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 THE DUTY 
 
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 COLUMBIA COLLEGE 
 
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 TO THE COMMUNITY, 
 
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 AND ITS EIGHT TO EXCLUDE UNITARIANS FROM ITS 
 PROFESSORSHIPS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCK 
 
 CONSIDERKD BT 
 
 ONE OF ITS TRUSTEES, 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 49 ANN STREET. 
 
 1864. 
 
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 THE DUTY 
 
 COLUMBIA COLLEGE 
 
 TO THE COMMUNITY, 
 
 AND ITS RIGHT TO EXCLUDE UNITARIANS FROM ITS 
 PROFESSORSHIPS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE, 
 
 CONSIDERED BY 
 
 ONE OF ITS TRUSTEES. 
 
 NEW-YORK: 
 JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 49 ANN STREET. 
 
 1854.
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1854, by 
 
 SAMUEL B. RUGGLES, 
 
 in the Clerk's Office ol the District Court for the Southern District of New-York.
 
 ^ 
 
 <\ 
 
 
 NOTE. 
 
 The following communication embraces, with some corrections and 
 additions, the material portions of a letter recently addressed by tbo 
 writer to one of his colleagues in the Board of Trustees of Columbia 
 
 It'' is due to the gentleman addressed by that letter to state, 
 that in acknowledging its receipt, he declared himself unable to per- 
 ceive the applicability of a large portion of it to himself, the pro- 
 priety of addressing it to him, or the object of so addressing it. 
 
 The object of the letter was solely to invite his co-operation, as a 
 co-Trustee ; 1st, In enlarging the scope and invigorating the action 
 of the College; 2d, In remedying the evils suffered by the College 
 from its neglect of Physical Science ; 3d, In preventing the exclu- 
 sion of any candidate from the Professorship of Physical Science, on 
 account of his religious tenets. 
 
 The writer can see no breach of propriety, in addressing this or 
 ^ any other communication in respectful language to any of his 
 
 $ colleagues, on any matter connected with the great public trust they 
 
 have undertaken to execute. 
 
 He therefore presents his views in the present form, for more 
 convenient examination by others of his colleagues, and he invites 
 them in return to express any opinions they may entertain, if his 
 own shall seem erroneous. 
 
 Such an interchange, if it produce no other effect, will serve at 
 least to define and limit the proper responsibility of each. 
 
 S. B. E. 
 
 March 27, 1854. 

 
 New-Yoek, February 28th, 1854. 
 
 Dear Sir : 
 
 The friendship that has so long and so pleasantly 
 subsisted between us, furnishes a sufficient apology for 
 my proposing an interchange of opinions, on a subject 
 in which we have an equal interest, and the same re- 
 sponsibility, and as to which, members of our Board 
 have been so unfortunate as to differ. You will under- 
 stand, at once, that I refer to Columbia College, of 
 which we have l)oth been Trustees, for so many years. 
 
 The sincere respect I feel for your character and mo- 
 tives, will surely prevent my saying any thing needlessly 
 to give offence, and I cannot but think, we are sufficient- 
 ly alike in age, professional occupation, religious belief, 
 moral and mental habits, and, above all, in our love of 
 truth and justice, to agree sooner or later on any ques- 
 tion involving either. 
 
 What then, is the matter in difference in our Board ? 
 and may not a full and candid examination of the facts 
 and principles involved, serve to bring us more nearly 
 together ? 
 
 The subject which ostensibly divides us, is the 
 expediency of electing Wolcott Gibbs to the Pro- 
 fessorship of Chemistry, and Natural and Experimental 
 Philosophy, now vacant. But under this, lie much
 
 deeper questions, — the prominence the College ought 
 to give to the teaching of Physical Science, — the 
 relation it bears to Religious truth, — the necessity 
 and right to inquire into the religious creed of the 
 teacher, — and if that creed differ essentially from our 
 own, whether we. Trustees created by law, to perform 
 duties defined by law, are allowed or forbidden by law, 
 to take that difference into account, — and lastly whether 
 in so doing, silently or avowedly, we shall or shall not 
 commit a violation of law and a breach of trust ? 
 
 I desire to state my views plainly and distinctly on 
 these questions, and shall gladly receive yours in 
 return. The questions are momentous. They concern 
 not only our present but all our future Professorships, 
 and not only the College, but the whole community 
 for which we are Trustees. 
 
 During all the period in which we have acted 
 together, in executing this trust, no questions have 
 come before us approaching these in importance, — 
 and now, that we have the prospect of increased wealth, 
 and a wider sphere of action, it is of tenfold conse- 
 quence, to determine aright the principles, on which 
 we shall administer the great trust confided to us by 
 the State, for the education of the People. It is quite 
 impossible in the brief sessions of our Board, to discuss 
 questions like these. When they arise, we must of 
 necessity adopt some other mode of examining them, 
 and those of our body not on its committees, must neces- 
 sarily address themselves to their colleagues individ- 
 ually. Our duties are public duties, and we are entitled 
 to communicate, not only with each other, but with 
 every person interested in their discharge, 
 f In the first place then, I believe it to be our duty 
 
 to elect Dk. Gibbs to this Professorship, because he is
 
 proved to be pre-eminently fit for it, not only by 
 nature, intellect, temper, education, manners, social 
 position and habits of life, moral and mental, — but 
 also by power to command and power to teacby and 
 above all, by ambition to advance tlie branch he 
 teaches, and ability to do so with vigor and persever- 
 ance, manifested already in the results of his investiga- 
 tions, and recognized by the most eminent men of 
 Science at home and abroad. 
 
 I will not ask you again, to examine the mass of 
 documentary evidence now before us, which establishes 
 these propositions. For one, I should be governed by it, 
 even if many of the facts were not within my own per- 
 sonal knowledge, and if I did not personally know many 
 of the individuals, who certify so strongly to their truth. 
 
 These gentlemen, admittedly the most distinguish- 
 ed in their peculiar department, testify to us of mat- 
 ters, which they, of all men, know best. In this question, 
 necessarily occult in some degree to us, they are experts^ 
 and as such entitled to decide. If it could be now sub- 
 mitted to a legal tribunal, their evidence would be con- 
 clusive. Should it not control our judgment as 
 Trustees, bound to decide impartially all questions 
 arising in the execution of our trust ? 
 
 I know it has been said, that admitting De. Gibbs 
 to possess these qualifications, another of the candi- 
 dates may and actually does possess them all, in 
 equal degree. The Scientific world which knows 
 them both, and is far better qualified than you or 
 I can be, to estimate their comparative profes- 
 sional merits, thinks otherwise, and the general 
 sentiment and voice of the community around us, con- 
 firm that opinion. I submit that in a question like 
 this, involving so deeply the scientific reputation of
 
 the College, the deliberate opinion of eminent men 
 of science, ought to turn the scale, ev^en if the qualifi- 
 cations of the candidates seemed to ns equally balanced. 
 
 But the question is not now, between the pro- 
 fessional merits of De. Gibbs and those of any opposing 
 candidate, for at our last meeting the friends of the 
 candidate most prominent in opposition, withdrew his 
 name or offered to do so, if the name of Dr. Gibbs 
 were withdrawn by his friends. This they did not 
 do, and could not do, believing themselves bound 
 in law and conscience, to vote for the candidate best 
 fitted for the place, — or (to state it in legal phrase) to 
 select the agent, who would most efficiently execute 
 an important portion of the trust they had assumed. 
 
 Of the twenty Trustees, then present, ten had voted 
 for Dr. Gibbs, as abundantly proved to be tit. How 
 could they withdraw his name, and vote for some 
 other candidate whom they considered less fit, and per- 
 haps did not know to be fit at all ? That those who had 
 voted for his competitor, not only declined on that occa- 
 sion, to vote for Dr. Gibbs, whose professional fitness 
 had been so conclusively established, but avowed their 
 intention to look about for some other candidate, shows 
 that his appointment was and is opposed, on other 
 grounds. 
 
 The first is, that his appointment has been unduly 
 and disrespectfully urged by his friends, — ^that two hun- 
 dred of our alumni^ clerical and lay, have taken the 
 unusual step of petitioning us to appoint him, — that 
 some of the parents of our present undergraduates 
 have concurred in that petition, — that newspaper para- 
 graphs have appeared, intemperately and indecorous- 
 ly asserting the superiority of his claims to the 
 vacant chair, — and that in these and various other
 
 forms, there has been an " outside pressure " of public 
 opinion in his favor, in which it does not become us to 
 acquiesce, and which our official dignity requires us to 
 resent, by electing some other candidate. 
 
 The second and much graver objection is, that 
 De. Gibbs is a " Unitarian." 
 
 I shall not waste much of your time or my own, in 
 discussing the first of these questions. Were it true, 
 that his appointment had been unduly and even dis- 
 respectfully urged upon us, it could not give an honest 
 and intelligent Trustee even a pretext for voting 
 against him. 
 
 The question is of our duty, — what is right, and 
 what wrong, in executing a trust. We do not in- 
 dividually own the endowment of Columbia College. 
 Our title to it is purely fiduciary. We hold it sim- 
 ply in trust, to promote with it, to our best ability, 
 and with our utmost diligence, certain definite ob- 
 jects. In accomplishing these objects, is it not j^lainly 
 our duty to select the agent, shown to be most compe- 
 tent ? Have we the right to choose any but the most 
 competent, because his friends or the j^ublic have 
 annoyed us, by their too urgent representations of his 
 merits ? 
 
 Our position, rights and duties, are the same, in 
 principle, with those of a trustee, under a will or deed 
 of settlement. The only difterence is, that the private 
 trustee deals with mere material interests, and can com- 
 mit no breach of trust which the law will not at once 
 detect, while we have a wider range of duties, in which 
 failure and fraud are practically more difficult to iden- 
 tify. Our discretion is larger, but not the less a legal 
 discretion. 
 
 An austere but salutary course of decisions estab
 
 lishes tlie responsibility of the private trustee for any 
 unlawful exercise of his power, or any step beyond the 
 course prescribed by the terms of his trust. What 
 should we say to the executor or trustee, who asked us 
 if he might properly invest his trust fund on a second 
 rate security, or commit its administration to a second 
 rate agent, because his co-trustee, or his cestui-qiie- 
 trust^ or some unknown person, had unduly and dis- 
 respectfully urged on him another course ? We should 
 advise him that a breach of trust could not be justified 
 or palliated, by any violation of decorum in those who 
 disapproved it. 
 
 As Trustees of Columbia College, we have nothing, 
 and can have nothing, but duties to perform. Every 
 vote any of us gives on any question, is either the per- 
 formance of a duty or a breach of trust. We have not, I 
 think, any corporate capacity to receive affronts, or any 
 corporate dignity to be wounded. Our clear duty and 
 office are, calmly and dispassionately to execute our 
 trust, without any of the feelings, preferences or resent- 
 ments, which modify so much our dealings as individu- 
 als. I know it is possible for us, to vote under the 
 influence of offence at " outside pressure," but if we do, 
 we depart as widely from our duty, as if the vote were 
 biassed by personal affection or private interest. 
 
