takes account of what he is as well as of 
 what he does. It represents the kind of education which 
 insists all the while upon the appreciation of work as 
 well as upon the work itself. It insists that it is more 
 to the individual and to society that we should have 
 broad, sane, well developed, and well tempered people, 
 than that these same people by any lack in these quali- 
 ties should thereby become more perfect machines. The 
 same principle holds in respect to people of small oppor- 
 tunity as in respect to people of large opportunity. It
 
 NEW IDEALS BEFORE YOUTH 331 
 
 is always pitiful to see persons, who have abundant 
 means for seeing the best things in the world, entirely- 
 unintelligent and unappreciative travellers, persons who 
 simply move about, who never become travelled people. 
 In like manner, it is quite possible for persons of small 
 means to be unable to acquaint themselves with the best 
 things which are near at hand, for want of even the 
 most elementary self development. Everything in this 
 country is tending toward a larger opportunity for leis- 
 ure. The eight hour law for labor is setting the stand- 
 ard for work. What are people to do with their leisure ? 
 Our schools are to answer, in good part, this question. 
 I believe that it is possible for us, through the ideals we 
 encourage, to make this enlarging opportunity rich in 
 the personal experience of a great many persons who 
 are now in our schools. In fact, I can see, that side 
 by side with the more careful and more strenuous train- 
 ing for work which is going on, we must see to it that 
 there is an equally careful and helpful training toward 
 the use of leisure on the part of these same workers. 
 We no longer have before us the alternative of work 
 and play, but the coming alternative of work and oppor- 
 tunity, opportunity for personal growth, enlargement, 
 and increase of value, both to the individual and to 
 society. 
 
 Among these new, and as yet unformed ideals, I rec- 
 ognize still more clearly those which are set directly 
 toward the high ends of service. The past decades have 
 been conspicuous for gifts of money. Most of these 
 gifts have been of great value, as an expression of good 
 judgment and perhaps of some sacrifice on the part 
 of the giver, and also as meeting public wants, from the 
 most urgent necessities of charity to the highest
 
 332 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 demands of education. These same decades have not 
 been equally lavish in the direct gifts of personal power. 
 State and church alike have lacked for unselfish men. 
 There are signs of a change in this record. The men 
 who are most conspicuous in their influence today are 
 the men who are giving themselves directly to the ser- 
 vice of society, and of the country, and of the world. 
 President Roosevelt has been referred to in one of the 
 quotations which I have given as a man who is doing 
 much, through his personal activities, to change the 
 ideals of American youth. I should put beside him, at 
 this particular point which we are now discussing, Mr. 
 Root and Mr. Taft, both men who have left the oppor- 
 tunities of lucrative professions to give themselves to 
 the most arduous and perplexing problems now before 
 the country. I believe that their course of action will 
 prove to be so influential in shaping the careers of many 
 of the high minded young men of this country that we 
 shall not hereafter lack for real public servants. These 
 examples in high place are matched by men in less con- 
 spicuous, but in most responsible, positions in the state 
 and throughout the cities. 
 
 The advances which have been made through modern 
 science are due in great measure to the ardent, unselfish 
 and even sacrificing devotion of individual scientists to 
 their tasks. I have had occasion to say, more than once, 
 that the profession which has made the greatest advance 
 during the past generation is the profession of medicine, 
 due in part to its opportunity, but still more to the cour- 
 age, and daring, and sacrifice, of some members of that 
 profession. 
 
 After having had an experience both instructive and 
 profitable as to what can be accomplished indirectly
 
 NEW IDEALS BEFORE YOUTH 333 
 
 through wealth, we are coming to set a still higher value 
 upon the things which can be accomplished through per- 
 sonal service. And the opportunities which invite ser- 
 vice of a personal sort are increasing, and are becoming 
 more inviting. I can see nothing quite so attractive to 
 a young man of today as the opportunity to give him- 
 self, if he be thoroughly furnished and equipped for his 
 work, to some high task of a personal sort; these tasks 
 are so great and so inspiring. A new valuation has 
 been put, during the past years, upon the more per- 
 sonal callings — upon teaching in its enormous range of 
 opportunity, upon politics, upon the ministry including 
 the missionary service, upon business itself, so much 
 more sensitive than ever before on its human side. 
 When Peter Cooper went to New York, a poor young 
 man, he resolved to make a fortune and to devote that 
 fortune to the young men and women of the city. That 
 ideal was continually before him in every detail in the 
 work of his factory. Some men can work to the best 
 advantage toward a remote end. There are men who 
 are illustrating this principle today in all the greater 
 businesses of the country. But the ideals of service 
 which are appealing most effectively at the present time 
 are those which, in some form, give a man immediate 
 contact with his fellows, or with the organized forces of 
 society. All about us, men are rising up who are saying 
 to us, by their example, that there is no joy like the joy 
 of personal devotion and personal sacrifice in the inter- 
 est of our common humanity. 
 
