UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. SAN DIEGO 1822 01560 9415 ^• r^ r^ LP THE (jEADUATE'S EETURN: AN ORATION BEFORE THE ALUMNI OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY, AT THEIR TRIENNIAL FESTIVAL, JULY 19, 1860. BY SAMUEL O^GOODj/^/^-/^!'^, MINISTER OF THE CHURCH OF THE MESSIAH, KEW YORK CITY. CAMBRIDGE: SEVER AND FRANCIS, BOOKSELLERS TO THE UKIVERSITY. 18 60. Entered according to Act of Consress, in the year 1860, by SEVER AND FRANCIS, iu the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. University Press, Cambridfre : Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company. ORATION. Mk. President, and Brethren op the Alumni : — The swift years have brought us once more to this cherished festival of letters and good-fellowship, and the new auspices under which we meet to-day, in- stead of eclipsing, ought rather to brighten the in- terest of our reunion. We have been invited to take part in the inauguration of our brother, the President elect, and with cordial respect complying, we yet keep our own established usages, hold our own time and ground, and speak our own free word alike of greeting and declaration. It would be easier, and in some respects, undoubtedly, more agreeable, for me simply to express your good wishes and take my seat. But I cannot with propriety disregard your customs and express instructions, and substitute ceremonial congratulation for regular discourse. The presence of so many superiors, instead of depressing a speaker, ought rather to cheer and encourage him by thoughts of the old times when we stood on this platform by command of the fathers, and by bringing him nearer you as brothers. As a brother — one of the rank and file, not above you but among you — I would stand here to-day, and speak a word that may be as much yours as mine. It is, I believe, a rule that is held good both by man and woman, that he who loves much has a right to say something. In the love of Old Harvard, as one among the many the sunshine of whose life has come from our Alma Mater's smile, let me take the subject from the occa- sion, and speak of " The Graduate's Return from the World to the University." To-day we return to the University, where in youth we studied together, from the world, where in manhood we have been working together. Here, then, our manhood stands face to face with our youth, and the encounter will be not sad, but cheering, if we can maintain our doctrine that as men we are bound, not to lose, but to realize whatever was best in the spirit, objects, and fellow- ships of our youth. Upon this simple thread of association, let our thoughts run their own easiest way. I. Here in our youth we studied together. Dwell a moment upon the spirit of those early days. It seems now but yesterday that we lived within these College walls. We were youths then, — not boys, not men ; not boys, with passions dormant, with set tasks for the patient memory, and with wills in lead- ing-strings under the parental roof; not men, either, under the burden and heat of the day, full of care for bread or name. We were youths, emancipated from boyhood and on the way to manhood, with fresh blood coursing through our veins, and with a sense of new freedom, at once impatient of restraint and earnest for progress. How could we fail, then, of a certain enthusiasm, that must show itself in our tone of life, and make us in fact what we were in name, — young students '? Students ! Mark that word. Not mere school- boys learning lessons by heart, — not professional adepts, using the fruits of previous study, or, if studying, doing so with an eye to professional work, — but students; and, as the term implies, carrying the freshness of curiosity into our pursuits, and bent upon some kind of knowledge. If any of us were a little dull in the recitation-room, and more earnest for the laboratory or the garden than for the regular text-books, we were generally studious in some way, — in some way, if not the best, seekers for light to open new paths to young and eager eyes. Every old hall and tree recalls the enthusiasm of those days, and we see ourselves restored in these youths, who have the freshness of the morning on their cheek, and the light of new studies in their eye. Here flows the wonderful fountain of life, that has always seemed the same, though always chang- ing, like the old Helicon, whose waters ever held the same hue and sparkle, although constantly passing away. As we look upon this fountain of Youth, fresh and new as in the old times two centuries ago, we find ourselves claiming it as our own, and are half ready to quarrel with these young students for taking our goods and stealing our lost youth. But let them have it. It is theirs now, as it was ours once ; and when they are as old as we are, they may find that there is something far better that should come with time, and that true experience ripens, in- stead of blighting, the blossom of early enthusiasm. The dull world may deny this, and try to set up an impassable barrier betw^eeii youth and manhood, in the name of its pet word, experience, as if the prosy sound must needs put all young enthusiasm to flight. We accej)t the word, but not in any disheartening sense, not allowing for a moment that wisdom im- plies the death of any generous feeling. True, in- deed, there is a time wdien we are tempted to lose our ideal in the actual, and perhaps think that a dull worldliness is the necessary cost of experience, — ready to say with Schiller, — " The chains of fancy all are rent And all her fair creations flown ; The pleasing faith has passed away In beings which my visions bore ; Reality has made its prey Of what seemed beautiful before." With experience, indeed, many illusions must pass away, and in two chief ways time is likely to chill something of our early fervor. The passage from fancy to fact puts the stern limit of reality before our young dreams, and as in youth we dream of a hundred careers, and in manhood, according to the cruel laws of time and space, we must be content to have but one career, we must expect empires of air- castles to dissolve into mist the moment we ex- change dreaming for waking, and build upon the solid ground. In the next place, the passage from the contemplative to the active, or from the cognitive to the conative state of mind, startles us from our quiet studies and fair visions by revealing the law of labor, that is quite as inexorable as the limit of time and space. We see that we must not only change our post but our posture^ not only our material but our mood, and upon actual things do actual work. So be it, and what then 1 Accept the limit of necessity, and submit to the law of labor. But why abate one jot of heart or hope, as the field is before us and the battle is to be won % Because we are face to face with fact, are we not to open our eyes wider, instead of shutting them, and to put forth our hands more bravely, instead of folding them in dainty indolence % Certainly, limitation should deepen enthusiasm in- stead of killing it, and the moment the game starts up in our path, we need more eye and more courage than while we were curiously watching the clouds chase each other across the sky. Labor also ought to quicken enthusiasm, alike by bringing our thoughts to a practical point, such as favors insight as well as oversight, and by adding the force of manly will to the ardor of youthful susceptibility. Under both points of view, we maintain that true enthusiasm should deepen with experience, and if actual affairs at first may chill the untried student, he will find his courage rising, instead of falling, as he takes a real interest in them, and so rises from the actual to the real, or from the show to the substance. Limita- tion, instead of contracting, should concentrate his thoughts; and labor, instead of hardening, should 2 8 strengthen his purpose. Thus he comes to a real enthusiasm instead of one mainly ideal, or to a fervor more the fruit of the earnest purpose and the effec- tive will, than of the roving fancy or the curious intellect. The fancy and the intellect catch some- thing of the new zest of reality indeed, and the eye bent on real good may have a quicker sight for beauty and a deeper insight into truth. Thus the true student, when become a master of his working art, is a student still, and as first studies lose their freshness, higher studies under the imperial word of positive duties open their more celestial gates, and bring the childlike seeker near the inmost shrine. But why speak only of the power of the working will upon the taste and intellect? Why not urge its worth as a fountain of original inspiration and strength'? Why not clearly say, what all sound philosophy and history assure us, that the student must become a worker in order to have his full ani- mation, and that the active will, quite as much as the inquisitive intellect, can be inwardly moved, and faithful service adds heroic fire to quiet study ] With all that is claimed for the strength of youthful spirit, it is certainly the frequent trouble with our early purposes, that they are more visionary than eff'ective, more aspiring than inspired, and that in our early plans, as in our scribblings in verse, we are apt to make the fatal mistake of confounding aspiration and inspiration, and so mocking daring aims with lame achievements. In