LIBRARY OF THK University of California. Class 38p C&arlca jFranris &T»atrui THREE PHI BETA KAPPA ADDRESSES. Crown 8vo, $1.00, net. Postage extra. LEE AT APPOMATTOX, AND OTHER PAPERS. Crown 8vo, $1.50, net. Postpaid, $1.65. CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS. In American Statesmen Series. i6mo, #1.25. RICHARD HENRY DANA. A Biography. With Portraits. 2 vols., crown 8vo, $4.00. MASSACHUSETTS: Its Historians and its History. An Object Lesson. Crown 8vo, $1.00. THREE EPISODES OF MASSACHUSETTS HISTORY. I. The Settlement of Boston Bay. II. The Antinomian Controversy. III. A Study of Church and Town Gov- ernment. With two Maps. 2 vols., crown 8vo, $4.00. HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY Boston and New York THREE PHI BETA KAPPA ADDRESSES THREE PHI BETA KAPPA ADDRESSES A COLLEGE FETICH 1883 "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 1902 SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 1906 BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS mmm BOSTON AND NEW YOEK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY ®fce Ifttoergibe $re&, Camferi&ge 1907 •*, v\ GENERAL COPYRIGHT 1907 BY CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Published April IQ07 PREFACE The reason of this republication at the present time is sufficiently explained in the beginning of the third of the addresses (pp. 101-3). It is in the nature of a re- cord. Fifty years after graduation from Harvard, I am closing a term of service on its Board of Overseers ex- tending over half that period. The first of the three Phi Beta Kappa addresses, — A College Fetich, — when delivered at Cambridge nearly a quarter of a century ago, excited active discussion; and, when the third address, that entitled Some Modern College Tenden- cies, was delivered in New York in June last, it ap- peared that the earlier effort had not yet been alto- gether forgotten. Long out of print, the recollection of it was decidedly vague; and, both in the comments of the press and in private, it was assumed that be- tween the two addresses there was a wide divergence of view, — the opinions entertained in 1883 were re- ferred to as distinctly at variance with those expressed in 1906. Had I during those intervening years seen any rea- son for a change of view, I should not for a moment have hesitated in giving utterance to the later and more matured beliefs; for consistency in these matters is apt to be indicative of little else than either an inability or an unwillingness to observe and to learn. In those three and twenty years, also, a great many things hap- pened. It so chances, however, that in this particular case there was no inconsistency between the two ut- terances, no change or modification of view. The ad- 175601 vi PREFACE dress of 1906 was merely a development, both natural and logical, of the ideas and conclusions set forth in the address of 1883. That this is so, is best shown by print- ing the two together. Hence this publication. In reproducing these papers, parts of paragraphs here and there, notably on pages twenty-one and forty -three, have been recast, and a few verbal changes have elsewhere been made; but in no case has the sense of the original utterance been altered, or in the least modified. The work of revision has been con- fined strictly to modes of expression. Two of the three Phi Beta Kappa addresses relate to educational topics; the second (pp. 49-97) was devoted to another subject. It is here included simply because it was delivered before a chapter of the Fra- ternity, and, at the time, attracted attention. I have since seen no occasion to modify the views expressed in it. The three remaining speeches and papers are included because, relating to Harvard University, they round out a record, now nearing its end, of personal and official connection with it. C. F. A. Lincoln, Mass., January 14, 1907. CONTENTS A College Fetich 3 "Shall Cromwell have a Statue?" .... 47 Some Modern College Tendencies 99 The Journeyman's Retrospect 149 The Harvard Tuition Fee 159 The Fiftieth Year— 1856-1906 185 A COLLEGE FETICH V F THE UNIVERSITY OF £ALIFOg£^ A COLLEGE FETICH 1 The ancient languages, with great beauty of structure, contain wonderful remains of genius, which draw, and al- ways will draw, certain like-minded men, — Greek men, and Roman men, in all countries, to their study; but by a won- derful drowsiness of usage, they had exacted the study of all men. Once (say two centuries ago) Latin and Greek had a strict relation to all the science and culture there was in Eu- rope, and the Mathematics had a momentary importance at some era of activity in physical science. These things became stereotyped as education, as the manner of men is. But the Good Spirit never cared for the colleges, and though all men and boys were now drilled in Latin, Greek and Mathematics, it had quite left these shells high and dry on the beach, and was now creating and feeding other matters at other ends of the world. But in a hundred high schools and colleges this warfare against common sense still goes on. Four, or six, or ten years, the pupil is parsing Greek and Latin, and as soon as he leaves the University, as it is ludicrously styled, he shuts those books for the last time. Some thousands of young men are graduated at our colleges in this country every year, and the persons who, at forty years, still read Greek, can all be counted on your hand. I never met with ten. Four or five persons I have seen who read Plato. — R. W. Emerson, New England Reformers. (1844.) The Roman mind took its quickening from Greek liter- ature, and this quickening worked at first creatively, to the purposes of a pure Latin style . . . when Roman literature went to seed in what is perhaps the best book of rhetoric ever 1 An address delivered before the Harvard Chapter of the fra- ternity of the Phi Beta Kappa, in Sanders Theatre, Cambridge, Thursday, June 28, 1883. See Nos. 21 (1886) and 42 (1891) of the Bibliographical Contributions of Library of Harvard University. 6 THREE B K ADDRESSES written, — I refer to the "Institutes" of Quintilian, — we find that accomplished teacher bewailing the fact that Greek, as taught in the Roman schools of his day, had come to be re- garded with a kind of superstition, and so was, for the most part, a hindrance rather than a help to Latin culture. . . . What we call the Renaissance was a rejuvenation wrought in the European mind by transfusing into it the power drawn from the literatures of Greece and Rome, after the intellect- ual lifeblood of Europe had been thinned by a too long and exclusive nurture on the chopped logic of the school-room. To-day, when Greek has come to be taught for philology rather than for literature, and when college graduates who can at sight read Plato with understanding, or Aristophanes with zest, have become almost an extinct species, we are seriously discussing the place and value of Greek in the col- lege curriculum. — J. C. Welling, English in Preparatory Schools. (1893.) I am here to-day for a purpose. After no little hesita- tion I accepted the invitation to address your Society, simply because I had something which I much wanted to say; and this seemed to me the best possible place, and this the most appropriate occasion, for saying it. My message, if such I may venture to call it, is in no wise sensational. On the contrary, it partakes, I fear, rather of the commonplace. Such being the case, I shall give it the most direct utterance of which I am capable. It is twenty-seven years since the class (1856) of which I was a member was graduated from this college. To- day I have come back here to take, for the first time, an active part of any prominence iirthe exercises of its Com- mencement week. I have come back, as what we are pleased to term an educated man, to speak to educated men; a literary man, as literary men go, I have under- A COLLEGE FETICH 7 taken to address a literary society; a man who has, in any event, led an active, changeable, bustling life, I am to say what I have to say to men, not all of whom have led similar lives. It is easy to imagine one who had contended in the classic games returning, after they were over, to the gymnasium in which he had been trained. It would not greatly matter whether he had acquitted himself well or ill in the arena, — whether he had come back crowned with victory or broken by defeat: in the full light of his experience of the strug- gle, he would be disposed to look over the old para- phernalia and recall the familiar exercises, passing judgment upon them. Tested by hard, actual results, was the theory of his training correct; were the ap- pliances of the gymnasium good ; did what he got there contribute to his victory, or had it led to his defeat? Taken altogether, was he strengthened, or had he been emasculated by his gymnasium course? The college was our gymnasium. It is now the gymnasium of our children. Thirty years after graduation a man has either won or lost the game. Winner or loser, looking back through the medium of that thirty years of hard experience, how do we see the college now ? It would be strange, indeed, if from this point of view we regarded it, its theories and its methods, with either unmixed approval or unqualified condemnation. I can- not deny that the Cambridge of the sixth decennium of the century, as Thackeray would have phrased it, was in many respects a pleasant place. There were good things about it. By the student who understood himself, and knew what he wanted, much might here be learned ; while for most of us the requirements were not excessive. We of the average majority did not understand ourselves, or know what we wanted: the 8 THREE 3> B K ADDRESSES average man of the majority rarely does. And so for us the college course, instead of being a time of prepara- tion for the hard work of life, was a pleasant sort of interlude rather, before that work began. We so re- garded it. I should be very sorry not to have enjoyed that interlude. I am glad that I came here; glad that I took my degree. But as a training-place for youth to enable them to engage to advantage in the struggle of life, — to fit them to hold their own in it, and to carry off the prizes, — I must in all honesty say, that, looking back through the years, and recalling the requirements and methods of the ancient institution, I am unable to speak of it with all the respect I could wish. Such training as I got, useful for the struggle, I got after, instead of before graduation, and it came hard; while I never have been able — and now, no matter how long I may live, I never shall be able — to overcome some great disadvantages which the super- stitions and wrong theories and worse practices of my Alma Mater inflicted upon me. And not on me alone. The same may be said of my contemporaries, as I have observed them in success and failure. What was true in this respect of the college of thirty years ago is, I ap- prehend, at least partially true of the college of to-day ; and it is true not only of Harvard, but of other col- leges, and of them quite as much as of Harvard. They fail properly to fit their graduates for the work they have to do in the life that awaits them. This is harsh language to apply to one's nursing mother, and it calls for an explanation. That expla- nation I shall now try to give. I have said that the college of thirty years ago did not fit its graduates for the work they had to do in the actual life which awaited them. Let us consider for a moment what that life has A COLLEGE FETICH 9 been, and then we will pass to the preparation we re- ceived for it. When the men of my time graduated, Franklin Pierce was President, the war in the Crimea was just over, and three years were yet to pass before Solferino would be fought. No united Germany and no united Italy existed. The railroad and the telegraph were in their infancy; neither nitro-glycerine nor the telephone had been discovered. The years since then have been fairly crammed with events. A new world has come into existence, and a world wholly unlike that of our fathers, — unlike it in peace and unlike it in war. It is a world of great intellectual quickening, which has extended until it now touches a vastly larger number of men, in many more countries, than it ever touched before. Not only have the nations been rudely shaken up, but they have been drawn together. In- terdependent thought has been carried on, interacting agencies have been at work in widely separated coun- tries and different tongues. The solidarity of the peo- ples has been developed. Old professions have lost their prominence; new professions have arisen. Sci- ence has extended its domains, and superseded au- thority with bewildering rapidity. The artificial bar- riers — national, political, social, economical, religious, intellectual — have given way in every direction, and the civilized races of the world are becoming one peo- ple, even if a discordant and quarrelsome people. We all of us live more in the present and less in the past than we did thirty years ago, — much less in the past and much more in the present than those who preceded us did fifty years ago. The world as it is may be a very bad and a very vulgar world, — insincere, democratic, disrespectful, dangerous, and altogether hopeless ; I do not think it is: but with that thesis I have, here and 10 THREE <£ B K ADDRESSES now, nothing to do. However bad and hopeless, it is nevertheless the world in which our lot was east, and in which we have had to live, — a bustling, active, nervous world, and one very hard to keep up with. This much all will admit; while I think I may further add, that its most marked characteristic has been an intense mental and physical activity, which, working simultaneously in many tongues, has attempted much and questioned all things. Now as respects the college preparation we received to fit us to take part in this world's debate. As one goes on in life, especially in modern life, a few conclusions are hammered into us by the hard logic of facts. Among those conclusions, I think I may, without much fear of contradiction, enumerate such practical, common- sense and commonplace precepts as that superficiality is dangerous, as well as contemptible, in that it is apt to invite defeat; or, again, that what is worth doing at all is worth doing well; or, third, that when one is given work to do, it is well to prepare one's self for that specific work, and not to occupy one's time in acquiring information, no matter how innocent or elegant, or generally useful, which has no probable bearing on that work; or, finally, — and this I regard as the greatest of all practical precepts, — that every man should in life master some one thing, be it great or be it small, so that thereon he may be the highest living authority : that one thing he should know thoroughly. How did Harvard College prepare me, and my ninety- two classmates of the year 1856, for our work in a life in which we have had these homely precepts brought home to us ? In answering the question it is not alto- gether easy to preserve one's gravity. The college fitted us for this active, bustling, hard-hitting, many-tongued A COLLEGE FETICH 11 world, caring nothing for authority and little for the past, but full of its living thought and living issues, in dealing with which there was no man who did not stand in pressing and constant need of every possible pre- paration as respects knowledge and exactitude and thoroughness, — the poor old college prepared us to play our parts in this world by compelling us, directly and indirectly, to devote the best part of our school lives to acquiring a confessedly superficial knowledge of two dead languages. In regard to the theory of what we call a liberal edu- cation, there is, as I understand it, not much room for difference of opinion. There are certain fundamental requirements, without a thorough mastery of which no one can pursue a specialty to advantage. Upon these common fundamentals are grafted the specialties, — the students' electives, as we call them. The man is simply mad, who in these days takes all knowledge for his province. He who professes to do so can only mean that he proposes, in so far as in him lies, to re- duce superficiality to a science. Such is the theory. What is the practice ? Thirty years ago, as for three centuries before, Greek and Latin were the fundamentals. The grammatical study of two dead languages was the basis of all liberal education. It remains its basis still. But, following the theory out, I think all will admit that, as respects the fundamentals, the college training should be compulsory and severe. It should extend through the whole course. No one ought to become a Bachelor of Arts until, upon these fundamentals, he had passed an examination, the scope and thoroughness of which should set at defiance what is perfectly well defined as the science of cramming. Could the graduates of my time have passed such an 12 THREE B K ADDRESSES examination in Latin and Greek ? If they could have done that, I should now see a reason in the course pur- sued with us. When we were graduated, we should have acquired a training, such as it was; it would have amounted to something; and, having a bearing on the future, it would have been of use in it. But it never was for a moment assumed that we could have passed any such examination. In justice to all, I must admit that no self-deception was indulged in on this point. Not only was the knowledge of our theoretical fundamentals to the last degree superficial, but nothing better was expected. The requirements spoke for themselves; and the subsequent examinations never could have de- ceived any one who had a proper conception of what real knowledge was. But in pursuing Greek and Latin we had ignored our mother tongue. We were no more competent to pass a really searching examination in English litera- ture and English composition than in the languages and literature of Greece and Rome. We were college graduates; and yet how many of us could follow out a line of sustained, close thought, expressing ourselves in clear, concise terms ? The faculty of doing this should result from a mastery of well selected fundamentals. The difficulty was that the fundamentals were not well selected, and they had never been mastered. They had become a tradition. They were studied no longer as a means, but as an end, — the end being to get into college. Accordingly, thirty years ago there was no real living basis of a Harvard education. Honest, solid foundations were not laid. The superstructure, such as it was, rested upon an empty formula. The reason of all this I could not understand then, though it is clear enough to me now. I take it to be sim- A COLLEGE FETICH 13 ply this: The classic tongues were far more remote from our world than they had been from the world our fathers lived in. They are much more remote from the world of to-day than they were from the world of thirty years ago. The human mind, outside of the cloisters, is occupied with other and more pressing things. Es- pecially is it occupied with a class of thoughts — sci- entific thoughts — which do not find their nutriment in the remote past. They are not in sympathy with it. Accordingly, the world turns more and more from the classics to those other and living sources, in which alone it finds what it seeks. Students come to college from the hearthstones of the modern world. They have been brought up in the new atmosphere. They are consequently more and more disposed to regard the dead languages as a mere requirement to college ad- mission. This reacts upon the institution. The college does not change, — there is no conservatism I have ever met, so hard, so unreasoning, so impenetrable, as the conservatism of professional educators about their methods ! — the college does not change, it only accepts the situation. The routine goes on, but super- ficiality is accepted as of course; and so thirty years ago, as now, a surface acquaintance with two dead languages was the chief requirement for admission to Harvard; and to acquiring it, years of school life were ,de voted. t Nor in my time did the mischief end here. On the contrary, it began here. As a slipshod method of train- ing was accepted in those studies to which the greatest prominence was given, the same method was accepted in other studies. The whole standard was lowered. Thirty years ago — I say it after a careful search through my memory — thoroughness of training in any real- 14 THREE ® B K ADDRESSES life sense of the term was unknown in those branches of college education with which I came in contact. Everything was taught as Latin and Greek were taught. Even now, I do not see how I could have got solid, ex- haustive teaching in the class-room, even if I had known enough to want it. A limp superficiality was all pervasive. To the best of my recollection the idea of hard thorough- ness was not there. It may be there now. I hope it is. And here let me define my position on several points, so that I shall be misunderstood only by such as wil- fully misunderstand, in order to misrepresent. 1 With such I hold no argument. In the first place I desire to say that I am po believer in that narrow scientific and technological training which now and again we hear extolled. A practical, and too often a mere vulgar, money-making utility seems to be its natural outcome. 2 On the contrary, the whole experience and observation of my life lead me to look with greater admiration, and an envy ever increasing, on the broadened culture which is the true end and aim of the university. On this point I cannot be too explicit; for I should be sorry indeed if anything I might utter were construed into an argu- ment against the most liberal education. There is a considerable period in every man's life, when the best thing he can do is to let his mind soak and tan in the vats of literature. The atmosphere of a university is breathed into the student's system, — it enters by the very pores. But, just as all roads lead to Rome, so I hold there may be a modern road as well as the classic avenue to the goal of a true liberal education. I object to no man's causing his children to approach that goal by the old, the time-honored entrance. On the contrary I will admit that, for those who travel it well, it is the 1 Infra, p. 115. a Infra, pp. 142-3. A COLLEGE FETICH 15 best entrance. But I do ask that the modern entrance should not be closed. Vested interests always look upon a claim for simple recognition as an insidious attempt on their very existence, and the advocates of an exclu- sively classic college education are quick to interpret a desire for modern learning, as a covert attack on dead learning. I have no wish to attack it, except in its spirit of selfish exclusiveness. I do challenge the right of the classicist to longer say that by his path, and by his path only, shall the university be approached. 1 I would not narrow the basis of liberal education; I would broaden it. No longer content with classic sources, I would have the university seek fresh inspi- ration at the fountains of living thought; for Goethe I hold to be the equal of Sophocles, and I prefer the philosophy of Montaigne to what seem to me the plati- tudes of Cicero. Neither, though venturing on these comparisons, have I any light or disrespectful word to utter of the study of Latin or of Greek, much less of the classic literatures. While recognizing fully the benefit to be derived from a severe training in these mother tongues, I fully appreciate the pleasure those must have who enjoy an easy familiarity with the authors who yet live in them. No one admires — I am not prepared to ad- mit that any one can admire — more than I the subtile, indescribable fineness, both of thought and diction which a thorough classical education gives to the scholar. 2 Mr. Gladstone is, as Macaulay was, a striking case in point. As much as any one I note and deplore the absence of this literary Tower-stamp in the writings and utterances of many of our own authors and public men. But its absence is not so deplorable as that dis- 1 Infra, p. 146. 2 Infra, p. 133. 