LD /<5'7 /89I $B 71 075 06* *SO LIB R ARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. GIFT OF Received Shelf No. - . *5 .\J,/ > > THE INAUGURATION OF MERRILL EDWARDS GATES PH.D., LL.D., L. H.D. AS PRESIDENT OF AMHERST COLLEGE MDCCCXCI AMHERST COLLEGE THE INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES, WEDNESDAY, 24 JUNE, MDCCCXCI, IN COLLEGE HALL, AT TEN-THIRTY O'CLOCK. THE REV. DR. RICHARD SALTER STORRS, Of the Board of Trustees, Presiding. Music. PRAYER by the Rev. Professor William Seymour Tyler, D. D., LL. D. Hymn. Lord of all being ! throned afar, Our midnight is Thy smile withdrawn ; Thy glory flames from sun and star; Our noontide is Thy gracious dawn; Centre and soul of every sphere, Our rainbow arch Thy mercy's sign ; Yet to each loving heart how near ! All, save the clouds of sin, are Thine ! Sun of our life, Thy quickening ray Lord of all life, below, above, Sheds on our path the glow of day ; Whose light is truth, whose warmth is love, Star of our hope, Thy softened light Before Thy ever-blazing throne Cheers the long watches of the night. We ask no lustre of our own. Grant us Thy truth to make us free, And kindling hearts that burn for Thee, Till all Thy living altars claim One holy light, one heavenly flame ! ADDRESS on the part of the Trustees by The Rev. Richard Salter Storrs, D. D., LL. D. DELIVERY OF KEYS, CHARTER AND SEAL, AND ADDRESS by The Rev. Julius H. Seelye, D. D., LL. D., Ex-President of the College. INAUGURAL ADDRESS by President Merrill Edwards Gates, PH. D., LL. D., L. H. D. Benediction. PREFATORY NOTE. The public exercises in connection with the inaugu- ration of Merrill Edwards Gates, LL. D., as the sixth president of Amherst College, took place at the Col- lege Hall, Amherst, on Wednesday morning, June 24, 1891, at ten- thirty o'clock. The addresses are herewith published, by vote of the board of trustees. REPORT OF DR. STORRS'S ADDRESS. Rev. Dr. Storrs spoke, in part, as follows : By ap- pointment of the trustees it becomes my pleasant and honorable duty, as one of the older members of that body, to act as president of this occasion, when no president is needed, to see that the charter, seal, and keys of the college are delivered to Dr. Merrill E. Gates, to see that he is formally installed in the impor- tant and honorable position which he has practically held already for the current academic year. The sig- nificant and self-interpreting act of delivering the col- lege insignia will be performed by President Seelye ; but I am asked briefly to express for the trustees their sense of the importance of the occasion, with the grati- fication and high expectation with which they have come to it. The titular dignity only imperfectly represents the importance of the office of college president. He has a large and constant influence in the faculty, and in the board of trustees ; and he represents each of these bodies to the other, as no other officer does or can. In this delicate position the college president has often need of the patience which our honored father, Prof. Tyler, has prayed that he may have. He needs also courage, wisdom, and tact, with a clear understanding 5 6 AMHERST COLLEGE. of all wants of the college. In his office he may do a great work for the institution, both within and without the college. The personality of the president impresses itself more continuously on the students than does that of any individual teacher, although the influence of the latter may at times be more intense on that part of the student-mind which he immediately reaches. The president is at the same time to represent the college abroad, and to attract to it, if he may, influence, confi- dence, and affectionate enthusiasm. It is not his prov- ince to solicit subscriptions by personal appeal, but rather to call such forth by beauty of character, by eminence in scholarship, and by relation to great public movements. It is of cardinal importance therefore, we think, that he be apt and able, competent and culti- vated, for the service ; and we find in him who is to be our president these qualities, we are sure, while we abundantly confide in his proved ability. Of the five preceding presidents of Amherst College, every one has had some special fitness for his work, and every one has done memorable service. I have known all but the first of them, personally. The rep- utation which he left behind him has always repre- sented President Moore as being justly eminent, as a scholar and as a teacher. Humphrey, Hitchcock, and Stearns had sweetness and strength, wisdom and grace, steadfastness of purpose and fervor of consecration. A large, rich, and generous character was manifested in each of them ; but none has a higher place in our esteem and honor than he who last year felt con- strained to retire from active duties, because of phys- ical infirmity, but who is able to be with us to-day, INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 7 greatly to our delight. We hope that he may long reside here, and add constant benefit to the college by the wisdom of his counsels and by the splendor of his name. The function of the Christian college was never more important than it is to-day. The materialistic tenden- cies of the age need to be instructed, elevated, purified, and restrained by the influence of such institutions. The multitude of questions pressing to the front in politics, science, religion, and social reform require the touch of precisely that influence which goes forth from the college, an influence which is continually gaining a wider reach. Let us never forget that American col- leges, with the churches around them, the churches which have always hitherto been behind them, hold in their hands the future of civilization in this country measurably in the world. Whatever adds to their equipment, fame, and power insures and hastens the coming of that day, foreseen by seers and promised by the Lord, which it is the glory of our age to be march- ing toward with strenuous and swift celerity, the day of universal wisdom and righteousness, praise and peace. With unfeigned gladness, and gratitude to God for the opportunity, we welcome to the presidency of the col- lege him whose fitness for the office and for its great services has been proved elsewhere, and in whose capacity and culture, in whose character and enthu- siasm, we entirely and joyfully confide. AMHERST COLLEGE. ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT SEELYE. PRESIDENT GATES : Fourteen years ago it was my privilege to receive upon this platform the charter and the keys of the college. It is now no less my privilege to transmit these same to your friendly and capable hands. Their surrender to your service signifies that you need no longer stand outside the college, but may enter within its innermost doors, which it now becomes your rightful province to open and to close. We are assured that you will ever keep these open to the truth and never close them against freedom. Truth and free- dom truth coming from whatever direction, and free- dom knowing no bounds but those the truth has set have ever been the light and the life of this college ; and we do not doubt, from your work and worth, from your open eye and open heart, that they will continue to be the glory and the strength of your entire admin- istration. May He who is -the truth, and in whose Spirit alone there is freedom, clothe you and crown you with his constant fellowship, and give you increas- ing gladness and power in the work now committed to your hands ; and may He bless the college with all good through all coming time ! INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. RESPONSE OF PRESIDENT GATES. PRESIDENT SEELYE : The trust which by this sym- bolic act you commit to me, I accept with sincere humility as I remember what Amherst has grown to be under your wise leadership. Yet, as I feel the strength of the institution, as I look around me upon the many friends of Amherst assembled here to-day, I accept the trust not without high hope ; and my confi- dence is strong that God will continue to guide this institution, which was founded in his name, and has always been distinctively a Christian college. As you have laid aside, too soon, the duties of the office you have long adorned, you have welcomed me to my work here with a self-forgetfulness which has been a rare lesson to us all, and with a cordiality, a generous confidence, which I can never forget. I could hardly express a higher wish than this, that when it shall become my duty to surrender this trust, I may be able to carry with me from its discharge some- thing of that consciousness of work faithfully done, of esteem and honor and love won, and confidence always merited, which must be yours to-day. EDUCATION FOR POWER. THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT MERRILL EDWARDS GATES, LL.D., L.H.D., Amherst College, June 24, 1891. LIGHT AND LIFE FROM THE COLLEGE. There are reasons deep in the life of college-bred men, for the loyal interest, the abounding hopeful- ness and joy which mark commencement gatherings at our American colleges. That political philosopher, an Englishman by birth and training, who has recently shown such sympathetic clearness of vision in studying the life and the institutions of the "American Common- wealth," professes the conviction that we Americans "are capable of an ideality surpassing that of English- men and Frenchmen." The college life of every col- lege-bred American is indissolubly associated with his highest ideals. If he is capable of enthusiasm, if he knew noble teaching in college, the memory of his col- lege days must stir all that is noblest in his later man- hood. The very function of the college challenges enthusiasm and admiration. It exists to develop life 10 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. II and light and power. He who loves a rich, full, strong life must honor the true college! To name a college like ours is to name a starry, radiant theme! The mission of the college is to diffuse the benefi- cent light of ideas. How can a lighthouse be selfish ? Light and life are themes which no man can belittle; and no surroundings can take from them their essen- tial dignity. More light for mind and soul, more and fuller life-power to be used in the world's best work this is the significance of the college. What light and freedom of soul mark the intercourse of those whose occupation is the discovery of truth and the diffusion of ideas ! He ranks highest who gives most unselfish service. In the world of ideas we gain by giving; and the force we use in serving others measures while it increases the force we can receive. The power that is "generated at a Christian college diffuses itself like fresh air and sunshine, making better all men whom it touches. THE COLLEGE BINDS TOGETHER SUCCESSIVE GENERATIONS. The college knits generation to generation among the men of thought in our land. Older men are kept in touch with younger men through the life-giving power of those ideas which time cannot touch. A visit to Alma Mater renews in the white-haired alum- nus "our vernal tendencies to hope," as he meets the young men who here " walk as prophecies of the next age." The self-perpetuating life of such an institu- tion makes it clear to us that each new generation 12 AMHERST COLLEGE. comes into the life of the world as God's divinely com- missioned reinforcement for all good causes. We see that, beneath the unchanging sway of principles cher- ished in the heart, all the torce of their new manhood is to be directed to serving their fellow men, in that future to whose changing environment, it may be, we are no longer capable of adapting ourselves. In that twentieth century whose vast, titanic forces the thun- dering machinery of this our age of steam but halt foretells, of whose intensified activities the flashing power of electricity gives us lightning-like glimpses in the tremendous social enginery which that age will have developed, these our younger brothers, our sons, must take a part for which we are not fitted, which we cannot even foresee. But we know that if they have learned from us the " preciousness of truth as distin- guished from facts," they will meet the future fearlessly as valiant servants of Truth and of the Most High God. CHANGE, TO MEET A CHANGING ENVIRONMENT, THE MARK OF LIFE. Thus generation is knit to generation, in the noblest service of the race, by those lofty ideals that are the living force in the life of a college. Changes in a college are inevitable. But they are not like changes in the plan of a noble building, altering its essential features, destroying its characteristic beauty and its true indi- viduality. Indeed, to speak of the college as a " temple of learning" is to use a term which suggests too much that is mechanical in form and method, and remote from the life of to-day. Life is the key-note a life INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 13 that endures in the individual and in the genus. The continuity of an institution that deserves to live is not a perduring continuity of form; it is the essential con- tinuity of conscious life. The college is organic life. It exists to foster, deepen and enforce life, physical, in- tellectual and spiritual. And it is itself instinct with life. It carries with it the solemn responsibility to make changes in its organism in order to meet changes in its environment. The power to do this is the closest approach biologists can make to a definition of life. And a college which had lost the power thus without sacrifice of its ideals to adapt itself to new conditions, would be a college which had ceased to have in it the power of life, and the capacity to give life to those whom it might seek to train. OUR TIME DEMANDS SYSTEMATIC EDUCATION FOR ALL MEN. True education increases knowledge, but still more emphatically does it strengthen the will; and in the in- dividual and in society it develops power. Our own age is awakening wonderfully to the truth that such education is essential to true manhood, and that so far as possible all sorts and conditions of men should receive such an education. The desirability of an education for all has never before been clear to all classes of men. We no longer find any who venture