 But I utterly deny, that either De. Gibbs or any of 
 his friends with his knowledge, privity or assent, has di- 
 rectly or indirectly used any undue influence or dis- 
 respectful means whatever, to influence our judgment. 
 On the contrary, I have every reason to believe, 
 that the printing of his testimonials, the petition of 
 the alumni for his appointment, the recommendation 
 by the parents of our undergraduates, and the news- 
 paper paragraphs, were in no way suggested, instigated
 
 or encouraged by him. I know, that he has borne 
 himself, throughout this exciting controversy, which has 
 so aroused his friends and the community, with singular 
 composure, propriety and dignity, — without one word 
 of reproach, displeasure or anxiety, — exhibiting always 
 and under all attacks, that perfect self control and self- 
 sustaining power, that stand conspicuous among his 
 qualifications for the Professor's chair. 
 
 As to the undue urgency of his friends, it may well 
 be, that some of us (including Dk. King, the President 
 of the College) may have expressed an earnest desire for 
 his appointment. Why should we not do so, if we be- 
 lieve his qualifications pre-eminent ? Why are we not 
 bound as honest men to do so, if we believe him best 
 qualified of all the candidates? As to the news- 
 paper articles, no member of our Board, to my know- 
 ledge or belief, is in any way responsible for them, 
 and were the fact otherwise, it would hav^e no bear- 
 ing whatever upon the question we have to decide.. 
 Their appearance proves only, that public feeling,, 
 whether justly or unjustly, is certainly enlisted in the 
 matter, to some extent, and especially in regard to 
 the religious opposition which Dr. Gibbs has encoun^ 
 tered. 
 
 Without allowing these or any other manifestations 
 of public 023inion, unduly to control our action, we can 
 hardly close our eyes upon the fact, that the comuju- 
 nity is excited and oftended by the objection to Dr. 
 Gibbs, secondly above stated, that he is a " Unita- 
 rian." 
 
 The questions involved in that objection are of 
 exceeding gravity. Their decision must affect deeply 
 and permanently, not only the rights of the commu- 
 nity, but the condition and character of the College, if 
 not its very existence. I shall therefore examine the ob-
 
 10 
 
 jection carefully and conscientiously, — sincerely desir- 
 ing to avoid offence, — but with entire determination, 
 to seek and follow the path of duty. 
 
 What then are its merits ? How far is it reasonable, 
 — how far lawful? 
 
 To answer this, we must inquire, What are the objects 
 of the College, and what its necessities ? From these, 
 we can unerringly deduce our duties. I shall not ask, 
 what are our " rights" as Trustees, — for the only right 
 a Trustee can have, is to do his duty. 
 
 The College was founded by George the Second, 
 King of England, in 1'754, just one hundred years ago. 
 His charter proclaims its objects, in language entirely 
 explicit and significant. It declares the College to be 
 founded and established, "for the Education and In- 
 struction of Youth, in the Learned Languages and the 
 Liberal Arts and Sciences," — to encourage " the good 
 design of promoting a Liberal Education," and " to make 
 the same as Beneficial as may be, not only to the Inhab- 
 itants of our said Province of New-York, But to all our 
 Colonies and Territories in America." 
 
 No narrow, local or sectarian institution was fore- 
 shadowed or called into being, by this royal grant, — 
 but a large, generous, expanding and comprehensive 
 seat of learning, embracing the whole circle of the 
 " Learned Languages and Liberal Arts and Sciences," — 
 one, that should shed its influence, not only over the 
 city and province of New- York, but throughout the 
 wide extent of British America, reaching all the 
 Anglo-American race that should " sj)eak the lan- 
 guage of Milton, or obey the laws of Alfred." Has 
 Columbia College quite fulfilled the design of its 
 enlightened founder ? 
 
 His "Province of New- York" has become a populous
 
 11 
 
 and powerful State, — his " Colonies and Territories," an 
 immense Continental Nation, opening a field broad 
 enough for the most enlarged and energetic action, — 
 but where and what are we ? The expanding wealth, 
 population and culture of the community, have planted 
 and strengthened other and younger institutions, 
 now powerful agents for good or for evil, but have 
 passed us by. Why is this ? Why have we, alone, of 
 all that exists between Maine and Georgia, been with- 
 out material progress or development for a century? 
 Does it not behoove us, just entering upon our second 
 century, to inquire. What we have done, — what we 
 have failed to do, — and what others, less favored than 
 ourselves, have accomplished ? 
 
 It is worthy of notice, that only a few years before 
 George the Second founded Columbia (then Kings') 
 College, he had established a similar institution, in 
 another part of his dominions. In the little town of 
 Gottingen in Hanover, a German province of scanty re- 
 sources, without commerce, almost without a city, and 
 often scourged by war, he planted a seat of learning, that 
 came into life the competitor of its twin-brother in the 
 Western World. In 1825, less than one hundred years 
 from its birth, it had 89 professors, 1545 students, and 
 a library of three hundred thousand volumes, and it 
 stands proudly aloft, among the great beacon lights 
 of the intellectual world. The catalogue of Columbia 
 College, in this the hundredth year of its existence, 
 shows one hundred and forty students, and six pro- 
 fessors. 
 
 It is rather remarkable, that an ambitious, prospe- 
 rous and enterprising community like ours, should ac- 
 quiesce in a state of things like this, — that it should be 
 content, to be thus inferior in this distinguishing badge
 
 12 
 
 of civilization, to nearly every other portion of the civ- 
 ilized world. 
 
 A glance at the map of Europe shows this at once. 
 Not to speak of the great seats of learning in England, 
 Scotland and France, we see students numbered by thou- 
 sands, in the desolate, down-trodden cities of Italy,— Grer- 
 many, glowing with splendid Universities, from the 
 North Sea to the Adriatic, — Russia, whom we presume 
 to call barbai'ian, arming her University at Odessa 
 with more than twenty professors, — while Sweden, al- 
 most within the polar circle, lavishes on fourteen hun- 
 dred scholars at Upsala, the richest treasures of science 
 and learning. Can Columbia College, with its little hand- 
 ful of graduates and professors, feel that it has accom- 
 plished the objects of its creation ? 
 
 I know it will be said, that we have wanted 
 means, — that we have not shared the bounty of the 
 community, — that few, if any, individual donations or 
 endowments have been added to our original resources. 
 But if we had wisely used the means we had, all this 
 would have been added to us. The millions that have 
 gone to the " New- York University," the Free Academy, 
 the Cooper Institute and the Astor Library, would 
 probably have been ours. 
 
 We may console our pride, by claiming that our posi- 
 tion has been, one of dignified scholarship, too far above 
 the age to be appreciated or encouraged, — but the an- 
 swer Avill be, even if the extravagant assumption were 
 founded on fact, that we exist to educate the people, 
 and should have lowered ourselves to a position a little 
 less exalted, that so we might raise them step by 
 step. 
 
 The difficulty lies deeper than the want of money. 
 We have wanted Trustees, — more truly and zealously,
 
 13 
 
 to carry out the purposes defined by our charter. We 
 have avowedly and perseveringly neglected, underval- 
 ued and disparaged "the Liberal Arts and Sciences," 
 and the world has avenged the neglect, by neglecting 
 us. 
 
 It is not, and has not been, the want of pecuniary 
 means. Yale College, possessing little else than its 
 buildings, filled her halls for fifty years, with students 
 from every part of the Union, attracted by the fame of 
 her scientific teachers. The annual cost of Day and 
 SiLLiMAN, sitting side by side for half a century, did 
 not exceed four thousand dollars, — but they w^ere con- 
 stantly and vigorously sustained, cheered and encour- 
 aged, by an enlightened and appreciating Board of 
 Trustees. 
 
 But if poverty l)e our excuse, it can avail us no 
 longer. The great w^ave of commerce has reached our 
 landed estates, and we have but to coin them into rev- 
 enue, far excr^eding our utmost necessities. This flood 
 of pecuniary prosperity, is, in no sense, due to us. It is 
 the work of the busy community around us, and that 
 community has now, more than ever, the right to ask 
 us to come fully up to our duty. It has a right to ask, 
 why the College, surrounded by more than fifty thou- 
 sand youths, of age suitable for College studies, capable 
 of education, and destined to suffer through life for 
 want of it, — teaches but one hundred and forty ? 
 
 For I expressly maintciin, that we hold a distinct re- 
 lation to the community and owe it a definite du- 
 ty. The College is a public, not a private institution. 
 Our Board of Trustees is not a fraternity, nor a reli- 
 gious order, set apart from and independent of the 
 community. It is not a place for personal predilections 
 or partialities, either for men or for subjects beyond the
 
 14 
 
 scope of our corporate duties. It belongs wholly to 
 the world around us, and we are bound by every 
 principle of law, equity and honoi', to render equal and 
 exact justice to every part and portion, every sect and 
 section alike. 
 
 The College is, in no sense, an ecclesiastical body. 
 It is purely a human, secular institution. Founded by 
 a temporal sovereign, it is solely the creature of the 
 State, and to the State alone, does it owe duty and 
 obedience. 
 
 And I further contend, that to the community as 
 such, in its aggregate existence, the College owes a pe- 
 culiarly high and sacred duty, — not only faithfully to 
 discharge its trust, in educating individual students, but 
 to discharge it in such mode, and with such vigor 
 and intelligence, as to advance the moral and intellec- 
 tual dignity of the community itself, — to become an el- 
 ement in our social system, felt in all its workings, 
 modifying the culture and elevating the character of 
 all around us. The community has a Right to a great 
 seat of learning in its midst, and is wronged if the 
 College, which it has endowed and enriched with means 
 amply sufficient for such an institution, remain in ob- 
 scurity or inefficiency. The College should form part 
 of the great living organism of society, giving it tone, 
 vigor, color, growth. But of the million of inhabitants, 
 now assembled in and around this great mart of trade, 
 how many are impressed or improved by our existence ? 
 How many know that we exist at all ? 
 
 By some of the few, who know us, we are regarded, 
 however erroneouslj^, as being, in some peculiar sense, 
 aristocratic in our course of study and administration, 
 as a place for the sons of gentlemen, to whom it is our 
 special office, to give culture, refinement and elegant 
 taste. I will not stop to controvert a notion so un-
 
 15 
 
 founded, nor to protest against a construction so 
 narrow, of our duty to tlie State. I will only ask 
 whether we have fulfilled even that office ? Look at 
 the young men crowding the drawing-rooms of our 
 city, condemned to " ornamental idleness," because no 
 proper training has led them up to usefulness to society, 
 the country, or the Church, and tell me, whether 
 Columbia College, with her little yearly coterie of five 
 and twenty graduates, has done her duty, even to this 
 small minority of the People ? 
 