 In calling your attention by this rapid sketch to the 
 change in ideals which is going on in our generation, I 
 have not wished to overestimate the fact or its signifi- 
 cance. There is nothing revolutionary about the
 
 334 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 change. Apparently things are going on without 
 change in the personal ambitions and plans of men. But 
 underneath the social surface, down where the normal 
 instincts are at work, the change is going on. The old 
 ideals are ceasing to act as ideals. They have hard- 
 ened into forms, that is, into the mere way of doing 
 things. The new ideals are slowly forming, but they 
 are beginning to assert their claims. They are getting 
 a hearing among those whose ears are keener to hear 
 the still voices than the tumult of the street. They are 
 beginning to show their men, men of the true artistic 
 temper, some able to do the rough, hard work of reform 
 in the interest of truth, some able to do the fine con- 
 structive work of truth in thought and expression : men 
 also of high contentment in their possession of the desir- 
 able and enjoyable riches of knowledge, taste, and per- 
 sonal culture : and men also capable of service, great in 
 their capacity for service and joyous in their oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 In the formation of these new and struggling ideals 
 we can do much to give them a place in the generation 
 upon whose sensitive material, at its most sensitive time, 
 we are now acting. Our work and its results are at 
 least twenty years apart. The men and women that 
 are to be cannot really declare themselves till long after 
 we have said our last word. It may be asked. Will the 
 ideals, which we now discern and for which we strive, 
 be the practical ideals of those days of action which are 
 yet to come? Dismiss all doubts on this matter. The 
 great artists in the broad and high sense in which I 
 have used the term, builders in truth and reality, look- 
 ing to the quality of their work: the great characters 
 rich in themselves above all possessions of other men:
 
 NEW IDEALS BEFORE YOUTH 335 
 
 and the great servants of men, able to serve, daring to 
 serve, glad to serve — these are they for whom the nation 
 waits. It will not miss them when they come. I comit 
 it the special honor of our profession that we may be 
 permitted to introduce so many of them to their future, 
 and to the future of the country.
 
 XXIV 
 
 THE STUDY OF CONTEMPORARY GREAT- 
 NESS 
 
 Lecture before the Faculty and Cadets of the United States 
 Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md. 
 
 When the present series of lectures was inaugurated, 
 to be given in part by men not of your profession, it 
 was not of course expected that those coming to you 
 from the outside would intrude upon the subjects of 
 your daily routine. Nor was it expected, I assume, that 
 they would speak to you merely in the way of relief or 
 diversion. There are sub j ects enough of common inter- 
 est and common concern to intelligent men, however 
 diverse their technical training may be. In fact the 
 training which separates us one from another, rests alto- 
 gether upon a common discipline, and a common fund 
 of information, and a common intellectual sense and 
 judgment. I take my subject, therefore, from the ter- 
 ritory which belongs to us all. 
 
 I am sure that you will agree with me when I say that 
 the most necessary complement to professional training 
 of any sort is a proper knowledge of human nature. 
 The man of ideas, of books, of problems, may or may 
 not be the master of men. Here lies the difference 
 between many men who are otherwise of equal power. 
 The art of knowing men, of so knowing them as to be 
 able to handle them, to be able to get the human part as 
 well as the machine part of any man into full action, to 
 bring out in emergencies that last reserve of power
 
 THE STUDY OF GREATNESS 337 
 
 which only a master can reach and command, — this is an 
 art, and a very great art, which can be learned only in 
 the school of experience. It cannot be very much an- 
 ticipated. But there is another side of this knowledge 
 of human nature which is within earlier reach. Singu- 
 larly enough it is not so difficult to reach men who are 
 above us, as it is to reach men who are below us. The 
 extraordinary man is more accessible, for certain uses at 
 least, than the ordinary man. In other words it is pos- 
 sible for us to begin to know and to measure great men 
 before we are able to understand human nature at large 
 well enough to utilize it, or fully command it. A great 
 man is like a problem. He falls within those principles 
 and laws and tests with which we are familiar. It is no 
 more impertinent to attempt to analyze such a man than 
 it is to attack a problem in mathematics. And though I 
 cannot promise that the study will yield the same result, 
 I can and do affirm that the process is a legitimate part 
 of all true education. And believing this, I think that I 
 can render you no better service than to speak to you 
 about the understanding of great men, especially those 
 of our own time, as the proper introduction to the 
 knowledge of human nature. The right approach to 
 the knowledge of man is through the knowledge of 
 men, otherwise our knowledge is always academic and 
 doctrinaire. 
 
 Further than this I believe that it is the peculiar duty 
 of the trained, the educated man of every sort, to make 
 himself competent to pass judgment upon men in the 
 various departments of public life, not official life only, 
 but public life; judgment which shall be discriminating, 
 appreciative, authoritative it may be, corrective at least 
 of all partial, prejudiced or uninformed opinions, 
 
 22
 
 338 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 whether popular or professional. The cultivation of 
 judgment of this kind seems to me to be one of the 
 higher functions of education. I can hardly hope to 
 give you more than an illustration of my meaning, but 
 I will try to do this by discussing with you some of the 
 more modern types of greatness. I shall not have very 
 much to say about individual men, but we will examine 
 together some of the types of greatness which are now 
 forming, or coming to the front, to see how far they con- 
 form to those tests which time has established. 
 