to argue that it is well to have an ignorant body of toilers to do the world's hardest work. Toilers with the hand are now expected to be men who think, men who at least wish their children educated. " Congresses 14 AMHERST COLLEGE. of labor" discuss the deepest sociological problems. Gradually, man is taking possession of his entire being, is learning that, whatever may be his occupation, he has a right to use to the full all his powers. In war, bayonets that think make victorious armies; in the nobler contests of peace, workmen who think, workmen who know, win the triumphs of industrialism. POPULAR EDUCATION IS THE IMMINENT QUESTION. Practically and manifestly, to-day the question of popular education is the imminent question. Popular government is established among the leading races of the world. The people are sovereign. And the edu- cation of the people thus acquires all that interest and significance which under an absolute monarchy used to attach to the education of the heir to the throne. The sovereign people must be educated, or we must know all the evils of living under an ignorant sovereign ! Parish education, public-school education, the higher education of the colleges and universities, and university extension to carry something of the advantages of the university to those who cannot go to the university these themes properly fill a large place in the thought of our time. THE SCHOLAR AND THE LABORER. One manifest outcome of this close connection be- tween the thought of the laboring toilers with the hand, and the life of our higher institutions of learning, is seen in the clear apprehension of the truth that an education INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 15 must be worked for. Educated men must have been toilers, in the process of gaining an education. And the vision of ennobling truth which comes with education lays on every educated man the sacred obligation, by virtue of his noble gift, nobly to serve his fellow men by unselfish toil ! Strong, clear, consecutive thinking is the hardest work and the most productive work done in God's work-day world! The scholar is, and must be, a laborer. The ache of the well-worked brain is as truly deserving of respect as is the ache of the bending back or the wearied arm. There is no chasm of moral effort between the laboring man and the educated man. And the finest flowers of our century's civilization are seen in the " Toynbee Halls " and the " College Colonies " where the ardor of soul, the strength of aspiration of the young collegian, by friendly contact and familiar intercourse is kindled in the men and women who toil with the hands. Thus labor is in every way dignified. Heroism is developed. There is an end to the danger of " Forgetting that in holy labor lies The scholarship severe of human life." " UNIVERSITY EXTENSION," AND UNIVERSITY INTENSION. Thus to bring scholarship to bear upon the problem of uplifting the uneducated is a noble work. With this strong trend of our time toward popular courses of study, toward university extension, every generous soul must sympathize. But of the dangers from the abuse 1 6 AMHERST COLLEGE. of this system, every thoughtful man should also be aware. This work of university extension has so laid hold of the popular consciousness that it bids fair to demand of many so-called centers of the higher edu- cation far more of teaching force than they can spare without injustice to their own undergraduates. It is a familiar principle of logic that " as the whole of ex- tension increases, the whole of intension decreases." The more you diffuse a given amount of force, the less intense it must become. From all men who value the higher education and its interests in America, there should arise an earnest appeal to our centres of higher learning, that along with this work of university exten- sion there be a strenuous demand for university inten- sion as well, for intensity of effort, for singleness of aim, for stress of will, that among all these popular courses the intensity of the intellectual life may not be dissi- pated, the integrity of lofty scholarship may not be lost. Quite apart from the work of popularizing education, there rests upon our best colleges and universities a peculiarly sacred trust. It is their true function, first of all, to maintain high standards of intellectual achieve- ment, to advance the boundaries of human knowledge, and to train most effectively leaders in education. There must be institutions for the higher education, places consecrated to the highest learning apart from its immediately practical results. The work of university extension will in time so far separate itself from the college and the university as not to threaten their effi- ciency by draining the vitality of their teaching force, and not to lower their standards by confusing superfi- cial work with scholarly achievement. INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. I/ AS A PEOPLE, DO WE NEED LESS OR MORE OF STUDIOUS CULTURE ? What does our time most need ? Is broad and thor- ough culture, for a considerable body of our citizens, essential to a strong and noble national life ? Do we agree with Aristotle and Plato that] not merely to live, but " to live nobly," is the aim of the State, of organ- ized social life ? Representing a college in one of the earliest settled and most influential portions of our country, do we believe in a higher education which broadens the young man's outlook and liberalizes his spirit, which gives him the use of the full round of his mental and moral powers, before it raises the question of his special profession, or undertakes to train the youth in what the Germans call Brod-Studien? Is the need of our time shorter, less thorough, and less exacting courses and habits of study at the centres of higher learning ? Or does a thoughtful study of the past for the sake of its bearing on the present show us that the ready adoption of temporary expedients for the attainment of desired ends is becoming too marked a national trait ? Should we not encourage prolonged investigation by well-trained minds, as essential to the solution of social, political, and scientific problems ? As we begin to approach the limits of the immense advantage over other nations given to us by our vast territory and our great natural resources, as competi- tion with the other peoples of the world in the world's market becomes keen, and must constantly grow keener, is it not becoming evident that the legislation which touches the tariff and commerce and corporations re- 3 1 8 AMHERST COLLEGE. quires careful study and calls for the consideration of broadly trained experts ? And thus, on every ground, from the highest to the lowest, do we not find our- selves impelled to the maintenance of still higher ideals of scholarly attainment at the centres of liberal educa- tion ? Persistence in high purpose, concentrated en- ergy of effort, a league among colleagues of high schol- arship and of still higher scholarly and scientific ideals, are essential to the advancement of science at the uni- versity, and to the best work of education for power at the