 No thoughtful man can look at the present elements 
 of our society, without forebodings for the future. The 
 utter feebleness of the sons of the rich, and their total 
 inability to combat the misdirected education, the crude 
 theories, that make perilous the growing power of the 
 needy classes, become more and more apparent, with 
 each succeeding generation. If our seats of learning 
 will awake to their responsibilities and their work, they 
 may greatly mitigate, if they cannot entirely remove 
 these evils. If they can do no more, they may at least 
 transmute the holders of wealth, used only for ostenta- 
 tion or self-indulgence, into liberal and intelligent lead- 
 ers, in every good and generous effort for the common 
 welfare. Benevolence bids us teach the poor, — but it 
 will be a charity indeed, to educate the rich. 
 
 The very exuberance of our commercial prosperity, 
 our rank and rapid growth in wealth and luxury, are 
 scattering far and wide, the seeds of deep and deadly 
 disease. The universal spirit of traffic, with its mad- 
 dening love of gain, and its insolent contempt for any 
 intellectual greatness, artistic excellence, or moral 
 worth, that does not yield a pecuniary return, are de- 
 grading and demoralizing the whole mass. Wealth 
 earned by cunning, is squandered in vain and empty 
 show, until the universal axiom has come to be, that
 
 16 
 
 Money is the only proper aim of Man. Tlie virtue 
 of our public men and public bodies is sinking, as 
 it must sink, under this debasing preference of pecu- 
 niary wealth, to the priceless treasures of liberal science 
 and art. Who does not see and feel, that our traffick- 
 ing, money-loving people, are treading the path 
 of crafty, mercenary Carthage, — not classic, polished 
 Athens ? Where will it lead us, if we do not erect and 
 interpose at once, great and attractive seats of learning 
 and science and art, to arrest this downward course? 
 
 Nor is this high political and social office of a 
 great seat of learning at all an idle fancy, unsus- 
 tained by reason or experience. In the moral and 
 intellectual history of modern times, there is no event 
 more striking and instructive than the majestic stand 
 made by Prussia, after its disastrous overthrow, by 
 Napoleon at Jena. The monarchy was all but ruined, 
 — on the very brink of dismemberment, — when the 
 'sagacious statesmanship and far-seeing wisdom of Stein 
 and his noble associates, established the University of 
 Berlin, — for the expressly avowed purpose of elevating 
 the character of the j)eople, and thereby enabling the 
 nation to throw off the yoke of France. The tree thus 
 planted, within ten years yielded fruits. The spirit of 
 the community was revived and rekindled. Prussia was 
 disenthralled, — and the University stands, with its one 
 hundred and fifty professors and four thousand students, 
 a monument of the wisdom of its founders, and will 
 stand while letters endure. 
 
 Among the few glimpses it has been my fortune to 
 gain, of the truly great things of this world, I succeeded 
 some eight years ago, in seeing the Berlin Academy of 
 Science in session, — and there was clustered, a galaxy 
 of scholarship, learning, and genius, eclipsing all the 
 world l:)esides. It was amid this magnificent assemblage
 
 17 
 
 consisting of men like Humboldt, and Rittek, and 
 Encke, and Ehrenberg, and Jacobi, and tlie brothers 
 Rose, and hosts of others, filling the world with their 
 fame, — that I found our alumnus, Wolcott Gibbs, imbib- 
 ing from that great fountain, the knowledge which 
 our shortcomings had failed to provide him. And 
 why should not New- York, — the capital of a Conti- 
 nent, with its hundreds soon to be thousands of mil- 
 lions of commercial wealth, also possess a University 
 and Scientific circle, to elevate and embellish its com- 
 mercial life ? Must the very magnitude of its conti- 
 nental traffic weigh down its intellect for ever ? 
 Will not the College exert her highest and noblest 
 functions, in rescuing the community from the base do- 
 minion of sordid gain, — in shaking ofl' the double yoke 
 of avarice and ostentation, — in renovating, regenerating, 
 and saving society ? 
 
 That this result is attainable I will not doubt. 
 Others more patriotic and enlightened will attempt 
 it, if we do not. A deep, premonitory feeling now 
 pervades the public mind, that a great national Uni- 
 versity is needed, — not a College, in our narrow sense 
 of the term, — a mere gymnasium, or grammar-school, 
 where some half dozen professors repeat, year after 
 year, the same rudiments, — but a broad, comprehensive 
 seat of learning, science and art, where every student 
 may pursue any path he may select, to its extremest 
 attainable limit, and above all, where original research 
 and discovery by the ablest men the world can furnish, 
 shall add daily to the great sum of human knowledge. 
 
 The effort made at Albany, in the winter of 1852, 
 (though not then successful,) to induce the State to found 
 such an institution, showed the prevalence and strength 
 of this feeling. It was there, that aided and encouraged 
 
 2
 
 18 
 
 by some of the most enlightened divines of that city, dis- 
 cerning the harmony between the Word and the Works 
 of God, and not afraid to expose Kevealed Truth to 
 the eye of human science, that the friends of Learning 
 sought to establish a University which should enroll 
 Agassiz, and Peiece, and Dana, and Hall, and Bache, 
 and GiBBS, and men of like size and strength, among 
 its most trusted and honored teachers. And who, of 
 all the eminent and devoted patrons of science, and 
 official defenders of religion, then in council, thought 
 for a moment of filling the chair of Chemistry, with 
 any but Wolcott Gibbs ? Of his pre-eminent qualifi- 
 cations, professional, moral and personal, and the 
 bright promise of his future career, no one whispered a 
 doubt. Still less did any one dream of requiring theo- 
 logical conformity from him, or any Professor of Phys- 
 ical Science. 
 
 But the condition of the State finances, fettered by 
 the Constitution of 1846, precluded further progress in 
 that direction, — added to which, was the apprehension, 
 that in the ever-recurring and disgusting scramble for 
 political spoils, even the Professors' chairs might not 
 be spared. The project was reluctantly abandoned, 
 but with a deep conviction that the measure could not 
 be long postponed. 
 
 Upon such an occasion, the large but dormant 
 powers and capacities of Columbia College, with its 
 certainty of great and immensely increasing wealth, 
 directed by Trustees secure of office during good be- 
 ha^dor, and able not only to found, but permanently 
 and steadily to maintain such an institution, could hard- 
 ly fail to arrest attention, and every one supposed they 
 would gladly discharge a duty so gratifying and honor- 
 able. 
 
 The Free Academy was also spoken of, but the pre-
 
 19 
 
 carious tenure of its Board of Management, cliosen 
 annually by popular vote, and the inherent necessity 
 of always keeping a University somewhat above or in 
 advance of the average state of popular intelligence, 
 suggested difficulties which then seemed insuperable. 
 When we observe, however, the extent to which that 
 admirable institution has succeeded, in a few short 
 years, in subduing popular prejudice, — its rapid ad- 
 vance in thorough classical and scientific teaching, — 
 the number, vigor and activity of its Professors, — the 
 richness, order and efficiency of its laboratory, appa- 
 ratus and other appliances, — its five years' course of 
 study, — and how far it has already outstripped our 
 College, in the number of its students, — it is by no 
 means certain, that this early infancy is not the pre- 
 cursor of a great and brilliant future, and that it will 
 not take the splendid and beneficent position we were 
 meant to occupy. Let it continue to advance, and let us 
 remain stationary but a few years longer, and the ques- 
 tion of our relative position in the intellectual history of 
 the State and the country, will be settled. It will then 
 be too late for us to attain the honorable place we shall- 
 have thus declined to fill. Two Universities, — two- 
 great centres of scholarship and science, cannot exist: 
 together in the same city. One or the other must be 
 absorbed or annihilated, — and we may live to see this 
 so-called democratic school, founded avowedly because 
 we did not satisfy the just demands of the community,, 
 giving intellectual tone to the city, and through the 
 city to the nation, — while we remain travelling round 
 the narrow circle, to which inveterate habit has accus- 
 tomed us. 
 
 What I have said of the magnitude of our duties, 
 the importance of an University among us, and the
 
 20 
 
 necessity of bestirring ourselves to establish it, is di- 
 rectly pertinent to tbe special question now before us. 
 For such an institution cannot win authority, respect 
 or confidence, unless it be pre-eminent in Physical Sci- 
 ence, which as plainly characterizes the j^resent age, as 
 Scholastic Philosophy did that of Abelard, or Classical 
 Literature that of the Medici. To do this, we must, of 
 necessity, repudiate all religious tests and qualifications, 
 at least in that department of our teaching, — for we 
 cannot conceal the fact, that the Church now produces 
 few great scientific teachers. We may find within 
 her ranks, the best instructors in Literature, Art and 
 Pure Intellect, — in History, Ethics, Moral Philoso- 
 phy, the poetry of Greece and Rome and kindred 
 subjects, — but we must look in France and Germany, 
 not at Oxford, for the great Masters of Science, — for 
 those who best teach the laws, by which God has 
 worked and is working in his visible Creation. In 
 this department, mediocrity will not suffice. Scientific 
 men of the highest order, are the vital element of a Uni- 
 versity, — and it is only a second rate institution that will 
 content itself with any othei\ 
 
 In asserting that the Church produces few great sci- 
 entific teachers, I only state a fact deeply to be deplored, 
 for it is Her peculiar office to watch the progress of 
 human thought, to guide, promote and consecrate the 
 intellectual labors of man. Five hundred years ago, 
 when the intellect of Christendom was abandoning 
 Schoiastieism for the newly opened field of Classical 
 Learning, the Church forgot her duty. Lagging be- 
 hind the age, she by turns opposed and feebly encour- 
 aged, what we now see was the great movement of the 
 time. She alienated its leaders, and allowed Thought 
 and Letters 16 get beyond her influence, and the Chris- 
 tian world still suffers fi'om the disastrous mistake.
 
 21 
 
 We are now in tlie midst of another intellectual 
 revolution, no less momentous. Man is hourly gaining 
 mastery over Nature, developing her hidden laws, and 
 subduing to his service her hostile powers. Physical 
 Science, the splendid instrument of modern progress, 
 must become, if it be not already, the controlliug study 
 of the ao^e. Should the Church be lono^er indifferent 
 to such an element ? Is she at liberty to disregard it ? 
 
 Distrusting modern science and avoiding contact or 
 sympathy with its leaders, she has thus far denied her- 
 self the power, she was entitled to exert over the nine- 
 teenth century. But recent indications lead us to hope 
 better things for tlie future. Signs of concord and co- 
 operation begin to appear, and the time has not yet 
 passed, for the Church to bring into her ranks, — where 
 they belong, — the potent energies of modern science. 
 
 For distrusting the study of the Classics, and omit- 
 ting actively to encourage the "Revival of Letters," 
 the Church at the time had some apology. Clearly as 
 we now perceive the beauty and value of Ancient 
 Learning, and its fundamental importance as an element 
 of sound education, we cannot wonder that she hesi- 
 tated, before admitting heathen philosophy and poetry 
 into her religious teaching. 
 