16 THREE # B K ADDRESSES play of cheap learning which made the American ora- tion of thirty and fifty years ago a national humiliation. Even in its best form it was bedizened with classic tinsel which bespoke the vanity of the half-taught scholar. We no longer admire that sort of thing. But among men of my own generation I do both admire and envy those who I am told make it a daily rule to read a little of Homer or Thucydides, of Horace or Tacitus. I wish I could do the same; and yet I must frankly say I should not do it if I could. Life after all is limited, and I belong enough to the present to feel satisfied that I could employ that little time each day both more enjoyably and more profitably if I should devote it to keeping pace with modern thought, as it finds expres- sion even in the ephemeral pages of the despised re- view. Do what he will, no man can keep pace with that wonderful modern thought; and if I must choose, — and choose I must, — I would rather learn something daily from the living who are to perish, than daily muse with the immortal dead. Yet for the purpose of my argument I do not for a moment dispute the superiority — I am ready to say the hopeless, the unattainable superiority — of the classic masterpieces. They are sealed books to me, as they are to at least nineteen out of twenty of the graduates of our colleges; and we can neither affirm nor deny that in them, and in them alone, are to be found the choicest thoughts of the human mind and the most perfect forms of human speech. All that has nothing to do with the question. We are not living in any ideal world. We are living in this world of to-day; and it is the business of the college to fit men for it. Does she do it ? As I have said, my own experience of thirty years ago tells me that she did not do it then: the facts being much the same, I do not A COLLEGE FETICH 17 see how she can do it now. It seems to me she starts from a radically wrong basis. It is, to use plain lan- guage, a basis of fetich worship, in which the real and practical is systematically sacrificed to the ideal and theoretical. To-day, whether I want to or not, I must speak from individual experience. Indeed, I have no other ground on which to stand. I am not a scholar; I am not an educator; I am not a philosopher: but I submit that in educational matters individual, practical experience is entitled to some weight. Not one man in ten thousand can contribute anything to this discussion in the way of more profound views or deeper insight. Yet any concrete, actual experience, if it be only simply and directly told, may prove a contribution of value, and that contribution we all can bring. An average college graduate, I am here to subject the college theories to the practical test of an experience in the tussle of life. Recurring to the simile with which I began, the wrestler in the games is back at the gymnasium. If he is to talk to any good purpose he must talk of himself, and how he fared in the struggle. 1 It is he who speaks. I was fitted for college in the usual way. I went to the far famed Boston Latin School; there I learned the two grammars by heart. At length I could even puzzle out the simpler classic writings with the aid of a lexicon, and apply more or less correctly the rules of construction. This, and the other rudiments of what we are pleased to call a liberal education, took five years of my time. I was fortunately fond of reading, and so learned English myself, and with some thorough- ness. I say fortunately, for in our preparatory curric- ulum no place was found for English; being a modern 1 Infra, p. 103. 18 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES language, it was thought not worth studying, — as our college entrance examination papers conclusively showed! We turned English into bad enough Greek, but our thoughts were expressed in even more abom- inable English. I then went to college, — to Harvard. I have already spoken of the standard of instruction, so far as thoroughness was concerned, then prevailing here. Presently I was graduated, and passed some years in the study of the law. Thus far, as you will see, my course was thoroughly correct. It was the well buoyed-out course pursued by a large proportion of all graduates then, and the course pursued by more than a third of them now. Then the War of Secession came, and swept me out of a lawyer's office into a cavalry saddle. Let me say, in passing, that I have always felt under deep personal obligation to the War of Secession. Returning presently to civil life, and not taking kindly to my profession, I endeavored to strike out a new path, and fastened myself, not, as Mr. Em- erson recommends, to a star, but to the locomotive- engine. I made for myself what might perhaps be called a specialty in connection with the development of the railroad system. I do not hesitate to say that I have been incapacitated from properly developing my spe- cialty, by the sins of omission and commission incident to my college training. The mischief is done, and so far as I am concerned is irreparable. I am only one more sacrifice to the fetich. But I do not propose to be a silent sacrifice. I am here to-day to put the respon- sibility for my failure, so far as I have failed, where I think it belongs, — at the door of my preparatory and college education. Nor has that incapacity, and the consequent failure to which I have referred, been a mere thing of imagina- A COLLEGE FETICH 19 tion or sentiment. On the contrary, it has been not only matter-of-fact and real, but to the last degree humiliating. I have not, in following out my specialty, had at my command — nor has it been in my power, placed as I was, to acquire — the ordinary tools which an educated man must have to enable him to work to advantage on the developing problems of modern, scientific life. But on this point I feel that I can, with few words, safely make my appeal to the members of this Society. Many of you are scientific men; others are literary men; some are professional men. I believe, from your own personal experience, you will bear me out when I say that, with a single exception, there is no modern scientific study which can be thoroughly pursued in any one living language, even with the assistance of all the dead languages that ever were spoken. The re- searches in the dead languages are indeed carried on through the medium of several living languages. I have admitted there is one exception to this rule. That ex- ception is the law. Lawyers alone, I believe, join with our statesmen in caring nothing for "abroad." Except in its more elevated and theoretical branches, which rarely find their way into our courts, the law is a purely local pursuit. Those who follow it may grow gray in active practice, and yet never have occasion to consult a work in any language but their own. It is not so with medicine or theology or science or art, in any of their numerous branches, or with government, or political economy, or with any other of the whole long list. With the exception of law, I think I might safely challenge any one of you to name a single modern calling, either learned or scientific, in which a worker who is unable to read and write and speak at least German and French, 20 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES does not stand at a great and always recurring disad- vantage. He is without the essential tools of his trade. The modern languages are thus the avenues to mod- ern life and living thought. Under these circumstances, what was the position of the college towards them thirty years ago ? What is its position to-day ? It inter- vened, and practically said then that its graduates should not acquire those languages at that period when only they could be acquired perfectly and with ease. It occupies the same position still. It did, and does, this none the less effectually because indirectly. The thing came about, as it still comes about, in this way : the college fixes the requirements for admission to its course; the schools and the academies adapt them- selves to those requirements; the business of those preparatory schools is to get the boys through their examinations, not as a means, but as an end. The pre- paratory schools are therefore all organized on one plan. To that plan there is no exception; nor practically can there be any exception. The requirements for admis- sion are such that the labor of preparation occupies fully the boy's study hours. He is not overworked, per- haps, but when his tasks are done he has no more leisure than is good for play; and you cannot take a healthy boy the moment he gets out of school and set him down at home before tutors in German and French. If you do, he will soon cease to be a healthy boy; and he will not learn German or French. Over-education is a crime against youth. But Harvard College says: "We require such and such things for admission to our course." First and most emphasized among them are Latin and Greek. The academies accordingly teach Latin and Greek; and they teach it in the way to secure admission to the college. Hence, because of this action A COLLEGE FETICH 21 of the college, the schools do not exist in this country in which my children can learn what my experience tells me it is all essential they should know. They can- not both be fitted for college and taught the modern languages. And when I say "taught the modern lan- guages," I mean taught them in the world's sense of the word, and not in the college sense of it, as practised both in my time and now. And here let me not be mis- understood, and confronted with examination papers. I am talking of really knowing something. I do not want my children to get a smattering knowledge of French and of German, such a knowledge as was and now is given to boys of Latin and Greek; but I do want them to be taught to write and to speak those languages, as well as to read them, — in a word, so to master them that they will thereafter be tools always ready to the hand. This requires labor. It is a thing which cannot be picked up by the wayside, except in the countries where the languages are spoken. If academies in Amer- ica are to instruct in this way, they must devote them- selves to it. But the college requires all that they can well undertake to do. The college absolutely insists on Latin and Greek. Latin I will not stop to contend over. That is a small matter. Not only is it a comparatively simple language, but, apart from its literature, — for which I cannot myself profess any great admiration, — it has its mod- ern uses. Not only is it directly the mother tongue of all southwestern Europe, but it has by common con- sent been largely adopted in scientific nomenclature. Hence, there are reasons why the educated man should have at least an elementary knowledge of Latin. That knowledge also can be acquired with no great degree of labor. To master the language would be another 22 THREE B K ADDRESSES matter; but in these days few think of mastering it. How many students during the last thirty years have graduated from Harvard who could read Horace and Tacitus and Juvenal, as numbers now read Goethe and Mommsen and Heine? If there have been ten, I do not believe there have been a score. This it is to acquire a language! A knowledge of its rudiments is a wholly different thing; and with a knowledge of the rudiments of Latin as a requirement for admission to college I am not here to quarrel. Not so Greek. The study of Greek, and I speak from the unmistakable result of my own individual experience in active life, as well as from that of a long-continued family expe- rience which I shall presently give, — the study of Greek in the way it is traditionally insisted upon, as the chief requirement to entering college, is a positive edu- cational wrong. It has already wrought great individ- ual and general injury, and is now working it. It has been productive of no compensating advantage. It is a superstition. But before going further I wish to emphasize the limitations under which I make this statement. I would not be misunderstood. I am speaking not at all of Greek really studied and lovingly learned. Of that there cannot well be two opinions. I have already said that it is the basis of the finest scholarship. 1 I have in mind only the Greek traditionally insisted upon as a college entrance requirement, — the Greek learned under compulsion by nine men at least out of each ten who are graduated. It is that quarter-acquired knowledge, and that only, of which I insist that it is a superstition, and educational wrong. Nor can it ever be anything else. It is a penalty on going to college. 1 Also infra, p. 133. A COLLEGE FETICH 23 I am told that when thoroughly studied Greek be- comes a language delightfully easy to learn. I do not know how this may be; but I do know that when learned as a college admission requirement it is most difficult, — far more difficult than Latin. Unlike Latin, also, Greek, partially acquired, has no modern uses. Its flexibility it is true has recommended it for adoption as the basis of much scientific nomenclature; and, as such, it has in no small degree contributed to the gradual formation of that nondescript but extremely unintelligible jargon which in the more learned treat- ises is now the layman's stumbling-block. But, from the literary point of view, Greek is practically a dead tongue; it bears no immediate relation to any living speech of value. Like all rich dialects, also, it is full of anomalies; and accordingly its grammar, the delight of grammarians, is the despair of every one else. When I was fitted for college, the study of Greek took up at least one half of the last three years devoted to prepara- tion. In memory it looms up now, through the vista of years, as the one gigantic nightmare of youth, — and no more profitable than nightmares are wont to be. Other school-day tasks sink into insignificance beside it. When we entered college we had all of us the merest superficial knowledge of the language, — a know- ledge measured by the ability to read at sight a portion of Xenophon, a little of Herodotus, and a book or two of the Iliad. It was just enough to enable us to meet the requirements of the examination. In all these re- spects, my inquiries lead me to conclude that what was true then is even more true now. In the vast majority of cases this study of Greek was looked upon by parent and student as a mere incident to admission; and the instructor taught it as such. It was never supposed 24 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES for an instant that it would be followed up. On the contrary, if it was thought of at all, instead of rather taken as a matter of course, it was thought of very much as a similar amount of physical exercise with dumb-bells or parallel-bars might be thought of, — as a thing to be done as best it might, and there an end. As soon as possible after entering college the study was abandoned forever, and the little that had been acquired faded rapidly away from the average stu- dent's mind. I have now forgotten the Greek alphabet, and I cannot readily make out all the Greek letters if I open my Homer. Such has been the be-all and the end-all of the tremendous labor of my school days. But I now come to what in plain language I cannot but call the educational cant of this subject. I am told that I ignore the severe intellectual training I got in learning the Greek grammar, and in subsequently ap- plying its rules; that my memory then received an education which, turned since to other matters, has proved invaluable to me; that accumulated experience shows that this training can be got equally well in no other way; that, beyond all this, even my slight con- tact with the Greek masterpieces has left with me a subtile but unmistakable residuum, impalpable per- haps, but still there, and very precious; that, in a word, I am what is called an educated man, which, but for my early contact with Greek, I would not be. It was Dr. Johnson, I believe, who once said, "Let us free our minds from cant;" and all this, with not undue bluntness be it said, is unadulterated nonsense. The fact that it has been and will yet be a thousand times repeated, cannot make it anything else. In the first place, I very confidently submit, there is no more mental training in learning the Greek grammar by A COLLEGE FETICH 25 heart than in learning by heart any other equally dif- ficult and, to a boy, unintelligible book. As a mere work of memorizing, Kant's Critique of Pure Rea- son would be at least as good. In the next place, un- intelligent memorizing is at best a most questionable educational method. For one, I utterly disbelieve in it. It never did me anything but harm; and learning by heart the Greek grammar did me harm, — a great deal of harm. While I was doing it, the observing and reflective powers lay dormant; indeed, they were systematically suppressed. Their exercise was resented as a sort of impertinence. We boys stood up and re- peated long rules, and yet longer lists of exceptions to them; and it was drilled into us that we were not there to reason, but to rattle off something written on the blackboard of our minds. The faculties we had in common with the raven were thus cultivated at the expense of that apprehension and reason which, Shake- speare tells us, makes man like the angels and God. I infer this memory- culture is yet in vogue; for only yesterday, as I sat at the Commencement table with one of the younger and more active of the professors of the college, he told me that he had no difficulty with his students in making them commit to memory; they were well trained in that. But when he called on them to observe and infer, then his troubles began. 1 They had never been led in such a path. It was the old, old story, — a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong. There are very few of us who were educated a genera- tion ago who cannot now stand up and glibly recite long extracts from the Greek grammar; sorry am I to say it, but these extracts are with most of us all we have left pertaining to that language. But, as not many 1 Infra, pp. 120, 123, 125. 26 THREE B K ADDRESSES of us followed the stage as a calling, this power of rapidly learning a part has proved but of questionable value. It is true, the habit of correct verbal memorizing will probably enable its fortunate possessor to get off many an apt quotation at the dinner-table, and far be it from me to detract from that much longed-for accomplishment; but, after all, the college professes to fit its students for life rather than for its dinner-tables, and in life a happy knack at quotations is in the long run an indifferent substitute for the power of close observation, and correct inference from it. To be able to follow out a line of exact, sustained thought to a given result is invaluable. 1 It is a weapon which all who would engage successfully in the struggle of mod- ern life must sooner or later acquire; and they are apt to succeed just in the degree they acquire it. In my youth we were supposed to acquire it through the blundering application of rules of grammar in a lan- guage we did not understand. 2 The training which ought to have been obtained in physics and mathe- matics was thus sought for long, and in vain, in Greek. That it was not found, is small cause for wonder now. And so, looking back from this standpoint of thirty years later, and thinking of the game which has now been lost or won, I silently listen to that talk about "the severe intellectual training," in which a parrot- like memorizing did its best to degrade boys to the level of learned dogs. Finally, I come to the great impalpable-essence-and- precious-residuum theory, — the theory that a know- ledge of Greek grammar, and the having puzzled through the Anabasis and three books of the Iliad, infuses into the boy's nature the imperceptible spirit 1 Infra, p. 131. a Infra, pp. 124, 125. A COLLEGE FETICH 27 of Greek literature, which will appear in the results of his subsequent work, just as manure, spread upon a field, appears in the crop which that field bears. But to produce results on a field, manure must be labori- ously worked into its soil, and made a part of it; and only when it is so worked in, and does become a part of it, will it produce its result. You cannot haul manure up and down and across a field, cutting the ground into deep ruts with the wheels of your cart, while the soil just gets a smell of what is in the cart, and then expect to get a crop. Yet even that is more than we did, and are doing, with Greek. We trundle a single wheelbarrow-load of Greek up and down and across the boy's mind ; and then we clasp our hands, and cant about a subtile fineness and impalpable but very pre- cious residuum! All we have in fact done is to teach the boy to mistake means for ends and to make a sys- tem of superficiality. Nor in this matter am I speaking unadvisedly or thoughtlessly. My own experience I have given. For want of a rational training in youth I cannot do my chosen work in life thoroughly. The necessary tools are not at my command ; it is too late for me to acquire them, or to learn familiarly to handle them; the mis- chief is done. I have also referred to my family expe- rience. Just as the wrestler in the gymnasium, after describing how he had himself fared in the games, might, in support of his conclusions, refer to his father and grandfather, who, likewise trained in the gymna- sium, had been noted athletes in their days, so I, com- ing here and speaking from practical experience, and practical experience alone, must cite that experience where I best can find it. I can find it best at home. So I appeal to a family experience which extends through 28 THREE 3> B K ADDRESSES ' nearly a century and a half. It is worth giving in this connection; and very much to the point. I do not think I exceed proper limits when I say that the family of which I am a member has, for more than a hundred years, held its own with the average of Har- vard graduates. Indeed, those representing it through three consecutive generations were rather looked upon as typical scholars in politics. They all studied Greek as a requirement to admission to college. In their subsequent lives they were busy men. Without being purely literary men, they wrote a great deal; indeed, the pen was rarely out of their hands. They all occu- pied high public position. They mixed much with the world. Now let us see what their actual experience in life was: how far did their college requirements fit them for it? Did they fit them any better than they have fitted. me? I begin with John Adams. John Adams graduated in the class of 1755, — a hundred and twenty-eight years ago. We have his own testimony on the practical value to him of his Greek learning, expressed in an unguarded moment, and in a rather comical way. I shall give it presently. Mean- while, after graduation John Adams was a busy man as a school-teacher, a lawyer and a patriot, until at the age of forty-two he suddenly found himself on the Atlantic, accredited to France as the representative of the struggling American colonies. French was not a requirement in the Harvard College of the last cen- tury, even to the modest extent in which it is a require- ment now. Greek was. But they did not talk Greek in the diplomatic circles of Europe then any more than they now talk it in the Harvard recitation-rooms; and in advising John Adams of his appointment, James Lovell had expressed the hope that his correspondent A COLLEGE FETICH 29 would not allow his "partial defect in the language" to stand in the way of his acceptance. He did not; but at forty-two, with his country's destiny on his shoul- ders, John Adams stoutly took his grammar and phrase- book in hand, and set himself to master the rudiments of that living tongue which was the first and most necessary tool for use in the work before him. What he afterwards went through — the anxiety, the hu- miliation, the nervous wear and tear, the disadvantage under which he struggled and bore up — might best be appreciated by some one who had fought for his life with one arm disabled. I shall not attempt to de- scribe it. But in the eighteenth century the ordinary educated man set a higher value on dead learning than even our college professors do now; and, in spite of his experience, no one thought more of it than did John Adams. So when in his closing years he founded an academy, he especially provided, bowing low before the fetich, that "a