 Some years ago, as I was walking with a friend, he 
 put to me the abrupt question, "Who is your great man, 
 your great man of today?" My answer is immaterial, 
 but upon returning the question to him, he replied at 
 once, "I think that I should say Pasteur." Now my 
 friend was altogether a literary man, with no leaning 
 whatever toward the natural sciences, although a man 
 of cosmopolitan habit of mind. When therefore he 
 referred without hesitation to the great French natu- 
 ralist (of whom Mr. Huxley said that his experiments 
 were worth to France the cost of the Franco-Prussian 
 war), as his type of modern greatness, his answer 
 seemed to me to be very significant. It seemed to me 
 to indicate not only the incoming, but the recognition of 
 the incoming of a new type of greatness, a type so dis- 
 tinct and honorable that we must make room for it. 
 
 I was still more impressed with the necessity of 
 enlarging our notions of what belongs within the range 
 of contemporary greatness, as I had occasion to pass 
 judgment on the list of famous Americans, candidates 
 for the Hall of Fame. It was easy enough to fill out 
 the required number from among the old fashioned 
 favorites, — authors, statesmen, soldiers: but here were
 
 THE STUDY OF GREATNESS 339 
 
 new men of equal value, if not of equal renown, to be 
 taken into account — inventors, explorers, philanthro- 
 pists, men of affairs. No age can afford to be provin- 
 cial in its judgment. The boundaries of greatness are 
 enlarging, and he who would know the modern world 
 must first of all know the men who are making it. 
 
 These illustrations are sufficient to suggest the fact 
 that while greatness has its invariable qualities, what I 
 shall call its constants, through which it lays hold upon 
 all ages, it has also its variations, sufficient to produce 
 types, through which it may be more strictly identified 
 with a given age. A great man may be great enough 
 to owe nothing to his surroundings. Such a phenom- 
 enon occasionally appears. His own time may not rec- 
 ognize him. It may be difficult for after times to place 
 him among his contemporaries. Such has been the for- 
 tune of Shakespeare. To each succeeding age he is 
 modern, the companion of all thinking men, and of all 
 heroic souls. 
 
 But greatness for the most part is something which 
 can be localized. Usually it is wrought out openly and 
 plainly before the eyes of men. Without explaining the 
 process, they can see here and there one of their own 
 number actually becoming great, by taking up into him- 
 self the material which is common to them all, but which 
 they cannot assimilate or control. He sees the things 
 which lie unnoted, perhaps undiscovered, at their feet. 
 He rules with the ease of power among the forces which 
 they feel, but which they cannot master. He is 
 supremely, almost divinely beneficent, under the very 
 conditions and before the very difficulties to which they 
 succumb in a complaining or despairing weakness. I 
 think that that which enhances the greatness of a great
 
 340 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 man is the fact that he is seen and felt to be great in 
 the same circmnstances in which other men consciously 
 fall short, or abide in the commonplace. 
 
 If then greatness can, as a rule, be localized, if great 
 men do take on appreciable growths, and gradually- 
 separate themselves from those with whom they have so 
 much in common, it is well for us to look on and watch 
 the process, whenever we have the opportunity. We 
 cannot afford to ignore or underestimate contemporary 
 greatness. There we see greatness in the making. We 
 see of course the early crudity, the frequent mistakes, it 
 may be the temporary failure, but we also see what we 
 can see no where else, how it is that men are born into 
 the world, how they get out of the provincial into the 
 universal, how they actually "achieve" greatness. As 
 I pass therefore to speak more definitely of some mod- 
 ern types of greatness, I shall try to point out, not by 
 name but by quality, who is the great man of today. 
 
 By common consent, the foremost quality of great- 
 ness is originality. Certainly no man can reach the 
 highest order of greatness without it. I do not pro- 
 pose to stumble over the definition of originality, but 
 I would like to say for our present purpose, that to my 
 mind it does not consist in thinking away from men, 
 but rather in thinking toward truth, toward fact, toward 
 reality. To differ with others does not make one orig- 
 inal. It makes one simply odd. Oddity is mere diver- 
 gence of opinion, a falling out to the right hand or the 
 left. Originality is that difference of the one from the 
 many which can be measured on a straight hne toward 
 the truth. The original man is the man ahead of the 
 rest of us, not the man moving at a tangent. The orig- 
 inal mind is the mind nearest the truth, and yet original-
 
 THE STUDY OF GREATNESS 341 
 
 ity is not remoteness from men ; it is simply nearness to 
 reality. It declares itself with unmistakable genuine- 
 ness in the investigator who forces his way through tra- 
 ditions and theories into the presence of facts which 
 have been waiting his coming; in the poet who lives at 
 the heart of the common humanity : in the prophet whose 
 conscience clarifies his mental vision: in any master of 
 men who can divine motives, interpret events, and 
 organize for results according to his insight. "That 
 virtue of originality," Ruskin used to say in his grand 
 impatience, "which men so strive after is not newness, 
 as they vainly think, it is only genuineness. It all 
 depends on the single glorious faculty of getting to the 
 spring of things and working out from that. It is the 
 coolness and clearness and dehciousness of the water 
 fresh from the fountain head, opposed to the thick, hot, 
 unrefreshing drainage from other men's meadows." 
 