college. Every professor must feel that the very best work is demanded of him by a body of friendly, appreciative, but keenly critical colleagues. And the great work of both college and university must be donej not with untrained student-minds, however en- thusiastic, but with men whose previous training has qualified them to appreciate, to profit by, and to share in this higher, scholarly work. Sound learning, a truly higher education, calls for some conservative influence at its centres. To demand high standards of scholarship is not to be blind to the practical results of a liberal education. Nowhere else in the world has systematic education received so much attention as in Germany, for the last three generations. And no people in the world is proving itself so intensely practical in all lines of effort as are the Germans of our time. In business, in manu- factures, in trade and commerce, in war, in the arts and sciences, and in high scholarship, those who in accord- ance with carefully matured plans of education have mastered the theory are the men who excel in the affairs of practical life. After all, it is only the man INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 19 who sees intelligently (and the word "theorist" means "one who sees" as distinguished from one who goes on blindly), it is only the man who sees and acts upon a sound theory who in his practice is intelligent and efficient. To do thoroughly their own appointed work then is the first duty of the college and the university. Their essential work can never lie in extraneous efforts. No activity in external affairs can atone for the lack of thorough work and high requirements in their proper sphere. HIGHER STANDARDS AT THE UNIVERSITY; MORE THOROUGH TRAINING FOR POWER AT THE COLLEGES. The great needs of our system of higher education to-day seem to me to be two : At the universities, the maintenance of higher standards; at the colleges, the formation of strong character, scholarly habits, and capacity for intelligent leadership in American life. THE UNIVERSITY. We look for the fuller development of the university in the highest sense of the term, of the university con- ducted in the interest of science, of the advancement of human knowledge by prolonged study and by inde- pendent investigation. The true university is not a mere congeries of professional schools, where half- educated young men are to be put through a hurried course on their way to law, or medicine, or preaching, 20 AMHERST COLLEGE. as a trade. The American university must be some- thing higher than this. It must be an institution for the cultivation of learning, of pure science; for the prosecution of advanced scientific study without imme- diate applications to bread-winning, without immediate rewards of any kind. "In the university the idea of science is primary, that of the professions is secondary; in the special schools the idea of the professions is primary, that of science is secondary," says Matthew Arnold. THE THREE-YEARS' COURSE. To promote this higher culture at the university, there must be a willingness to give time to it. Does it argue well for the prevalence of the highest ideals at our universities, that some of them are marked by so little willingness to take time for the higher work in education ? What does it signify that along with the agitation for an eight-hour working day, which is sup- posed to mean more of culture for the many, there is also an agitation for a three-years' college course, which certainly means less of culture for the few? Is not this suggestive of a leveling that does not promise well for the higher education? Let shorter courses of study be organized, as means of speedy progress to- ward some desired end, where there is need for such courses. But let the fact that they are abbreviated courses be clearly recognized. Shall the higher learn- ing be cheapened in the effort to prove that many men with a little learning are to be desired at a university, rather than fewer men with more of learning? Shall the desire for numbers be allowed to dominate our INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 21 higher institutions until their courses of study are ad- justed entirely as a bid for large classes ? If there is to be a " neck and neck " race between certain of our " universities " in the effort to increase numbers and win popular favor by shortening courses of study, and surrendering the prerogatives of culture to the claims of quick money-making views of life, or to a hurried entrance upon a profession, then must sound learning seek sanctuary from " business methods," even if it be driven again to take refuge with the clergy ! But other considerations will prevail. It is not so important that a young man enter a professional school at twenty, as it is that he be a well-grounded, strong man in his profession at thirty. The superficial pre- cocity resulting from certain features of the French system of education has been praised quite as highly as it deserves. In training men, whether for literature, science, art, or the professions, we must not for the sake of quick maturity and early facility ignore that slow but sturdy growth of character based on sound morals which is the strength of the Anglo-Saxon race. THE COLLEGE, TRAINING FOR POWER. " The feature which gives the university its dig- nity and invests its name with special honor " is " a thorough discipline previously undergone, and a liberal culture already attained." To the development of the ideal American university, nothing is more essential than the maintenance of the sound, thorough, scholarly American college. And the education given at the American college should be essentially liberalizing in scope and formative of character. 22 AMHERST COLLEGE. Although our age is called preeminently an age of science, the poets who in our time have kept the strongest hold upon the English-speaking race have concerned themselves chiefly with the development of the soul. The history of the growth of a soul under the refining, educating influence of a great grief is Tennyson's masterpiece. And Browning's poetry as a whole illustrates the belief he somewhere professes, that " little else is worth study except the history of a soul." The college exists primarily for the fuller, stronger development of the life of a soul ! " To help the young soul, to add energy, inspire hope, and blow the coals into a useful flame," that is the highest function of the college. The college that knows its proper work never forgets this truth. The college does not exist, as does the university, primarily for independent .investigation. Its function is not chiefly publication, by students or by faculty. Its work is not that of the technical school, which teaches a man an art or a trade ; nor is it that of the professional school, which gives him the tech- nical training for his chosen profession. To give to the young man the full consciousness of well-rounded powers, to bring into harmonious play, into symmetri- cal development, all the forces of his mind and heart and soul, this is the object of college training. THE VERY BEST PROFESSORS