our relations to nature, mankind, and to God, it is the hardest of all things to rise from susceptibility to energy, and to do our part, instead of expecting everything to be done for us. A weakness, even of physical tone, is no uncommon trait of stu- dent life, and the mind languishes in want of the natural help from the body, even the moral and religious faculties catching the feebleness of the nerves and muscles. Hence, the need of giving to college recreations, as well as studies, more of the tonic force of active life, and preparing our youth to be brave in the great battle to come, by the sports that stir courage as well as develop strength. Pro- fessor Erdmann of Halle has some excellent observa- tions on this point in his recent spirited lectures on University education, and he strenuously maintains the superiority of the chivalrous sports that invigo- rate the spirits, over the gymnastic exercises that only swell the muscles, commending the arts that give youth mastery over the elements and over brutes, and, if need be, over rude men, and declaring a riding- school as important as a library to students, and that it should be as cheap and accessible. Certainly, academic education is, of itself, very deficient in the training of active power, and the constructive will must put forth its force before the true enthusiasm, the real animation, and even the constructive im- agination, can be known. The earnest worker, and he alone, can know that a determined purpose may be as creative and spontaneous as the susceptible fancy, or the inquisitive intellect, and the brave right hand may write out in solid deeds as stirring lyrics as any that are breathed in song. Now surely in 10 manhood the active will comes to its best conscious- ness, and may find itself most vitally moved, alike from human sympathy, professional discipline, and divine influence. Manhood is therefore the time for a ripe and real enthusiasm that unites active strength with intellectual sensibility, brings out the real man in his energy as well as his susceptibility, and makes the wise head and the ready hand work together, whilst the generous heart stands loyally between the two, and with cheerful pulses, like a musical band, beats brave marches for their journeying and peace- ful requiems for their rest. In this spirit we face our youth to-day, and bathe anew in its morning freshness, stoutly refusing, how- ever, to ask the shadow to turn back on the dial, or to bewail the flight of years as the death of generous feeling. If we have been true to our early days, we carry their blessing and power forward with us as we go, as the calm full stream bears the mountain spring with it in its large and beneficent tide, and in waters that still sparkle takes goodly fleets upon its bosom, and nurtures sweet blooms and rich fruits upon its banks. Thus surely a true man maintains and deepens the enthusiasm of youth, if less ardent, more fervent than of old, and if less ready to take fire, more able to carry fire than when in his teens. So it is that all loyal service, instead of forgetting freedom, does but fix and perpetuate it, as free in duty as of old free in enjoyment or curiosity, with a liberty that is a power instead of a mere idea, an eff'ective force instead of an exacting desire, and 11 escaping the world's dull drudgery not by droning imbecility, but by brave fidelity. So tlie true man finds himself as the years pass, ever returning to what was best in his youth, and singing with new heart the old lays of faith and fellowship. Such has been the way with all real humanity in the career of the great historical races that have marched west- ward to build up the city of God on earth. As these races have advanced in their course of con- structive conquest, their heroic will has ever re- afiirmed the faith that led them from the cradle of Oriental quietude. The countrymen of Paul, Chry- sostom, Ambrose, Charlemagne, Alfred, Luther, Wash- ington, as they have done brave deeds, have said more deeply the old hymns and prayers of Hebrew bards and prophets. Not only with trembling harps and pealing organs, but with ringing anvils, cleaving ploughshares, whirling spindles, rustling presses, speeding ships, cheering bugles, and hurrying emi- grant trains, they are chanting the old Te Deums and Glorias, in deeds as well as in words, that circle the globe, and make the outgoings of the morning and evening to meet and rejoice together. In this spirit we return to our morning land, and ask that experience may ripen into manly fidelity the impul- sive enthusiasm of our youth, instead of sinking it into dreamy worldliness, or evaporating it in airy caprice, and when it is time for our day to sink into the Western shadows, our sun may hang out with richer trophies upon his evening pavilion the same crimson banner which he unfurled as he began his 12 morning march, and the vesper hymn may deepen the thanksgiving and not dash the joy or the hope that spoke in the morning prayer. Such a faith binds our days together by " natural piety," and man- hood transforms the spirit of youth into the practical realism that is earnest to take all good gifts to itself, and to make them into true uses, so joining the receptive and the active powers together, as to pro- mote the student into the worker, the disciple of knowledge into the Master of Arts. II. Returning thus to the spirit of our youth, we are in a position to see it in action and consider its leading object. Coming hither from the world where we have been and are working together, we see more clearly, that the peculiarity of our College life was in the fact that we studied together. Those two words, study and ivork, tell the story of the objects of our youth and manhood, as the words en- thusiasm and experience tell the story of spirit of the two seasons. Of course, to study is to work, and to work with any sort of sense or spirit is, more or less, to study. But the difference between the working student and the studious worker is this, that the student works in order to study, and the worker studies in order to work ; with the former study being the object of work, and with the latter work being the object of study. So important is this dis- tinction, that it cannot wisely be set aside by trying to make the young student a professional worker, or to make the professional worker merely a student. The collegian who is obliged to stop in his studies, to 13 attend to professional practice, or the professional man who has no practice to give point to his studies, is in a poor path of improvement. The true method is, to give youth mainly to study, and then in man- hood leave it not merely to intellectual tastes, but to positive professional duties, to give the motive for study, that before was found under the discipline of teachers. The student is in danger of becoming a mere smatterer, if he has not most of his time for his books, and the graduate without the positive de- mands of a profession upon his time and thoughts, is apt to be little more than a dainty amateur, or a feeble dilettante. He can study best in youth who is free to prepare to work well in manhood, and he can work best in manhood who is called to apply well the studies of his youth. He who studies in order to find truth, continues, instead of breaking off his career, when he works truth into practice, and study thus bears fruit in work, realizing itself, not nullify- ing itself in action. To-day we confront our years of study, and there is something not wholly cheering in the remembrance of our student life, when we were so free to seek after truth amid such boundless stores of learning, with teachers so many, so able, and so faithful. But if we grieve at all that those years are gone, it should be, not because we would always be students, or return to these halls, but because we did not use our time here well, and are haunted by ghosts of old follies, perhaps vices, as we walk through these familiar groves. Consider well the life of study led 14 by us here, and must we not say that its best treas- ures have been returning to us in the path of active fidelity, and all true work has revived the objects of our study 1 "Without attempting any ambitious classification, we may, in harmony with the best thinkers of our time, make a very simple and obvious division of the studies in a University course, that will suffice to show their bearing on the work of our manhood. If even that half Pagan, Auguste Comte, allows him- self to speak of the hierarchy of the sciences, we may, without suspicion of cant or affectation, com- pare the range of our studies to a vast temple some- what like that which Egypt planned and Judaea completed ; a temple with three leading enclosures, and presided over by orders of priests. Two chief priests meet us at the gate of learning, and never leave us at the inmost shrine. These are Mathe- matics and Language, the two studies that are the conditions of all others, marked from all others by being not so much treasures of knowledge as keys of the whole treasury, — not so much separate sciences as methods of all science, — not so much specimens of reasoning, as masters of reason itself; in fact, vir- tually teachers of Logic, doing more for the disci- pline of thought than the technical manuals of the logical art. The one. Mathematics, is severe and passionless, — - pure