schoolmaster should be procured, learned in the Greek and Roman languages, and, if thought advisable, the Hebrew; not to make learned Hebricians, but to teach such young men as choose to learn it the Hebrew alphabet, the rudiments of the Hebrew grammar, and the use of the Hebrew gram- mar and lexicon, that in after life they may pursue the study to what extent they please." Instead of taking a step forward, the old man actually took one back- wards. And he went on to develop the following happy educational theory, which if properly considered in the light of the systematic superficiality of thirty years ago, to which I have already alluded, shows how our methods had then deteriorated. What was taught was at least to be taught thoroughly; and, as I have con- " OF PHE U 'DIVERSITY OF SO THREE B K ADDRESSES fessed, I have forgotten the Greek letters. "I hope," he wrote, "the future masters will not 'think me too presumptuous, if I advise them to begin their lessons in Greek and Hebrew by compelling their pupils to write over and over again copies of the Greek and He- brew alphabets, in all their variety of characters, until they are perfect masters of those alphabets and char- acters. This will be as good an exercise in chirography as any they can use, and will stamp those alphabets and characters upon their tender minds and vigorous memo- ries so deeply that the impression will never wear out, and will enable them at any period of their future lives to study those languages to any extent with great ease." This was fetich-worship, pure and simple. It was written in the year 1822. But practice is sometimes better than theory, and so I turn back a little to see how John Adams's practice squared with his theory. In his own case, did the stamping of those Greek characters upon his tender mind and vigorous mem- ory enable him at a later period "to study that lan- guage to any extent with great ease"? Let us see. On the 9th of July, 1813, the hard political wrangles of their two lives being over, and in the midst of the second war with Great Britain, I find John Adams thus writing to Thomas Jefferson, — and I must con- fess to very much preferring John Adams in his easy letter- writing undress, to John Adams on his dead- learning stilts; he seems a wiser, a more genuine man. He is answering a letter from Jefferson, who had in the shades of Monticello been reviving his Greek: " Lord ! Lord ! what can I do with so much Greek ? When I was of your age, young man, that is, seven or eight years ago [he was then nearly seventy-nine, and his correspondent a little over seventy], I felt a kind A COLLEGE FETICH 31 of pang of affection for one of the flames of my youth, and again paid my addresses to Isocrates and Diony- sius Halicarnassensis, etc., etc., etc. I collected all my lexicons and grammars, and sat down to Ilepi o-wtfe'o-ews ovofidrvs. In this way I amused myself for some time, but I found that if I looked a word to-day, in less than a week I had to look it again. It was to little better purpose than writing letters on a pail of water." This certainly is not much like studying Greek "to any extent with great ease." But I have not done with John Adams yet. A year and one week later I find him again writing to Jefferson. In the interval, Jefferson seems to have read Plato, sending at last to John Adams his final impressions of that philosopher. To this letter, on the 16th of July, 1814, his correspondent replies as follows: "I am very glad you have seriously read Plato, and still more rejoiced to find that your reflections upon him so perfectly harmonize with mine. Some thirty years ago I took upon me the severe task of going through all his works. With the help of two Latin translations, and one English and one French trans- lation, and comparing some of the most remarkable passages with the Greek, I labored through the tedious toil. My disappointment was very great, my aston- ishment was greater, and my disgust was shocking. Two things only did I learn from him. First, that Franklin's ideas of exempting husbandmen and mari- ners, etc., from the depredations of war were borrowed from him; and, second, that sneezing is a cure for the hiccough. Accordingly, I have cured myself and all my friends of that provoking disorder, for thirty years, with a pinch of snuff." l 1 John Adams's Works, vol. x, pp. 49, 102. 32 THREE <£ B K ADDRESSES As a sufficiently cross-examined witness on the sub- ject of Greek literature, I think that John Adams may now quit the stand. More fortunate than his father, John Quincy Adams passed a large part of his youth in Europe. There, in the easy way a boy does, he picked up those living languages so inestimably valuable to him in that diplo- matic career which subsequently was no less useful to his country than it was honorable to himself. Presently he came home, and, acquiring his modicum of Greek, graduated at Harvard in the class of 1788. Then followed his long public life, stretching through half a century. I would, for the sake of my argument, give much could I correctly weigh what he owed during that public life to the living languages picked up in Europe, against what he owed to the dead languages he acquired at Harvard. Minister at The Hague, at Berlin, and at St. Petersburg, negotiator at Ghent, his knowledge of living tongues enabled him to initiate the diplomatic movement which restored peace to his country. At St. Petersburg he at least was not tongue- tied. Returning to America, for eight years he was the head of the State Department, and probably the single member of the Government who, without the assistance of an interpreter, could hold ready intercourse with the representatives of other lands. Meanwhile, so far as Greek was concerned, I know he never read it; and I suspect that, labor-loving as he was, he never could read it. He could with the aid of a lexicon puzzle out a phrase when it came in his way, but from original sources he knew little or nothing of Greek literature. It would have been better for him if he had also dropped his Latin. I have already said that the display of cheap learning made the American oration of fifty years ago A COLLEGE FETICH 33 a national humiliation ; it was bedizened with classic tin- sel. In this respect John Quincy Adams shared to the full in the affectation of his time. Ready, terse, quick at parry and thrust in his native tongue, speaking plainly and directly to the point, with all his resources at his immediate command, — I think I may say he never met his equal in debate. Yet when in lectures and formal orations he mounted the classic high-horse and modelled himself on Demosthenes and Cicero, he became a poor imitator. As an imitator he was as bad as Chatham, when he essayed a eulogy of Wolfe. More could not be said. That much he owed to Har- vard College, and its little Latin and less Greek. But I must pass on to the third generation. Fortu- nate like his father, Charles Francis Adams spent some years of his boyhood in Europe, and in many countries of Europe; so that at six years old he could talk, as a child talks, in no less than six different tongues. Greek was not among them. Returning to America he, too, fitted for Harvard, and in so doing made a bad ex- change; for he easily got rid forever of the German speech, and with much labor acquired in place thereof the regulation allowance of Greek. He was graduated in the class of 1825. After graduation, having more leisure than his father or grandfather, — that is, not being compelled to devote himself to an exacting pro- fession, — he, as the phrase goes, "kept up his Greek." That is, he occupied himself daily, for an hour or so, with the Greek masterpieces, puzzling them labori- ously out with the aid of grammar and lexicon. He never acquired any real familiarity with the tongue; for I well remember that when my turn at the tread- mill came, and he undertook to aid me at my lessons, we were very much in the case of a boy who was nearly 34 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES blind, being led by a man who could only very indis- tinctly see. Still he for years "kept up his Greek," and was on the examining-committee of the College. And now, looking back, I realize at what a sad cost to himself he did this; for in doing it he lost the step of his own time. Had he passed those same morning hours in keeping himself abreast with modern thought in those living tongues he had acquired in his infancy, and allowed his classics to rest undisturbed on his library shelves, he would have been a wiser, a happier, and a far more useful man. But modern thought (apart from politics), modern science, modern ro- mance and modern poetry soon ceased to have any charm for him. Nevertheless he did not wholly lose the more useful lessons of his infancy. For years, as I have said, he officiated on the Greek examining-committee of the College; but at last the time came when his country needed a representative on a board of inter- national arbitration. Then he laid his lexicon and grammar aside forever, and the almost forgotten French of his boyhood was worth more — a thousandfold more — to him and his country than all the concen- trated results of the wasted leisure hours of his ma- turer life. I come now to the fourth generation, cutting deep into the second century. My father had four sons. We were all brought up on strict traditional principles, the special family experience being carefully ignored. We went to the Latin schools, and there wasted the best hours of our youth over the Greek grammar, — hours during which we might have been talking French and German, — and presently we went to Harvard. When we got there we dropped Greek, and with one voice we have all deplored the irreparable loss we sus- A COLLEGE FETICH 35 tained in being forced to devote to it that time and labor which, otherwise applied, would have produced results now invaluable. One brother, since a Professor at Harvard, whose work here was not without results, wiser than the rest, went abroad after graduation, and devoted two years to there supplying, imperfectly and with great labor, the more glaring deficiencies of his college training. Since then the post-graduate know- ledge thus acquired has been to him an indispensable tool of his trade. Sharing in the modern contempt for a superficial learning, he has not wasted his time over dead languages which he could not hope thoroughly to master. Another of the four, now a Fellow of the University, has certainly made no effort to keep up his Greek. When, however, his sons came forward, a fifth generation to fit for college, looking back over his own experience as he watched them at their studies, his eyes were opened. Then in language certainly not lacking in picturesque vigor, but rather profane than either classical or sacred, he expressed to me his ma- ture judgment. While he looked with inexpressible self-contempt on that worthless smatter of the classics which gave him the title of an educated man, he de- clared that his inability to follow modern thought in other tongues, or to meet strangers on the neutral ground of speech, had been and was to him a source of lifelong regret and the keenest mortification. In obedience to the stern behest of his Alma Mater he then proceeded to sacrifice his children to the fetich. My own experience I have partly given. It is un- necessary for me to repeat it. Speaking in all modera- tion, I will merely say that, so far as I am able to judge, the large amount of my youthful time devoted to the study of Greek, both in my school and college life, was 36 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES time as nearly as possible thrown away. I suppose I did get some discipline out of that boyish martyr- dom. I should have got some discipline out of an equal number of hours spent on a treadmill. But the dis- cipline I got for the mind out of the study of Greek, so far as it was carried and in the way in which it was pursued in my case, was very much such discipline as would be acquired on the treadmill for the body. I do not think it was any higher or any more intelligent. Yet I studied Greek with patient fidelity; and there are not many modern graduates who can say, as I can, that they have, not without enjoyment, read the Iliad through in the original from its first line to its last. But I read it exactly as some German student, toiling at English, might read Shakespeare or Milton. As he slowly puzzled them out, an hundred lines in an hour, what insight would he get into the pathos, the music and the majesty of Lear or of the Paradise Lost? What insight did I get into Homer? And then they actually tell me to my face that unconsciously, through the medium of a grammar, a lexicon and Felton's Greek Reader, the subtile spirit of a dead literature was and is infused into a parcel of boys! So much for what my Alma Mater gave me. In these days of repeating-rifles, she sent me and my class- mates out into the strife equipped with shields and swords and javelins. We were to grapple with living questions through the medium of dead languages. It seems to me I have heard, somewhere else, of a child's cry for bread being answered with a stone. But on this point I do not like publicly to tell the whole of my own experience. It has been too bitter, too humiliating. Representing American educated men in the world's industrial gatherings, I have occupied A COLLEGE FETICH 37 a position of confessed inferiority. I have not been the equal of my peers. It was the world's congress of to-day, and Latin and Greek were not current money there. Such is a family and individual experience covering a century and a half. With that experience behind me, I have sons of my own coming forward. I want them to go to college, — to Harvard College; but I do not want them to go there by the path their fathers trod. It seems to me that four generations ought to suffice. Neither is my case exceptional. I am, on the contrary, one of a large class in the community, very many of whom are more imbued than I with the sci- entific and thorough spirit of the age. As respects our children, the problem before us is a simple one; and yet one very difficult of practical solution. We want no more classical veneer. Whether on furniture or in education, we do not admire veneer. Either impart to our children the dead languages thoroughly or the living languages thoroughly; or, better yet, let them take their choice of either. This is just what the col- leges do not do. On the contrary, Harvard stands directly in the way of what a century-and-a-half's experience tells me is all- important. I have already referred to the way in which this comes about. It was Polonius, I think, who suggested to his agent that he should "by indirections find directions out;" and that is what Harvard does with our youth. Economically speaking, the bounty or premium put upon Greek is so heavy that it amounts to a prohibition of other things. To fit a boy for college is now no small task. The doing so is a specialty in itself; for the standard has been raised, and the list of requirements increased. Candidates for admission 38 THREE B K ADDRESSES to the Freshman class must know a little of a good many things. To acquire this multifarious fractional knowledge takes a great deal of time. To impart it in just the proper quantities, and in such a way that it shall all be on hand and ready for exhibition on a given day, affords the teachers of the academies, as I am given to understand, all the occupation they crave. The requirements being thus manifold, it is a case of expressio unius, exclusio alterius. Accordingly, one thing crowding another out, there does not exist, so far as I am able to learn, a single school in the country which will at the same time prepare my sons for college, and for what I, by long and hard experience, perfectly well know to be the life actually before them. The simple fact is that the College Faculty tell me that I do not know what a man really needs to enable him to do the educated work of modern life well; and I, who for twenty years have been engaged in that work, can only reply that the members of the Faculty are labor- ing under a serious misapprehension as to what life is. It is a something made up, not of theories, but of facts, — and of confoundedly hard facts, at that. The situation has its comical side, and is readily suggestive of sarcasm. Unfortunately, it has its serious side also. It is not so very easy to elude the fetich. Of course, where means are ample it is possible to im- provise an academy through private instruction. But the contact with his equals in the class and on the play- ground is the best education a boy ever gets, — better than a rudimentary knowledge of Greek, even. Ac- cording to my observation, to surround children with tutors at home is simply to emasculate them. Then, again, they can be sent to Europe and to the schools there. But that way danger lies. For myself, whatever A COLLEGE FETICH 89 my children are not, I want them to be Americans. If they go to Europe, I must go with them; but as the people of modern Europe do not speak Greek and Latin, in which learned tongues alone I am theoret- ically at home, a sojourn of some years in a foreign academic town, though as a remedy it may be effect- ive, yet at the time of life at which those of my gen- eration have now unhappily arrived, it partakes also of the heroic. Such is the dilemma in which I find myself placed. Such is the common dilemma in which all those are placed who see and feel the world as I have seen and felt it. We are the modernists and a majority; but in the eyes of the classicists we are, I fear, a vulgar and contemptible majority. Yet I cannot believe that this singular condition of affairs will last a great While longer. The measure of reform seems very simple and wholly reasonable. The modernist does not ask to have German and French substituted for Greek and Latin as the basis of all college education. I know that he is usually represented as seeking this change, and of course I shall be represented as seeking it. This, however, is merely one of those wilful misre- presentations to which the more disingenuous de- fenders of vested interests always have recourse. So far from demanding that Greek and Latin be driven out, and French and German substituted for them, we do not even ask that the modern languages be put on an equal footing with the classic. Recognizing, as every intelligent modernist must, that the command of several languages, besides that which is native to him, is essential to a liberally educated man, — recog- nizing this fundamental fact, those who feel as I feel would by no means desire that students should be 40 THREE B K ADDRESSES admitted to the college who could pass their examina- tions in German and French, instead of Greek and Latin. We are willing — at least I am willing — to concede a preference, and a great preference, to the dead over the living, to the classic over the modern. All I would ask, would be that the preference afforded to the one should no longer, as now, amount to the practical prohibition of the other. I should not even wish, for instance, that, on the present basis of real familiarity, Greek should count against French and German combined as less than three counts against one. This, it seems to me, should afford a sufficient bounty on Greek. In other words, the modernist asks of the college to change its requirements for admis- sion only in this wise: Let it say to the student who presents himself, "In what languages, besides Latin and English, — those are required of all, — in what other languages — Hebrew, Greek, German, French, Spanish, or Italian — will you be examined ?*' If the student replies, "In Greek," so be it, — let him be examined in that alone; and if, as now, he can stumble through a few lines of Xenophon or Homer, and ren- der some simple English sentences into questionable Greek, let that suffice. As respects languages, let him be pronounced fitted for a college course. If, however, instead of offering himself in the classic, he offers him- self in the modern tongues, then, though no mercy be shown him, let him at least no longer be turned con- temptuously away from the college doors; but, in- stead of the poor, quarter-knowledge, ancient and modern, now required, let him be permitted to pass such an examination as will show that he has so mas- tered two languages besides his own that he can go forward in his studies, using them as working tools. Re- A COLLEGE FETICH 41 member that, though we are modernists, we are yet your fellow students; and so we pray you to let us and our children sit at the common table of the Alma Mater, even though it be below the salt. That an elementary knowledge of one dead language should count as equal to a thorough familiarity with two living languages ought, I submit, to be accepted as a sufficient educational bounty on the former, and brand of inferiority on the latter. The classicist should in reason ask for no more. He should not insist that his is the only, as well as the royal, road to salvation. Meanwhile the modernist would be perfectly satisfied with recognition on any terms. He most certainly does not wish to see modern languages, or indeed any other subject, taught in preparatory schools as Greek was taught in them when we were there, or as it is taught in them now, — I mean as a mere college require- ment. Believing, as the scientific modernist does, that a little knowledge is a contemptible thing, he does not wish to see the old standard of examinations in the dead languages any longer applied to the living. On the contrary, we wish to see the standard raised; and we know perfectly well that it can be raised. If a youth wants to enter college on the least possible basis of solid acquirement, by all means let Greek, as it is, be left open for him. If, however, he takes the modern languages, let him do so with the distinct understand- ing that he must master those languages. After he en- ters the examination-room no word should be uttered except in the language in which he is there to be ex- amined. Consider now, for a moment, what would be the effect on the educational machinery of the country of this change in the college requirements. The modern, 42 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES scientific, thorough spirit would at once assert itself. Up to this time it has, by that tradition and authority which are so powerful in things educational, been held in subjection. Remove the absolute protection which hitherto has been and now is accorded to Greek, and many a parent would at once look about for a modern, as opposed to a classical, academy. To meet the col- lege requirements, that academy would have to be one in which no English word would be spoken in the higher recitation-rooms. Every school exercise would be conducted by American masters proficient in the foreign tongues. The scholars would have to learn languages by hearing them and talking them. The natural law of supply and demand would then assert itself. The demand is now a purely artificial one ; but the supply of Greek and Latin, such as it is, comes in response to it. Once let a thorough knowledge of German and French and Spanish be as good tender at the college-door as a fractional knowledge of either of the first two of those languages and of Greek now is, and the academies would supply that thorough knowledge also. If the present academies did not sup- ply it, other and better academies would. But I have heard it argued that in order to attain the ends I have in view no such radical change as that involved in dropping Greek from the list of college requirements is at all necessary. The experience of Montaigne is cited, told in Montaigne's charming language. It is then asserted that the compulsory study of Greek has not been discontinued in foreign colleges; and yet, as we all know, the students of those colleges have an ever increasing mastery of the living tongues. I do not propose to enter into this branch of the dis- cussion. I do not profess to be informed as to what A COLLEGE FETICH 43 the universities of other lands have done. As I have repeatedly said, I have nothing of value to contribute to this debate except practical, individual experience. So, in answer to the objections I have just stated, I hold it sufficient for my purpose to reply that we have to deal with America, and not with Germany or France or Great Britain. The educational and social condi- tions are not the same here as in those countries. Our home-life is different; our schools are different; wealth is otherwise distributed; the machinery for special instruction which is found there cannot be found here. However it may be in England or in Prussia, however it may hereafter be in this country, our children can- not now acquire foreign languages, living or dead, in the easy, natural way, — in the way in which Mon- taigne acquired them. The appliances do not exist. Consequently there is not room in one and the same preparatory school for both the modernist and the classicist. Under existing conditions the process of acquiring the languages is too slow and laborious; the one crowds out the other. In the university it is not so. The two could from the beginning there move side by side; under the elective system they do so al- ready, during the last three years of the course. I would put no obstacle in the way of the scholar whose tastes turn to classic studies. On the contrary, I would afford him every assistance, and no longer clog and encumber his progress by tying him to a whole class- room of others whose tastes run in opposite directions, or in no direction at all. 1 Indeed, it is curious to think how much the standard of classic requirements might be raised, were not the better scholars weighted down by the presence of the worse. But while welcoming 1 Infra, pp. 146, 147. 