FOR WORK WITH UNDERGRADUATES. Here at Amherst we do not fear the name college we feel no eager haste to assume the name " univer- INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 23 sity." We are for the present content with the know- ledge that we are doing more thorough work, and often more advanced work, than is done at many so-called " universities." We do not know of any university professors (if they have the divine gift of teaching) who are too good for us to desire. It is our purpose to retain and to secure at Amherst instructors of the very highest ability, and to give to our undergraduates, from the beginning of the course, the advantage of instruction by men who are masters of their subjects and of the art of teaching. No well- prepared student who comes to Amherst from the best fitting schools in the land is to have reason to complain, as he must at many colleges, that after being well taught by masterly men at school, at college he has fallen into the hands of inexperienced instructors to be the object of experiments in teaching. For the present, we leave untouched the question of more postgraduate work. We believe that for the furtherance of higher education and for the enrichment and strengthening of American life, nothing is more important than the thorough work of the thoroughly scholarly college, liberalizing men's minds, keeping alive a love of culture as distinct from a desire prematurely to narrow one's studies for bread-winning or to se- cure an early reputation as a specialist. First the man, broadly developed the scholarly, well-trained man! Then the specialist ! And we point to the position taken by the alumni of Amherst, when in the higher schools they meet men whose training has been less broad than theirs, as evidence of the soundness of our system. 24 AMHERST COLLEGE. CHARACTER IS VITALIZED TRUTH; AND THIS IS POWER. We stand for an ideal of life, for a steady self disci- pline of desire and will, for a broad general foundation to underlie subsequent special acquisitions ; and above all, for such an essential manliness as can be acquired only through moral liberty attained in character by voluntary, cheerfully rendered obedience to moral law to God. The end which we propose to ourselves at Amherst College is the development of power in the personality of our students. To develop power of mind and heart, to bring this power into voluntary, intelligent obedience to moral law, through such strong will-power in each man as only high training can secure, and to conduct this training in the spirit that sees the highest standards of manliness in Him who was incarnate Godlikeness, who was very God, yet a human-hearted, sinless man this is our aim. To develop power by developing character through the uplifting influence of Truth this is the work to which Amherst and her sister col- leges are pledged. There is no nobler work! No efforts make larger returns than do those which are intelligently put into the work of shaping men, of firing will-power with moral force. Character based on intelligence and integrity is more important than all else. Power is stored up in character as it is stored nowhere else. Men of character, of bioad training, but of strong will-power and sound morals, are the crying need of the world to-day, in natural science, in the professions, in business life. INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 25 LIBERALLY EDUCATED MEN OF CHARACTER ARE MEN OF POWER. The pressing want of our time is manly men, of liberal culture and sound head and heart, in every walk of life. The influence of such men ameliorates all the relations of life, and lends to it richness and tone. Christian manhood is a greater thing than any profes- sion. We do not need a greater number of doctors, or lawyers, or merchants. We do need a greater num- ber of liberally educated men who value Christian education above dollars and cents. What else can dis- pel the awful cloud of ignorance and vice that blackens our census map of the South, and storms at all our ports of immigration? If the dangers which threaten us from these sources are to be averted, we must look not to "home mission- aries " alone, not to clergymen only, not chiefly to the efforts of politicians or statesmen, but to the increase of the number and the influence of those liberally educated Christian men whose standard of judgment and action, in every vocation, shall raise the tone of public opinion and purify the public morals. We need men who "know, in order that they may do " ; men who are bent upon reducing right theories of life to right living. Life-power and moral truth are the mightiest forces in the universe; and in character these two forces are combined. God is Life and Truth; Godlikeness worked out in life is character; into sound character has entered the " omnipotence of a prin- ciple " ; and the almightiness of God himself is pledged to make character, which is vitalized truth, the mighti- est power within the control of man ! 4 26 AMHERST COLLEGE. If the danger of our national life is, as Bryce warns us, that the individual steadily counts for less, while the mass counts for more, how essential it is that every young man who is to be a leader in American life be taught to set a high value on his own manhood, and be endowed with power, and with the passionate desire to do all he can to build up the manhood of every man about him! "Ten men who care" for this are worth more to the national life than a thousand who do not care ! A WORD AS TO THE HISTORY AND THE TRADITIONS OF AMHERST. There has grown up here at Amherst an institution with whose history and spirit most of you are familiar. In its very inception, those who founded that earlier school which was the germ of the college, saw clearly the important influence of higher institutions of learn- ing upon the social and political life of the nation. The earliest articles of corporation quaintly declare that its founders were led to undertake the work by "contem- plating the felicitous state of society which is predicted in the Scriptures of truth." Broader culture, higher learning were in their judgment essential to the coming in of this "more felicitous state of society." But from the first the culture they sought was to be a reverent, Christian culture. In his inaugural address President Humphrey devoutly said of the college: "Our confident expectation of its future growth and prosperity rests chiefly upon its being consecrated to Christ, . . . and being daily commended to God in so many closets and families." And he outlined ideas which his successors INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 27 have strongly developed, when he said : " So long as body and soul remain united, too much care can hardly be bestowed upon the former for the sake of the latter"; and again : " Thankful for opportunities, let every Am- herst student depend tipon himself, more and more." The spirit which has pervaded the college is seen again in the words of President Hitchcock, whose de- vout piety endeared him to all, while his work in nat- ural science so widely extended the fame of Amherst. " Religion