 I should put without hesitancy as the next essential 
 of greatness, authority, the compelling force, the force 
 which somehow puts the original idea of purpose into 
 the event. Authority is not expressed in mere assertive- 
 ness, and it has no certain equivalent in influence. 
 Influence does not always force a conclusion. Author- 
 ity is that power, it is the only power, which deals with 
 those hesitant and unwilhng forces, which are so often 
 necessary to progress. Authority does not always 
 declare itself in leadership. There are times when lead- 
 ership is impossible. Men will not be led, they will not 
 respond to the summons, or even to the challenge to 
 duty. At such times the authoritative element often 
 appears to clearest and finest advantage. The man who 
 possesses it remains the master of himself, if not of his 
 time. He refuses to surrender or compromise his pur-
 
 342 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 pose, he refuses to lower liimself to the commonplace, 
 he resists the depressing, deadening influences about 
 him, and finally accomplishes in men who come after 
 him, what he could not accomplish through his contem- 
 poraries. I recall the use which George Adam Smith 
 makes of the great figure of Isaiah, "a man shall be as 
 an hiding place from the tempest, as the shadow of a 
 great rock in a weary land;" that as a rock set in the 
 desert stays the drift of the sand till the seeds blown by 
 the same wind catch at its base and spring into verdure ; 
 so a great man may set his back against the drift of the 
 commonplace, and stay its deadly sweep, till the new 
 life of the age has time to take root and a new civiliza- 
 tion springs up at his feet. That, it seems to me, is a 
 fit illustration of authority. The authoritative man is 
 as clear cut a figure when he compels a halt in the dull, 
 heavy, deadening tramp of a race or of an age, as when 
 he heads the march to freedom. 
 
 I think that you will agree with me, though you will 
 want considerable latitude in the application of the 
 term, when I say that one other essential quality of 
 greatness is beneficence. We shall certainly agree that 
 no merely destructive person, whether in war, politics, 
 or literature, can be termed great. The only question 
 which we should wish to investigate before passing 
 judgment on any one of destructive method would be, 
 was his method necessary or legitimate, was he the 
 rebel, the skeptic, the iconoclast in the interest of free- 
 dom or truth. I will not follow the temptation to illus- 
 trate at this point, but content myself rather with reaf- 
 firming the beneficent quality as indispensable to great- 
 ness. Give the term what range you will, allow the wid- 
 est interpretation, be tolerant of motives and methods.
 
 THE STUDY OF GREATNESS 343 
 
 but never surrender this ingredient or factor of great- 
 ness: do not make greatness a synonym of force, not 
 even in the shape of intellectualism. As Emerson says 
 of Napoleon, who, under the most favorable conditions, 
 tried the experiment of divorcing intellectual power 
 from conscience, "He did all that in him lay to live and 
 thrive without moral principle. It was the nature of 
 things, the eternal law of man and of the world which 
 balked and ruined him: and the result in a million of 
 experiments will be the same." . 
 
 These then are the constants of greatness — original- 
 ity, authority, beneficence. They rule through all the 
 ages. We cannot have greatness without them. Men 
 as they come up in each generation on their way to 
 greatness must pass these tests. They tell us whether 
 men are really great or not. It is not necessary, as I 
 have intimated, that these constants of greatness should 
 exist in equal proportion in a given case. Naturally 
 one quality will predominate. But each lends some- 
 thing to the others. They may be transposed : one may 
 be cause, the other effect. Beneficence may stimulate 
 originality, or it may be the outgrowth and result of 
 the originating intellectual impulse. Authority in its 
 highest exercise implies both originality and beneficence. 
 
 What now shall we say is the opportunity which our 
 times afford for the exercise of these qualities which 
 make for greatness? Is greatness, as we see it in the 
 making, being developed under originality, or by au- 
 thority, or through beneficence? Are the great men 
 of our time great because they are original, or because 
 they are authoritative, or because they are beneficent? 
 
 In what direction and under what form shall we look 
 for originality? Other ages have passed through our
 
 344 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 experience, namely the sense of intellectual confusion 
 consequent upon the sudden arrest of accepted prin- 
 ciples and methods of thought. Ours is not the first 
 age to meet the stout challenge of doubt in the interest 
 of the greater truth. And the change, which we are now 
 seeing that such a conflict effects in the expression of 
 originality, is in no wise unusual. Poetry, for example, 
 demands the great certainties. It is the child of faith, 
 not of doubt, not even of inquiry. It does not question : 
 it interprets. We have not lacked for great poets, but 
 they have been mostly an inheritance — Tennyson with 
 his larger hope, Lowell with his passion for public right- 
 eousness. Neither one of these, nor all of our time, with 
 the possible exception of Browning, can be said to be 
 the product of the time. If I were asked to name a poet 
 born out of the intellectual conditions which are fast 
 passing, and still a poet, I should unhesitatingly name 
 Matthew Arnold, the poet of doubt, and yet a poet in 
 spite of his doubt, retreating continually into the 
 remaining certainties of faith; if a poet born out of 
 conditions just now dominant, I should name Rudyard 
 Kipling, the poet of force ; force in man, or in things. 
 