44 THREE 3> B K ADDRESSES the classicist, why not also welcome the modernist? Why longer say, "By this one avenue only shall the college be approached " ? The university is a part of the machinery of the world in which we live; and, as I have already more than once intimated, the college student does not get very far into that world, after leaving these classic shades, before he is made to realize that it is a world of facts, and very hard facts. As one of those facts, I would like to suggest that there are but two, or at most three, languages spoken on these continents in which ours is the dominant race. There is a saying that a living dog is better than a dead lion; and the Spanish tongue is what the Greek is not, — a very considerable American fact. Here I might stop; and here, perhaps, I ought to stop. I am, however, unwilling to do so without a closing word on one other topic. For the sake of my argument, and to avoid making a false issue, I have in everything I have said, as between the classic and modern languages, fully yielded the preference to the former. I have treated a mastery of the living tongues simply as an indispensable tool of trade, or medium of speech and thought. It was a thing which the scholar, the professional man and the scientist of to-day must have, or be unequal to his work. I have made no reference to the accumulated literary wealth of the modern tongues, much less compared their master- pieces with those of Greece or Rome. Yet I would not have it supposed that in taking this view of the matter I express my full belief. On the contrary, I shrewdly suspect that there is in what are called the educated classes, both in this country and in Europe, a simu- lated admiration of many of *he accepted masterpieces A COLLEGE FETICH 45 in Greek or in Latin which is based largely on tradi- tion and credulity. Established articles of the orthodox literary creed, that is jealously prized as part of the body of the classics, which if published to-day, in Ger- man or French or English, would fail to excite even a passing notice. There are immortal poets, whose im- mortality, my mature judgment tells me, is wholly due to the fact that they wrote two thousand years ago. Even a dead language cannot wholly veil extreme tenuity of thought and fancy; and, as we have seen, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were in their day at a loss to account for the reputation even of Plato. In any event, this thing I hold to be indisputable: of those who study the classic languages, not one in a hundred ever acquires that familiarity with them which enables him to judge whether a given literary composition is a masterpiece or not. Take your own case and your own language for instance. For my- self, I can freely say that it has required thirty years of incessant and intelligent practice, with eye and ear and tongue and pen, to give me that ready mastery of the English language which enables me thoroughly to appreciate the more subtile beauties of the English literature. I fancy that it is in our native tongue alone, or in some tongue in which we have acquired as per- fect a facility as we have in our native tongue, that we ever detect those finer shades of meaning, that happier choice of words, that more delicate flavor of style, which alone reveal the master. Many men here, for instance, who cannot speak French or Ger- man fluently, can read French and German authors more readily than any living man can read Greek, or than any, outside of a few college professors, can read Latin; yet they cannot see in the French or German 40 THREE B K ADDRESSES masterpieces what those can see there who are to the language born. The familiarity, therefore, with the classic tongues which would enable a man to appre- ciate the classic literatures in any real sense of the term is a thing which cannot be generally imparted. Even if the beauties which are claimed to be there are there, they must perforce remain concealed from all, save a very few, outside of the class of professional scholars. But are those transcendent beauties really there? I greatly doubt. I shall never be able to judge for my- self, for a mere lexicon-and-grammar acquaintance with a language I hold to be no acquaintance at all. But we can judge a little of what we do not know by what we do know, and I find it harder and harder to believe that in practical richness the Greek literature equals the German, or the Latin the French. Leaving practical richness aside, are there in the classic masterpieces any bits of literary workmanship which take preced- ence of what may be picked out of Shakespeare and Milton and Bunyan and Clarendon and Addison and Swift and Goldsmith and Gray and Burke and Gib- bon and Shelley and Burns and Macaulay and Car- lyle and Hawthorne and Thackeray and Tennyson ? If there are any such transcendent bits, I can only say that our finest scholars have failed most lament- ably in their attempts at rendering them into English. For myself, I cannot but think that the species of sanctity which has now, ever since the revival of learning, hedged the classics, is destined soon to dis- appear. Yet it is still strong; indeed, it is about the only patent of nobility which has survived the levelling tendencies of the age. A man who at some period of his life has studied Latin and Greek is an educated A COLLEGE FETICH 47 man; he who has not done so is only a self-taught man. Not to have studied Latin, irrespective of any present ability to read it, is accounted a thing to be ashamed of; to be unable to speak French is merely an inconvenience. I submit that it is high time this superstition should come to an end. I do not profess to speak with authority, but I have certainly mixed somewhat with the world, its labors and its literatures, through a third of a century, and in many lands ; and I am free to say, that, whether viewed as a thing of use, as an accomplishment, as a source of pleasure, or as a mental training, I would rather myself be familiar with the German tongue and its literature than be equally familiar with the Greek. I would unhesitatingly make the same choice for my child. What I have said of German as compared with Greek, I will also say of French as compared with Latin. On this last point I have no question. Authority and superstition apart, I am indeed unable to see how an intelligent man, having any considerable acquaintance with the two literatures, can, as respects either richness or beauty, compare the Latin with the French; while as a worldly accomplishment, were it not for fetich-worship, in these days of universal travel the man would be properly regarded as out of his mind who preferred to be able to read the odes of Horace, rather than to feel at home in the accepted neutral language of all refined society. This view of the case is not yet taken by the colleges. "The slaves of custom and established mode, With pack-horse constancy we keep the road, Crooked or straight, through quags or thorny dells, True to the jingling of our leader's bells." And yet I am practical and of this world enough to 48 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES believe, that in a utilitarian and scientific age the living will not forever be sacrificed to the dead. The worship even of the classical fetich draweth to a close; and I shall hold that I was not myself sacrificed wholly in vain, if what I have said here may contribute to so shaping the policy of Harvard that it will not much longer use its prodigious influence towards indirectly closing for its students, as it closed for me, the avenues to modern life and the fountains of living thought. SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?"' Whom doth the king delight to honour ? that is the question of questions concerning the king's own honour. Show me the man you honour; I know by that symptom, better than by any other, what kind of man you yourself are. For you show me there what your ideal of manhood is; what kind of man you long inexpressibly to be, and would thank the gods, with your whole soul, for being if you could. Who is to have a Statue? means, Whom shall we con- secrate and set apart as one of our sacred men? Sacred; that all men may see him, be reminded of him, and, by new example added to old perpetual precept, be taught what is real worth in man. Whom do you wish us to resemble ? Him you set on a high column, that all men, looking on it, may be continually apprised of the duty you expect from them. — Thomas Carlyle, Latter-Day Pamphlets. (1850.) At about three o'clock of the afternoon of September 3, 1658, the day of Worcester and of Dunbar, and as a great tempest was wearing itself to rest, Oliver Crom- well died. He died in London, in the palace of White- hall; that palace of the great banqueting-hall, through whose central window Charles I had walked forth to the scaffold a little less than ten years before. A few weeks later, "with a more than regal solemnity," the body of the great Lord Protector was carried to West- minster Abbey, and there buried "amongst Kings." Two years then elapsed; and, on the twelfth anniver- 1 Address delivered in Chicago before the University of Chicago Chapter of the fraternity of the Phi Beta Kappa, Tuesday, June 17, 1902. 52 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES sary of King Charles's execution, the remains of the usurper, having been disinterred by a unanimous vote of the Convention Parliament, were hung at Tyburn. The trunk was then buried under the gallows, while Cromwell's head was set on a pole over the roof of Westminster Hall. Nearly two centuries of execration ensued; until, in the sixth generation, the earlier ver- dict was challenged, and the question at last asked: "Shall Cromwell have a statue?" Cromwell, the traitor, the usurper, the execrable murderer of the martyred Charles ! At first, and for long, the suggestion was looked upon almost as an impiety, and, as such, scornfully repelled. Not only did the old loyal king- worship of England recoil from the thought, but, in- dignantly appealing to the Church, it declared that no such distinction could be granted so long as there re- mained in the prayer-book a form of supplication for " King Charles, the Martyr," and of " praise and thanks- giving for the wonderful deliverance of these king- doms from the Great Rebellion, and all the other mis- eries and oppressions consequent thereon, under which they had so long groaned." None the less, the demand was insistent; and at last, but only after two full cen- turies had elapsed and a third was well advanced, was the verdict of 1661 reversed. To-day the bronze effigy of Oliver Cromwell — massive in size, rugged in fea- ture, characteristic in attitude — stands defiantly in the yard of that Westminster Hall, from a pole on the top of which, twelve score years ago, the flesh crumbled from his skull. In this dramatic reversal of an accepted verdict, — this complete revision of opinions once deemed settled and immutable, — there is, I submit, a lesson, — an academic lesson. The present occasion is essentially "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 53 educational. The Phi Beta Kappa oration, as it is called, is the last, the crowning utterance of the college year, and very properly is expected to deal with some fitting theme in a kindred spir.it. I propose to do so to-day; but in a fashion somewhat exceptional. The phases of moral and intellectual growth through which the English race has passed on the subject of Crom- well's statue afford, I submit, to the reflecting man an educational study of exceptional interest. In the first place it was a growth of two centuries; in the second place it marks the passage of a nation from an existence under the traditions of feudalism to one under the prin- ciples of self-government; finally, it illustrates the grad- ual development of that broad spirit of tolerance which, coming with time and study, measures the men and events of the past independently of the prejudices and passions which obscure and distort the immediate vision. We, too, as well as the English, have had our " Great Rebellion." It came to a dramatic close thirty-seven years since; as theirs came to a close not less dramatic some seven times thirty-seven years since. We, also, as they in their time, formed our contemporaneous judgments and recorded our verdicts, assumed to be irreversible, of the men, the issues and the events of the great conflict; and those verdicts and judgments, in our case as in theirs, will unquestionably be revised, modified, and in not a few cases wholly reversed. Bet- ter knowledge, calmer reflection, and a more judicial frame of mind come with the passage of the years; in time passions subside, prejudices disappear, truth as- serts itself. In England this process has been going on for over two centuries and a half, with what result Cromwell's statue stands as proof. We live in another 54 THREE B K ADDRESSES age and a different environment; and, as fifty years of Europe out-measure in their growth a cycle of Cathay, so I hold one year of twentieth century Amer- ica works more progress in thought than thirty-seven years of Britain during the interval between its Great Rebellion and ours. We who took active part in the Civil War have not yet wholly vanished from the stage; the rear guard of the Grand Army, we linger. To-day is separated from the death of Lincoln by the same number of years only which separated "the Glorious Revolution of 1688" from the execution of Charles Stuart; yet to us it is already given to look back on the events of which we were a part through a perspective equal to that through which the Victorian Englishman looks back on the men and events of the Common- wealth. I propose here and now so to do. Reverting to my text — "Shall Cromwell have a Statue" — and reading that text in the gloss of Carlyle's Latter-Day Pamphlet utterance, I quote you Horace's familiar precept. " Mutato nomine, de te ' Fabula narratur," and ask abruptly, " Shall Robert E. Lee have a Statue ? " I propose also to offer to your consideration some reasons why he should, and, assuredly, will have one, if not now, then presently. Shortly after Lee's death, in October, 1870, leave was asked in the United States Senate by Mr. McCreery, of Kentucky, to introduce a Joint Resolution provid- ing for the return of the estate and mansion of Arling- ton to the family of the deceased Confederate Com- mander-in-chief. In view of the use which had then already been made of Arlington as a military cemetery, this proposal, involving, as it necessarily did, a re- "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 55 moval of the dead, naturally led to warm debate. The proposition was one not to be considered. If a defect in the title of the Government existed, it must in some way be cured, as, subsequently, it was cured. But I call attention to the debate because Charles Sumner, then a Senator from Massachusetts, participated in it, using the following language: "Eloquent Senators have already characterized the proposition and the traitor it seeks to commemorate. I am not disposed to speak of General Lee. It is enough to say he stands high in the catalogue of those who have imbrued their hands in their country's blood. I hand him over to the avenging pen of History." This was when Lee had been just two months dead; but, three quarters of a century after the Protector's skull had been removed from over the roof of Westminster Hall, Pope wrote in similar spirit: "See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame;" and, sixteen years later, — four fifths of a century after Cromwell's disentombment at Westminster and reburial at Tyburn, — a period from the death of Lee equal to that which will have elapsed in 1950, Gray wrote of the Stoke Pogis churchyard — "Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest, Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood." And now, a century and a half later, Cromwell's statue looms defiantly up in front of the Parliament House. When, therefore, an appeal is in such cases made to the "avenging pen of History," it is well to bear this instance in mind, while recalling perchance that other line of a greater than Pope, or Gray, or Sumner — "Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges." Was then Robert E. Lee a "traitor" — was he also 56 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES guilty of his "country's blood"? These questions I propose now to discuss. I am one of those who, in other days, was arrayed in the ranks which confronted Lee; one of those whom Lee baffled and beat, but who, finally, baffled and beat Lee. As one thus formerly lined up against him, these questions I propose to dis- cuss in the calmer and cooler, and altogether more reasonable light which comes to most men, when a whole generation of the human race lies buried be- tween them and the issues and actors upon which we undertake to pass. Was Robert E. Lee a traitor ? Technically, I think he was indisputably a traitor to the United States; for a traitor, as I understand it technically, is one guilty of the crime of treason; or, as the Century Dictionary puts it, violating his allegiance to the chief authority of the State; while treason against the United States is specifically defined in the Constitution as "levying war" against it, or "giving their enemies aid and com- fort." That Robert E. Lee did levy war against the United States can, I suppose, no more be denied than that he gave "aid and comfort" to its enemies. This technically; but, in history, there is treason and trea- son, as there are traitors and traitors. And, further- more, if Robert E. Lee was a traitor, so also, and indisputably, were George Washington, Oliver Crom- well, John Hampden, and William of Orange. The list might be extended indefinitely; but these will suf- fice. There can be no question that every one of those named violated his allegiance, and gave aid and com- fort to the enemies of his sovereign. Washington fur- nishes a precedent at every point. A Virginian like Lee, he was also a British subject; he had fought under the British flag, as Lee had fought under that of the United OF £iMFC "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 57 States; when, in 1776, Virginia seceded from the Brit- ish Empire, he "went with his State," just as Lee went with it eighty-five years later; subsequently Washing- ton commanded armies in the field designated by those opposed to them as "rebels," and whose descendants now glorify them as "the rebels of '76," much as Lee later commanded, and at last surrendered, much larger armies, also designated "rebels" by those they confronted. Except in their outcome, the cases were, therefore, precisely alike; and logic is logic. It con- sequently appears to follow, that, if Lee was a traitor, Washington was also. It is unnecessary to institute similar comparisons with Cromwell, Hampden and William of Orange. No defence can in their cases be made. Technically, one and all, they undeniably were traitors. But there are, as I have said, traitors and traitors, — Catilines, Arnolds and Gorgeis, as well as Cromwells, Hampdens and Washingtons. To reach any satisfac- tory conclusion concerning a candidate for "everlast- ing fame," — whether to praise him or to damn him, — enroll him as saviour, as martyr, or as criminal, — it is, therefore, necessary still further to discriminate. The cause, the motive, the conduct, must be passed in review. Did turpitude anywhere attach to the orig- inal taking of sides, or to subsequent act? Was the man a self-seeker? Did low or sordid motives impel him ? Did he seek to aggrandize himself at his coun- try's cost ? Did he strike with a parricidal hand ? These are grave questions; and, in the case of Lee, their consideration brings us at the threshold face to face with issues which have perplexed and divided the country since the day the United States became a country. They perplex and divide historians now. 58 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES Legally, technically, — the moral and humanitarian aspects of the issue wholly apart, — which side had the best of the argument as to the rights and the wrongs of the case in the great debate which led up to the Civil War? Before entering, however, on this well-worn — I might say, this threadbare — theme, as I find my- self compelled in briefest way to do, there is one pre- liminary very essential to be gone through with. A species of moral purgation. Bearing in mind Dr. John- son's advice to Boswell, on a certain memorable occa- sion, we should at least try to clear our minds of cant. Many years ago, but only shortly before his death, Richard Cobden said in one of his truth-telling deliv- erances to his Rochdale constituents, — "I really be- lieve I might be Prime Minister. If I would get up and say you are the greatest, the wisest, the best, the happiest people in the world, and keep on repeating that, I don't doubt but what I might be Prime Min- ister. I have seen Prime Ministers made in my expe- rience precisely by that process." The same great apostle of homely sense, on another occasion bluntly remarked in a similar spirit to the House of Commons, — "We generally sympathise with everybody's rebels but our own." In both these respects I submit we Americans are true descendants from the Anglo-Saxon stock; and nowhere is this more unpleasantly appar- ent than in any discussion which may arise of the motives which actuated those of our countrymen who did not at the time see the issues involved in our Civil War as we saw them. Like those Cobden addressed, we are prone to glorify our ancestors and, incidentally, ourselves, and we do not particularly care to give ear to what we are pleased to term unpatriotic, and, at times, even treasonable, talk. In other words, and in plain, "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 59 unpalatable English, our minds are saturated with self- complacent cant. Only in the case of others, remote in space or time, do we see things as they really are. Then, ceasing to be complacent, we are nothing unless critical and, usually, shocked. So, when it comes to rebellions, we, like Cobden's Englishmen, are wont almost invariably to sympathize with everybody's rebels but our own. Our souls go forth at once to Celt, Pole, Hungarian, Boer and Hindoo: but, when we are concerned, language quite fails us in which adequately to depict the moral turpitude which must actuate Confederate or Filipino who rises in resistance against what we are pleased really to consider, as well as call, the best and most beneficent government the world has yet been permitted to see, — Our Govern- ment ! This, I submit, is cant — pure, self-complacent cant; and at the threshold of