without learning," said he, " almost infallibly degenerates into fanaticism or dead formalism." And he added the correlative truth : "Every literary institu- tion should make the promotion of religion the leading object of its system of instruction." President Stearns, whose administration in so many ways strengthened and refined the ideals of Amherst, made these signifi- cant statements, as he assumed the direction of the college: "Knowledge is chiefly valuable as furnishing materials for thought," and "he who thinks light lit- erature a substitute for hard study deceives himself." From the inaugural address of my immediate prede- cessor, I refrain from quoting ; for his strong and bril- liant administration is fresh in the memory of us all, and deeds done are more eloquent than any words of promise. The strength and the reputation of Amherst College, when to the regret of all he laid down the duties and cares of the presidency, are the highest en- comium upon the administration of President Seelye. We hope that we may long enjoy the advantage of his wise interest in the welfare of Amherst, and the bene- diction of his loved presence at the college whose name is indissolubly linked with his own. 28 AMHERST COLLEGE. THE PHYSICAL AND MORAL HEALTHFULNESS AND THE BEAUTY OF AMHERST. Of the situation, the surroundings, and certain of the characteristics of our college, I may be permitted to speak to you who know them well. No wise man thinks the physical surroundings of a college a matter of little consequence. The absolute healthfulness of our surroundings here ; the sound sys- tem of physical training which began at Amherst and is nowhere more effectively pursued ; the high ideals of the community in which the college is placed, and the manly life of the students here, citizens of the town, by virtue of their fraternity houses public-spirited householders, and charged with a man's responsibil- ity in helping to govern themselves these are sound reasons for choosing a college residence at Amherst. The serene beauty of the landscape is a constant joy, and rains perpetual influence for good upon generous youth through these formative years of early manhood. I count the surroundings in which we do our college work an important factor in the formation of character. In summer you see about you now the beauty of the place, in the clear-flooding sunshine, or when " Multitudes of dense, white fleecy clouds Are wandering in thick flocks along the mountains Shepherded by the slow, unwilling wind." In winter, the virgin purity of these snowclad stretches, accented by the graceful lines of the white birches (the only thing my eyes have seen that is " whiter than INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 29 snow " in the winter landscape) and framed by the blue shadows and the sharply etched outlines of the Holyoke range, done against the winter evening sky in deepest India ink these scenes furnish a changing wealth of beauty through the more quiet winter days. 'Tis this scene that many of you recall in the busy days of your later life ! " Oh, the long quiet winter days, and the dear old library at Amherst ; I owe them all I know," said a successful and scholarly New- York lawyer to me as together we walked down the avenue. This quiet life is not to be feared ! Soon enough will the hurrying pressure of the city close down upon our sons ! Too soon "The fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world Will hang upon the beatings of the heart." Have not many of you, sons of Amherst, as you have borne the heat and burden of the day, found a perpetual source of strength in the memory of these fair surroundings of your college days ? Such a resi- dence in comparative quiet and in scenes of beauty is well for a young man ; as one who loved such life has said " that Nature may speak to the imagination as she does never in company, and that her favorite may make acquaintance with those divine strengths which disclose themselves to serious and abstracted thought." If we feel a thrill as the Athenian poets sing of the transparent atmosphere and the violet hills that sur- round their beloved city, why should we not rejoice in those rare gifts of beauty that lend an indescribable, an ever-deepening charm to our life at Amherst? "The 30 AMHERST COLLEGE. strength of* the hills is" hers "also." Sufficiently with- drawn from the din of the city to make the place an ideal seat for quiet learning, yet in these days of steam sufficiently accessible from the great centres of American activity where can a young man more delightfully and profitably pass the four years of undergraduate life and study ? YET THERE IS A STRONG TONIC IN THE AIR. Yet the man who comes to Amherst is not left to the mere passive challenge of a beautiful landscape, possibly to be proved a poet, and possibly to become only a superficial esthete ! The first duty of a Chris- tian college is thoroughness in scholarship ! Without this there can be no sound Christian living at college ; for it is preeminently the duty of the college Christian to be studious, to be thorough. He is received into the stimulating atmosphere of a course of study that seeks to do for his mental powers what the Amherst system of physical training does for his powers of body. No development of new power without the patient, persistent, vigorous use of the power you have, is God's law for body and mind. On every power of body, mind, heart, and spirit God has written the law, " Use it, or lose it." " Laurel wreaths cleave to deserts, And power to him who power exerts." Every man who is educated must educate himself. No man ever had an education given him ! As well hope to have another man to do his eating for him ! The true INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 31 teacher knows that the attempt to make a youth a scholar by removing from his course all obstacles and all demand for strenuous effort, is as useless as would be the offer to fit that student for an athletic contest by taking his exercise for him. Professor Huxley's definition of the object to be secured by an education throws a strong light upon the fallacy of the view that merely to follow one's inclination, and to elect reading in accordance with one's boyish bent, is the ideal edu- cation. Says Professor Huxley: "The most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like to do it or not." "There is no way of making heroism easy, even for the scholar," says Emerson. LET THE STUDENT TEST HIS POWERS. Amherst stands for a college course so fully pro- vided with men to teach, and with books, laboratories and apparatus for teaching, that no student need feel himself cut off from any branch of learning which de- serves a place in the four-years' curriculum as it is most liberally conceived and carried out. But we hold that the surest way to enable a young man to discover the lines where by nature he is strongest, is, to introduce him to each of the great departments of knowledge, and to allow him to test himself in each. We believe that a man best learns to know his own strength and his greatest natural aptitudes, not by a lucky premoni- tion, not