intellect, without demanding the least throb of emotion or any graces of style ; the other is the organ of human feeling and will, in fact the expressed life of man, and is as much suited to 15 the study of humanity as Mathematics is suited to the study of nature. The two meet us at the gate of the temple, and go with us through every sphere, up to the highest or inmost shrine, where the stu- dent seeks the mercy-seat of Him whose arithmetic and geometry are written out in the eternal heavens, and whose language is the Eternal Word. Thus guided and taught to number and measure, and name and define, we entered the outer court of the temple, the realm of Physics or Cosmology, and there studied nature or the visible universe in the elements and forces of its masses and molecules, winning some knowledge of Natural Philosophy and Chemistry, and regretting that we explored so little that other portion of this court now so richly illustrated here to students, the department of Organic Physics, or Physiology, with its preparations from the fields of Natural History. Then we drew near the second apartment of the temple, the sanctuary, and there the study of man opened upon us in various ways, not only in what is technically called Psychology or Mental Philosophy, but in all that illustrates hu- manity, whether in history, biography, ethics, or in the masterpieces of the representative personages of our race. We probably learned more of man in this latter way than in any other, and we can never be sufficiently grateful to our mother University for acquainting us so fully with the actual thoughts of the great leaders of the human race in their original tongues, and so opening to us the mind, character, and speech of the great historical races that have 3 16 made our humanity what it is. Their very names are enough to make the pulse beat quicker, as they assure us that we have had direct personal acquaint- ance with the providential masters of human thought under their two great leaders, — Homer, the father of old classics, and Dante, the father of our modern literature, the first in time and perhaps first in genius of the illustrious line of authors who have written in the language of modern nations instead of the lan- guage of the schools. One step more was to be taken, one curtain more was to be lifted : for he surelv is a novice, and not a master, who has not gone beyond the study of nature and of man, to some knowledge of Him who is Lord of Nature and Father of Men. Theology is the inmost shrine of the temple, to which Physics is the outer court and Psychology is the sanctuary. We have learned something of Theology, and, not speaking now of express theological education, have we not all cause to be grateful that so much wisdom and zeal were devoted to giving us distinct ideas of the being and attributes of God, and of the eternal aims of human life \ If Paley or Grotius did not do for our faith all that we asked, the chapel pulpit came nearer the mark, and its faithful ministry was to some of us a greater help than any other depart- ment of the University, — leaving impressions that come back to us with every good purpose and ear- nest prayer. We were crude youths then, not with- out some share of folly ; but who of us had not some sense of the perfections of God, the dignity of duty, 17 and the reality of divine influence 1 Heaven's bless- ing upon our Alma Mater for thus consecrating learn- ing by piety ; and let her sons manfully say now and always, that Theology is first of sciences, and Ke- ligion is the first of arts. Let them manfully say, that when a petulant sectarianism, or a self-indulgent secularism, shall succeed in driving Theology and E-eligion from these halls, the name of John Harvard should be erased from the Charter, and the founda- tions of these old walls should be upturned. It is Theology that created this University, and in fact established in the world the very idea of a- Univer- sity, — that institution at once comprehensive and organic, combining all sciences under one sovereign wisdom. Other sciences give multiplicity, but only Theology gives unity, and makes the many into one. This only can interpret the range and unity of the whole temple, as Bacon has so nobly observed in his immortal Essay on the Advancement of Learning, a copy of which Harvard gave with his other books to this library : " But to those which refer all things to the glory of God, they [the three views of the uni- verse presented by him] are as the three acclama- tions, ' Sancte, Sancte, Sancte ' ; holy in the descrip- tion and dilatation of his works, holy in the connection and concatenation of them, and holy in the union of them in a perpetual and uniform law." Such was the temple of learning that we fre- quented here in years gone by, and surely more than once we heard the according voices of the hierar- chies of science as they joined in worship of Him 18 the only true, and study sometimes kindled into adoration. Where is that temple now, or what is our familiarity with its courts ? Have the inexorable years that drove us from these halls of learning, driven us from that shrine, and left us to drudge for bread in this working-day world 1 It surely is not wise to deny that there are some points of painful contrast between the former life of study and the present life of work ; not wise to deny that, as early enthusiasm is apt to die out in dull worldliness, so early study is apt to give way to mere business, and neglect the light of first principles for the empiricism of the passing day. Too many of us renounce learn- ing for timeserving expediency, and not a few who were quick at mastering the contents of books for the recitation-room, are utter drones at reading men and things, to make living report of them in timely thoughts and apt deeds. For this frequent falling off from college promise, there is ample occasion, if not ample reason, since in study and in work not only do the materials differ, but also the implements and powers, — not only the matter, but the manner; the materials in the one case being choice books, and in the other case the world as it is, with its stubborn men and things, — the powers in the one case being mainly the receptive taste and intellect, and in the other case the practical judgment and the aggressive will. But is there any essential antagonism, there- fore, between study and work "? Nay, does not true work upon actual matter in actual manner complete the student's education, and enable him to work into 19 reality the truth that he before studied out in idea'? Ought not practical usefuhiess to give point to the lessons of books, and the active judgment and will combine with the taste and intellect to bring out the powers, as well as the truth of things ? Truth itself does not become wholly real, nor touch and interpret and master reality, until embodied in virtue; and how profoundly Lord Bacon again observes : " In general and in sum, certain it is that 'Veritas' and ' bonitas ' differ but as the seal and the print ; for truth prints goodness ; and they be the clouds of error which descends in the storms of passions and perturbations." Let the earnest scholar accept this idea, and he will find that his working years are printing more clearly the truths of his student years, and that, as he goes on his loyal way, he is ever re- turning to the studies of his youth, occupying as a master the school that he before visited as a pupil, ministering as a priest where he before listened as a hearer or gazed as a spectator. As we try to do our work faithfully, and make our own mark upon men and things, do we not find old truths deepening under our active hand, and -new substances and powers presenting themselves to be interpreted by first principles ] We work indeed upon stubborn material, but resistance develops new powers in us and new qualities in the resisting ob- ject, — qualities that are generally more vital and dynamic than the abstractions which we learned in books. The result is, that as we have become active, the actual world, instead of being soulless, reveals 44 20 more soul ; and instead of losing our ideas in reality, reality shows them in their life and force. Nature, man, nay, God himself, show their powers to us as Stte touch them with active hand and earnest will, an& •*jje working view of the universe is surely the power %ew, the hidden forces of nature, the interior faculties of man, and the mysterious influence of God revealing themselves only to the active worker. The true reality, then, is both ideal and actual, not the surrender of the ideal to the actual, but the res- toration of the one in the other; and as truth is carried into practice, it interprets itself not only into ideas, but into powers. The true worker, then, instead f being driven from the temple of science, finds limself returning to it with fuller prerogative, and patient obedience wins deepening illumination, as was the case with the devotee whom Jeremy Taylor so eloquently speaks of, who left a sweet vision of God to meet the call of duty, and found the lost vision brightening as the lowly duty was done. The true realism, then, is at once ideal and actual, one reality with its polar diversity. As Coleridge suggests in his Friend, are not such men as Plato and Lord Bacon different poles of the same real intellect, the one more ideal, the