discussion we had best free our minds of it, wholly, if we can; if not wholly, then in so far as we can. Philip the Second of Spain, when he directed his crusade in the name of God, Church and Government, against William of Orange, indulged in it in quite as good faith as we; and as for Charles " the Martyr" and the "sainted" Laud, for two centuries after Cromwell's head was stuck on a pole, all England every Sunday lamented in sackcloth and ashes the wrongs inflicted by sacrilegious hands on those most assuredly well 7 meaning rulers and men. All depends on the point of view; and during our own Civil War, while we unceasingly denounced the wilful wickedness of those who bore parricidal arms against the one immaculate authority yet given the eye of man to look upon, the leading newspaper of the world was referring to us in perfect good faith "as an insen- sate and degenerate people." An English member of 60 THREE <£ B K ADDRESSES Parliament, speaking at the same time in equally good faith, declared that, throughout the length and breadth of Great Britain, public sentiment was almost unani- mously on the side of "the Southerners," — as ours was on the side of the Boers, — because our "rebels" were "fighting against one of the most grinding, one of the most galling, one of the most irritating attempts to establish tyrannical government that ever disgraced the history of the world." Upon the correctness or otherwise of these judgments I do not care to pass. They certainly cannot be recon- ciled. The single point I make is that they were, when made, the expression of views honestly and sincerely entertained . We sympathize with Great Britain 's rebels ; Great Britain sympathized with our rebels. Our rebels in 1862, as theirs in 1900, sincerely believed they were resisting an iniquitous attempt to deprive them of their rights, and to establish over them a "grinding," a "galling," and an "irritating" "tyrannical govern- ment." We in 1861, as Great Britain in 1898, and Charles "the Martyr" and Philip of Spain some cen- turies earlier, fully believed that we were engaged in God's work while we trod under foot the "rebel" and the "traitor." Presently, as distance lends a more correct perspective, and things are seen in their true proportions, we will get perhaps to realize that our case furnishes no exception to the general rule; and that we, too, like the English, "generally sympathize with everybody's rebels but our own." Justice may then be done. Having entered this necessary, if somewhat hope- less caveat, let us address ourselves to the question at issue. I will state it again. Legally and technically, — not morally, again let me say, and wholly irrespective "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 61 of humanitarian considerations, — to which side did the weight of argument incline during the great debate which led up to the Civil War? The answer necessa- rily turns on the abstract right of what we term a Sovereign State to secede from the Union at such time and for such cause as may seem to that State proper and sufficient. The issue is settled now; irrevocably and for all time decided ; it was not settled forty years ago, and the settlement since made has been the result not of reason, based on historical evidence, but of events and of force. To pass a fair judgment on the line of conduct pursued by Lee in 1861, it is neces- sary to go back in thought and imagination, and see things, not as they are, but as they were. If we do so, and accept the judgment of some of the more mod- ern students and investigators of history, — either wholly unprejudiced or with a distinct Union bias, — it would seem as if the weight of argument falls into what I will term the Confederate scale. For instance, Professor Gold win Smith, — an Englishman, a life- long student of history, a friend and advocate of the Union during the Civil War, the author of one of the most compact and readable narratives of our national life, — Professor Smith has recently said, — "Few who have looked into the history can doubt that the Union originally was, and was generally taken by the parties to it to be, a compact, dissoluble perhaps most of them would have said, at pleasure, dissoluble certainly on breach of the articles of Union." 1 To a like effect, but in terms even stronger, Mr. Henry Cabot Lodge, now a Senator from Massachusetts, has said, not in a po- litical utterance but in a work of historical character, — "When the Constitution was adopted by the votes 1 Atlantic Monthly Magazine (March, 1902), vol. Ixxxix, p. 305. 62 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES of States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the votes of States in popular conventions, it is safe to say that there was not a man in the country from Washington and Hamilton, on the one side, to George Clinton and George Mason, on the other, who regarded the new system as anything but an experiment entered upon by the States, and from which each and every State had the right peaceably to withdraw, a right which was very likely to be exercised." ■ Here are two explicit statements of the legal and technical side of the argument made by authority to which no exception can be taken, at least by those of the Union side. On them, and on them alone, the case for the abstract right of secession might be rested, and we could go on to the next stage of the discussion. I am unwilling, however, so to do. The issue in- volved is still one of interest, and I am not disposed to leave it on the mere dictum of two authorities, how- ever eminent. In the first place, I do not altogether concur in their statement; in the next place, this dis- cussion is a mere threshing anew of straw thrice al- ready threshed, unless we get at the true inwardness of the problem as contradistinguished from its mere out- ward aspects : for, when it comes to questions — polit- ical or moral — in which human beings are involved, metaphysics are scarcely less to be avoided than cant; alleged historical facts are apt to prove deceptive; and I confess to grave suspicions of logic. Old time theo- logy, for instance, with its pitiless reasoning, led the world into very strange places and much bad company. In reaching a conclusion, therefore, in which a verdict is entered on the motives and actions of men, acting either individually or in masses, the moral and senti- 1 Webster, American Statesman Series, p. 172. f* SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 63 mental must be quite as much taken into account as the legal, the logical, and the material. This, in the present case, I propose presently to do; but, as I have said, on the facts even I am unable wholly to concur with Professor Smith and Mr. Lodge. Mr. Lodge, for instance, cites Washington. But it so chances Washington put himself on record upon the point at issue, and his testimony is directly at variance with the views attributed to him by Mr. Webster's biographer. -What are known in history as the Ken- tucky Resolutions, drawn up by Thomas Jefferson, then Vice-President, were passed by the Legislature of the State whose name they bear in November, 1798. In those resolutions the view of the original scope of the Constitution, accepted by Professor Smith and Mr. Lodge as that generally held by the framers of the instrument, was first formally promulgated. The prin- ciples acted upon by South Carolina on the 20th of December, 1860, were enunciated by Kentucky No- vember 10, 1798. The dragon's teeth were then sown. Washington was at that time living in retirement at Mount Vernon. When, a few weeks later, the charac- ter of those resolutions became known to him, he was deeply concerned, and wrote to Lafayette : " The Constitution, according to their interpretation of it, would be a mere cipher;" and again, a few days later, he expressed himself still more strongly in a letter to Patrick Henry : " Measures are systematically and pertinaciously pursued which must eventually dissolve the Union, or produce coercion." * Coercion Washing- ton thus looked to as the remedy to which recourse could properly be had in case of any overt attempt at secession. But, so far as the framers of the Constitution 1 Washington's Works, vol. xi, pp. 378, 389. 64 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES as a whole were concerned, it seems to me clear that, acting as wise men of conflicting views naturally would act, they did not care to incur the danger of a ship- wreck of their entire scheme by undertaking to settle, distinctly and in advance, abstract questions, the dis- cussion of which was fraught with danger. In so far as they could, they, with great practical shrewdness, left those questions to be settled, should they ever present themselves in concrete form, under the conditions which might then exist. The truth seems to be that the mass of those composing the Convention of 1787, working under the guidance of a few very able and exceedingly practical men, of constructive mind, builded a great deal better than they knew. The delegates met to har- monize trade differences; they ended by perfecting a scheme of political union that had broad consequences of which they little dreamed. If they had dreamed of them, the fabric would never have been completed. That Madison, Marshall and Jay were equally blind to consequences does not follow. They probably designed a nation. If they did, however, they were too wise to take the public into their confidence; and, to-day, no impartial student of our constitutional history can doubt for a moment that each State ratified the form of gov- ernment submitted in the firm belief that at any time it could withdraw therefrom. Probably, however, the more far-seeing — and, in the long run, they alone count — shared with Washington in the belief that this withdrawal would not be unaccompanied by prac- tical difficulty. 1 And, after all is said and done, the legality of secession is somewhat of a metaphysical ab- straction so long as the right of revolution is inalienable. As matter of fact it was to might and revolution the 1 Donn Piatt, George H. Thomas, p. 88. "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 65 South appealed in 1861; and it was to coercion the Government of the Union had recourse. So with his supreme good sense and that political insight at once instinctive and unerring, in respect to which he stands almost alone, Washington foresaw this alternative in 1798. He looked upon the doctrine of secession as a heresy; but, none the less, it was a heresy then preached and to which many, not in Virginia only but in New England also, pinned their political faith. Even the Devil is proverbially entitled to his due. As the utterances of Professor Smith and Mr. Lodge, however, conclusively show, so far as the abstract question is of consequence, the Secessionists of 1861 stand in history's court by no means without a case. In that case, moreover, they implicitly believed. From generation to generation they had grown up indoc- trinated with the gospel, or heresy, of State Sovereignty, and it was as much part of their moral and intellectual being as was clanship of the Scotch Highlanders. In so far they were right, as Governor John A. Andrew said of John Brown. Meanwhile, practically, as a common-sensed man, leading an every-day existence in a world of actualities, John Brown was not right; he was, on the contrary, altogether wrong, and richly merited the fate meted out to him. It was the same with the Secessionists. That, in 1861, they could really have had faith in the practicability — the real work- ing efficiency — of that peaceable secession which they professed to ask for, and of which they never wearied of talking, I cannot believe. I find in the record no real evidence thereof. Of the high-type Southron, as we sometimes desig- nate him, I would speak in terms of sincere respect. I know him chiefly by hearsay, having come in per- 66 THREE $ B K ADDRESSES sonal contact only with individual representatives of the class ; but such means of observation as I have had confirm what I recently heard said by a friend of mine, once Governor of South Carolina, and, so far as I know, the only man who ever gave the impossible plan of reconstruction attempted after our Civil War a firm, fair, and intelligent trial. He at least put forth an able and honest effort to make effective a policy which never should have been devised. Speaking from "much and varied experience," I recently heard Daniel H. Cham- berlain say of the "typical Southern Gentleman" that he considered him "a distinct and really noble growth of our American soil. For, if fortitude under good and under evil fortune, if endurance without complaint of what comes in the tide of human affairs, if a grim cling- ing to ideals once charming, if vigor and resiliency of character and spirit under defeat and poverty and dis- tress, if a steady love of learning and letters when li- braries were lost in flames and the wreckage of war, if self-restraint when the long-delayed relief at last came, — if, I say, all these qualities are parts of real heroism, if these qualities can vivify and ennoble a man or a people, then our own South may lay claim to an honored place among the differing types of our great common race." Such is the matured judgment of the Massachusetts Governor of South Carolina during the Congressional Reconstruction period ; and, listening to it, I asked myself if it was descriptive of a Southern fellow countryman, or a Jacobite Scotch chieftain an- terior to "the '45." The Southern statesmen of the old slavery days — the antediluvian period which preceded our mid-cen- tury cataclysm — were the outcome and representa- tives of what has thus been described. As such they "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 67 presented a curious admixture of qualities. Masterful in temper, clear of purpose, with a firm grasp on prin- ciple, a high sense of honor and a moral perception developed on its peculiar lines, as in the case of Cal- houn, to a quality of distinct hardness, they were yet essentially abstractionists. Political metaphysicians, they were not practical men. They did not see things as they really were. They thus, while discussing their "forty-bale theories" and the "patriarchal institution" in connection with States' Rights and Nullification, failed to realize that on the two essential features of their policy, — slavery and secession, — they were contending with the stars in their courses. The whole world was moving irresistibly in the direction of nationality and an ever increased recognition of the rights of man; while they, on both of these vital issues, were proclaiming a crusade of reaction. Moreover, what availed the views or intentions of the framers of the Constitution ? What mattered it in 1860 whether they, in 1787, contemplated a Nation or only a more compact federation of Sovereign States ? Realities have an unpleasant way of asserting their existence. However it may have been in 1788, in 1860 a Nation had grown into existence. Its peaceful dis- memberment was impossible. The complex system of tissues and ligaments, the growth of seventy years, could not be gently taken apart, without wound or hurt; the separation, if separation there was to be, involved a tearing asunder, supplementing a liberal use of the knife. Their professions to the contrary notwithstanding, this the Southern leaders failed not to realize. In point of fact, therefore, believing fully in the abstract legality of secession, and the justice and sufficiency of the grounds for the act of secession in 68 THREE 3> B K ADDRESSES 1861, as matter of fact their appeal then was to the inalienable right of revolution; and to that might by which alone the right could be upheld. Let us put casuistry, metaphysics and sentiment aside, and come to actualities. The secessionist recourse in 1861 was to the sword ; and to the sword it was meant to have recourse. I have thus far spoken only of the South as a whole. Much has been said and written on the subject of an alleged conspiracy in those days of Southern men and leaders against the Union; of the designs and ultimate objects of the alleged conspirators; of acts of treachery on their part, and the part of their ac- complices, towards the Government, of which they were the sworn officials. Into this phase of the sub- ject I do not propose to enter. That the leaders in secession were men with large views, and that they had matured a comprehensive policy as the ultimate outcome of their movement, I entertain no doubt. They looked unquestionably to an easy military suc- cess, and the complete establishment of their Confed- eracy; more remotely, there can be no question they contemplated a policy of extension, and the establish- ment along the shores of the Gulf of Mexico and in the Antilles of a great semi-tropical, slave-labor republic; finally, all my investigations have tended to satisfy me that they confidently anticipated an early subsequent disintegration of the Union, and the accession of the bulk of the Northern States to the Confederacy, New England only being sternly excluded therefrom — "sloughed off," as they expressed it. The capital of the new Confederacy was to be Washington; African servitude, under reasonable limitations, was to be recognized throughout its limits; agriculture was to "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 69 be its ruling interest, with a tariff and foreign policy in strict accord therewith. "Secession is not intended to break up the present government, but to perpetuate it. We go out of the Union, not to destroy it, but for the purpose of getting further guarantees and secur- ity," — this was said in January, 1861; and this in 1900, — "And so we believe that, with the success of the South, the * Union of the Fathers/ which the South was the principal factor in forming, and to which she was far more attached than the North, would have been restored and reestablished: that in this Union, the South would have been again the dominant people, the controlling power.' ' Conceding the necessary premises of fact and law, — a somewhat considerable concession, but, perhaps, conceivable, — conceding these, I see in this position, then or now, nothing il- logical, nothing provocative of severe criticism, cer- tainly nothing treasonable. Acting on sufficient grounds, of which those thus acting were the sole judge, pro- ceeding in a way indisputably legal and regular, it was proposed to reconstruct the Union in the light of experience, and on a new, and, as they considered, an improved basis, without New England. This can- not properly be termed a conspiracy; it was a legiti- mate policy based on certain assumed data legal, moral and economical. But it was in reality never for a mo- ment believed that this programme could be peaceably and quietly carried into effect; and the assent of New England to the arrangement was neither asked for, assumed, nor expected. New England was distinctly relegated to an outer void, — at once cold, dark, in- hospitable. As to an official participation of those who sympa- thized in these views and this policy in the councils of 70 THREE B K ADDRESSES the Government, so furthering schemes for its overthrow while sworn to its support, I hold it unnecessary to speak. Such were traitors. As such, had they met their deserts, they should, at the proper time and on due process of law, have been arrested, tried, convicted, sen- tenced, and hanged. That in certain well-remembered instances this course was not pursued, is, to my mind, even yet much to be deplored. In such cases clemency is only another form of cant. Having now discussed what have seemed to me the necessary preliminaries, I come to the particular cases of Virginia and Robert E. Lee. The two are closely interwoven, — for Virginia was always Virginia, and the Lees were, first, over and above all, Virginians. It was the Duke of Wellington who, on a certain memo- rable occasion, indignantly remarked in his delightful French-English, — "Mais avant tout je suis gentil- homme anglais." So might have said the Lees of themselves, in their connection with Virginia. As respects Virginia, moreover, I am fain to say there was in the attitude of the State towards the Con- federacy, and, indeed, in its bearing throughout the Civil War, something which appealed strongly, — something unselfish and chivalric, — worthy of Vir- ginia's highest record. History will, I think, do justice to it. Virginia, it must be remembered, while a Slave State, was not a Cotton State. This was a distinction involving a difference. In Virginia the institution of slavery existed, and because of it she was in close sym- pathy with her sister Slave States; but, while in the Cotton States slavery had gradually assumed a purely material form, in Virginia it still retained much of its patriarchal character. The slave there was not a mere transferable chattel, like a horse or mule; practically, "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 71 and to a large extent, he was attached to the house and the soil. This fact had a direct bearing on the moral issue; for slavery was one thing in Virginia, quite an- other in Louisiana. The Virginian pride was moreover proverbial. Indeed, I doubt if local feeling and patriot- ism, and devotion to the State ever anywhere attained a higher development than in the community which dwelt in the region watered by the Potomac and the James, of which Richmond was the political centre. We of the North, especially we of New England, were Yankees; but a Virginian was a Virginian, and nothing else. I have heard of a New Englander, of a Green Mountain boy, of a Rhode Islander, of a "Nutmeg/* of a "Blue-nose" even, but never of a Massachusettensian. The word somehow does not lend itself to the mouth, any more than the thought to the mind. But Virginia was strongly attached by sentiment as well as interest to the Union. The birthplace of Wash- ington, the mother of States, as well as of Presidents, the "Old Dominion," as she was called, and fondly loved to call herself, had never been affected by the nullification heresies of South Carolina; and the long line of her eminent public men, though, in 1860, show- ing marked signs of a deteriorating standard, still re- tained a prominence in the national councils. If John B. Floyd was Secretary of the Interior, Winfield Scott was at the head of the Army. Torn by conflicting feelings, Virginia still held to the Nation, unwilling to sever her connection with it because of the lawful election of an anti-slavery President, even by a dis- tinctly sectional vote. For a time she even stayed the fast flooding tide of secession, bringing about a brief but important reaction. Those of us old enough to remember the drear and anxious winter which followed 72 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES the election and preceded the inauguration of Lincoln, recall vividly the ray of bright hope which, in the midst of its deepest gloom, then came from Virginia, It was in early February. Up to that time the record was unbroken. Beginning with South Carolina on the 20th of December, State after State, meeting in convention, had with significant unanimity passed ordinances of secession. Each successive ordinance was felt to be the equivalent to a renewed declaration of war. The outlook was dark indeed; and, amid the fast gathering gloom, all eyes, all thoughts, turned to Virginia. She represented what were known as the Border States; her action it was felt would largely influence, and might control, theirs. John Letcher was then Governor of Virginia, — a States' Rights Democrat, of course; but a Union man. By him the Legislature of the State was in December called together in special session, and that Legislature passed what was known as a conven- tion bill. Practically Virginia was to vote on the ques- tion at issue. Events moved rapidly. South Carolina had seceded on the 20th of December; Mississippi on the 8th of January; Alabama and Florida only three days later, on the 11th; Georgia followed on the 19th; Louisiana on the 26th, with Texas on the 1st of February. The procession seemed unending; the record unbroken. Not without cause might the now thoroughly frightened friends of the Union have ex- claimed with Macbeth: "What! will the line stretch