 From the nature of the case we must turn from 
 poetry to science to find the present incentive to orig- 
 inality. Science, especially natural science, has made 
 two contributions to the originality of our age. It has 
 given a new, a most fascinating, and an increasingly 
 beneficent field for research and inquiry. When my 
 friend referred to Pasteur as his present exemplifica- 
 tion of greatness, he had in mind, I think, quite as much 
 the beneficence as the originality of the work of the 
 great experimenter. His exploration of that "third 
 realm of nature" as the world in which he toiled has been
 
 THE STUDY OF GREATNESS 345 
 
 styled, that populous territory lying between the ani- 
 mate and inanimate creation, gives us the nearest 
 approach which we have yet gained to the mystery of 
 life and death. 
 
 But if the beneficence of science is yet to be more 
 fully established, nothing is wanting to show its intel- 
 lectual impulse. No one can overestimate the effect of 
 this opening of new territory upon an age which had 
 begun to lament its limitations and barrenness. The 
 power to invade unknown realms of nature with theory 
 and experiment, and to explore as well as discover, has 
 given to our time something of the adventurous spirit 
 of the age which ushered in the modern epoch. Indeed 
 we are much more closely related to that age of adven- 
 ture and discovery than to any preceding age of subtle 
 metaphysics, or of religious mysticism. We literally 
 feel the enlargement of the earth and of the world. 
 The proportion of the new to the old is increasing, and 
 though the stage of wonder and bewilderment has 
 nearly passed, we are still living in the pleasurable 
 excitement of expectation. 
 
 I have been very much interested in the contrast 
 between the optimism of the scientist, and the pessimism 
 of the literary man which Dr. Minot of Harvard drew, 
 in his address at Baltimore before the American Society 
 of Naturalists. "The best," he says, "that we gain 
 from the pursuit of research is, I believe, our character- 
 istic optimism. We are engaged in achieving results, 
 and results of the most permanent quality. A business 
 man may achieve a fortune, but time will dissipate it. 
 A statesman may be the savior of a nation, but how long 
 do nations live? Knowledge has no country, belongs 
 to no class, but is the might of mankind, and it is
 
 346 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 mightier for what each of us has done. We have 
 brought our stones, and they are built into the edifice, 
 and into its grandeur. My stone is a small one. It will 
 be certainly forgotten that it is mine, nevertheless it 
 will remain in place. 
 
 "How different is the pessimism toward which lit- 
 erary men are seen to tend: Harvard University lost 
 James Russell Lowell in 1892, and Asa Grey in 1888. 
 The letters of both of these eminent men have been pub- 
 lished. Lowell's letters grow sad and discouraged, and 
 he gives way more and more to the pessimistic spirit. 
 Grey is optimistic to the end. The difference was 
 partly due to natural temperament, but chiefly, I think, 
 to the influence of their respective professions. The 
 subject material of the literary man is familiar human 
 nature and familiar human surroundings, and his task 
 is to express the thoughts and dreams which these sug- 
 gest. He must compete with the whole past, with all 
 the genius that has been. There is nothing new under 
 the sun, he exclaims. But to us it is a problem contra- 
 dicted by our own experience." 
 
 I cannot accept this conclusion, let me say in passing. 
 There is a mistake here, as it seems to me, in confound- 
 ing the pathos of literature with pessimism. Literature 
 is the interpretation of human life. But the progress 
 of human life, even on its most heroic plane as it moves 
 to divinest ends, is pathetic. The optimism of science 
 is based on the calculation of certainties. Science takes 
 no backward step unless it be to retrieve an error. 
 There are none of those strange fluctuations in its 
 career, which attend the enthusiasm of men sometimes 
 guided to right ends, sometimes misguided, often issuing 
 in corresponding depressions. The attitude of science
 
 THE STUDY OF GREATNESS 347 
 
 is continually expectant. The imagination of the poet, 
 the faith of the seer, have nothing to offer in the way 
 of newness at all comparable with the discoveries of the 
 scientist. Science therefore free from the fluctuation 
 incident to human progress, untouched by the pathos of 
 human life, continually watching for more fact, must be 
 optimistic up to the last limit of certainty. There the 
 optimism of science fails. But it is just there that the 
 optimism of literature, as expressing the hope and faith 
 of humanity begins. Up to that point, it may be the 
 pathos which is mistaken for pessimism, then, the calm 
 or exultant assurance of faith. Just where the scien- 
 tist ceases to tread with firm and certain step, the poet 
 takes wing. 
 