 But a reverent study of the Works of the Creator, 
 can only strengthen the position of the Church, and 
 furnish cumulative evidence of the truths she teach- 
 es. The laws of Matter have been consecrated by Her 
 Divine Founder, to the good of the human race. In 
 healing the sick, and multiplying food for the starving, 
 He showed the Church her duty to care for man's 
 material wants, and use for his welfare, all the powers 
 of material nature. 
 
 Is it not then, matter of profound regret, that the 
 Church should deem it unimportant, to enlarge to the
 
 22 
 
 uttermost, our knowledge of the wide-spread wonders of 
 God's Material Creation ? — that it should fail to perceive 
 the immensity of the truth, embodied in the Universal 
 Liturgy, which proclaims not only Heaven, but Earth, 
 " full of the Majesty of His Glory ?" 
 
 It is not to be denied that members of our 
 Board, estimate very differently the necessity, value 
 and dignity of Physical Science. The fact is abun- 
 dantly manifested, not only in the open disparage- 
 ment of that branch of human knowledge, but in the 
 utter failure of earnest and repeated efforts to divide 
 the Chair of Chemistry and Physics, now overload- 
 ed with duties which would amply employ at least 
 three Professors, — and to provide meanwhile for the 
 single Professor, more adequate and decent apartments. 
 T may be too radical a reformer, but I cannot think it 
 very unreasonable, in the Trustee of a College holding 
 itself out to the public as a seat of science, to remon- 
 strate against its teaching Experimental Philosophy in a 
 dark, damp basement, where its apparatus rusts and per- 
 ishes, and the health of professor and pupils is endanger- 
 ed, — nor to insist that Optics might better be taught 
 in an apartment, that the light of Heaven can enter. 
 
 We all know, and the public knows how we 
 turned away, year after year, from all the entrea- 
 ties of our late Professor, that his department and 
 the reputation of the College might be relieved from 
 these needless embarrassments, till after thirty years' 
 service, he left us in disgust and despair. 
 
 I confess that I hoped, when we should proceed to 
 fill the vacancy, and especially if our Board should still 
 consider a single professor sufficient to teach Chemistry, 
 Geology, Mechanics, and the whole vast field of Natural 
 Philosophy, with all the splendid accessions of modern
 
 23 
 
 times, the efforts of the friends of Science, even if over- 
 pressing, might be so far respected, that none but a Pro- 
 fessor of pre-eminent ability and unquestioned fitness 
 would be placed in that all-important Chair. 
 
 Such was the confident expectation of the com- 
 munity around us, — of the crowds of parents wait- 
 ing with their sons, for our decision, — of the whole 
 body of the alumni, who knew that among their num- 
 ber, was the man best qualified. Such too, was the 
 hope of the distinguished leaders of Science, through- 
 out the country, and of a large majority of the lay 
 members of our own -body. 
 
 What then was our disappointment and mortification, 
 when WoLCOTT Gibbs, — bearing with him the united 
 voice of all that was commanding in the Scientific world, 
 — a son of our College, winning its highest honors, only 
 to add yet higher testimonials from the ablest masters in 
 the Old World, — rich too, in every moral, mental and 
 social excellence, that could dignify and adorn the place, 
 was called to account, by members of our body repre- 
 senting at least three separate religious denominations, 
 for his want of conformity to a theological standard of 
 their own, compounded from incoherent and opposing 
 creeds, and agreeing only in hostility to the denomina- 
 tion to which he belonged ! 
 
 Before examining the legal and the moral merits of 
 this objection, — let me clear the way, of all idle and 
 senseless suspicions, by declaring distinctly, that I do 
 not seek or wish to weaken the just authority of the 
 Church Catholic, or undervalue any truth it teaches. It 
 might suflSce, to point to the members of the Board 
 holding views like my own, in respect to its duty to 
 the community and the Church, — who have voted for 
 Dr. Gibbs. But I prefer to purge myself individually,
 
 24 
 
 from any charge of indifference, either to the fundamen- 
 tal truths which the Church maintains, or to the disci- 
 pline and authority of the Church itself. 
 
 I declare then, that I hold, in the fullest sense, to 
 the faith of that portion of the Church Catholic, known 
 as the Protestant Episcopal Church of the United 
 States, — that I believe its doctrines, approve its govern- 
 ment, and am ready to submit to its discipline. I was 
 born and baptized in that Church, have been for many 
 years one of its members, and hojoe to die in its faith and 
 communion. No man living esteems more highly the 
 wisdom of its institutions, the excellence of its example, 
 the Christian piety and dignity of its Ministers, the 
 beauty, propriety and sublimity of its unrivalled 
 Liturgy. 
 
 Viewed only as an engine of human polity, I regard 
 the Church, as the strongest and best of the bonds, which 
 bind together our National Union, one which may save 
 it, when nothing else can, — as our most efficient safe- 
 guard, sure though silent, against all unlawful assaults 
 on order, property or morality, — as our constant and 
 unfailing antidote and protection against the excesses 
 and disorders, to which the life of a young Nation, like 
 ours, is so peculiarly subject. 
 
 Nor am I indifferent to doctrinal, dogmatic truth. 
 I hold a Creed, — a definite Creed, — essential to the 
 Church, and the individual Churchman, — and I render 
 all honor and reverence to the Church, for firmly and 
 sternly maintaining hers unchanged, through all the 
 revolutions, which for eighteen centuries have agitated 
 the human race. 
 
 It is, because I thus esteem and venerate the Church, 
 — because I fain would save her from the scoff and 
 ridicule of the world around, that I labor to dissuade
 
 25 
 
 those who value her welfare, from adopting in the pre- 
 sent controversy the mistaken policy, which some have 
 meditated. I dread the consummation of an act, which 
 her enemies will adduce, to prove her afraid to submit 
 the Word of God, to a comparison with His Works 
 studied by the light of Science, — and above all, which 
 may countenance in any way, the accusation that 
 Churchmen either claim the right to dispense with 
 human law, or nullify by casuistry its plain moral ob- 
 ligations, when they think the interests of the Church 
 demand it. 
 
 I know the Church can and will survive any errors, 
 even of its appointed defenders. But I foresee, that 
 the act, now threatened, if carried out, will prove 
 highly injurious to the sacred cause they live to main- 
 tain. If it be said, their conscience compels them to 
 the act, I claim that mine compels me to oppose it. 
 The interests of the Church are dear alike, to all its 
 members, clerical and lay, and I claim the right to say, 
 that if she hoj^es to achieve the great work before 
 her, of bringing the whole human family into her fold, 
 she must now and always, and through all coming 
 time, illustrate her teaching by her works, — and that 
 she can only reach and control the universal conscience, 
 by her unfailing and abundant observance, at all times, 
 of justice and good faith to Man, and the institutions 
 of Man. She should not only be always right, but 
 even more than right, — not only pure, but beyond 
 suspicion, — and in construing a law or a contract, if 
 there be even a doubt, should rather prefer to decide 
 against herself, and thus follow the example, by which 
 high-minded and honorable men of the world, com- 
 mand its confidence and respect. 
 
 For the distinguished divines, each and all, who
 
 26 
 
 honor our Board, with their presence, I entertain per- 
 sonally, sincere respect, — for some of them indeed, 
 as they well know, most cordial affection, — and it 
 is quite as much for their sakes, and that of the Church, 
 as for the College, that 1 now ask you and every 
 brother Churchman in the Board, to assist in averting 
 the pernicious effects, which an unlawful exercise of 
 power, on the present occasion, must inevitably bring 
 upon her. 
 
 Let us then attentively examine the legal and 
 moral nature of the claim, to set aside the best qualified 
 teacher of Physical Science, by reason of his alleged un- 
 soundness on a point of theology. 
 
 It is not prima facie^ a valid or sufficient objection, 
 and the burthen of proof rests on those who assert 
 it. But I contend affirmatively, that the objection 
 is alike unnecessary, impolitic, unjust and unlaw- 
 ful. 
 
 In the first place, Dr. Gibes is not an infidel, — and it 
 is to be hoped, we may hear no moreof a design to banish 
 religion from the College, and introduce infidelity among 
 the students. Infidelity has nothing to do with the 
 matter, and the application of the term to him, is simply 
 preposterous. An infidel is he who disbelieves the 
 Holy Scriptures, but Dr. Gibbs expressly declares, 
 that he believes in them and in their divine inspiration, 
 and moreover adds, that he knows of nothing in any 
 branch of Science, with which he is acquainted, which 
 conflicts with their teaching, or impugns their authority. 
 His written answer to the inquiries of the Chairman of 
 our Board, certainly shows this. But in that answer, 
 he frankly admits that he belongs to that denomination 
 of Christians, known as "Unitarians;" and this is the 
 only tangible objection that is urged against him. He
 
 27 
 
 may, therefore, be a heretic, but he certainly is not an 
 infidel. The charge against him is heresy, not infi- 
 delity. Now is this heresy ? 
 
 As I am informed, there are wide differences of 
 opinion among Christians calling themselves " Unitari- 
 ans," on the doctrine of the Divine Nature. That de- 
 nomination embraces a school which holds nearly all 
 the fundamental doctrines of the orthodox church, — 
 objecting to nothing in the Nicene Creed itself, except 
 the words " of one substance with the Father," for 
 which they substitute the words "of lihe substance 
 with the Father." 
 
 We have no evidence of De. Gibbs' precise j^osition 
 on this question. Very possibly he may never have de- 
 fined it even to himself, but like too many laymen, has 
 adopted without special examination, the faith which 
 early habit may have taught him to respect. But I 
 know that he is utterly free from any spirit of prose- 
 lytism, or aggressive hostility to any other faith, and I 
 have reason to believe, that his theological views, so 
 far as he has ever defined them, assimilate to those of 
 the more conservative portion of the Unitarian body. 
 
 He was made by baptism at the age of eleven years, 
 a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, but since 
 his father's death, has attended a Unitarian place of 
 worship. He certainly is one of those " who profess and 
 call themselves Christians," for whom the Church in- 
 structs us to pray, but whom she nowhere authorizes us 
 to proscribe. 
 
 We have no proof, nor any reason to believe, that 
 he denies or doubts the Divinity of our Saviour, nor 
 His Atonement for the sins of man, — and the only in- 
 ference we can legitimately draw, from his admission 
 that he is a Unitarian, is that he does not believe in
 
 28 
 
 the Eternal Consubstautiality of the Three Persons of 
 the Godhead. 
 
 We must then inquire, whether this be what the 
 law defines as heresy. For we are Trustees of a Col- 
 lege created by law, to discharge duties prescribed by 
 law, — and surely we must consult the law, to determine 
 what constitutes the offence, the commission of which, 
 legally authorizes us to exclude the offender from our 
 Professorships. 
 