out to the crack of doom? Another yet? A seventh ?" If at that juncture the Old Dominion by a decisive vote had followed in the steps of the Cotton States it implied consequences which no man could fathom. It involved the possession of the national capital, and "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 73 the continuance of the Government. Maryland would inevitably follow the Virginian lead; the recently elected President had not yet been inaugurated; taken wholly by surprise, the North was divided in sentiment; the loyal spirit of the country was not aroused. It was thus an even question whether, on the 4th of March, the whole machinery of the de facto government would not be in the hands of the revolutionists. All depended on Virginia. This is now forgotten; none the less, it is history. The Virginia election was held on the 4th of Feb- ruary, the news of the secession of Texas — seventh in the line — having been received on the 2d. Evi- dently, the action of Texas was carefully timed for effect. Though over forty years ago, I well remember that day, — gray, overcast, wintry, — which succeeded the Virginia election. Then living in Boston, a young man of twenty-five, I shared — as who did not ? — in the common deep depression and intense anxiety. It was as if a verdict was to be that day announced in a case involving fortune, honor, life even. Too harassed for work, I remember leaving my office in the afternoon to seek relief in physical activity, for the ponds in the vicinity of Boston were ice-covered and daily thronged with skaters. I was soon among the number, gloomily seeking unfrequented spots. Suddenly I became aware of an unusual movement in the throng nearest the shore, where those fresh from the city arrived. The skaters seemed crowding to a common point; and a moment later they scattered again, with cheers and gestures of relief. An arrival fresh from Boston had brought the first bulletin of yesterday's election. Virginia, speaking against seces- sion, had emitted no uncertain sound. It was as if 74 THREE 3> B K ADDRESSES a weight had been taken off the mind of every one. The tide seemed turned at last. For myself, I remem- ber my feelings were too deep to find expression in words or sound. Something stuck in my throat. I wanted to be by myself. Nor did we overestimate the importance of the event. If it did not in the end mean reaction, it did mean time gained; and time then, as the result showed, was vital. As William H. Seward, representing the President-elect in Washington, wrote during those days: "The people of the District are looking anx- iously for the result of the Virginia election. They fear if Virginia resolves on secession, Maryland will follow; and then Washington will be seized. . . . The election to-morrow probably determines whether all the Slave States will take the attitude of disunion. Everybody around me thinks that that will make the separation irretrievable, and involve us in flagrant civil war. Practically everybody will despair." A day or two later the news came "like a gleam of sunshine in a storm." The disunion movement Was checked, perhaps would be checkmated. Well might Seward, with a sigh of profound relief, write to his wife: "At least, the danger of conflict, here or elsewhere, before the 4th of March, has been averted. Time has been gained." ! Time was gained; and the few weeks of precious time thus gained through the expiring effort of Union sentiment in Virginia involved the vital fact of the peaceful delivery, four weeks later, of the helm of State into the hands of Lincoln. Thus, be it always remembered, Virginia did not take its place in the secession movement because of the election of an anti-slavery President. It did not 1 Seward at Washington, vol. ii, p. 502. " SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 75 raise its hand against the National Government from mere love of any peculiar institution, or a wish to pro- tect and to perpetuate it. It refused to be precipitated into a civil convulsion ; and its refusal was of vital moment. The ground of Virginia's final action was of wholly another nature, and of a nature far more credit- able. Virginia, as I have said, made State Sovereignty an article — a cardinal article — of its political creed. So, logically and consistently, it took the position that, though it might be unwise for a State to secede, a State which did secede could not, and should not be coerced. To us now this position seems worse than illogical; it is impossible. So events proved it. Yet, after all, it is based on the great fundamental principle of the consent of the governed; and, in the days immediately preceding the war, something very like it was ac- cepted as an article of correct political faith by men afterwards as strenuous in support of a Union rees- tablished by force as Charles Sumner, Abraham Lin- coln, William H. Seward, Salmon P. Chase and Horace Greeley. The difference was that, confronted by the overwhelming tide of events, Virginia adhered to it; they, in presence of that tide, tacitly abandoned it. In my judgment, they were right. But Virginia, though mistaken, more consistent, judged otherwise. As I have said, in shaping a practical outcome of human affairs logic is often as irreconcilable with the dictates of worldly wisdom as are metaphysics with common sense. So, now, the issue shifted. It became a ques- tion, not of slavery or of the wisdom, or even the ex- pediency, of secession, but of the right of the National Government to coerce a Sovereign State. This at the time was well understood. The extremists of the South 76 THREE B K ADDRESSES counted upon a denial of that right by all the Southern States at least; and they counted upon it with absolute confidence. They openly proclaimed their reliance in debate. Florida, as the representatives of that State confessed on the floor of Congress, might in itself be of small account; but Florida, panoplied with sover- eignty, was hemmed in and buttressed against assault by protecting sister States. So, in his history, James F. Rhodes asserts that — "The four men who in the last resort made the de- cision that began the war were ex-Senator Chestnut, Lieutenant-Colonel Chisholm, Captain Lee, all three South Carolinians, and Roger A. Pryor, a Virginia se- cessionist, who two days before in a speech at the Charleston Hotel had said, — 'I will tell your governor what will put Virginia in the Southern Confederacy in less than an hour by Shrewsbury clock. Strike a blow I ' M ' The blow was to be in reply to what was accepted as the first overt effort at the national coercion of a Sov- ereign State, — the attempted relief of Sumter. That attempt, — unavoidable even if long deferred, the necessary and logical outcome of a situation which had become impossible of continuance, — that attempt, con- strued into an effort at coercion, swept Virginia from her Union moorings. Thus, when the long-deferred hour of fateful decis- ion came, the position of Virginia, be it in historical justice said, however impetuous, mistaken, or ill-ad- vised, was taken on no low or sordid or selfish grounds. On the contrary, the logical assertion of a cardinal ar- ticle of accepted political faith, it was made generously, chivalrously, in a spirit almost altruistic; for, from the outset, it was manifest Virginia had nothing to gain 1 Rhodes, United States, vol. iii, p. 349. 'SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 77 in that conflict of which she must perforce be the battle- ground. True! her leading men doubtless believed that the struggle would soon be brought to a triumph- ant close, — that Southern chivalry and fighting qualities would win a quick and easy victory over a more materially minded, even if not craven, Northern mob of fanatics and cobblers and peddlers, officered by preachers: but, however thus deceived and misled at the outset, Virginia entered on the struggle others had initiated, for their protection and in their behalf. She thrust herself between them and the tempest they had invoked. Technically it may have been treasonable; but her attitude was consistent, was bold, was chival- rous: "An honourable murderer if you will; For naught did he in hate but all in honour." So much for Virginia; and now as to Robert E. Lee. More than once already, on occasions not unlike this, have I quoted Oliver Wendell Holmes's remark in answer to the query of an anxious mother as to when a child's education ought to begin — "About 250 years before it is born;" and it is a fact — somewhat neces- sitarian, doubtless, but still a fact — that every man's life is largely moulded for him far back in the ages. We philosophize freely over fate and free will, and one of the excellent commonplaces of our educational system is to instil into the minds of the children in our com- mon schools the idea that every man is the architect of his own life. An admirable theory to teach; but, happily for the race, true only to a very limited extent. Heredity is a tremendous limiting fact. Native force of character — individuality — doubtless has something to do with results; but circumstances, ancestry, en- vironment have much more. One man possibly in a 78 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES hundred has in him the inherent force to make his con- ditions largely for himself; but even he moves influ- enced at every step from cradle to grave by antenatal and birth conditions. Take any man you please, — yourself, for instance; now and again the changes of life give opportunity, and the individual is equal to the occasion, — the roads forking, consciously or instinct- ively he makes his choice. Under such circumstances, he usually supposes that he does so as a free agent. The world so assumes, holding him responsible. He is nothing of the sort; or at best such only in a very limited degree. The other day one of our humorists took occasion to philosophize on this topic, delivering what might not inaptly be termed an occasional dis- course appropriate to the 22d of February. It was not only worth reading, but in humor and sentiment it was somewhat suggestive of the melancholy Jacques. "We are made, brick by brick, of influences, patiently built up around the framework of our born dispositions. It is the sole process of construction ; there is no other. Every man, woman and child is an influence. Wash- ington's disposition was born in him, he did not create it. It was the architect of his character; his character was the architect of his achievements. It had a native affinity for all influences fine and great, and gave them hospitable welcome and permanent shelter. It had a native aversion for all influences mean and gross, and passed them on. It chose its ideals for him; and out of its patiently gathered materials, it built and shaped his golden character. "And we give him the credit." Three names of Virginians are impressed on the mili- tary records of our Civil War, — indelibly impressed, — Winfield Scott, George Henry Thomas, and Robert "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 79 Edward Lee; the last most deeply. Of the three, the first two stood by the flag; the third went with his State. Each, when the time came, acted conscientiously, im- pelled by the purest sense of loyalty, honor and obli- gation, taking that course which, under the circum- stances and according to his lights, seemed to him right; and each doubtless thought he acted as a free agent. To a degree each was a free agent; to a much greater degree each was the child of anterior conditions, hered- itary sequence, existing circumstances, — in a word, of human environment, moral, material, intellectual. Scott or Thomas or Lee, being as he was, and things being as things were, could not decide otherwise than as he did decide. Consider them in order; Scott first. A Virginian by birth, early association and marriage, Scott, at the breaking-out of the Civil War, had not lived in his native State for forty years. Not a planter, he held no broad acres and owned no slaves. Essen- tially a soldier, he was a citizen of the United States; and, for twenty years, had been the general in com- mand of its army. When, in April, 1861, Virginia passed its ordinance of secession, he was well advanced in his seventy-fifth year, — an old man, he was no longer equal to active service. The course he would pursue was thus largely marked out for him in advance; a violent effort on his part could alone have forced him out of the customary path. When subjected to the test, what he did was infinitely creditable to him, and the obligation the cause of the Union lay under to him during the critical period between December, 1860, and June, 1861, can scarcely be overstated; but, none the less, in doing as he did, it cannot be denied he fol- lowed what was for him the line of least resistance. 80 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES Of George Henry Thomas, no American, North or South, — above all, no American who served in the Civil War, — whether wearer of the blue or the gray, — can speak, save with infinite respect, — always with admiration, often with love. Than his, no record is clearer from stain. Thomas also was a Virginian. At the time of the breaking-out of the Civil War, he held the rank of major in that regiment of cavalry of which Lee, nine years his senior in age, was colonel. He never hesitated in his course. True to the flag from start to finish, William T. Sherman, then General of the Army, in the order announcing the death of his friend and classmate at the Academy, most properly said of him: "The very impersonation of honesty, integrity and honor, he will stand to posterity as the beau ideal of the soldier and gentleman." More tersely, Thomas stands for character personified. Washington himself not more so. And now having said this, let us come again to the choice of Hercules, — the parting of those ter- rible ways of 1861. Like Scott and Lee, Thomas was a Virginian ; but, again, there are Virginians and Virginians. Thomas was not a Lee. When, in 1855, the Second United States Cavalry was organized, Jefferson Davis being Secretary of War, Captain Thomas, as he then was and in his thirty-ninth year, was appointed its junior major. Between that time and April, 1861, fifty-one officers are said to have borne commissions in that regiment, thirty-one of whom were from the South; and of those thirty-one, no less than twenty-four en- tered the Confederate service, twelve of whom, among them Robert E. Lee, Albert Sidney Johnston, and John B. Hood, became general officers. The name of the Virginian, George H. Thomas, stands first of the faith- "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 81 ful seven; but, Union or Confederate, it is a record of brilliant names, and fortunate is the people, great of ne- cessity their destiny, which in the hour of exigency, on the one side or the other, naturally develops from the roster of a single regiment men of the ability, the dis- interestedness, the capacity, and the character of Lee, Thomas, Johnston and Hood. It is a record which inspires confidence as well as pride. And now of the two men — Thomas and Lee. Though born in Virginia, General Thomas was not of a pecu- liarly Virginian descent. By ancestry, he was, on the father's side, Welsh; French on that of the mother. He was not of the old Virginia stock. Born in the south- eastern portion of the State, near the North Carolina line, we are told that his family, dwelling on a "goodly home property," was "well to do" and eminently "re- spectable;" but, it is added, there "were no Cavaliers in the Thomas family, and not the remotest trace of the Pocahontas blood." When the war broke out, in 1861, Thomas had been twenty-one years a commis- sioned officer; and during those years he seems to have lived almost everywhere, except in Virginia. It had been a life at military stations; his wife was from New York; his home was on the Hudson rather than on the Nottoway. In his native State he owned no pro- perty, land or chattels. Essentially a soldier, when the hour for choice came, the soldier dominated the Virginian. He stood by the flag. Not so Lee; for to Lee I now come. Of him it might, and in justice must, be said, that he was more than of the essence, he was of the very quintessence of Vir- ginia. In his case, the roots and fibres struck down and spread wide in the soil, making him of it a part. A son of the Revolutionary "Light Horse Harry," he had 82 THREE 3> B K ADDRESSES married a Custis. His children represented all there was of descent, blood and tradition of the Old Domin- ion, made up as the Old Dominion was of tradition, blood and descent. The holder of broad patrimonial acres, by birth and marriage he was a slave-owner, and a slave-owner of the patriarchal type, holding "slavery as an institution, a moral and political evil." Every sentiment, every memory, every tie conceivable bound him to Virginia; and, when the choice was forced upon him, — had to be made, — sacrificing rank, career, the flag, he threw in his lot with Vir- ginia. He did so, with open eyes and weighing the con- sequences. He at least indulged in no self-deception, — wandered away from the path in no cloud of political metaphysics, — nourished no delusion as to an early and easy triumph. " Secession," as he wrote to his son, "is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Con- stitution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom and forbearance in its formation, and surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be broken by every member of the confederacy at will. It is idle to talk of secession." But he also believed that his permanent allegiance was due to Virginia; that her secession, though revolutionary, bound all Virginians, and ended their connection with and duties to the Na- tional Government. Thereafter, to remain in the United States Army would be treason to Virginia. So, two days after Virginia passed its ordinance, he, being then at Ar- lington, resigned his commission, at the same time writ- ing to his sister, the wife of a Union officer, — " We are now in a state of war which will yield to nothing. The whole South is in a state of revolution, into which Virginia, after a long struggle, has been drawn ; and, though I recognize no necessity for this state of things, "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 83 and would have forborne and pleaded to the end for redress of grievances, real or supposed, yet in my own person I had to meet the question whether I should take part against my native State. With all my devotion to the Union, and the feeling of loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my home. I have, therefore, resigned my com- mission in the army; and, save in defence of my native State, I hope I may never be called on to draw my sword." Two days before he had been unreservedly tendered, on behalf of President Lincoln, the command of the Union Army then immediately to be put in the field in front of Washington, — the command shortly afterwards held by General McDowell. So thought and spoke and wrote and acted Robert E. Lee in April, 1861. He has, for the decision thus reached, been termed by some a traitor, a deserter, almost an apostate, and consigned to the "avenging pen of History." I cannot so see it; I am confident posterity will not so see it. The name and conditions being changed, those who uttered the words of censure, invoking "the avenging pen," did not so see it — have not seen it so. Let us appeal to the record. What other- wise did George Washington do under circumstances not dissimilar? What would he have done under cir- cumstances wholly similar? Like Lee, Washington was a soldier; like Lee, he was a Virginian before he was a soldier. He had served under King George's flag; he had sworn allegiance to King George; his ambition had been to hold the royal commission. Presently Vir- ginia seceded from the British Empire, — renounced its allegiance. What did Washington do ? He threw in his lot with his native province. Do you hold him 84 THREE B K ADDRESSES then to have been a traitor, — to have been false to his colors? Such is not your verdict; such has not been the verdict of history. He acted conscientiously, loyally, as a son of Virginia, and according to his lights. Will you say that Lee did otherwise? But men love to differentiate: and of drawing of distinctions there is no end. The cases were different, it will be argued; at the time Virginia renounced its allegiance Washington did not hold the King's com- mission, indeed he never held it. As a soldier he was a provincial always, — he bore a Virginian commission. True! Let the distinction be conceded; then assume that the darling wish of his younger heart had been granted to him, and that he had received the King's commission, and held it in 1775; what course would he then have pursued ? What course would you wish him to have pursued ? Do you not wish — do you not know — that, circumstanced as then he would have been, he would have done exactly as Robert E. Lee did eighty-six years later ? He would first have resigned his commission; and then arrayed himself on the side of Virginia. Would you have had him do otherwise ? — And so it goes in this world ! In such cases the usual form of speech is: "Oh! that is different! Another case alto- gether !" Yes, it is different; it is another case. For it makes all the difference in the world with a man who argues thus, whether it is his ox that is gored or that of the other man! And here in preparing this address I must fairly ac- knowledge having encountered an obstacle in my path also. When considering the course of another, it is al- ways well to ask one's self the question — What would you yourself have done if similarly placed ? Warmed by my argument, and the great precedents of Lee and "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 85 of Washington, I did so here. I and mine were and are at least as much identified with Massachusetts as was Lee and his with Virginia; traditionally, historically, by blood and memory and name, we with the Puritan Commonwealth as they with the Old Dominion. What, I asked myself, would I have done had Massachusetts at any time arrayed itself against the common country, though without my sympathy and assent, even as Virginia arrayed itself against the Union without the sympathy and assent of Lee in 1861 ? The question gave me pause. And then I must confess to a sense of the humor of the situation coming over me, as I found it answered to my hand. The case had already arisen; the answer had been given; nor had it been given in any uncertain tone. The dark and disloyal days of the earlier years of the century just ended rose in memory, — the days of the Embargo, the Leopard and the Chesa- peake, and of the Hartford Convention. The course then taken by those in political control in Massachu- setts is recorded in history. It verged dangerously close on that pursued by Virginia and the South fifty years later: and the quarrel then was foreign; it was no domestic broil. One of my name, from whom I claim descent, was then prominent in public life. He accord- ingly was called upon to make the choice of Hercules, as later was Lee. He made his choice; and it was for the common country as against his section. The result is matter of history. Because he was a Union man and held country higher than State or party, John Quincy Adams was in 1808 driven from office, a successor to him in the United States Senate was elected long before the expiration of his term, and he himself was forced into what at the time was regarded as an hon- orable exile. Nor was the line of conduct then by him 86 THREE 0> B K ADDRESSES pursued — that of unswerving loyalty to the Union — ever forgotten or wholly forgiven. He had put coun- try above party; and party leaders have long memories. Even so broad-minded and clear-thinking a man as Theodore Parker, when delivering a eulogy upon J. Q. Adams, forty years later, thus expressed himself of this act of supreme self-sacrifice and loyalty to Nation rather than to State: "To my mind, that is the worst act of his public life; I cannot justify it. I wish I could find some reasonable excuse for it. . . . However, it must be confessed that this, though not the only instance of injustice, is the