other more practical, but both needed to exhibit human thought and scientific truth in its completeness 1 If this is so, then, in our per- sonal development, we may hope in a certain way to repeat that great experience of the ages, and com- plete our own Platonic period of too dreamy idealism by a Baconian period of solid utility. Then, too, we 21 may hope in our own way to enjoy something of the great triumph of modern enterprise in ascending to first truths by practical industry, in finding that our science is clearer as our art is more perfect, and our intuitions deepen as our energies rise. How em- phatically this position is proved by the effect of active life upon the primal studies. Mathematics and Language ! The wonderful science of Calculus has sprung up in the practical school of modern art, and with the effort to measure the heavens and weiah the globes, this mighty method has been invented by the intellects of Newton and Leibnitz, and the new har- monies of numbers transcend the mystic dreams of Pythagoras. The business of the world is constantly making new applications of mathematical science, and carrying forward its principles. The engineer marches in front of the armies alike of war and peace, and industry and enterprise wait upon his word. One of our own mathematicians tells by cal- culation in a court of law the practical value and working power of a turbine wheel, and shows in a brilliant philosophic paper, that, in the arrangements of their leaves upon the stems, the trees correspond- ing with the cycles of the planets thus intone celes- tial numbers and chant the music of the spheres. Every department of Physics illustrates the power of the actual manner in discovering and developing the truth of things. It is in the laboratory or work- shop that the hidden properties of matter are made to reveal themselves, and the mysterious affinities of the atoms with the latent forces of light, heat, elec- 22 tricity, and magnetism appear at the chemist's call. Nature in her masses, as well as her molecules, obeys the same method, and the earth and the heav- ens need to be studied by the active hand, as well as the open eye. Language, too, develops its light and warmth under the electric touch of action, and the eloquence that is active never appears in the still air of schol- arly seclusion. University life gives the scholar a classic vocabulary and a polished diction, but only the life university can make him an orator. As he feels the spur of necessity, and answers to the sym- pathy or animosity of the living world, he finds that he can speak with new power from the fulness of his old treasures, and that the words once gathered with such toil now come to him in full play, as the water long and laboriously collected in the reservoirs gushes and sparkles in the fountain. If it is too much to say, with a recent German writer, that the art of thinking is the art of speaking, or that lan- guage is thought, it is undoubtedly true that he who is master of language is in a fair way to be master of thought, and needs little more than earnest practice to work his word into power, and make it burn as well as shine, by its fire kindling the human heart as the light of recluse study can never do. In this respect Demosthenes was surely right, and the secret of eloquence is not in mere study, but in living work. It is action, action, action, and a re- cent author, Theremin, confirming the great Athe- nian's definition, has rightly called such eloquence 23 the virtue of the lips. This virtue has power to reveal all other virtue ; and only when studied thus, not merely by the spoken, but the acted word, the human heart reveals its treasures, and humanity opens its hidden deeps to the potent spell. Every department of human nature illustrates the same principle, and we know man, not only as we read or think about him, but as we work with him and upon him. In fact, all generous and fervent occupation recalls and deepens first principles, and every great art, like ISTewton's Astronomy, writes or thinks out its " Prin- cipia " more clearly in the school of action. The old myth that the Muses were daughters of Mnemosyne, beautifully embodies this truth. As the daughters perfect the beautiful arts of music, poetry, eloquence, and the like, do they not, in their ripening intellect- ual beauty and deepening eye, renew their mother's image, and does not every flash of their inspiration give out the calm, blessed light of the ideal and maternal Memory, holding out its clear guardian ray upon the opening pathway of their buoyant hopel Does not every beautiful art carry us back to the primal source of inspiration, and make us almost believe, what some of the ancients affirmed, that we j)re-existed in the primeval wisdom that made all things, and all loyal service restores us to the Eternal Mind in the reason that is the remembrance of his light, and the habit that is the channel of his will 1 But why spend many words to prove that work ought to be the realization of study, and that he who 4 24 works wisely finds his ideas bearing fruit in deeds, and so returning to him with new life and powers. Does not the highest truth in philosophy and relig- ion fix the principle that the highest or absolute reality cannot be known by thought or study alone, but by work or obedience] The active hand only can bring out the latent heat of nature, and the earnest will only finds the hidden warmth and power of God. God is the absolute being, the eternally True and Good. Who shall know him except by serving him, — serving him in spirit as well as truth, in deed as well as thought 1 In this view, how sug- gestive is the remark of Melancthon, — in his noted Loci Communes, that had so much to do with guid- ing the Lutheran Reformation, — that God's Word or Son is the manifestation of his thought, whilst his Spirit is the manifestation of his will ; — an idea that certainly has some confirmation from Scripture and its great scholastic expounders. To know the reality of God, then, we must know him as W^ill as well as Wisdom ; as W^ill, which is his proceeding virtue, as Wisdom is his proceeding intelligence ; and the ultimate fact of Christianity and the crowning bless- ing of the Church, the gift of the Holy Spirit, can be known only by the human will in working har- mony with the Divine will. If the Word is opened mostly to the devout student, the Spirit is opened mostly to the devout worker, and he only is the true scholar or disciple who by study and by Avork knows the living God in the blessed reality of his Word and Spirit. He finds, that as consecrated reason 25 enters into the universal or Divine reason, so conse- crated will enters into the universal or Divine will, and so, by study and by work, the seeker solves the problem of sages, and knows the Infinite and Eter- nal God. Such is our doctrine of manly realism in reference to the great object of life ; and, in this view, he is the only realist, the truly practical man, who is at once a student and a worker, uniting ideas with deeds. Our position is thus maintained as to the object as well as the spirit of life, that manhood is bound to realize the promise of youth. III. We confirm the same solid and cheerful philosophy by considering the fellowships of our youth, or the friendships that brought genial spirits together for common objects, and so favored our pleasure and our studies. Here in youth we studied together, and this last word, " together,'' is more important than any in the sentence. The fact is clear that our influence upon each other was the most characteristic trait of our college life, and in our play, as well as study, we lived and moved in com- pany. On the Delta, play would have been penance without associates; and in the recitation-room, the lessons would have had no zest without the presence of classmates as well as teachers. May we not be- lieve that the sociality of our youth came not merely from sympathetic feeling, but also from a half-con- scious conviction of the truth, which has grown upon us with every year's observation and thought, that individual culture is poor and fragmentary without 26 social fellowship, and the true humanity is, therefore, not egotistic, but fraternal, — not individualized, but associated ] We need not go far into metaphysics to prove that each individual shares in the whole intel- lectual and moral capital of his associates ; for the first principles of our social nature prove the fact. Every citizen, in a manner, owns the whole city, and enjoys its treasures of wisdom and humanity. The jolly sailor rates himself very much according to his ship ; and, if she carries seventy-four guns, he consid- ers himself personally as a seventy-four. So, in our day, each of us was as big as the whole class, and, as seventy-two was our number, each Freshman of us regarded himself as a seventy-two ; nor did the asso- ciate feeling lessen with time. We certainly had a sense of greater wholeness, or of integrating our nar- row individualism, by our personal friendships and college associations. From chosen friends we per- haps derived our best private incentives as well as satisfactions, whilst in the ruling public opinion we were led to our usual methods of amusement and discipline. College notions of honor may have been very imperfect, yet they had some elements of true loyalty, and