by a childish predilection, but by testing himself in different kinds of intellectual effort, and in 32 AMHERST COLLEGE. different departments of knowledge. Even when the natural aptitude, the line of greatest strength, is strong- ly marked, our aim is not to overweight such a youth with a mass of special knowledge along one line only, but rather to give to him breadth and scope the power which the Germans note as the highest mark of the thoroughly educated man, the power " to see nothing alone," to see all things in their right relations. We believe that many lives are rendered narrow and of little worth by the premature centring of attention upon one object, by limiting action to one single line of effort How often have we seen a man fail in busi- ness life or in his profession, because he confined him- self too exclusively to his own view of his own business or his own profession. We sometimes hear it said that it is impossible for a man to know too much about his own business. But it is quite possible for a man to know too little about everything else save his own busi- ness, and to fail lamentably in his own chosen profes- sion, because of his inability to see that profession in its right relation to the rest of life and to other men's occupations. We do not believe that with the majority of young men at eighteen the natural bias, the bent of genius, is so strong toward one department of know- ledge as to make it the desirable thing in education simply to follow that bent. And even where a natural specialist is to be trained for special attainments, we believe that the broader the foundation on which he builds in his later specialization of effort, the stronger and wiser and more effective will be his work. For these reasons, with full courses and ample groups of electives, we still seek to assure to each student INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 33 something of an introduction to the four great depart- ments of learning before we give him his bachelor's degree. THE OBLIGATION TO DEVELOP ALL HIS POWERS RESTS ON EVERY MAN. Whether for a professional life or for business life, we firmly believe that such a college course is a richly paying investment. We hold with Goschen, England's great minister of finance, that "we need knowledge not simply as a means of livelihood, but as a means of life." All a man's powers he holds in trust. To develop fully all the powers of his mind is as clearly the duty of every young man as are the development of his bodily powers and the preservation of his health. There is a strong presumption that every young man whose cir- cumstances in life render it possible, should receive a liberal education. The question should not be, " Why should this young man go to college," but " Why should he not go to college?" The onus probandi lies on those who would arrest too early a course of study and disci- pline which, rightly conducted, affords the best prep- aration for a useful, noble, and happy life. Business life and active professional duties make of college- bred men the most intensely practical citizens, men who can "bring things to pass"; yet the man who enters upon life through a liberal course of study at college remains all his life long a citizen of the republic of ideas. He is open to reason ; he knows the power of thought ; he has seen that " ideas after all rule the world." It was this openness to ideas, the mark of the 5 34 AMHERST COLLEGE. educated man, that led Aristotle to say: " He who has received an education differs from him who has not, as the living differs from the dead." For those who are to pursue a business life after graduation, the college course is invaluable for precisely this broadening out- look which it opens. OLD FEATURES AND NEW. Amherst College from the first has shown that catho- lic, truly scientific spirit which recognizes fully the edu- cational value of the study of natural science without in any way depreciating the study of language, math- ematics, and philosophy. While President Hitchcock was teaching the world geology from our Connecticut Valley deposits, Dr. Tyler was preparing those schol- arly editions of the Greek classics each of which, I have been told by one of that great statesman's friends, Charles Sumner used to hail as a fresh delight; and President Seelye, then Professor Seelye, was soon to make the Amherst course of philosophy a noteworthy feature of the curriculum. This breadth of appreciation for all the constituent parts of a liberalizing course of study is still to mark the college. THE CLASSICS AND NATURAL SCIENCE. The day has nearly passed when even narrow men can speak as if there were a necessary conflict between the study of languages of the classics and the study INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 35' of natural science. Long ago, the quarrel between the classics and mathematics was at least compounded ; and the two were for a time regarded by many not only as essential to sound disciplinary training, but as in their peculiar virtue exclusive of natural science, which was to be looked at only as an intruder. Yet it was that famous man of science, James Clerk Max- well, whose name marks an era in modern physics and mathematics, who said: "To make out the meaning of an author, without any other help than grammar and dictionary, is one of the best means for training the mind." Believing in the value of the careful study of language, holding with F. D. Maurice that "a disbe- lief in the exactness of language is a prelude to all skepticism," and with John Morley that " by learning to speak with precision you learn to think with correct- ness ; and firm and vigorous speech lies through the cultivation of high and noble sympathies," Amherst will continue to foster classical study as invaluable, and in her classical teaching will not allow the veil of an excessively minute and narrow philology to be darkly interposed between her undergraduate students and the life and thought of Greece and Italy ; but will teach with a fine feeling for the literature, the life and the art of Athens and Rome, as may be fairly de- manded of the college that has gathered the Mather Collection. Continuing to develop her already strong course in English (the Language, the Literature, Rhet- oric and Oratory), and increasing her teaching force in the modern languages, Amherst will continue to em- phasize the work in the languages, in mathematics, and in astronomy. 