only case of servile compliance with the Executive to be found in the whole life of the man. It was a grievous fault but grievously did he answer it; and if a long life of unfaltering resistance to every attempt at the assumption of power is fit atonement, then the expiation was abundantly made." 1 What more, or worse, on the other side, could be said of Lee? Perhaps I should enter some plea in excuse of this diversion; but, for me, it may explain itself, or go unexplained. Confronted with the question what would I have done in 1861 had positions been reversed and Massachusetts taken the course then taken by Vir- ginia, I found the answer already recorded. I would have gone with the Union, and against Massachusetts. None the less, I hold Massachusetts estopped in the case of Lee. "Let the galled jade wince, our withers are un wrung; " but, I submit, however it might be with me or mine, it does not lie in the mouths of the descend- ants of the New England Federalists of the first two decennials of the nineteenth century to invoke "the avenging pen of History" to record an adverse verdict 1 Works (London, 1863), vol. iv, pp. 154-156. "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 87 in the case of any son of Virginia who threw in his lot with his State in 1861. Thus much for the choice of Hercules. Pass on to what followed. Of Robert E. Lee as the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, — at once the buckler and the sword of the Confederacy, — I shall say few words. I was in the ranks of those opposed to him. For years I was face to face with some fragment of the Army of Northern Virginia, and intent to do it harm; and during those years there was not a day when I would not have drawn a deep breath of relief and satisfaction at hearing of the death of Lee, even as I did draw it at hearing of the death of Jackson. But now, looking back through a perspective of nearly forty years, I glory in it, and in them as foes, — they were worthy of the best of steel. I am proud now to say that I was their countryman. Whatever differences of opinion may exist as to the course of Lee when his choice was made, of Lee as a foe and the commander of an army, but one opinion can be entertained. Every inch a soldier, he was as an opponent not less generous and humane than formidable, a type of highest martial character; cau- tious, magnanimous and bold, a very thunderbolt in war, he was self-contained in victory, but greatest in defeat. To that escutcheon attaches no stain. I now come to what I have always regarded — shall ever regard — as the most creditable episode in all American history, — an episode without a blemish, — imposing, dignified, simple, heroic. I refer to Appomat- tox. Two men met that day, representative of American civilization, the whole world looking on. The two were Grant and Lee, — types each. Both rose, and rose unconsciously, to the full height of the occasion, — and than that occasion there has been none greater. About 88 THREE <£ B K ADDRESSES it, and them, there was no theatrical display, no self- consciousness, no effort at effect. A great crisis was to be met; and they met that crisis as great countrymen should. Consider the possibilities; think for a moment of what that day might have been; you will then see cause to thank God for much. That month of April saw the close of exactly four years of persistent strife, — a strife which the whole civilized world had been watching intently. Democracy — the capacity of man in his present stage of develop- ment for self-government — was believed to be on trial. The wish the father to the thought, the prophets of evil had been liberal in prediction. It so chances that my attention has been especially drawn to the Euro- pean utterances of that time; and, read in the clear light of subsequent history, I use words of moderation when I say that they are now both inconceivable and ludicrous. Staid journals, grave public men seemed to take what was little less than pleasure in pronounc- ing that impossible of occurrence which was destined soon to occur, and in committing themselves to read- ings of the book of fate in exact opposition to what the muse of history was wetting the pen to record. Vol- umes of unmerited abuse and false vaticination — and volumes hardly less amusing now than instructive — could be garnered from the columns of the London Times, — volumes in which the spirit of contemptuous and patronizing dislike sought expression in the pro- foundest ignorance of facts, set down in bitterest words. Not only were republican institutions and man's capacity for self-government on trial, but the severest of sen- tences was imposed in advance of the adverse verdict, assumed to be inevitable. Then, suddenly, came the dramatic climax at Appomattox, — dramatic, I say, not V SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 89 theatrical, — severe in its simple, sober, matter-of-fact majesty. The world, I again assert, has seen nothing like it; and the world, instinctively, was at the time conscious of the fact. I like to dwell on the familiar circumstances of the day; on its momentous outcome; on its far-reaching results. It affords one of the greatest educational object-lessons to be found in history; and the actors were worthy of the theatre, the auditory, and the play. A mighty tragedy was drawing to a close. The breathless world was the audience. It was a bright balmy April Sunday in a quiet Virginia landscape, with two veteran armies confronting each other; one, game to the death, completely in the grasp of the other. The future was at stake. What might ensue ? What might not ensue? Would the strife end then and there? Would it die in a death-grapple, only to reappear in that chronic form of a vanquished but indomitable people writhing and struggling in the grasp of an insatiate but only nominal victor ? Such a struggle as all European authorities united in confidently predicting ? The answer depended on two men, — the captains of the contending forces. Grant that day had Lee at his mercy. He had but to close his hand, and his op- ponent was crushed. Think what then might have re- sulted had those two men been other than they were, — had the one been stern and aggressive, the other sullen and unyielding. Most fortunately for us, they were what and who they were, — Grant and Lee. More, I need not, could not say; this only let me add, — a peo- ple has good right to be proud of the past and self-con- fident of its future when on so great an occasion it nat- urally develops at the front men who meet each other as those two met each other then. Of the two, I know 90 THREE <£ B K ADDRESSES not to which to award the palm. Instinctively, uncon- sciously, they vied not unsuccessfully each with the other, in dignity, magnanimity, simplicity. "Si fractus illabatur orbis Impavidum ferient ruinae." With a home no longer his, Lee then sheathed his sword. With the silent dignity of his subsequent life, after he thus accepted defeat, all are familiar. He left behind him no querulous memoirs, no exculpatory vin- dication, no controversial utterances. For him, history might explain itself, — posterity formulate its own ver- dict. Surviving Appomattox but a little more than five years, those years were not unmarked by incidents very gratifying to American recollection ; for we Americans do, I think, above all things love magnanimity, and ap- preciate action at once fearless and generous. We all remember how by the grim mockery of fate, — as if to test to the uttermost American capacity for self-govern- ment, — Abraham Lincoln was snatched away at the moment of crisis from the helm of State, and Andrew Johnson substituted for him. I think it no doubtful anticipation of historical judgment to say that a more unfortunate selection could not well have chanced. In no single respect, it is satfe to say, was Andrew John- son adapted for the peculiar duties which Booth's pistol imposed upon him. One of Johnson's most unhappy, most ill-considered convictions was that our Civil War was a conventional old-time rebellion; that rebellion was treason; that treason was a crime; and that a crime was something for which punishment should in due course of law be meted out. He, therefore, wanted, or thought he wanted, to have the scenes of England's Convention Parliament and of the Restoration of 1660 reenacted here, a fitting sequel of our great conflict. "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 91 Most fortunately, the American people then gave evi- dence to Europe of a capacity for self-restraint and self- government not traceable to English parentage, or precedents. No Cromwell's head grinned from our Westminster Hall; no convicted traitor swung in chains; no shambles dripped in blood. None the less Andrew Johnson called for "indictments;" and, one day, demanded that of Lee. Then outspoke Grant, — Gen- eral of the Army. Lee, he declared, was his prisoner. He had surrendered to him, and in reliance on his word. He had received assurance that so long as he quietly remained at his home, and did not offend against the law, he should not be molested. He had done so; and, so long as Grant held his commission, molested he should not be. Needless, as pleasant, to say what Grant then grimly intimated did not take place. Lee was not molested; nor did the General of the Army indignantly fling his commission at an accidental President's feet. That, if necessary, he would have so done, I take to be quite indubitable. Of Lee's subsequent life, as head of Washington Col- lege, I have but one incident to offer. I believe it to be typical. A few months ago I received a letter from a retired army officer. It is needless to give his name ; but, from his letter, I extract the following: " Lee was essentially a Virginian . His sword was Vir- ginia's, and I fancy the State had higher claims upon him than had the Confederacy, just as he supposed it had than the United States. But, after the surrender, he stood firmly and unreservedly in favor of loyalty to the Nation. A gentleman told me this anecdote: Asa boy he ran away from his Kentucky home, and served the last two years in the rebel ranks. After the war he resumed his studies under Lee's presidency; and, on 92 THREE <*> B K ADDRESSES one occasion, delivered as a college exercise an oration with eulogistic reference to the * Lost Cause,' and what it meant. Later, General, then President Lee sent for the student; and, after praising his composition and delivery, seriously warned him against holding or ad- vancing such views, impressing strongly upon him the unity of the Nation, and urging him to devote himself loyally to maintain the integrity and the honor of the United States. The kindly paternal advice thus given was, I imagine, typical of his whole post helium life." Let this one anecdote suffice. Here was magnanimity, philosophy, true patriotism: the pure American spirit. Accepting the situation loyally and in a manly, silent way, — without self -consciousness or mental reserva- tion, — he sought by precept, and yet more by a great example, to build up the shattered community of which he was the most observed representative in accordance with the new conditions imposed by fate. Talk of traitors and of treason! The man who pursued that course and instilled that spirit had not, could not have had, in his whole being one drop of traitor's blood. His lights may have been wrong, — according to our ideas then and now they were wrong, — but they were his lights ; and acting, as he acted, in full accordance with them, he was right. But, to those thus speaking, it is since sometimes replied: "Even tolerance may be carried too far, and is apt then to verge dangerously on what may be better described as moral indifference. It then, humanly speaking, assumes that there is no real right or real wrong in collective human action. But put yourself in his place, and to those of this way of thinking Philip II and William of Orange — Charles I and Cromwell — are much the same; the one is as good as the other, "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 93 provided only he acted according to his lights. This will not do. Some moral test must be applied, — some standard. of right and wrong. "It is by the recognition and acceptance of these that men prominent in history must be measured, and ap- proved or condemned. To call it our Civil War is but a mere euphemistic way of referring to what was in fact a slave-holders' rebellion, conceived and put in action for no end but to perpetuate and extend a system of human servitude, a system the relic of barbarism, an insult to advancing humanity. To the furtherance of this rebellion Lee lent himself. Right is right, and trea- son is treason, — and, as that which is morally wrong cannot be right, so treason cannot be other than a crime. Why then because of sentiment or sympathy or moral indifference seek to confound the two ? Charles Stuart and Cromwell could not both have been right. If Thomas was right, Lee was wrong." To this I would reply, that we, who take another view, neither confound, nor seek to confound, right with wrong, or treason with loyalty. We accept the ver- dict of time; but, in so doing, we insist that the verdict shall be in accordance with the facts, and that each individual shall be judged on his own merits, and not stand acquitted or condemned in block. In this respect time works wonders, leaving few conclusions wholly unchallenged. Take, for instance, one of the final con- tentions of Charles Sumner, that, following Old W\>rld precedents, founded, as he claimed in reason and pa- triotism, the names of battles of the war of the rebellion should be removed from the regimental colors of the National Army, and from the Army Register. He put it on the ground that, from the republics of antiquity down to our days, no civilized nation ever thought it 94 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES wise or patriotic to preserve in conspicuous and durable form the mementos of victories won over fellow citi- zens in civil war. As the sympathizing orator said at the time of Sumner's death: "Should the son of South Carolina, when at some future day defending the Republic against some foreign foe, be reminded by an inscription on the colors floating over him, that under this flag the gun was fired that killed his father at Get- tysburg ?" This assuredly has a plausible sound. "His father;" yes, perhaps! Though even in the immedi- ately succeeding generation something might well be said on the other side. Presumably, in such case, the father was a brave, an honest, and a loyal man, — con- tending for what he believed to be right; for it, laying down his life. Gettysburg is a name and a memory of which none there need ever feel ashamed. As in most battles, there was a victor and a vanquished; but on that day the vanquished, as well as the victor, fought a stout fight. If, in all recorded warfare, there is a deed of arms the name and memory of which the descend- ants of those who participated therein should not wish to see obliterated from any record, be it historian's page or battle-flag, it was the advance of Pickett's Virginian division across that wide valley of death in front of Cemetery Ridge. I know in all recorded warfare of no finer, no more sustained and deadly feat of arms. I have stood on either battlefield, and, in scope and de- tail, carefully compared the two; and, challenging de- nial, I affirm that the much vaunted charge of Napo- leon's Guard at Waterloo, in fortitude, discipline and deadly energy will not bear comparison with that other. It was boys' work beside it. There, brave men did all that the bravest men could do. Why then should the son of one of those who fell coming up the long ascent, V SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 95 or over our works and in among our guns, feel a sense of wrong because "Gettysburg" is inscribed on the flag of the battery a gun of which he now may serve ? On the contrary, I should suppose he would there see that name only. But, supposing it otherwise in the case of the son, — the wound being in such case yet fresh and green, — how would it be when a sufficient time has elapsed to afford the needed perspective ? Let us suppose a grand- son six generations removed. What Englishman, be he Cavalier or Roundhead by descent, — did his ancestor charge with Rupert or Cromwell, — did he fall while riding with levelled point in the grim wall of advancing Ironsides, or go hopelessly down in death beneath their thundering hoofs, — what descendant of any English- man who there met his end, but with pride would read the name of Naseby on his regimental flag? What Frenchman would consent to the erasure of Ivry or Moncontour? Thus in all these matters, Time is the great magician. It both mellows and transforms. The Englishman of to-day does not apply to Cromwell the standard of loyalty or treason, of right and wrong, ap- plied after the Restoration; nor again does the twen- tieth century confirm the nineteenth's verdicts. Even slavery we may come to regard as a phase, pardonable as passing, in the evolution of a race. I hold it will certainly be so with our Civil War. The year 1965 will look upon its causes, its incidents and its men with different eyes from those with which we see them now, — eyes wholly different from those with which we saw forty years ago. They — for we by that time will have rejoined the generation to which we belonged — will recognize the somewhat essential fact, indubitably true, that all the honest conviction, all the 96 THREE B K ADDRESSES loyalty, all the patriotic devotion and self-sacrifice were not then, any more than all the courage, on the victor's side. True! the moral right, the spirit of nationality, the sacred cause of humanity even, were on our side; but, among those opposed, and who in the end went down, were men not less sincere, not less devoted, not less truly patriotic according to their lights than he who among us was first in all those qualities. Men of whom it was and is a cause of pride and confidence to say, — "They, too, were countrymen ! " Typical of those men — most typical — was Lee. He represented, individualized, all that was highest and best in the Southern mind and the Confederate cause, — the loyalty to State, the keen sense of honor and personal obligation, the slightly archaic, the al- most patriarchal, love of dependent, family and home. As I have more than once said, he was a Virginian of the Virginians. He represents a type which is gone, — hardly less extinct than that of the great English nobleman of the feudal times, or the ideal head of the Scotch clan of a later period : but just so long as men admire courage, devotion, patriotism, the high sense of duty and personal honor, — all in a word which go to make up what we know as Character, — just so long will that type of man be held in affectionate, reverential memory. They have in them all the elements of the heroic. But it is a question of time; and the time is, probably, not quite yet. The wounds of the great war are not al- together healed, its personal memories are still fresh, its passions not wholly allayed. It would, indeed, be a wonder if they were. But I am as convinced as an unillumined man can be of anything future, that when such time does come, a justice, not done now, will be "SHALL CROMWELL HAVE A STATUE?" 97 done to those descendants of Washington and of Jeffer- son, of Rutledge and of Lee who stood opposed to us in a succeeding generation. That the national spirit is now supreme and the nation cemented, I hold to be un- questionable. That property in man has vanished from the civilized world, is due to our Civil War. The two are worth the great price then paid for them. But, wrong as he may have been, and as he was proved by events in these respects to be, the Confederate had many great and generous qualities; he also was brave, chivalrous, self-sacrificing, sincere and patriotic. So I look for- ward with confidence to the time when they too will be represented in our national pantheon. Then the query will be answered here, as the query in regard to Cromwell's statue put sixty years ago has recently been answered in England. The bronze effigy of Lee, mounted on his charger and with the insignia of his Confederate rank, will from its pedestal in the Na- tion's Capitol look across the Potomac at his old home at Arlington, even as that of Cromwell dominates the yard of Westminster upon which his skull once looked down. When that time comes, Lee's monument will be educational, — it will typify the historical appre- ciation of all that goes to make up the loftiest type of character, military and civic, exemplified in an oppo- nent, once dreaded but ever respected; and, above all, it will symbolize and commemorate that loyal accept- ance of the consequences of defeat, and the patient upbuilding of a people under new conditions by consti- tutional means, which I hold to be the greatest educa- tional lesson America has yet taught to a once skeptical but now silenced world. SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES l An academical system without the personal influence of teachers upon pupils is an Arctic winter; it will create an ice-bound, petrified, cast-iron University, and nothing else. ... I have known a time in a great School of Letters when things went on for the most part by mere routine, and form took the place of earnestness. I have experienced a state of things, in which teachers were cut off from the taught as by an insurmountable barrier; when neither party entered into the thoughts of the other; when each lived by and in itself; when the tutor was supposed to fulfil his duty if he trotted on like a squirrel in his cage, if at a certain hour he was in a certain room, or in hall, or in chapel, as it might be; and the pupil did his duty too if he was careful to meet his tutor in that same room, or hall, or chapel, at the same certain hour; and when neither the one nor the other dreamed of seeing each other out of lecture, out of chapel, out of academical gown. I have known places where a stiff manner, a pompous voice, coldness and condescension were the teacher's attributes, and where he neither knew nor wished to know, and avowed he did not wish to know, the private irregularities of the youths committed to his charge. — J. H. Newman, Uni- versity Sketches, chap. vi. On occasions like the present prefatory remarks are, as a rule, best dispensed with. The more directly the matter for discourse is reached, the better for all con- cerned. It so chances, however, that for me personally this particular occasion is exceptional. In the first 1 An address delivered before the Columbia Chapter of the frater- nity of the Phi Beta Kappa, at the University, New York City, Tues- day, June 12, 1906. 