college ideas of fellowship may have been in some respects lax, but they never wholly lost sight of the truth that no man should live for him- self alone. The composition of a single class of seventy or eighty was itself a sufficient study, and the very names of our classmates recall to us now a ransre of character that makes the catalogue almost a compend 27 of universal history. Can we not remember in our associates types of mind as strongly marked as the fathers of the old philosophies 1 Can we not name our Platonist, so ideal and so impractical, ready to discourse on Beauty with Hippias, or on Goodness with Philebus, and quite as ready to lose himself in the misty idealities of the Parraenides, or wreck himself upon quicksands in the specious communism of the Republic "? What class had not its keen and utilitarian Aristotle, its severe Zeno, its graceful Epi- curus, its doubting Pyrrho, and, last of all, its cynical Diogenes, the model sloven of college, as sure of never wearing a clean shirt on Sunday or a holiday, as of snapping at every pet notion or idol of the hour'? Can we not recall surprising contrasts of character, to be found within a few steps of each other, and do not some of us remember two class- mates who could easily toss an apple or bandy pleas- antry across the bit of green sward between their rooms, who were yet as far from each other in tastes and pursuits as the poles of the globe ] The one was a combination of Kean and AVesley, uniting great dramatic power with high religious enthusi- asm, believing himself sometimes visited by harping angels, holding prayer-meetings in his room, and, in spite of what was called his excessive pietism, com- manding the respect of the whole class, even of the fast ones, on the ground that, in college phrase not yet wholly obsolete with us graybeards, he was a downright " good fellow." The other was a kind of Grimaldi Galvani, a marvellous compound of fun and 28 physics, helping the digestion of the whole class by his comic faces and songs, and instructing us all" by his attainments and experiments in natural sci- ence, sometimes combining sport and instruction oddly together, as when, returning from sweet Auburn rthen our favorite college ramble, and not a conse- crated cemetery) in triumph, with a monstrous bull- frog, the patriarch of the sylvan pond, he invited the whole entry to see the application of galvanism to the creature's muscles, and the giant croaker breathed out his life as an oflPering to science, in a cry that might have enabled Aristophanes to add another and more sonorous stanza to his famous Hapayopij^'^ixa Barpdxojv* or concert of frogs. Not only the study of individual characters, but of their cliques and combinations, is most instructive, and a new era will come in academic education, when the springs of social feeling among students are better understood, and due means are used to assimilate the heterogeneous and sometimes conflict- ing elements by just ideas and influences. It is a bright day surely that sends into a class a few gener- ous, gifted, high-minded, and brave youths, who are more determined on doing right, than the idlers and profligates are on doing wrong ; and, in spite of all obloquy and opposition, they are sure to triumph in * President Woolscy, when in Athens, went to the ponds near by, to learn whether the Attic frogs still kept the accent of their song in the days of Aristophanes, and found the same old strain : — Aristoph. Ranae, 209, 210. 29 the end, and to establish that blessed consummation, a sound and ascending public opinion in college, such as puts good scholarship and good fellowship together, and brings the true spirit to bear upon the true object of study. Whatever science or accom- plishment is pursued. in this temper seems to grow with a kind of charmed life, although not prescribed in the regular course ; and those of us who remem- ber the zeal with which the study of modern lan- guages and of extempore speaking was pursued, will need no argument upon the worth and power of free literary companionship. On the whole, may we not safely say, that not only college pleasures, such as belong especially to youth, had their life in congenial fellowship, but all earnest purposes, such as give good promise for manhood, if they did not tiiere originate, found therein the most effectual nurture ] But why dwell longer on this theme "? Look to these old halls, and to these old friends, — remember, too, the cherished faces no more with us in the world, — and the subject speaks for itself, as we breathe once more the charmed atmosphere of old friendships, pleasures, and studies. But what is our manhood saying or doing in answer to the fellowship of our youth 1 Renouncing it for a churli&h selfishness or a dogged individual- ism ^ Surely not, unless experience of the world is the denial of the best interests of the heart, and the knowledge of the world is the death of the generous affections. There are indeed some causes that tend to isolate and harden the heart when w^e quit our 30 early associates, and go out into the world to seek our fortunes. We no longer find ourselves among companions of age and tastes like our own, and perhaps the genial favorite of the whole class finds himself posted in a rustic village, on a frontier settle- ment, toiling from morning to night for bread. Sep- aration and occupation, with their change of home and hahit^ are the two barriers that threaten to shut us out from the pleasant companionship of our youth, and too many allow themselves to be shut up within them. But this should not be so. Separa- tion, instead of bringing indifference, should provoke fresh loyalty ; and occupation, instead of bringing drudging: monotonv, should move a man to cheer his toil by genial affections, and enlarge his narrow walk with all generous co-operation. As we are in danger of being narrowed in our range of sociality, we should deepen our springs of fellow-feeling, and as we are tempted to sink down into the plodding craftsman of a special business, we ought to make this very speciality the reason for integrating our labor by a broader association and a higher fellow- ship than ever, if not indeed with the same old com- panions, with others of like spirit and objects. As we go on our own way and do our own work, we see more clearly how much incentive and instruction we leave behind us, and feel the need of supplying their place. Our separate careers or professions, whilst they give us new power and inffuence, reveal new limitations, and show us, what we begin only to learn in college, that our gifts are but partial, and 31 we all need each other to make ourselves complete. Ought we not, therefore, as we advance m years, not only to keep alive the geniality of our youth, but to deepen it by a new sense of social need and duty, and so add the friendship of co-operation to the old friend- ship of congenialiti/ ? Ought not our classmates themselves to be more valuable to us now, with all their varied arts and experience, and we more valua- ble to them, than when we ate our Commons fare together, or when, with joined hands, stout lungs, and moist eyes, we sang " Auld Lang Syne," as we bade adieu to these old halls % We allow indeed that friendships of mere sentiment are not apt, of them- selves, to continue, and the fondest associations of youth fall away unless renewed by active service ; classmates, once bosom friends, passing each other with little more than a nod or a word, when no longer brought together by kindred principles or pursuits. Hence the more need of keeping alive the old fellowship by new modes of co-operation, and encouraging community of feeling by community of interests and duties. As the working habits become fixed, and the will, freed from early conflicts, rises into a calm and steadfast sense of duty, under the universal will, ought not our memory in like tran- quillity to rise into the higher sense of companion- ship, under the universal light, and ought not the best years, alike the most kindly and the most fruit- ful, to come after our meridian \ We used to read together in college, in Pindar's second Olympic, of the painless existence, aSaKpw alcova, the tearless aon 5 32 which faithful souls earn for themselves with the gods on high, by toil and virtue. tiXXci Trapa fxiv tijxiois Qfwv, OLTives exp-ipov evopKias nBaKpvv vefiovrai aloiva. Olynip. II. G5 - G7. To hope for such a blessed consummation in this world may be too much ; but is not a true man nearer it at fifty than at twenty "? Some one has in- deed said that it is best for a man to die at thirty-five, for then he has gone through all pleasures, and has nothing new to enjoy. We cannot say so ; and we firmly believe that the best growth of the human heart comes after the fortieth year, under the kindly nurture of home affections and manly fidelity. Ought not our golden age to come to us in the autumn time of golden fruit, with its crowned labors, fixed habits, and loyal memories ? And, as the ripe fruit on the tree holds within its ruddy rind the fertile seed, image and offspring of the parent seed, thus filial in its day of glory, and cherishing the spring- time in the harvest, ought not our OAvn autumn thus to cherish and renew the spring-time of our life? No thoughtful man will deny that there is some- thing in faithful work and mature and loyal