 By the law of England, heresy is defined to be an 
 "erroneous ojoinion on the fundamental doctrines of 
 Christianity, publicly and obstinately maintained." 
 We certainly have no evidence that De. Gibbs " j^ublic- 
 ly" maintains any theological dogma whatever, — still 
 less that he does so "obstinately," for no one to our 
 knowledge, has sought to convince him that any opinion 
 of his is erroneous. I knew him for many years, without 
 being aware that he was a Unitarian. It is distinctly 
 proved, that during his five years' connection with the 
 Free Academy, he has never introduced his theological 
 views into his professional teaching, or made his asso- 
 ciates acquainted with them. We have no evidence, that 
 he has ever declared his creed to any person whatever, 
 except to one of our own body who inquired into his 
 theological position. His heresy therefore lacks the 
 two legal elements, of public avowal and obstinate 
 maintenance. 
 
 But is the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, the only 
 fundamental doctrine of Christianity, or are there other 
 doctrines which some of us hold fundamental, and to 
 which we may also require conformity ? Who shall 
 decide ? There are in our Board clerical members of 
 three different religious bodies, and laymen conscien- 
 tiously attached to various antagonist forms of faith.
 
 29 
 
 May each vote against every candidate, who does not 
 hold what he beheves an essential doctrine of Christiani- 
 ty ? Can it be possible that the law directs, (for the law 
 does direct every lawful act of a Trustee,) the Anglican 
 Churchman, the Calvinist, the Roman Catholic, the 
 Dutch Reformed, the Baptist, the Methodist, the Uni- 
 tarian, the Quaker, and the Jew, — for members from 
 all these sects have held, and may again hold, seats in 
 our Board, — to execute their trust, each by an indepen- 
 dent rule ? If it be the duty of one, to vote only for a 
 candidate who holds the fundamental truths of the 
 Apostolical Succession and Baptismal Regeneration, is 
 another bound to vote only for him who denies those 
 truths ? Does the law require of us duties so contra- 
 dictory ? Which of the denominations, now represented 
 in our Board, is to fix the standard ? If the Episcopal 
 Church, now possessing the numerical majority, is au- 
 thorized to do so, must it not select its own peculiar 
 doctrines, — and if perchance twenty years hence, a ma- 
 jority should belong to the Presbyterian or the Dutch 
 Reformed Church, is the standard then to change, and 
 those now eligible to become disqualified ? 
 
 The first thing we see in examining the charter of 
 1754, is the selection as Trustees, of five clergymen of 
 five different churches, — the Episcopal, the Presbyterian, 
 the Lutheran, the Dutch Reformed and the Fi'ench, — in- 
 cluding all the denominations of any importance then 
 in the city. One was selected from each, and with his 
 successor in ofiice, for the time being, was made, ex 
 officio^ a trustee of the College. Each of these five trus- 
 tees had equal rule and authority ; each an equal right 
 to claim the College, as the organ of his peculiar faith. 
 The intent of the charter manifestly was, to place the 
 clerical representatives side by side, to neutralize and
 
 30 
 
 disarm each other. To make the matter safer still, 
 nine colonial officers were added ex officio^ and twenty- 
 four trustees taken from the city at large. 
 
 But even this did not satisfy the jealous caution, 
 not only of the colonists, but even of one of the five 
 churches thus specially represented, for fearing that 
 the Church of England might gain undue pre-eminence 
 or authority, the Dutch Reformed Church through 
 its Minister, at the first meeting of the Trustees in May, 
 1^55, introduced measures which were immediately 
 adopted, for establishing in the College a Professorship 
 of Divinity, " according to the doctrine, discij^line and 
 worship established by the National Synod of Dort," 
 with power to the Dutch Church to appoint the Pro- 
 fessor. That no such Professor has ever been appoint- 
 ed, proves only that no sectarian teaching has ever been 
 introduced into the College, but the privilege of the 
 Dutch Church now slumbering, will awake at the first 
 attempt of any other denomination, to establish its 
 own distinctive dogmas. 
 
 And yet the very essence of heresy consists, in a de- 
 parture from a standard established by a single Church, 
 having sole authority to fix it. The notion of two 
 independent churches each possessing exclusive power 
 to fix the standard, is absurd. Bossuet, the eminent 
 Romish divine, compactly defines a heretic as one who 
 has his own opinion, {([ui a tine opinion a lui^) in con- 
 tradistinction to a Catholic, who follows the opinion of 
 the Universal Church. Hence the Statutes of England 
 before the Reformation, defined heresy to be " the teach- 
 ing " (not the 'holding') " of opinions contrary to the 
 Blessed determinations of Holy Church." 
 
 Nor was the heretic punishable, nor could he be 
 deprived of any right, or privilege, or eligibility to
 
 8J 
 
 office enjoyed by other subjects of the Crown, nor 
 could his heresy be noticed by any individual or tribunal 
 known to English law, until he had been duly tried and 
 his heresy judicially established by the Bishoj?, in the 
 exercise of his legitimate canonical jurisdiction. Only 
 after trial, defence and all the formalities of a solemn 
 judicial act, did the laws of England, commencing with 
 Henry IV., allow the privilege of the subject to be im- 
 paired by his heresy. 
 
 We need only examine that interesting and vener- 
 able writ, " de liaeretico comburendoj'' — still smouldering 
 in Fitzherbert, — to see that the prior adjudication by 
 the Bishop was indispensable, and that the heretic could 
 not be lawfully burned without it. Indeed it w^as a 
 privilege to the heretic himself, to be exposed to the 
 scrutiny of only a single tribunal, consistent with itself, 
 and governed by a definite and notorious standard of 
 faith, instead of two or three conflicting with each 
 other, and each perhaps with itself. 
 
 But we are told that the several conflicting denomi- 
 nations in our Board, by some eclectic process may 
 ignore their points of difference, and adopt as a religious 
 test, the propositions in which they all agree. The history 
 of Christendom is not without an edifying example of 
 such a compact. By the treaty of Westphalia, which 
 closed the Thirty Years' war, the Catholics, Calvinists, 
 and Lutherans, solemnly stipulated to accuse each other 
 of heresy no longer, — reserving the right of extermina- 
 ting all who differed from the joint belief of the three 
 contracting parties. 
 
 Now we yield a certain deference to the consistent 
 intolerance of Hildebrand, or Laud, or Calvin, or 
 Mather, or any person conscientiously proclaiming 
 any series of dogmas to be the whole truth of God, but 
 it becomes somewhat difficult to respect the composite
 
 82 
 
 intolerance of religious parties, differing in many funda- 
 mental articles of faith, but leagued in common hostility 
 to those who deny some other article, on which the con- 
 tracting parties chance to agree. They who tolerate 
 the heresy of each other, no longer possess the logical 
 right to be intolerant at all. If each may ally itself 
 with one form of error, all are precluded from setting 
 U23 the duty to proscribe any other. 
 
 The world has become pretty well aware, that eccle- 
 siastical bodies differ on the question, Whether the Pro- 
 testant " Reformation," so called, brought with it the 
 right of " private judgment," in construing the Scrip- 
 tures, and the other evidences of Revealed Truth. 
 
 It is quite certain, that members of our body differ 
 widely as to the extent of that right. How far, if at 
 all, De. Gibbs has transcended its proper limits on the 
 present occasion, may present further points for serious 
 disagreement. 
 
 He may have unlawfully and erroneously exercised 
 his private judgment on the Scriptures as a whole, or 
 only on particular texts, in relation to the Unity of the 
 Godhead, — or not being able to reconcile conflict- 
 ing passages, he may have adopted for the pre- 
 sent the simplest view of that transcendent mystery 
 as prima facie true, — or he may not receive as con- 
 clusive, the construction given to ScrijDture by some 
 ecclesiastical body, — or not having yet investigated 
 the question at all, he may continue in connection with 
 that denomination in which he was brought up, and in 
 which it has pleased God to place him, until he shall 
 be shown affirmatively that it Lis duty to leave it for 
 another. I believe the last to be the sum total of his of- 
 fence, — and if it is, have we not some at least among our 
 own laity, whose only argument for their orthodox belief,
 
 33 
 
 is that tliey have been brought up to take its truth for 
 granted ? 
 
 It is clearly the right of De. Gibbs to ask those 
 who claim the right to condemn and punish, to specify 
 which of these widely different offences he has commit- 
 ted, — which of the charges he is bound to answer. He 
 has the right, and every other candidate, for this or 
 any other Professorship, present or future, has the 
 right, to be distinctly informed what religious qualifi- 
 cations we require, and how they are to be established. 
 
 Should we hereafter become a more conspicuous 
 and authoritative body than we yet have been, it will 
 be not a little im^Dortant to the World of Thought and 
 Letters, to know our standard of orthodoxy, and to 
 understand from us intelligibly, how we ascertain and 
 identify those we reject and brand as unfit to teach. 
 The selection of the particular dogmas which are to 
 compose that standard, and the exact definition of 
 each, may possibly task somewhat the industry and 
 acuteness of some of us. We must define not only 
 the creed, the series of dogmas, to which we re- 
 quire assent, but also the necessary degree and evi- 
 dence of that assent. Shall it be only formal, as 
 in some English institutions, or must it be " ex animo ? " 
 and shall the habitual or occasional attendance of the 
 candidate at some j)rescribed place of worship, be taken 
 as a sufficient compliance with our standard ? Is there 
 no danger that parents may distrust the College, where 
 theological conformity real or pretended, wins the pro- 
 fessor's chair, — and that students themselves, of differing 
 faith, may question decisions on academic rank, by 
 teachers who gain by such means the right to decide ? 
 
 But here it may be said, that exclusion from 
 office is not punishment, — that a Trustee voting to 
 
 3
 
 84 
 
 exclude, only exercises his inherent right to select whom 
 he thinks fit, — and that if he deem a heretic unfit, be- 
 cause of his heresy, he may lawfully vote against such 
 heretic, and that this is not a punishment of heresy. 
 
 This common-place of intolerance has long been 
 abandoned. Our criminal law recognizes exclusion 
 from office as one of the penalties of crime. If he who 
 would obtain a place of honor or profit but for his 
 heresy, is lawfully excluded from it by his heresy, the 
 law punishes him for that heresy. If the law permit 
 a secular College like ours, not created to promote any 
 particular creed, to exclude a heretic from its Professor- 
 ships, the law in that mode j^unishes the heretic. 
 
 True, we no longer punish by the writ " de haere- 
 tico^'' — for that went out of the legal world, the very 
 year the Habeas Corpus came into it, — but we do in fact 
 punish, quite as severely, — in another mode,' — by pro- 
 fessional, civil, and social degradation. 
 