 Acknowledging, within its limits, the optimism of sci- 
 ence, I add that the contribution of science to the orig- 
 inality of our time is most marked in the creation of the 
 scientific spirit. Having first startled, then angered the 
 established mind of the age, it soon began to stimulate 
 and vivify. The present fact is that the scientific spirit 
 has set everybody to thinking. Some were not prepared 
 for it, some will get no further than confusion, some 
 will stick in some kind of denial or unbelief ; the few will 
 lead the way into the clearer thought and into the 
 higher and more certain faith, and the multitude will 
 follow. The tendency is toward originality, not merely 
 as expressed in investigation, but in high reasoning and 
 in the assertion of principles and ideas which will take 
 rule. The age may yet culminate in song. When the 
 certainties shall have come round again with a deeper 
 meaning, and the spiritual shall have regained the 
 supremacy, not by reaction, but by advance and prog-
 
 348 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 ress, we may find amongst us those who can give us the 
 vision of the new earth and the new heaven. 
 
 But if our times promise originahty rather than illus- 
 . trate its highest workings, more than this, I think, can 
 be said for that expression of greatness which I have 
 termed authority. I believe that our age will go into 
 history as one of the masterful ages, not merely in the 
 show of power but in the reality of it. Even on the 
 material plane, results have been achieved which bear 
 the stamp of the authoritative mind. As has been 
 pointed out by others, the millionaire is no longer the 
 man of painful thrift and miserly savings, but the man 
 of calculation, of broad plans, and equally bold ven- 
 tures, not usually reckless if sometimes unscrupulous. 
 A term has arisen in our day covering a vast deal of 
 enterprise very largely speculative, but which also 
 covers enterprises that have become events. I refer 
 to the term promoter or projector. A few years ago a 
 picture was hung in the New York Chamber of Com- 
 merce, representing a meeting of the promoters of the 
 Atlantic Cable at the home of Cyrus W. Field in 
 Gramercy Park. Each of the group there represented 
 had achieved high success in business or professional 
 life — Peter Cooper, Marshall O. Roberts, David Dud- 
 ley Field, Moses Taylor, Professor Samuel Morse, and 
 Cyrus W. Field, the brain, heart, and right hand of the 
 daring project. Measure the work of this great pro- 
 moter by any possible test which can be applied to the 
 authoritative element in greatness and what is lacking? 
 Not faith nor courage, not patience, not power over the 
 unwilling and defiant forces of nature, not persuasion 
 over the reluctant and unassured hearts of men, not 
 the discipline of defeat, not the greater discipline of
 
 THE STUDY OF GREATNESS 349 
 
 success. The undertaking there commemorated was 
 characteristic. It illustrates the tremendous compel- 
 ling force which has marked the generation. Enter- 
 prises which seemed great in their inception seem 
 greater in their accomplishment. They bear the test of 
 competition with the vaster movements and combina- 
 tions to which they have given rise. 
 
 But there are far nobler forces than those hidden in 
 nature or exposed in the markets of the world, which the 
 master minds of the generation have dominated and 
 controlled. At the risk of over much illustration, I 
 want to bring out the higher phases of this element of 
 authority. Few ages have witnessed such uprisings of 
 strong popular instincts as we have had occasion to 
 witness. One instinct has been the passion for national 
 unity. Who among the older of those present does 
 not recall the enthusiasm which attended the struggle 
 for the unification of Italy. But all the moves in the 
 long and dangerous game leading up to that result were 
 made in one brain. For ten years Cavour planned, and 
 kept silent, planned and negotiated, planned and 
 fought, till victory made Italy one and free, according 
 to its birthright and inheritance. 
 
 Then came his successor in another field, illustrating 
 still more clearly the compelling force of greatness, 
 Bismark, the iron hearted. Bismark had the German 
 conservatism to work in and through, not the Italian 
 sentiment and passion. His own patriotism was of a 
 different order from that of Cavour, more calculating, 
 in a sense more mechanical in its methods and more 
 objective in its aims. At first it seemed to have been 
 concerned with the rectification of boundaries. "Prus- 
 sia," he says, "has an unfortunate, impossible configura-
 
 350 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 tion: it wants a stomach on the side of Cassel and 
 Nassau, it has a dislocated shoulder on the side of Han- 
 over; it is in the air, and this painful situation compels 
 it to turn without rest in the orbit of the holy alliance. 
 Prussia must round itself and complete its unity." To 
 accomplish his end both prejudices and scruples were to 
 be overcome, alliances were to be broken and made, the 
 secondary states of Germany were to be awed, and 
 above all the German heart was to be fired with the pas- 
 sion for empire. We know the result. The authorita- 
 tive element was supreme. The unification of Germany 
 is without question the boldest example of authority in 
 modern times, albeit the act itself fairly called out the 
 witticism, that as "the Apostle of the Reformation 
 taught the doctrine of justification by faith, the Apostle 
 of the Empire taught the doctrine of justification by 
 success." 
 