char- acter that tends to renew and exalt all worthy affec- tions and make the heart younger evermore. In all that we are saying, we are taking it for granted that lasting good-fellowship must rest upon a ruling idea, and perpetuate itself in some worthy service, or that in other words it must be real in its aim and in its object, or, perhaps we had better say, 33 in its guiding truth and animating spirit. Man social, like man individual, lives truly when he has light and motive, or eyes to see his object and power to lay hold of it. Seeing and seeking make up his life. Society follows the same laws, and the great fellowships that have ruled the world and still rule it follow this law, and upon their standard state a prin- ciple and urge a duty. Every powerful association of men rests upon some vital idea and object, some reality, at once ideal and practical, that moves the living to think and work together, and perpetuates the memory of the dead. Not only empires and priesthoods, but universities prove this position, and old Cambridge, England, and this new Cambridge had their own guiding idea or germinal principle; and a passing glance at the origin of these two influ- ential institutions exemplifies what all philosophy and history teach, — that men enjoy most and achieve most when assimilated by a master idea and object, and all real companionship rests upon a real faith and service. In some respects, what we call the Realism of the New Cambridge contrasts and com- pares emphatically with that of the old English University, its mother, and the bequest of John Harvard, in 1638, resembles, not only in generosity but in faith, the bequest of Hugh Balsham, that founded the first college house of St. Peters, in Old Cambridge, England, in 1257. In that thirteenth century, in which the great universities of England and the Continent rose from mere schools of private instruction, the old Catholic Realism had reached its 34 climax ; and, amidst its highest bloom, sagacious eyes might discern the buds of the new culture that were to outgrow its glory. It was the age when the Romish doctrine of the Real Presence in the priestly church and the transubstantiated wafer was taught by its great masters, asserted by its great heroes, and embodied in its great structures ; the age that pro- duced Thomas Aquinas and his Summa Theologiae, and St. Louis, peerless soldier of the cross ; the age which canonized St. Francis and St. Dominic almost before their bodies were cold in their graves, and which began to build the York Minster and the Cologne Cathedral ; the age in which England, with her barons, and but two years before her Magna Charta, trembled under the interdict of Rome, and King John licked the dust at the feet of Innocent III. It was the age of the great precursors of the modern thought, that was to supplant the old Realism by the new ; the age of Roger Bacon, the father of modern science, and Dante Alighieri, the father of modern literature. Old Cambridge was founded by Hugh Balsham, afterwards Bishop of Ely, in full faith in the Catholic Church, whilst she was, probably, without the knowledge of her masters, cherishing seeds of the new life ; and the resolutions of honor to the founder, shortly after his death, show well the grounds of fellowship among those ascetic scholars. The University in full assembly decreed. May 26, 1291, that on the eve of Saints Vitus and Modestus there should be annually a solemn congregation of all the Regents, to pray for the soul of the Lord Hugh. 35 Those prayers for the dead on saints' days came from the heart of the Catholic Church, and stand in broad contrast with the new times and the new University. AVe may be, in many respects, wiser than those devout scholars ; but we cannot claim to have better feelings than they, nor can we help, in some respects, contrasting the unity of spirit and object in those days with the discords of our time. Two dates very near each other, and coming more than three centuries after Hugh Bal sham's gift, mark the powers that ruled the birth and fortunes of this new Cambridge. In 1575, Francis Bacon, a lad of fifteen, after two years of residence, left Trinity Col- lege, Cambridge, in disgust with the state of learning, especially of scientific studies, to seek more light in foreign parts ; and, nine years afterward, in 1584, Sir Walter Mildmay, an English Puritan, founded Eman- uel College at Cambridge, telling Queen Elizabeth, who rallied him upon his Puritanism, that, whilst he would countenance nothing contrary to her estab- lished laws, he had set an acorn, " and when it be- comes an oak, God alone knows what will be the fruit thereof" Of this acorn, John Harvard and our Harvard College were fruits, — the fruits of English Puritanism, on soil which the invention of Guten- berg, the discovery of Columbus, and the refor- mation of Luther and Calvin, had done so much to prepare. Harvard was educated at Emanuel Col- lege, and had no less noted compeers at the Univer- sity than Jeremy Taylor and John Milton, — those paragons of their time, so like and so unlike, the one 36 the dove of the English Church, so fond of nestling, with his golden and purple plumage, under the shadow of the sanctuary ; the other, that eagle of song, so impatient of all enclosures, and panting for the mountain and the cloud. In his library, which he bequeathed to Harvard College, besides the treas- ures from the Greek and Latin classics, and the Christian fathers. Harvard brought two authors, who have been, perhaps, more than any others, the found- ers of what is peculiar in the thought of modern Christendom, and surely of our New England, — John Calvin, the chief champion of the new divinity, and Francis Bacon, the chief champion of the new science, — the one the apostle of the new theocracy, the other the master of the new humanism. These two personages represent the tendencies, the Puritan zeal, and the worldly thrift, that so signally combined to distinguish modern from mediaeval England, the Puritan element predominating under Cromwell, the secular element under William and Mary, and a tol- erable compromise being brought about between the two by the prevailing policy of the English Church, which aims to be at once sacred and secular, and shrewdly mediate between both worlds. The history of New England, and especially of Harvard College, turns upon the struggle between the two tendencies thus represented, — the theocratic and the humanistic ; in the first century the theocratic element prevailing, in the second century the scales oscillating between the two, and in this nineteenth century the human- istic or secular tendencies predominating, until now 37 the institution that was at first, and for many years, but a school for educating ministers, is pre-eminent for its physical science, classic learning, and secular schools and accomplishments, — theology, notwith- standing its masterly teachers, holding a divided, if not a secondary place. We will not quarrel with what has been inevitable, nor sigh for the days when the theocratic word of Increase Mather and his son Cotton, with increasing prerogative, passed for law and gospel. We no more Avish to bring back Presi- dent Increase Mather, the first Doctor of Divinity ever made here, than old England wishes to bring back Humphrey Necton, the Carmelite friar, who received, in 1269, the first doctorate of divinity ever conferred by old Cambridge.* We welcome the new science, yet ask with it for a true sense of the ancient faith, and if Bacon has triumphed by leading us to the realities of nature, and if the best modern physics declares, with Agassiz, in his masterly essay on Clas- sification, that there is a spirit in nature, and genera and species are real creatures of God, not figments of circumstance, nor guesses of man, we ought to be in a better condition for discerning the higher realities of God, and Calvin's austerity should not hide from * Thomas Fuller, in his charming History of Cambridge, records the Latin lines that celebrated Humphrey Necton's honors, and Leland. thus translates them : — " Above the skies, let 's Humphrey Necton praise, For on him first, Cambridge conferred the bays." The original stands thus: — " Laudibus Humphredum Necton Astra feremus, Qui data Grantanse laurea prima scholae." 