 But I go further. I claim that even if our Board 
 could agree upon, and could lawfully and safely estab- 
 lish, and could permanently maintain its tripartite theo- 
 logical standard, — and even if Wolcott Gibbs, after 
 full information, previous notice, and fair trial, had 
 been duly convicted of non-conformity to its provi- 
 sions, — it would still be our duty to elect him to the 
 vacant Professorship, as being best qualified to per- 
 form an important portion of the duty of education, 
 which we profess to perfoi-m. Nay, more, I claim, 
 that even if our College existed only as an organ of 
 the Episcopal Church, — were it already and avowedly 
 nothing but a preparatory school for her theological 
 seminaries, — were it created expressly to train up 
 learned men to fight Unitarianism itself, — even tlien 
 it would be our duty and our true policy, to select
 
 35 
 
 Mm, as tlie best and ablest mau to fill the chair of 
 Chemistry, without reference in any way to his views 
 on the Trinity, or any other point of theology. 
 
 For surely it is as much the duty of a " Church 
 College," as of any other, to do best whatever it pro- 
 fesses to do, — to teach, as thoroughly as any irreligious 
 institution, all it professes to teach. A heretic or an 
 infidel might not be selected, in such a College, to 
 teach Ecclesiastical History or Moral Philosophy, for 
 the reason that his religious belief, or want of belief, 
 might prevent his teaching what the Church holds 
 true ; but in the sciences purely physical, the religious 
 creed of the professor would be wholly irrelevant and 
 unimportant. 
 
 For what proposition can be stated or imagined, 
 in any department of Physical Science, in which Trini- 
 tarians and Unitarians, as such, can possibly disagree? 
 They differ only as to the meaning of Scripture on a 
 single point, — momentous, no doubt, to the individual 
 believer, — but wholly sej^arated from material science. 
 The subjects are wide apai't as Earth and Heaven. The 
 united skill of the whole theolos-ical world, cannot find 
 a statement, proposition or theory in Chemistry or Natu- 
 ral Philosophy, which conflicts, in any degree, with the 
 teaching of the Church, on any subject whatever, — 
 not one, which, by any j)Ossibility, can be called Ortho- 
 dox, rather than Unitarian. 
 
 For the attributes of God, whether existing in 
 Trinity or in Unity, are wholly supernatural and extra- 
 natural, infinitely above, and beyond, and away from 
 the material world and all its laws. Who, without 
 the extremest irreverence, could apply a material law 
 to the Divine Majesty ? Who would seek to penetrate, 
 by philosophical analysis, the impenetrable, invisible, 
 unapproachable elements of the Tri-Une Deity ?
 
 36 
 
 That it might be important to the j)roper teaching 
 of Physical Science, that the teacher should believe in 
 the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, I might admit. 
 Fortified by that belief, the devout and earnest student 
 of Nature, not only finds in the vast and varied har- 
 monies of the universe, overwhelming proof of the wis- 
 dom and power of the Deity, but reads in the very 
 footprints of His Creation, the majestic concord be- 
 tween his Works and his Word. But can all that 
 philosophy ever discovered, that conclave or hierarchy 
 ever decreed, bring within our feeble vision, even a 
 glimpse of the awful personality of God, — of the Eter- 
 nal Co-existence of the Three in One ? 
 
 How vain then, these attempts to mingle the mys- 
 teries of heaven with the studies of earth ! " Render 
 unto Ca3sar the things that are Caesar's." Let sacred 
 truths be taught by our pious and learned theologians, 
 at the seminaries, which a wise separation of the 
 Church from the State, has expressly set aj^art for the 
 purpose, — but let them not distort, disturb or disfigure 
 the human studies, with which they have no connection 
 or afiinity. Discourses on the Trinity, as deduced 
 from the Sacred Writings, will always be reverently 
 and profitably received at the proper place, but where 
 is the class in Chemistry that would listen to them for 
 a moment? Who can name the chemist, that ever 
 sought to influence the religious faith of his j^tupils? 
 Do we believe that in the thirty years, in which De. 
 Kenwiok filled our chair of Chemistry, he ever ad- 
 dressed a word to his pupils on the Trinity or the 
 Unity, — or that De. Gibbs, in his five years at the Free 
 Academy, ever wandered so far away from his legiti- 
 mate pursuits? Rely uj^on it, the task of pursuing and 
 efficiently teaching his rapidly expanding Science, with
 
 37 
 
 its widely extending ramifications and magnificent 
 generalizations, — will leave the Professor of Chemistry 
 but little time or appetite for controversial Theology. 
 
 But it is said, that the mere example of a Professor 
 of commanding intellect and persuasive style, reputed 
 to disregard a fundamental dogma of the Church, must 
 be dangerous, in leading his pupils to like disregard. 
 If this be true, where shall we stop ? He will be danger- 
 ous if allowed to teach or live within our hearino:, or 
 any where within our community. What shall we do ? 
 The earnest, consistent orthodoxy of the middle ages 
 knew what to do. It did not allow John Huss to wan- 
 der at large, to corrupt the world. It burned him at 
 the stake, and threw his ashes into the Rhine. 
 
 The revolutions and constitutions of these later 
 centuries, have somewhat modified this process. We 
 do not burn. We only brand. We only set our mark 
 upon our noblest son, and leave him to bear through 
 life the dishonoring imprint. 
 
 For who will take what we thus degrade ? Is the 
 solemn adjudication of a Board like ours to pass for 
 nothing? What is lawful and wise for us, must be 
 lawful and wise for all of inferior grade. The heretic 
 banished from our walls, cannot and must not expect 
 aid or comfort elsewhere. If dangerous here, sur- 
 rounded by the watchful care of our united orthodoxy, 
 will he not be doubly dangerous, in seats of learning 
 less vigilantly guarded ? Ought not the Free Academy, 
 with its four hundred students now exposed to his bane- 
 ful influence, to turn him at once adrift ? What other 
 academy, or school, or seat of learning, of any grade or 
 sort, can rightfully harbor or uphold him ? How can 
 it do so, without condemning us as bigots, and express- 
 ing its immeasurable scorn of our example ? 
 
 .5804.51)
 
 88 
 
 This, tlien, is our position. In tlie middle of this 
 nineteenth century, — in the State of New-York, — 
 under a Constitution guaranteeing equal rights of con- 
 science to all men, a few members of our Board of 
 Trustees assume the right to adjudicate, and do adju- 
 dicate, that he who does not believe the Tri-Une Ex- 
 istence of the Supreme Being, is not a Christian, and 
 thereby is disqualified from teaching Chemical Science. 
 
 The decision covers, not only Wolcott Gibes, but 
 all his sect, — for if he be not fit to teach, what Unita- 
 rian is ? and thus, we presume to excommunicate hun- 
 dreds of thousands of our fellow-men and fellow-schol- 
 ars, and practically prohibit them from teaching here, 
 or elsewhere, or any where. 
 
 Are we quite prepared, — do we really feel strong 
 enough, — to proclaim this decision to the American 
 people and the world ? Not to mention the several 
 presidents of these United States, professing the form 
 of Christian faith we now proscribe, — not to point to 
 Everett and Bancroft, on whom orthodox Oxford 
 lavished its highest academic honors, nor to hosts of 
 others, now living, bright among the brightest gems of 
 history, and poetry, and science and art, what shall we 
 do with the deathless works of dead and buried Uni- 
 tarians ? Shall our College library longer he polluted 
 by the " Paradise Lost " of that heretic, John Milton ? 
 Shall our tender youth be dazzled and seduced by the 
 undermining " Principia " of that Unitarian astronomer, 
 Sir Isaac Newton ? Shall Law be learned from Grotius, 
 — heretical Hugo Grotius, — who taught humanity to 
 man, — mitigated the violence of war, — brought justice 
 into the family of nations, — and rescued the ocean from 
 bondage, — or shall Ave remand him to the prison, to 
 which his dissent from the doctrines of the Synod of
 
 39 
 
 Dort had sent him ? Should we not reform onr scheme 
 of education at once, and no longer teach our students 
 to venerate names like these ? 
 
 But we are told, that, after all, the College must be 
 subject to some one governing sect, and that all the 
 American Colleges are, in fact, sectarian. This ought 
 not to be true, — but if it is, it will hel]) to explain their 
 slender success, when compared with the European In- 
 stitutions not sectarian, and why our sons are obliged 
 to leave our narrow halls, to find adequate instruction 
 in the more catholic and comprehensive institutions 
 of France and Germany. 
 
 But it is not true, and certainly not to the severe ex- 
 tent to which sectarian exclusion is now threatened. We 
 know, that many of the American Colleges have select- 
 ed, and do select professors differing widely, in religious 
 tenets, from the majority of the governing trustees. 
 Presbyterian Princeton j)laced in one of her scientific 
 chairs a Professor with no religion at all. Episcopalians 
 are tolerated in Congregational Harvard, Yale and 
 . Union. Six of the seventeen Professors at Harvard, and 
 three of the Tutors, are of denominations other than 
 Unitarian, some of them, indeed, most earnest in their 
 orthodoxy. An eminent Unitarian divine is associated 
 with clergymen of the Church of England, in the 
 Canadian University, established by the British 
 Crown. A learned and accomplished Jew was 
 trusted by one of the theological Seminaries in this 
 very city, to teach its students the true reading of the 
 Prophets, — and should we ourselves perchance awake 
 to the necessity of qualifying our youth to meet the 
 Asiatic Exodus now pouring in upon our Pacific coast, 
 would we exclude from the Chinese Professorship every 
 follower of Confucius ? How are we to keep up with
 
 40 
 
 that great Anglo-American race, seen by tlie pro- 
 phetic eye of our royal founder, if we thus narrow 
 and confine our vision ? and what a spectacle shall 
 we present to that wide and widening world, for 
 which we are Trustees, with our useless millions of 
 mismanaored wealth, — self-condemned to the limits of 
 a narrow sectarianism, and copying only what is ob- 
 solete and defective in the mediaeval institutions, we 
 affect to imitate ? 
 
 And this brings us to the higher and far more seri- 
 ous question of justice and morality, involved in this 
 proceeding, — for I insist, that the proposed exclusion 
 of Dr. Gibbs will be, not only unjust to the students, 
 — unjust to the parents, — unjust to the alumni, — but 
 above all, and in the highest degree, unjust to the 
 State, to which we owe, not only our corporate exist- 
 ence and consequent obedience, but large and repeat- 
 ed donations of land and money. 
 
 The history of the century just closing, shows an 
 incessant stream of gifts, not only from the infant 
 Colony, existing at our birth, but from the State since 
 the Revolution. The very first donation by the colo- 
 nial government, was three thousand four hundred 
 pounds, — then exceeding the pecuniary value of all 
 the donations from Trinity Church, with the further 
 distinction, that while the lauds given by the Church 
 had been given to the Church by the Crown, the 
 Colony itself had earned the moneys it gave. 
 
 The State, since the Revolution, has given us up- 
 wards of thirty-nine thousand dollars in money, and 
 lands of still greater value. The tract once known as the 
 Botanic Garden, embracing 220 lots in the centre of our 
 island city, — between Fifth and Sixth Avenues, Forty- 
 eighth and Fifty-First streets, — is now worth at least 
 four hundred thousand dollars, — aflbrding truly a fitting
 
 41 
 
 site for that broad, liberal and comprehensive univer- 
 sity, so needed by the whole American world. 
 