 Take now another popular instinct, deeper by far 
 than the craving for unity, and far more difficult to 
 awaken and guide, the instinct of justice, of which we 
 have the one unapproachable example in the guidance of 
 the American people by Abraham Lincoln through the 
 Civil War. It had been no uncommon thing for a peo- 
 ple to fight for freedom. We had fought for freedom, 
 but not till then, to make others free. Then came the 
 test of justice. Would the nation fight for national 
 righteousness? Would it sacrifice property, life, pos- 
 sibly existence, that justice might reign without let 
 or hindrance? In answer to this question it may be said 
 that the whole nation rose to greatness, but that great- 
 ness was embodied in one man more than in the whole. 
 The thoughts of Lincoln were moral axioms. As the 
 nation grew more earnest it did not reach the depth of
 
 THE STUDY OF GREATNESS 351 
 
 his seriousness. The national conscience never carried 
 the burden of justice which weighted his soul. 
 
 In this moral fact lay the secret of Lincoln's author- 
 ity. How calm, how tender, how almost pathetic it was, 
 but how imperious and commanding ! Who could with- 
 stand such reasoning as his, which summoned the whole 
 nature into the service of the argument? I recall the 
 remark of a veteran politician, who told me that Mr. 
 Lincoln was the only political orator who could change 
 votes. On occasion of a speech at Manchester (New 
 Hampshire) more than two hundred men, to his per- 
 sonal knowledge, left the hall converted to Mr. Lin- 
 coln's political faith. Such was the steady and grow- 
 ing compulsion with which he held the conscience of the 
 nation till its task and his task was done. True, we did 
 not know at the time that we were under authority. 
 Now we see it all, and understand that no less an au- 
 thority than his, and of no other kind, could have 
 wrought out the issue. 
 
 Since writing this paragraph, I have read Mr. Emer- 
 son's estimate of Lincoln in the address made at the 
 funeral service held in his own town, Concord, on the 
 19th of April, 1865. 
 
 "He — Lincoln — is the true history of the American 
 people in his time. Step by step he walked before them : 
 slow with their slowness, quickening his march by theirs, 
 the true representative of the people: an entire public 
 man: father of his country, the pulse of twenty mil- 
 lions throbbing in his heart, the thoughts of their minds 
 articulate in his tongue." 
 
 I repeat my statement that under any analysis of 
 greatness which recognizes authority, our age will rank 
 as one of the masterful ages. Examples of this com-
 
 352 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 pelling force are too many to waken surprise. It has 
 been the method of the age. No result has been 
 achieved in the subjugation of nature, or in the consoli- 
 dation of states, or in the massing of men under the 
 spur of sentiment or conscience, which has not borne 
 witness to it. 
 
 In passing now to consider the beneficent element in 
 contemporary greatness, we are at once impressed with 
 the fact that the other elements of greatness have tended 
 to beneficence. Originality in the form of research and 
 investigation has left an appreciable result of physical 
 and social good. Authority has been the instrument of 
 public gain far more than of personal aggrandizement. 
 No political movement of our time has culminated in 
 the fame of one man, like Napoleon, but all have reached 
 their end in the advancement of a nation or a race. 
 
 But we are now concerned not so much with that 
 beneficence which is the result of other forms of great- 
 ness, as with that beneficence which is in itself a motive 
 and an incentive to greatness. The greatness of many 
 great men can be traced directly to beneficent motives. 
 Without it they would never have risen above the com- 
 monplace. Neither the originating nor the authorita- 
 tive element would have been sufficient. Such was the 
 origin of the greatness of Howard, and of some of the 
 earlier philanthropists. Such the origin of the great- 
 ness of the majority, not all, of the anti-slavery agi- 
 tators and reformers. 
 
 Is the spirit of beneficence still at work with suffi- 
 cient intensity and constancy to produce greatness? I 
 wish it were possible to give a clear and unhesitating 
 answer. A great deal depends upon the power of the 
 causes which appeal to us in the name of humanity, to
 
 THE STUDY OF GREATNESS 353 
 
 excite the imagination. The imagination is quite as 
 necessary an agent in beneficent action as the emotions. 
 The reahstic often fails to make an impression in any 
 proportion to the reahty. It is the wrong or the need, 
 over which the imagination can brood, which compels to 
 sacrifice and heroism. There can never come again to 
 this age such a call as that which came to Mills and his 
 young comrades from unknown heathen lands. There 
 is no more mystery about any land or race on the face 
 of the earth. The world lies open to our view, exposed 
 in its want and evil. Can the imagination come to the 
 aid of the heart, vivify the familiar knowledge, idealize 
 the hard, dull life of worn and weary peoples and proph- 
 esy the new creature restored to the image of God? 
 
 In the old cemetery where the founder of my college 
 lies, there runs the epitaph on his tomb — 
 
 By the Gospel He Subdued the Ferocity 
 OF THE Savage 
 And TO THE Civilized He Opened New Paths of Science. 
 