38 lis the great truth, more important and central in his pages than any of his harsh dogmas, that the soul of man may and should enjoy the real presence of the Spirit, and that life is death until this presence is known. To vindicate this conviction, and main- tain the spiritual element in the social polity, has been the aim of earnest thinkers among our alumni in every age ; and, in some respects, the new school of theologians, since Buckminster and Channing, have taken sides with the Mathers and the old theocratic party, so far as arraigning the materialism of the age is concerned, and asserting the sovereignty of God over man. Our Harvard theologians, what- ever their creed and name, and all creeds and all names we number among our alumni, should think their triumph a defeat, if, in assailing theocratic pre- tensions, they destroy Christian faith, and, in their opposition to the Pharisaism that cares for the mint, anise, and cumin, play into the hands of the Saddu- cism that cares most for the loaves and the fishes, and so substitutes the insolence of worldly prosperity for the insolence of sanctimonious zeal. The true religion must interpose between the theocrats and the secu- larists, harmonize the missions of Calvin and Bacon, Edwards and Franklin, Channing and Webster, and place spiritual ideas in due relations with the facts of nature and the institutions of humanity, by methods as winning and effective in action, as wise and ear- nest in principle. Our Harvard school of thought surely needs a helper to this end, and an unsatisfac- tory secularism that provokes an equally unsatisfactory 39 r adicalism is likely to rule so long as the organizing forces of society and letters are left to worldly inter- ests, and theology and religion are given over mainly to the speculative intellect, their noble ideas allowed indeed to range at will through the air, without being fixed upon the earth in solid deeds and institu- tions. We are well aware that this state of things is necessary, but only, we trust, as a transitional stage. The old Catholic fellowship could not continue ; and the spiritual power, quarrelling with science and hu- manity, justly found itself excommunicated by them in the attempt to excommunicate them. The quar- rel, however, was not because of the war of religion with science and humanity, but because of the usur- pations of the priesthood ; and a better age must surely heal the breach, and reconcile the spiritual and temporal ideas and powers. Even good-fellowship languishes in the absence of this higher Realism, as has been and is plainly shown in the feuds and asperities of so many earnest think- ers among us who ought to be brethren. The very animosities of our radicals, that sometimes have seemed to us to partake more of the curses from the Jacobin Mountain than of the blessings of the Gali- lean Mount, have at heart a certain depth of convic- tion and a nobleness of aim, more, we trust, like the theocratic harshness of the old Puritans, than the unbridled hates of the new Terrorists. Something is surely wrong, however, at the fountain-head, if not of our thinking, surely of our social methods; and we may be certain that the springs of genial com- 6 40 panionship will be filled anew when we learn to work together from higher convictions, and upon a broader platform. The principle of assimilation should be sought from above, not from below ; and only the love that is of God has ever had power to reconcile characters so marked as those that are often antagonists among us, and to subdue the harshness of a strong but narrow individualism to the catholicity of a genuine manhood. The poorest of all intolerance is that which is impatient of diversi- ties of character, and tries to make enemies of gifted men, who, in spite of their radicalism or conserva- tism, ought to be warm friends, and combine their various qualities like the colors of the prism, that blend in a single ray of white and blessed light. 111 fares our culture, and even what we may choose to call our humanities, without a positive faith and or- ganic method, and we shall feel a higher enthusiasm for letters as we accept more devoutly the reality of religion, as it speaks to us in its ov*^n authority and blessedness as to our fathers. Why may we not, without renouncing any of our new light, but from larger liberty and better insight, repeat loyally the old watchword on our College seal, " Christo et Ec- clesiae ; " — " Christo," to Christ, in whom the reality of God's Word was manifest in living union with man; " Ecclesiae," to the Church, the company of faithful souls, in whom the reality of God's Spirit is shown in living fellowship with men. This faith has made what, in the best sense, we call humanity ; and through its progress men have drawn 41 nearer each other as they have drawn nearer God. It has brought new geniality, as well as strength, to the homes and hearts of the people, and given schol- ars a unity unknown in the old Attic and Roman times. Compare the exquisite odes of Horace, which this charming pet of courtiers wrote to such near friends as Mecsenas, Postumus, and Torquatus, with the hymns that Ambrose, a braver Roman and the master of kings, composed alike for prince and peas- ant, and how much nobler and more cheering is the strain which invokes the Eternal Spirit to lift us above the power of time and death, that threaten all earthly ties ! As we review our friendships to-day, we ask not to sing, with Horace to Postumus, — "Eheu fugaces, Postume, Postume, Labuntur anni nee pietas moram Eugis et instanti senectae Afferet indomitaeque mortl." Nor to mourn with him as he writes to Torqua- tus, — " ImmortaHa ne spares monet annus et almum Quae rapit hora diem." Let US join, rather, in the morning hymn with which Ambrose, the ruder Latinist indeed, but the greater man, hailed the dayspring, as it broke upon the pagan "darkness, and still cheers our day : — " Verusque sol illabere Micans nitore pei-peti Jubarque sancti spiritus Infunde nostris sensibus." If such thoughts as these, which bring the solemn names of Hugh Balsham, Catholic Bishop of Ely, and 42 John Harvard, Puritan minister of Charlestown, to- gether, and urge the sacred mission of our Univer- sity as a school of morals and religion, as well as science and letters, may seem too grave for this festive occasion, let us remember that nothing unites men together so much as the recognition and service of a sacred cause, and they who are the bravest comrades in arms are ever the most jovial companions at table. What can be more cheering and harmonizing to us as graduates, than a due sense of the plain fact of his- tory, that this institution is the child of God's provi- dence, and the ages have been combining to enlarge its heritage and to urge its duty. The old Catholicism, with its external universality, and the old Puritanism, with its internal throne, have bequeathed to us their treasures by right of our lineage, and we are false to our birthright if we in any way, either by a narrow pietism, or a lax and insolent materialism, forsake the comprehensiveness and the purity which they sought in their way. Accept the high commission, and if sometimes, as we note the marvellous progress of the new arts and sciences, and see physics and polit- ical economy so enlarging their domains and com- bining their forces, and almost threatening to build up a papacy of naturalism with a god of bread, and a priesthood of pence, and a ritual of luxury, we are impatient for the rise of a devout, enlightened, and constructive mind, who shall do for the new learning what the ancient faith did for the old, and so build up the new City of God, we may take comfort in remembering the gradual progress of the former 43 civilization, and perhaps believe that the task of construction lingers, not because the harmonizing spirit is wanting, but because the materials are still gathering for the edifice, and the great structure must not be built till the stones are ready and the plans matured. Here to-day, however, we can have a cheering glimpse of its proportions, and refresh our fellowship by a prospect of its fitness and grand- eur. Here to-day we base our fellowship upon the true Harvard Catholicity, — larger than Roman rit- ualism and Genevan legalism, — the Catholicity that accepts all truth as God's, and claims it for his ser- vice. To-day we do not dash, but quicken our joy by owning together the highest principles, and, as we walk through these groves and look upon these halls and spires, we readily bring our treasures of science and letters before the mercy-seat, and cheer and exalt our fellowship by the solid Realism that com- bines science, humanity, and religion under the same Word and Spirit, and calls us to mastery over na- ture, fraternity with men, and dependence upon God. So we sit down in the sanctuary together, and chant our " Sancte, Sancte, Sancte," as we read in those three parts of the great temple the diverse, yet according books of nature, man, and God, — three books, but one truth, as in the " Veritas " of our first College seal. Put the two seals, " Christo et Ec- clesiae" and "Veritas," on different sides of the same banner, and Harvard has a standard worthy of her history and her destiny. This is surely better than the military flag, under which we once marched 44 through the streets of Cambridge, with " Marti et Mercurio " on the silken folds. The inscription '• Christo et Ecclesiae " better than any other may declare the spirit of our fellowship, and the word " Veritas," covering three books, best expresses the largeness of our objects ; for to us they mean the books of Nature, Humanity, and Divinity. What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. This high allegiance to the mission of the Univer- sity gives us new interest in its history and pros- pects, reviving, with practical aims, the memory of the lives and services of our brother Alumni, whose work we are bound to continue. They have labored, and we have entered into their labors. We are all beneficiaries, and, whether rich or poor, we have never paid back the good that we have received. Nothing can better stimulate us and our sons, in these days of large privilege and ready luxury, than a living sense of the zeal and sacrifice given to this institution by its great benefactors, and of the need of seeking, in a higher sense of responsibility, the tonic energy which they