36 AMHERST COLLEGE. LARGER EQUIPMENT FOR WORK IN NATURAL SCIENCE. With but limited equipment in natural science, Am- herst has trained a remarkable number of college pro- fessors of geology and of chemistry. It is our purpose to enter at once upon a new and fuller development of the work of the natural sciences, particularly in physics. The honored teacher whom the burden of years has compelled to lay aside his work in this department has acquired for the college illustrative apparatus for the lecture-room which is hardly surpassed for fullness and value at any institution in the country. The new laboratories which are next year to be built for physics and chemistry, the strong and experienced professor who has been called from similar work in Johns Hop- kins University to the chair of physics here, and the proposed enlargement of the biological laboratory to meet the increasing demands upon that growing de- partment, are evidence that the courses leading to the degree of bachelor of science at Amherst are to be full and thorough, conducted in the spirit and with the ap- pliances of the best, the most scholarly methods. In geology, where Amherst first won scientific honors, there should be provision made for the enlargement and the better arrangement of our collections, already considerable again, notwithstanding the irreparable loss in the burning of Walker Hall. And in astronomy Amherst still awaits an equipment commensurate with the reputation of the college. With the enlarged equipment already rendered cer- tain, Amherst will give such courses in natural science, INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 37 balanced by the study of language, literature, political economy, history, and philosophy, as will employ a studious man's time, in work conducted in a broadly scientific rather than a technically narrow and special- izing spirit. It is believed that the course thus con- ducted may be made to contribute a culture hardly less valuable than that given in the older courses, as an introduction to the duties of an intelligent American citizen. PHILOSOPHY, HISTORY, POLITICAL ETHICS, SOCIOLOGY. But we hold firmly to " the things that are unseen " for the strength of our work. History will be taught in the spirit of philosophy, and philosophy in the light of history and in the higher light of Reason and Revela- tion. To the end that all the work of the college may be fruitful of good to our country in beneficent living, that our young men may have what Milton calls that " complete and generous education " which " fits a man to perform, justly, skilfully, and magnanimously all the offices, both private and public, of peace and war," from year to year we shall give more attention to Political Science, to the ethical questions of Sociology, to Politi- cal Ethics and the Duties of Citizenship. PRINCIPLES AND LIFE. Hegel has said that " the history of the world is the judgment of the world." Every true moral judgment, then, foretells that which shall be, for God rules, and 38 AMHERST COLLEGE. God is holy and just. " Might and Right rule the world," says Joubert, " but Might only until Right is ready." Ultimately the just and the right shall be the actual. There must be a time in every life when these truths are put clearly before the mind, if the will is to be con- firmed in right doing. The busy work of later life tends to exclude these broad, general views. Details and selfish interests obscure principles and laws. The omni- present and engrossing " means " are potent to crowd aside the consideration of the noblest end of living. But it is only by living out a vital principle of life to its issues that we can come to know it. It cannot be fully worked out in all its details and applications by a priori methods in the closet. To come to know it, one must get the simple principle clearly before the mind, and then live it out to its conclusions and in its applications. Let our young men be made familiar with principles and ideas, then, as their course of study progresses. Grant that they may become polarized by ideas, and for a time may seem unpractical. Details will soon enough encumber them. They must soon enough "carry weight." Can we do better than to bring them face to face with facts grouped in scientific order, and with principles of living and of judging which, if fol- lowed out, will give a scientific and an ethical order and beauty to their lives ? TO TRAIN MANLY MEN. I do not think I mistake the spirit of Amherst when I say that we hold it her elect work to train men INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT GATES. 39 scholarly men, gentlemanly men, but preeminently men, men of light and leading, men of principle, and therefore forceful men, men of power. In declaring the same general purpose to make scholarly, gentle- manly men of their students some of our sister col- leges would lay the emphasis upon the word gentleman. Others would strike out the word gentleman, and em- phasize only the scholar. At Amherst, we emphasize the man! We believe that both gentlemanliness and scholarship will best assume their relative importance, if the emphasis of Amherst life falls continually and always upon manhood, upon the essential manliness of the scholar's life. A man, scholarly of habits, gentle- manly in his standards of behavior, but preeminently a man, with powers roundly developed, broad of vision, his eyes opened to the issues of the present because he has had the life of the past made real to him, and his will braced and his heart fired by the knowledge of the personal love of a personal God whose steady will " makes for righteousness" in the universe of thought and things such a young man is our Amherst ideal. Many such Amherst has sent into the world's best work, and may God give us grace in future years here to train many more such men ! THE BROADEST CULTURE, CHRISTIAN. Men need and must have communion with God, the Father of our spirits. No true science ignores this great need of man. Such communion does not make less, rather it makes more, of the intellectual life. We do not speak of a religion that depreciates the intellect, 40 AMHERST COLLEGE. or sets aside its teaching. No man need fear that the reverent worship of God will weaken his scholarship, or subtract from his power. Outspoken loyalty to Christ, our King, will not render narrow the culture given at such a college as this! We believe that no knowledge can be too thorough, too exact for Christian men, as Christians, to attain, and to use as Christians. We hold that no pure culture is too broad to adorn Christian character. We have no fear that God's truth written in the world He fashions and sustains, when we can truly read it, will clash with God's truth written in His revealed Word. We have learned that all so-called science which refuses to look on toward that unity which science demands is but partial and incomplete; and that all true science leads along converging lines toward that true conception of God which science alone could not have given us, which has been revealed to us by God who is Light. In the symbol and the legend of our college seal, the rays from the Sun of Righteousness fall upon the open pages of the Book of Life, while our aspiration and our prayers find voice in the words which are our confident battle-cry in the struggle of light and truth with ignorance, " Terras Irradient," "Let them illumine the whole earth ! " 14 DAY USE RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED LOAN DEPT. This book is due on the last date stamped below, or on the date to which renewed. Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. riDec59JB IN STACKS NOV 27 1959 REC'O - UQV ^1359 T r> 01 A r>n A 'so General Library ^iim^ioHTSB Unive ^ f el ^ ifornia 61235 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY IBi