 Traveller, 
 
 Go, If You Can and Deserve 
 
 The Sublime Reward of Such Merit." 
 
 I like to go from time to time to that quiet spot and 
 read that challenge from another century. It seems to 
 say to me, "Go, if you can, man of the twentieth cen- 
 tury, and match the heroism of the men who set up 
 liberty, learning, and religion on these shores and sent 
 out their light into all the world." And yet it is hard 
 for one age to accept the challenge of another. Each 
 age must meet its own conflicts and opportunities. The 
 heroism of the pioneers of liberty must find new tasks.
 
 354 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 The spirit of consecration, of self surrender, of devotion 
 to ends above self cannot today remain unsatisfied. It 
 will create its own opportunity. It will take posses- 
 sion of objects which might otherwise be lowered or per- 
 verted, and lift them to the plane of duty. 
 
 I like to think of the incentives of beneficent great- 
 ness which are centering today in the idea of patriotism. 
 When one sees the amount of power in our country 
 which is on its way to fortune, the amount of physical, 
 mental, and even moral power which is seeking material 
 wealth, one has no question about the result in power; 
 but he asks with serious question, what will be the type. 
 I like to turn from the uncertainty of the issue, in all 
 this tumultuous outgoing of power, to the certain result 
 when men have consecrated themselves in definite and 
 lasting ways to their country, content to make its for- 
 tune their fortune, its greatness their greatness. I say 
 to you in all sincerity that a noble relief upon the back- 
 ground of materialism is to be found in the self sur- 
 render of men who have given their life, their fortune, 
 and their honor to the service of their country in the 
 army and in the navy. It is a chivalrous thing to do 
 amid the splendid allurements of material prosperity. 
 But it has its reward. 
 
 Your own profession, gentlemen, is one of the best 
 illustrations of the fact that the beneficent motive has 
 its future opportunity, and also that if the opportunity 
 be taken, the result is greatness. 
 
 These are the tests to which the greatness of our time 
 as of all time must submit itself — originality, authority, 
 beneficence. These are the tests which we must learn 
 to apply to men who lay claim to greatness. These are 
 the tests which we must apj^ly to ourselves under the
 
 THE STUDY OF GREATNESS 865 
 
 stress of our ambitions and desires. It is not necessary 
 that we should satisfy all these tests equally, but no one 
 of them can be ignored, and as we lessen one we must 
 enlarge the others. 
 
 It may not be amiss for me to remind you as I close 
 that the discussion of the hour has turned upon the 
 idea of greatness in distinction from that of genius. 
 "Genius," John Foster says, "lights its own fires." 
 There is an independent and incalculable element in it 
 which forbids classification. We cannot arrange genius 
 in types. It illustrates nothing except itself. It enters 
 an age, but leaves no open door behind it. Genius is 
 without companionship, save in the universal heart, and 
 is above the effect of enmities. We are moved by it, 
 enlightened, stimulated, but it can tell us httle or noth- 
 ing of itself, and it cannot help us to interpret ourselves 
 or our times. 
 
 Greatness is appreciable. It can be understood and 
 utilized. There are gradations which lead up step by 
 step from the common to the great. We may not be 
 able to take them, but we can see them. Great men 
 were not always great. They had a beginning and a 
 growth and a consimimation of power. Genius is the 
 same from the beginning to the end. We cannot trace 
 its sources nor define its limits. 
 
 The effect of genius lasts from age to age, but we are 
 moved by contemporary greatness as we are not moved 
 by the greatness of other times. I do not forget, as I 
 say this, the mythical element which time contributes 
 to great deeds and great men. It seems to put them 
 beyond the reach of criticism. But with this advantage, 
 they do not greatly affect us. Unconsciously it may be, 
 but with hardly an exception, we make allowance for the
 
 356 PUBLIC MINDEDNESS 
 
 effect of time, and turn to those of like passions with 
 ourselves. In eliminating faults, we eliminate life. 
 Our contemporaries may suffer from underestimation, 
 but they walk amongst us in flesh and blood. 
 
 I deprecate the merely critical attitude of the schools, 
 or of educated men, toward contemporary greatness. 
 Criticism, if it is intelligent and honest, is wholesome to 
 those who give and to those who receive, but its office 
 at best is secondary. The thoughtful man should be 
 sympathetic, appreciative, discerning. A great man, 
 despite his faults, is the greatest possession of an age, 
 next to a principle or a truth. Through him one inter- 
 prets the collective life of his time ; through him he reads 
 the history of the age. Through him he gets his proper 
 approach to human nature. The great danger which 
 besets us in our estimation of human nature is that of 
 indifference or of contempt. The average man may not 
 interest us. But if we are to do with men in the way 
 of utilizing or controlling them, we must know them; 
 and the first condition of knowledge is interest, then 
 respect, then faith. I have tried to show you what 
 seems to me to be the true way into our common human- 
 ity. The greater man, whom we can know, honor, and 
 trust, not the lesser man, whom we have not yet learned 
 to know and measure, should be our guide.
 
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