found in hardship and con- flict and poverty. Let the great company of our brethren pass before us in solemn procession, nor let us refuse to be as hospitable in heart as our Tri- ennial Catalogue is hospitable in word, and let us number the dead and the living together here. A very simple statement of fact helps us to marshal the whole body of the Alumni together in one com- pany under three divisions. The lives of three men exhaust the history of Harvard University, and em- 45 brace the seven and a half generations, from 1636 to 1860, a period of two hundred and twenty-four years. Three lives, hearing date thus : William Hubbard, of the class of 16-12 (the first of the graduated classes), was born in 1621, and died in 1704, aged eighty-three ; Nathaniel Appleton, of the class of 1712, was born in 1693, and died in 1784, aged ninety-one;, and Josiah Quincy, of the class of 1790, was born in 1772, and. Heaven be praised, he is with us here to day in his eighty-ninth year. These three lives, like three links of a chain, interlock with each other, and the middle link is all that is wanting to connect us with the contemporaries of Harvard. Josiah Quincy, when a boy of twelve, could have known Nathaniel Appleton, and Nathaniel Appleton, when a boy of thirteen, could have known William Hubbard, and William Hubbard was contemporary with our founder, being seventeen years old when Harvard died. Speak these three names together now, and let the centuries of graduates march behind them as behind centurions. William Hubbard ! advance the seventeenth century, with its Puritan strictness and heroism. Nathaniel Appleton ! for- ward the eighteenth century, with its bolder think- ing and larger empire. Josiah Quincy ! here we are, and his venerable name leads this, our nineteenth century of graduates, with its broader knowledge and finer culture. God grant that they who follow may be worthy of such leaders. If we follow our academic fathers worthily, shall we not find our fra- ternal interest in each other increasing as our zeal 46 for sound letters increases, and may not this associa- tion of Alumni, instead of being merely a social, be also a working body, as is the case with the graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, who have a voice in the University Senate, and an influence upon the whole arrangement of the institution'? It is very obvious, that, instead of being turned adrift, to forget our Alma Mater and be forgotten by her, her sons should be more valuable to her after their graduation, and the funds of the institution, and the state of opinion among undergraduates, would be vastly helped by the rise of a new and more active fellowship of the Alumni. Better sense of our common heritnge, too, vi^ill rise with better conviction of our own duty, and we must enjoy more as we do more together, or be more genial companions in wit, as we are more loyal comrades in service. The work done by our brethren during these cen- turies might well make us proud, were it not that it so urges fidelity and rebukes our sluggishness. The mind of our Harvard has never ceased to wield a leading influence on our American letters, and with- out enumerating , its achievements in the learned professions, and in the arts and sciences connected with them, without dwelling upon the names of those of our brethren who have occupied places of power in state and nation, court, school, and church, judges, governors, presidents, legislators, ambassa- dors, ministers, masters in every worthy science and art, it is enough to name a single branch of liberal culture in which our brethren have led, and perhaps 47 still lead, the literature of the nation. I mean the use of the English tongue in its purity, beauty, and force. Our University has been the mother of our American prose, and in this she has been queen of the art most useful and most beautiful. It is said by that original and perhaps somewhat enthusiastic thinker, Lasaulx, of Munich, in a volume just from the press, that among all the beautiful arts, whether the plastic arts of architecture, sculpture, and paint- ing, or the vocal arts of music, poetry, and eloquence, the last stands first in honor and in importance, and " the world of free prose speech is as large as the world of human thought itself" Now surely the masters of American prose have come from these halls of study, and for nearly a century from its ori- gin Harvard College embodied all the literature of the land, whilst, perhaps, in this nineteenth century of enlarged culture, she has given to the nation, from her own graduates, a large, if not the largest, number of the principal classic prose-writers, and welcomed to her honors the chief authors from other schools. Her sons have created the rich school of American History ; and if we to-day throw a fresh chaplet on Prescott's recent grave, and name with him some ten or twelve of our graduates, from the days of Hubbard, Belknap, and Holmes to those of Sparks, Bancroft, Palfrey, and Motley, we have, with few exceptions, — Washington Irving chief of these, — exhausted the list of leading American historians. Honor to these our brethren, not only for the learn- ing and eloquence, but for the large and hopeful hu- 7 48 manity, which they have expressed in diction from this old well of English pure and undefiled. Honor to them and all others, whether in prose or verse, W'ho share their fame and their inspiration. The water from this sparkling fountain, whenever, from any book or speech, it touches our lips, should re- fresh our old fellowship, and quicken braver pur- poses, as well as more genial affections. Let our new Alumni Hall be built as if over this perennial well, and when, from year to year, we meet together, let the speech of our brethren, like a sparkling cup, pledge us anew to each other, to our founders, and to all friends of man and God. Call the spring our Castalia ; nay, call it our Siloa, and thank God that here, as, in the Providential course of ages, the Greek and Roman culture have bowed to the Christian faith, and the words of classic beauty have caught the spirit of the Word of Eternal Truth. In this temper we survey our past and cheer on our future, devoutly acknowledging the line of Provi- dential agencies that has led us from small begin- nings to this day of unequalled prosperity and hope. Cuvier tells us, in his Eloge on the naturalist Adan- son, that this great explorer of nature, who was once so poor as to have no shoes to attend the Erench Institute after his election, asked, in his will, that a wreath might be laid upon his coffin, composed from the fifty-eight families of plants established in botany by him. We do not read of any flowers being put upon Harvard's coffin, when, in Septem- ber, 1688, the stern Puritans laid the wasted scholar 49 in his early grave. But the grateful centuries have paid, and are paying, a kindlier trihute ; and the fair flower and rich fruit of more than two hundred harvests of manly culture, more than two hundred families of plants, have made his name fragrant throughout the world, and his little vineyard has been a broad and fruitful garden of God. In the beautiful language of Oilman, whose loyal and ven- erable head we do not see here now, as three years ago, we may point to the humble Colony school that rose on these grounds, as the first growth of Har- vard's goodly seed, and rejoice in the magnificent increase with every succeeding year : — " O Relic and Type of our Ancestors' worth, That hast long kept their memory warm ! First flower of their wilderness ! Star of their night ! Calm rising through change and through storm ! " Grateful to Harvard and the noble line of our benefactors, we thus meditate upon the graduate's return, and try to speak in words the blessing that we have received in deeds. In this spirit, at once serious and cheerful, we, the Alumni of Harvard, join for the first time in the inauguration of our President. It is easy to salute you, our brother, as head of the University to-day, for you are identified with all our best academic associations. You guided our first studies, and every line of old Homer speaks to us ,your name, and your frequent mercy as well as constant judgment. From year to year, your kindly face has renewed the welcome, and we feel that you are one of us, and your honor is ours. You 50 may depend upon our fidelity in whatever concerns the welfare of the University, and the sacredness of its charter and laws. A single word from you will bring us all to your side, even if we travel on foot over the roads, and ford or swim the rivers on our way. We, your brethren, greet you, our President, and commend you to God's blessing. As we do so, we recall, with filial reverence, the illustrious line of scholars who have occupied the chair before you, from Dunster's day to this. We rise up to name with honor those of that line who are with us still : James Walker, Jared Sparks, Edward Everett, Jo- siah Quincy, — in themselves a host, their simple names to us sufficient titles both of honor and affec- tion. In such presence we are one fellowship to- day, and, with Dunster's tomb here at our side, and with Harvard's monument almost in sight, we may join hand in hand, with one voice lifting to the mercy-seat the Non nobis, Domine, of our fathers, — not unto us, not unto us, but unto God, give the glory. tyitiljVJ