 It is not unworthy of notice, in examining the course 
 pursued by the College in respect to science, that it 
 got this very land from the State in 1814, under the 
 pretence and assurance of teaching, encouraging, and 
 diffusing science. 
 
 The State granted the land expressly as a Botanic 
 Garden, the College gravely submitting to the condi- 
 tion reserved in the act, to deliver " at least one healthy 
 " exotic flower, shrub, or plant, of every kind of which 
 " they should have more than one, together with the 
 "jar or vessel containing the same, to the Trustees of 
 " each of the other Colleges of this State, who shall 
 " apply for the same ! " I cannot think it very hand- 
 some of the College to ask, as it did only five years 
 afterwards, to be released from this duty. It was but 
 a slender return for such a heritage ; but science was 
 forgotten, and flowers, shrubs, plants, and Botanic 
 Garden melted into thin air, like the " pure and whole- 
 some water" so notorious in our legislative history. 
 But the land with its hundreds of thousands of money 
 value yet remains, to admonish us, that we owe some- 
 thing to the State, if not to science. For one I shall 
 never think of the land, without hoping that a proper 
 instinct may sooner or later lead us to establish a 
 Botanical Professoi-ship, as some return for the Botanic 
 Garden we agreed to maintain and did not. 
 
 For it would not indelibly disgrace even Columbia 
 College, to teach Botany. Classic Oxford is not asham- 
 ed to teach it. On the far distant Black Sea, Odessa 
 boasts a noble garden. Another flourishes at Upsala, 
 on the frozen shores of the Baltic, — and even in our 
 own benighted hemis23here, the genius and energy of
 
 42 
 
 Dr. Ryeeson, the efficient superintendent of Education 
 of Upper Canada, has surrounded the great School at 
 Toronto with eight acres devoted to Botanical Science. 
 Canada eclipsing New- York, may sound strange, — but 
 stranger things have been seen. 
 
 But it may be said, and in truth it is loudly said, 
 that notwithstanding these generous donations from 
 the State, and the reasonable implication that all 
 its inhabitants should enjoy equal liberty in the 
 College, " the Episcopalianism " of the College is 
 " an established fact," and that the Trustees have the 
 right, and are bound in duty to keep it Episcopalian, 
 — in other words, to employ its funds and powers 
 exclusively to support and advance the Episcopal 
 Church. This is the claim which the accredited news- 
 paper organ in this city of a portion of the Church, 
 expressly asserts for it. Nothing can be more false than 
 this assumption, opposed as it is, at once, to history, 
 law, usage, and justice. 
 
 For what is meant, l:>y saying that the College is 
 "Episcopalian?" Must it not mean, that a majority 
 of its Trustees are and always must be Episcopalian ? 
 that its teachers must be selected, and its teaching 
 directed with a single eye to the maintenance of the 
 doctrines, discij^line and ceremonial of that parti- 
 cular Church ? Can an Episcopalian College omit 
 from its course of study, the proofs of the Apostolical 
 Succession, and, above all, of the inherent, paramount 
 authority of the Church itself? 
 
 The scrupulous care with which the charter divided, 
 among five differing sects, the ecclesiastical authority 
 in the Board, and the superadded vigilance of the 
 Dutch Church to secure a Professorship to guard its 
 peculiar doctrines from invasion, I have already stated.
 
 48 
 
 How tlien does the Episcopal Cburcli derive its exclu- 
 sive right ? 
 
 It is one of the prevailing errors, on this subject, 
 that the College was exclusively endowed l^y the 
 Episcopal Church, and agreed in return to maintain an 
 exclusively Episcopalian character. An examination 
 of the charter disproves this at once. 
 
 It states two facts, — one, that Trinity Church had 
 agreed to furnish lands for the College " worth £3,000 
 and upwards," — the other, that the Colony had con- 
 tributed .£3,448. For these two separate donations, it 
 reserves two separate equivalents. 
 
 The equivalent to the Church is defined by two 
 clauses, of which the first is this : — 
 
 " In consideration of such grant, the President of 
 the said College, for the time being, shall for ever 
 hereafter be a member of and in communion with 
 the Church of England, as by law established," and 
 the second is this : — 
 
 " There shall be for ever hereafter, public morning 
 and evening service constantly ]3erformed in the said 
 College, morning and evening for ever, by the Presi- 
 dent, Fellows, Professors, or Tutors, or one of tliem^ 
 according to the Liturgy of the Church of England, 
 as by law established, or such a collection of prayers 
 out of said Liturgy and a Collect peculiar for the 
 College, as shall be approved of from time to time 
 by the Governors " (now Trustees) " of said College 
 or the major part of any fifteen or more of them." 
 
 These two clauses embrace the sum total of the 
 equivalent reserved to the Church. The charter does 
 not grant to the Church, e^'eu a shadow of authority to 
 appoiut the President, or any Professor or other 
 officer, or to direct or interfere with the studies in any
 
 44 
 
 manner, still less to establish any theological or sec- 
 tarian standard, or to require any test or form of faith. 
 On the contrary, for the very purpose of guarding 
 against any undue influence of the Episcopalian Presi- 
 dent, it expressly empowers the Trustees exclusively to 
 direct " what books shall be publicly read and taught 
 in the College," and to appoint all Professors and 
 Tutors. 
 
 But the charter did reserve to the Colony, then 
 governed by the Crown, an equivalent of priceless 
 value— one that secured to the College for ever, the 
 inestimable right of religious freedom. This great con- 
 servative feature is found in that noble clause of the 
 charter, which declares that no ordinance, order or 
 by-law of the College shall extend to " exclude any 
 person of any religious denomination whatever, from 
 equal liberty and advantage of education, or from any 
 of the degrees, privileges, and immunities of the 
 said College, ooi account of ids particular tenets in 
 matters of religion^'' — and thus this great j)ublic in- 
 stitution founded for all British America, came into 
 the world, breathing at its very birth the pure and 
 blessed air of religious liberty, the vital element and 
 condition of its being. Called into life, in an eventful 
 age, just after the Protestant house of Hanover had 
 repelled an invasion to re-establish the civil and re- 
 ligious despotism of the Stuarts, the Whig Ministry 
 purposely imprinted on its charter this all -preserving 
 clause, for ever prohibiting the subjection of the Col- 
 lege to any ecclesiastical authority. 
 
 But strangely enough, the charter was disfigured 
 by one single feature of intolerance, standing, too, in cu- 
 rious opposition to the present assum23tion. As a mere 
 political safeguard, and to prevent the possibility of
 
 45 
 
 Jacobite influence, even in this distant colony, it requir- 
 ed eacli Trustee, not only to take an oath to supj^ort 
 the Protestant succession, but to subscribe a declaration 
 of his disbelief in Transubstantiation, — so that the only 
 religious body expressly excluded from the control of 
 the College, was that which maintained the doctrines 
 and authority of the See of Kome. 
 
 During the Revolutionary struggle, from 1776 to 
 1783, the College was trodden down, and disappeared. 
 But on the restoration of peace, the State sought it out 
 and brought it anew to life, renovating however, in yet 
 larger measure, every feature of its religious freedom. 
 The first section of the State Statute of April 13th, 
 1787, swept away every vestige of sectarian authority: 
 first, by enacting that no joersons should be Trustees, 
 " in virtue of any offices, characters or descriptions, 
 whatever," thereby cutting ofi", at a blow, the heads 
 of the five different sects : next, by dispensing with 
 the oath and declaration, thereby admitting Roman 
 Catholics to equal rights with their fellow-citizens: 
 next, by rendering eligible as President, Cso far as the 
 State could lawfully do it,) any person of any religious 
 denomination : and lastly, by dispensing with any par- 
 ticular form of prayer in the College. 
 
 The State then appointed twenty-nine individuals 
 Trustees of the College, to be gradually reduced, by 
 death or resignation, to twenty-four, the present num- 
 ber. Of these twenty-nine, only sixteen were Episco- 
 palians, and among the other thirteen was a learned 
 Jewish Rabbi, Gershom Seixas, who remained for 
 many years an honored and respected member of the 
 Board. 
 
 Now I do not refer to this act of the legislature, to 
 approve any part of it, which sought to discharge the
 
 46 
 
 College from any obligation, legal or moral, it owed to 
 Trinity Churcli ; but simply to show liow groundless is 
 tlie pretence, that the law has made the College Epis- 
 copalian, and how fully the State has intended to free it 
 from sectarian shackles. 
 
 The Episcopalianism of the President, and the form 
 of prayer in the College, had however been secured, not 
 only by the charter, but by express conditions contain- 
 ed in the conversance by Trinity Church of the College 
 site. The State had therefore neither leo-al nor consti- 
 tutional authority thus to disj)ense with these conditions, 
 and for one, I trust that the College will always respect 
 not only their legal, but their fair moral obligation, and 
 will honestly perform them, in their true intent and 
 spirit, without diminution or evasion. I hope that the 
 President may always be an Episcopalian, and that the 
 prescribed form of prayer may always be retained. But 
 beyond that point I contend, that neither the legal nor 
 the moral rights of Trinity Church or any other Church, 
 extend an inch. 
 
 Statistically it may be true, that a majority of our 
 Board may be Episcopalians, but that fact no more 
 makes the College Episcopalian, than a majority being 
 Democrats would make it Democratic. The accidental 
 preponderance of one or another sect or party, would no 
 more authorize a Trustee of that sect or party to gratify 
 his prejudices, religious or political, at the expense of 
 others having rights as sacred as his own, than it would 
 to convert the pecuniary property of the College to his 
 private use. 
 
 But the legal prohibition of religious proscription, 
 is by no means confined to this single clause in the 
 charter. On the 22d of March, 1810, the legislature 
 on the petition of the College, incorjDorated it anew, by
 
 47 
 
 a single act consolidating and defining its powers and 
 duties. The Board of Trustees named l^y that act, again 
 contained a large infusion of members not Episcopalian. 
 Not to mention those eminent divines, Doctor Livings- 
 ton, Doctor Mason and Doctor Romeyn, whom do we 
 find but Oliver Wolcott, a Unitarian, and grandfather 
 of Wolcott Gibbs ! — and to him and his associates did 
 the State then commit the care of the College, the di- 
 rection of its studies and choice of its Professors. The 
 act also condensed and invigorated the anti-sectarian 
 clause of the charter, by directing that none of the or- 
 dinances or by-laws of the College should " make the 
 religious tenets of any person, a condition of admission 
 to any privilege or office in the said College." 
 
 Nor was this all. The State immediately after 
 achieving its independence, passed a general law for 
 regulating Colleges and Academies, which broadly de- 
 clares that " no President or Professor shall be inelio:i- 
 ble for or by reason of any religious tenets that he 
 may or shall profess," — a practical application only, of 
 that noble provision in its Constitution of IT 77, that 
 "the free exercise and enjoyment of religious freedom 
 and worship without discrimination, shall for ever here- 
 after be allowed within this State, to all mankind." Need 
 we add, that in every successive revision of the laws. 
 this great declaratory provision shines out in living 
 light, — its very diction gaining strength and compre- 
 hensiveness, at every step ? 
 
 It now stands a fundamental portion of the law of 
 the land, — which all good men obey, — summed up in 
 these few but signal words : — 
 
 "No Eeligious Qualification or Test shall be 
 required from any Trustee, President, Principal, or 
 other oflicer of an incorporated college or academy,
 
 48 
 
 or as a condition of admission to any privilege iu the 
 same." 
 
 Tlie constant and uninterrupted current of legis- 
 lation from 1754 to the present hour, shows con- 
 clusively, not only that the law has not made the 
 College exclusively Episcopalian, but has expressly 
 forbidden it to be so, and has guarded the equal rights 
 of every other denomination, by every form of speech 
 known to human law. 
 
 Nor has the College by any act or usage of its own, 
 adopted a sectarian character. Not only have all its offi- 
 cers constantly denied the allegation, but the College 
 itself by its own deliberate corporate act has sigually 
 disproved it. More than forty years ago, its Board 
 of Trustees created the office of "Provost," for the 
 very purpose of committing to a distinguished Cal- 
 vinist divine, under that title, the real authority of the 
 President. An Episcopal President nominally remain- 
 ed, to satisfy the legal condition of the conveyance 
 from Trinity Church, but Dr. Masojst, the Provost, — 
 whom no one will suspect of E23iscopalianism, — dis- 
 charged all the presidential duties not merely formal. 
 I cannot say, that the good faith of the transaction is 
 particularly apparent, but it shows how completely the 
 College intended to divest itself of any sectarian char- 
 acter. 
 
 The office of Provost died with De. Mason, and the 
 actual Presidency of the College has since been honestly 
 filled, as it ought to be, by Episcopalians, but never by 
 any incumbent willing to use his place for any sectarian 
 purpose. I need not tell you that Cuaeles KmG, the 
 present upright and honored head of the College, long 
 a member of the Episcopal Church, and like others of 
 us, anxious for its advancement in all proper modes,
 
 49 
 
 stands foremost among those, who resist this medi- 
 tated assault upon religious liberty. 
 
 But further still. The Trustees, as a body, by their 
 own official act, have distinctly passed upon this very 
 question. Drawing a distinction between the sciences 
 which may be, and those which cannot be connected, 
 directly or indirectly, with religious truth, they have 
 adopted a Statute, now standing in full force on their 
 records, which provides that, 
 
 ^'■Any religious denomination who shall endow a 
 Professorship in the Classics, in Political, Mathemat- 
 ical or Physical Science^ or in the Literature of any of 
 the ancient or modern Languages, to the amount of 
 twenty thousand dollars, shall /or 6^'6'r liave the right of 
 nominating a ^yrofessor for the same, subject to the ap- 
 probation of the Trustees, who shall hold his office l:)y 
 the same tenure as the other Professors of the Col- 
 lege." 
 
 INTow will any one pretend that after an invitation 
 like this, we could reasonably or honorably reject the 
 nominee of a religious denomination, fitted in all other 
 respects for such a Professorshij), for the sole reason 
 that he belonged to that very denomination? Who 
 would not exclaim, that we carried toleration on our 
 lips, but intolerance in our hearts ? and-surely we can 
 not prescribe one rule of faith for Professors thus se 
 lected, and another for those we select ourselves. 
 
 The arrogant assumption that " Unitarians have no 
 religion at all," and are not entitled to be called a " reli- 
 gious denomination," I must really pass over, as too ab- 
 surd for grave discussion. The Jews who worship the 
 God of Abraham and Moses and David, and believe in 
 the Old Testament, are surely a " religious denomina- 
 tion," — and can we deny that title to Unitarians, who 
 
 4
 
 - 50 
 
 worship the same God, and believe both the Old Testa- 
 ment and the New ? 
 
 But I hear it asserted that even if all this be true, 
 — even if the law and our contract with the State plain- 
 ly prohibit this religious proscription, both may never- 
 theless be safely and honorably evaded and nullified, 
 — that if any Trustee conscientiously think a Unitarian 
 unfit as such, to be a Professor, he may lawfully take 
 the fact into account in giving his vote, inasmuch as the 
 vote need not be preceded by any by-law, or any de- 
 claration of the motive which governs it, — that be- 
 cause this motive is secret -and incapable of proof, 
 it will be presumed to be sudh as the law allows, — 
 and that no one has any right to say, that the vote was 
 not given exclusively with reference to the fitness of 
 the candidate, apart from any religious test or qualifi- 
 cation. Summed up in short, it is that the " higher 
 law " of conscience overrides the obligation of any 
 human law, or the solemnity of any human contract, 
 and justifies their violation, — if the act be known only 
 to him who commits it. But if conscience demand or 
 justify such a vote, it equally demands an ordinance or 
 by-law establishing the qualification which governs the 
 vote, — and if the one would be a violation of law and 
 duty, is not the other still less excusable ? 
 
 .But we have little occasion for these nice distinc- 
 tions, for we hear it avowed in unmistakeable terms by 
 members of our body, that with their present convic- 
 tions, they cannot and will not vote for a Unitarian. 
 They further distinctly declare, that they would vote 
 for WoLCOTT GiBBS for the present Professorship, if he 
 were a member of Trinity Church, or of the Dutch 
 Church, but that, as at present advised, they must and 
 '\ ill vote against him, because he is a Unitarian.
 
 51 
 
 Now on this state of facts, will anyone deny, that 
 he is excluded from the Professorship, in the very 
 words of the charter, '■'■on account of Ids 'particular 
 tenets in matters of religion ?" 
 
 If he would be qualified for the place, by being a 
 member of Trinity Church, but is disqualified by being a 
 Unitarian, is not this the requiring a ^'' religioiis quali- 
 fication^^ which the general law says shall not be re- 
 quired ? 
 
 If he would be admitted to the oflice of Professor 
 if a member of Trinity Church, and is not admitted 
 because he attends another Church,, is not this " a con^ 
 dition of admission to an office" in the College, which 
 the charter of 1810 prohibits? 
 
 I revert then to the fundamental proposition with 
 which I commenced, that as Trustees of Columbia Col- 
 lege, we hold our offices and the property committed 
 to us by the State, only in trust, for certain definite 
 objects distinctly defined in our charter, and for none 
 other. Neither the promotion of any creed, nor the 
 suppression of any heresy, is among those objects, and 
 to vote with a view to them, is a breach of trust and 
 an abuse of power. 
 
 Rely upon it, the community never can be con- 
 vinced, that if WoLCOTT Gibbs be now rejected, he is not 
 rejected by reason of his religious tenets, — still less 
 that their moral sense can be satisfied, that a mere 
 by-law or resolution to do a wrong, which leaves room 
 for reconsideration until acted on, can be worse than 
 the wrong itself. To maintain that although a by-law 
 excluding a heretic would be unlawful, a direct vote 
 excluding him for heresy would be lawful, will re 
 quire a casuistry so subtle, as to be generally uniiit<'' 
 ligible.
 
 62 
 
 The fundamental policy of the law in favor of ab- 
 solute religious freedom, is not lightly to be evaded. 
 Every device, however ingenious, that tends to under- 
 mine it, will have to pass the ordeal of a stern and hostile 
 scrutiny, and I fear not only for the College but for 
 the Church, that those, who are ever ready to adopt 
 any outcry against Her and her ministei'S, will assert 
 in simple Saxon terms, that the present is not a ques- 
 tion of tolerance or intolerance, but of Right and 
 Wrong, — of Good Faith and Bad. 
 
 I believe the act, if consummated, to be fraught 
 with mischief and danger, not only to the College, but 
 the Church and her most valued interests. I know that 
 a large body of the laity, and many of the most pious 
 and distinguished of the clergy, speak of it with the 
 sternest reprobation, holding that even religion cannot 
 afford to have it matter of discussion, whether the 
 means used to advance it, are not immoral and unlaw- 
 ful. The great community around us sees and can see 
 nothing, but the plain moral obligation of the law, — the 
 ever enduring sanctity of the contract, which none can 
 violate or evade, without becoming a by-word and re- 
 proach. 
 
 Nor will the evil end here. Science will feel itself 
 persecuted and insulted in one of her purest and 
 noblest votaries, and, however unjustly, will attribute 
 to religion a secret fear of the studies which open the 
 great book of nature. The cause will be deemed weak, 
 that thus seems to shun the light. Men will revert to 
 the history of the Church, — now all but buried, — 
 which records the imprisonment of Galileo, — the ex- 
 communication of Copernicus, — the denunciation, but 
 just withdrawn, of the solar system as heretical, — 
 or looking still further back, to the war upon the Clas-
 
 53 
 
 sics tliemselves, by a short-sighted, half-educated 
 clergy. 
 
 The world was rejoicing in the belief, that the 
 Church was growing wiser, — that Science was standing 
 at her side, the chosen champion, the ablest ally of 
 Written Revelation. The concord so happily com- 
 menced, was the bright, the distinguishing feature of 
 this our day and time ; why rudely dissolve it ? Why 
 lead Religion back, into the gloom of by-gone 
 ages ? Why not interweave it into the framework of 
 advancing society? Why not consecrate and share 
 with Man, his victories over Nature ? With the whole 
 world emancipating its institutions from needless 
 shackles, what infatuation leads us thus to fetter ours ? 
 Why blight the College just budding into usefulness, 
 just come to man's estate ?: 
 
 But there would be no end to the reflections which 
 this broader view of the subject suggests, and I must 
 close. Reared at another institution, and not, like 
 yourself, one of the honored alumni of this, I never- 
 theless owe her my best affections, my most devoted 
 efforts. Throughout the many years in which it has been 
 my pride to serve her, I have never ceased to strive 
 for her interest and her honor. On an occasion like 
 the present, it was not possible, with any adequate 
 sense of official. responsibility, to refrain from exjDress- 
 ing, however imperfectly, the views naturally arising 
 of the vital importance of the questions involved. I 
 trust them to the intelligence, integrity, and conscien- 
 tiousness of those with whom I have the honor to act, 
 in the confident hope that the differences which have 
 divided us, may ere long disappear, — that we may all 
 be found cordially united in the grateful labor of en- 
 larging the scope^ and preserving the freedom of a
 
 54 
 
 College, so plainly iuteuded by the sovereign authority 
 as a comprehensive and liberal seat of learning, — that 
 our best and Highest ambition will be, to rear on its 
 foundations a broad and ever enduring fabric, befitting 
 our rich Metropolis, our powerful State, our rapidly 
 expanding Empire. 
 
 With true regard, respectfully 
 
 your friend and colleague, 
 
 SAMUEL B. RUGGLES.
 
 
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