102 THREE B K ADDRESSES place, this is my fiftieth year since graduation; and, as no similar anniversary has preceded it, none like it will follow. The classes of 1856 now gather each to its Alma Mater, and from the scant and furrowed rem- nants the cry goes up — morituri te salufant! But, in the second place, I individually have another message to deliver — a species of valedictory. I claim, there- fore, the privilege of a preliminary word, at once ex- planatory and justificative. Not what is known as an educationalist, I purpose to-day to discuss grave educational problems. The views I am about to advance are moreover somewhat at variance with those at this time usually accepted; and, though radical in their way, are in some respects reactionary. So, knowing by experience how thor- oughly equipped those are with whom I must neces- sarily be brought in conflict, I want the why and the wherefore of what I say to be clearly premised. The late Sir Leslie Stephen once, when reading a paper on some ethical topic, observed at the threshold, "I wish to suggest certain considerations which may, perhaps, be worth taking into account; and, as I must speak briefly, I must not attempt to supply all the necessary qualifications. I can only attempt to indicate what seems to me to be the correct point of view, and apologize if I appear to speak too dogmatically, simply because I cannot waste time by expressions of diffi- dence, by reference to probable criticisms, or even by a full statement of my own reasons." So, in the present case, with no disposition to dogmatize, I even entertain grave doubts whether many of the propositions I am about to advance are altogether tenable; none the less, I shall advance them as clearly and positively as I can for what they are worth, leaving it to others to supply SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 103 words of hesitancy. I also crave a moment's patience while I briefly set forth the reason why, a confessed layman, I am here at all. In doing this I fear I must make a too frequent use of what in the dictionaries is defined as the nominative case of the pronoun of the first person ; for, as the views about to be advanced are largely based on personal experience, it is not easy to see how so doing could be avoided. At best the effort to avoid it would necessarily involve such clumsy as well as frequent circumlocu- tions that acceptance at the outset of the charge of egoism is manifestly the lesser evil. Close upon a quarter of a century ago, that is, in June, 1882, I was chosen by the alumni of Harvard a member of its Board of Overseers. The term of service on that board is six years, and I have since been three times in like manner honored. The close of my fourth term is near; and, with its close, my official connection with the University ceases. My personal interest in it will, of course, continue. Looking back on those twenty- four years of service as continuous as the law allows, certain conclusions have, I find, gradually crystallized in my mind; and I am not unwilling to avail myself of this opportunity to set them forth. Wholly the result of personal experience, and of observation from a some- what external point of view, they can at most be merely an individual's contribution to an endless, but always interesting, debate. As such they are offered. Looking back then over the two periods, the half cen- tury since graduation, and the four and twenty years since I first took my seat as a Harvard Overseer, I find myself, as is not unusually the case, by no means in complete accord with results, — nay more, as already intimated, I find myself somewhat of a reactionist. In 104 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES no degree an admirer of things that were, I am, if pos- sible, still less disposed to rest in all respects content with what is. My testimony is merely that of an observer, — an observer who is neither an optimist nor a pessimist, though, perhaps, inclined to be otherwise-minded. I am about to speak, be it also remembered, not of the university but of the college, — the period not of professional but of academic training, the four years which, half a century since, intervened between the seventeen and twenty-one of life, and which now in- tervene between the eighteen and twenty-two. As re- spects this period, — the more essentially formative period of life, — the two noticeable college changes which have come about within the half-century have been the great increase in the number of students as well as of institutions, and, so far as Harvard is con- cerned, the adoption and consistent following-out of the elective system in studies. In the beneficial results of both I was once a believer : but, as time has gone on and I have observed the younger generation, more and more doubt has arisen in my mind ; until now I have become satisfied that, as respects numbers, a thorough reorganization of the whole college system is necessary; while, as respects the elective system, I am equally clear a reaction is both impending and desirable. First, as to numbers and the college organization. The Harvard class of which I was a member appears in the Quinquennial Catalogue with ninety-two names, the largest number recorded up to that time. The col- lege then reported three hundred and twenty students in all. To-day, fifty years later, the graduating class numbers two hundred and forty-two, and the aca- demic department of the University — Harvard Col- lege proper — last year reported more than two thou- SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 105 sand students. It is matter of common knowledge that, in this respect, the experience of Harvard has been in no way peculiar. Brown, Amherst, Williams, Tufts and Dartmouth each number from three hundred and seventy-nine to nine hundred undergraduates, all ex- ceeding in size the Harvard of 1856 — Williams by forty per cent., Tufts by eighteen per cent. The criti- cism I have to offer, in so far as it is either just or erroneous, is, therefore, applicable to all our colleges. Whether this great increase both in students and in institutions is desirable, I do not purpose to inquire. Very possibly it is not. It may perhaps be merely an- other form of waste of force, many youths going, or being sent, to college, who are in no way fitted to de- rive advantage therefrom. The attempted conversion of sows' ears into silk purses is proverbially unfruitful as an industry; in the present case, it is also, I have sometimes thought, open to grave criticism as a prac- tical misapplication of an endowment. Conceivably even institutions of the more advanced education may have an eye to bigness of competitive output; and, if such a view, however loudly disavowed, prevails, quan- tity will surely take precedence of quality. The tempta- tion undeniably exists. Passing this by, however, and coming directly to my point, all subsequent observa- tion tells me that the Harvard College system of fifty years ago — the distinctly American collegiate system — was already in my time outgrown, and in essentials radically defective. Further, I find myself led to believe that the condition of affairs, in this respect bad then, has since grown steadily worse. The whole situation I am persuaded to-day stands in crying need of reform; and yet how to reform it is, I confess, a problem most difficult of solution. Let me state the case. 106 THREE B K ADDRESSES At Harvard, as elsewhere in the American colleges, we still adhere to the old organization, — the four classes, from freshman to senior. But, fifty years ago, each of the four classes was a unit. Following the sec- ondary school system, a class was divided into divisions which, during the first two years of the course, recited, or attended lectures, together; and, subsequently, dur- ing the last two years, — the junior and senior years, — when the choice of electives was to a certain extent permitted, the divisions in electives were limited to the class, the members of which thus entered college, went through it, and graduated together. Naturally, a class feeling, more or less strong, resulted. In those days each classmate knew every classmate, and could ad- dress him by name. As late as 1870, and the advent of Dr. Eliot to the presidency, the traditional organiza- tion was not wholly outgrown, although a maximum of development had for some time been reached. The college had become unwieldy. Even before 1850 the contact between the instructor and the individual stu- dent was less than it had formerly been, — far less than it should be. Still, up to about 1870, every instructor had a more or less definite opinion of every student who recited to him; and every student had a clearly defined judgment as to every instructor. The personal relation between instructor and student was, however, even then only theoretical. The influence of contact was conspicuously lacking. For purpose of illustration let me appeal to my own experience. In college days I was about an average student. Standing high in only one or two courses, I was an omnivorous reader; and, as I now clearly see, stood greatly in need of friendly counsel and sympathetic guidance. Of it I got absolutely none. Once only dur- SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 107 ing my entire college life do I remember coming in con- tact, except incidentally and in the most conventional way, with an instructor. The result did not tend to edi- fication. It was early in my junior year. My record up to that time was neither good nor bad. I had to a large extent idled away my time, giving no great attention to my studies, and indulging freely in what would now, I suppose, be termed my elective aptitudes, — in other words following the lines of least resistance. As the result of a certain approach to sober reflection I at last determined to take advice, and, perhaps, do better, — in other words, becoming more or less what was known as " a dig," I thought to go in for rank. With this highly commendable end in view I had recourse to a pro- minent college official. An elderly man and a remote connection of mine, he was famed for shrewdness and practical good sense. Knowing my family well, he knew me a little. Very clearly do I recall that interview, — the room, the face, the words that passed. I came for counsel; my reception was kindly. I put the case, and asked for advice. I purposed to be more studious than I had been ; what suggestion had the guide, philo- sopher and friend to offer? "Well, Adams," came forth the slow response in friendly tone, "you are just about the middle of the class, and you stand quite high in one department; placed as you are, I would n't bother much about rank in a general way. If you retain your position in that course, it will put you at gradua- tion in the first half of the class; and that's all you want ! " That single word of counsel from that quarter proved in my case conclusive. All further thought of application was dismissed; and, thereafter, I aban- doned myself implicitly to the lines of least resistance. The experience was, I believe, typical. So far as in- 108 THREE 0> B K ADDRESSES fluence on the individual, as between instructor and student, — master and disciple in theory, — so far, I say, as this great factor in all high education was con- cerned, our college system was outgrown and wrong then, I know; my observation tells me it has in this respect been going steadily from bad to wor-se ever since. What was the system then? What is it now? The college or academic period, — the years between seventeen and twenty-one, in 1850, as between eighteen and twenty-two, in 1900, — this period between school and profession is distinctly formative; during it the average human nature is in its most plastic state, and peculiarly subject to influence, good or bad. Under our American college system, what is done for our youth during that period ? Fifty years ago the boy was taken from school at seventeen, and sent to Harvard. Up to that time of great change he had lived at home, sub- ject to what is known as home influence, certainly to home supervision; and he had attended school. The discipline was constant and rigid ; the instructor knew every boy in the class; every boy was, so to speak, "sized," and his place assigned to him both in the esti- mation of others and in his own. He was then suddenly projected into a new life; and, thereafter, left abso- lutely to form himself. All external individual direction was removed. The impress of the elder and riper mind upon the younger and less mature was absent. Not even an effort was made to supply the want. The idea of such a want on one side or function on the other found no place. For purposes of contrast, let me cite a case. A num- ber of years ago I had occasion to prepare a memoir of the younger Richard Henry Dana, the author of Two Years before the Mast. A noticeable man in almost SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 109 every way, in some respects Mr. Dana was gifted with genius. In the course of his student life at Harvard he had, quite unconsciously, occasion to illustrate by his experience the deficiency of the system just referred to. It was in 1831, when the classes at Harvard, averaging some sixty in number, had not yet swollen to the point that did away with individuality. Entering college at the age of sixteen, as the result of one of those extremely ridiculous rebellions which distinguished the Quincy presidency, young Dana had the great good fortune to be " rusticated," as the phrase then went, for a term. Of an impressionable nature, he passed his months of enforced absence from Cambridge at Andover study- ing with the Rev. Leonard Woods, subsequently president of Bowdoin College. Thereafter Mr. Dana always accounted that provoked but silly college re- bellion, and the " rustication " consequent thereon, — the being sent away from Cambridge in presumable disgrace, — as one of the fortunate incidents of life, bringing him as it did for months at a most receptive age in close moral and intellectual contact with a really superior man. President Woods was then but four and twenty years of age, and a resident licentiate of the Andover Theological Seminary. Long afterwards, Dana wrote of his preceptor that he was "an indefat- igable and enthusiastic student, with a heart full of noble and kind sentiments, with a manner which won the confidence and love of all, with remarkable purity of spirit, free from prejudice, opinionativeness and exclusiveness." Here was a truly suggestive experi- ence, conspicuously absent from Harvard possibilities whether of that period or of this. Conditions in this respect have, as I have said, not improved with time; though greatly changed they have, 110 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES on the contrary, in some respects, grown distinctly worse. Recognizing the facts of the situation and the consequent need, efforts at reform have, I am well aware, been from time to time attempted. Advisers of undergraduates have been provided; a system of as- sistants coming into more immediate contact with the students has been developed. 1 The special and advanced courses have also been vastly multiplied; and the stu- dents who take those courses are necessarily, so far as the particular course is concerned, brought in imme- diate contact with the professor. All this goes without saying. But I am not now discussing individual cases or special courses; my reference is to the general situa- tion, — the average student and the standard course. Taking then the run of the undergraduates of the pre- sent time as I have met them in my own family or in the offspring of my classmates and friends, my impres- sion is distinct that these attempts at an adaptation of the old garment to the new body have been somewhat of the patchwork order; and, consequently, tend to supply a fresh illustration only of the truth of that scriptural adage, which, in the Revised Version, reads thus: "And no man putteth a piece of undressed cloth upon an old garment; for that which should fill it up taketh from the garment, and a worse rent is made." In other words, the gulf which divides the usual college instructor from the average undergraduate is even more impassable' in 1906 than it was in 1854. That there should now be less objective study of the indi- vidual — his aptitudes, his deficiencies and his re- quirements — than there was then would scarcely be possible; for then there was none at all: but now, the increase of the student body has been such that, in 1 But see infra, pp. 161, 169, 170. SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 111 case of the mass, what opportunity at all is there for it ? * The lecture has taken the place of the recitation. Except in certain advanced or limited courses and with individual students following a specialty, the periodical examination paper is the nearest approach to personal contact. The average undergraduate is merely one unit in an impersonal mob. Of the elective system I purpose to speak presently; in this connection it is merely necessary to say that, as now in use, it plays into the general scheme, rounding out its imperfections. It supplements its deficiencies. What is the result ? Take the average boy of to-day — my son or yours — consider the college career open to him. He is now apt to go to Cambridge, or New Haven, not from home influences, but from the preparatory school, — the academy. So far, my observation leads me to believe the tendency to change has been distinctly beneficial. The streets of our modern cities are not edifying as the place for resort of boys during the play hours, nor has home supervision tended to become more rigid or even wiser as the years have passed. The equalizing influ- ence of the preparatory school is good; and it is good 1 An intelligent movement to make good this great, and growing, deficiency has recently been inaugurated at Princeton by President Woodrow Wilson. It has been briefly described, and from time to time discussed in the columns of the daily press. Six months sub- sequent to the delivery of this address, in December, 1906, President Wilson made a somewhat extended reference to the " preceptorial system " in his annual report. (Infra, pp. 138, 139.) It has not, how- ever, yet been sufficiently long in operation to be finally pronounced a success, or otherwise. Briefly stated, the scheme looks to "the dividing-up of the students into little coteries, each one of which is under the direct care of a preceptor. And these preceptors are not men who graduated last year and have been appointed instructors ; they are rather specialists who have passed through the experiences of perhaps ten years out of college, and are competent to weigh the value of authorities with a mature judgment." 112 THREE

B K ADDRESSES of the college, would select their courses. The system of general university electives would be combined with prescribed home courses in each individual college. The master would give tone and character to his col- lege, and to each individual student in it. The final degree, bearing the name and seal of Harvard, would be conferred as the result of examinations in common, all the colleges competing. Such is my ideal of a system to replace the present and traditional system, and make good its glaring deficiencies. The obstacles in the way of its realization, however, loom large. Harvard is a growth, — a growth of close upon three centuries. Its halls, its grounds, its location, its endowments, its organization, and, more and most of all, its traditions, are obstacles well-nigh insurmountable. The additional cost also of such a system as that outlined, though it would vary accord- ing to colleges, would, at lowest, be comparatively large. Each college would, it is true, establish its own tuition fee, as secondary schools now do, and thereby a great present defect would be removed ; for Harvard now has one fee for all, — rich or poor, — a most inequitable equality. Under an independent college system, at once elastic and individual, but culminating in a common and uniform result, anything and everything might be anticipated, — the endowed and free college, the col- lege with scholarships, the college of moderate cost, or finally, the college of millionaires. All, however, would be subject to the supervision of the Board of Overseers, acting as the Grand Inquest of the university; and all would be judged by the common test, the conferring of the university degree. I have referred to the course of studies to be pursued in the ideal college, — the prescribed courses and the SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 115 electives. All would be under the immediate advice and impulse of the master, necessarily of more mature judgment, acting on personal knowledge of the indi- vidual student, — his aptitudes, his deficiencies and his environment; and this naturally brings me to the remaining, and much the more important part of my theme. I refer to the elective system, so-called, in its present stage of development and application, so far at least as Harvard is concerned. And here I may as well at once blurt out a confession of faith. Briefly, speaking from personal experience of which I know, and from observation both long and patient, I have come to regard the elective system in its present form of development as an educational fad, and a very mis- chievous one. As such, I do not believe in it; nor have I any faith in its outcome until, as an educational pro- cess, it has been reconsidered and placed on a new basis, radically different from that now in use. I am quite well aware such a conclusion as that just expressed is at present hardly conceivable among educators, at least those in my immediate environment. It is in their eyes much as if doubt were expressed of the Copernican system, or the multiplication table were challenged; all the same, I doubt, and I challenge. I am here also to set forth the reason for the faith, or lack of faith, that is in me. Let me, in the first place, clearly define my position ; for, though misrepresentation is of course, I do not want to be misunderstood, unless intentionally. 1 I have said that I am a disbeliever in the elective system, so- called, as at present developed and applied; and I may add I am no more a believer in it as developed and applied fifty years ago. In the fundamental idea of an 1 Supra, pp. 14, 39. 116 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES elective system, that of individuality and the cultivation of aptitudes, I have firm faith; but that idea finds poor expression through the system now in use, an expression in my judgment crude, ill-considered, thor- oughly unscientific, and extremely mischievous. And now, speaking again from experience and observation, in what I have to say I must make even more frequent use than heretofore of the personal pronoun. My understanding of the argument in favor of the elective system, both in its earlier form of fifty years back and its more fully developed phase at present, is that, recognizing individuality, it gives scope and play to aptitude. The field of human knowledge has also been of recent years vastly extended, and its products so diversified and again differentiated, that a smaller and yet smaller portion only can be covered even by the most ambitious intellect, and, hence, selection is necessary. 1 So, fifty years ago, and in yet greater de- gree now, the youth of eighteen was let loose in this vast and diversified pasture-ground, and told to make his selection, consulting his aptitudes. The system thus presupposes that the average youth of eighteen, fresh from school, has defined aptitudes, and not only un- derstands himself, but can be depended on to select judiciously. I may have thought so once; but I was very young. I am older now, and I make bold, as the result both of experience, and somewhat bitter experi- ence, and of observation, and somewhat extended ob- servation, to challenge both premises and conclusion. In the first place, I wholly deny that the average youth of eighteen has any well-defined or clearly de- veloped aptitudes; or, having them, that he is at that age well qualified, or, indeed, in any sufficient degree 1 Supra, p. 11. SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 117 qualified, to judge of them, or of the training most cal- culated to their more perfect development. I distinctly and most definitely know, and now sadly recognize the fact, that it was not so in my case; it was not so in the case of any of my brothers or of my sons; it has not been so in the case of any single person who has chanced to come within my range of close observation. That I, and that every one of those I have thus referred to, had a certain degree of individuality, and could do some things far more readily than I, or they, could do other things, goes without saying; but that the average youth of eighteen has distinctly defined aptitudes, or any clear apprehension of how his faculties as a whole should be brought into play and trained to the proper development of those aptitudes, I know positively to have been the reverse of correct in my own case, and I have, moreover, never known a case in which it was correct. That the elective idea was an improvement, and a great advance on the educational Procrustes-bed system which preceded it, I do not for a moment deny. On the contrary, I fully and unreservedly concede it. But, in itself, as yet developed, and as a final result, I find myself compelled to repeat, I regard it as crude, ill-considered, thoroughly unscientific, and extremely mischievous. It recognizes only liberty; and liberty, though much, is not all. Like most other things liberty is liable to abuse as well as misapplication; and any- thing, sunlight even, taken in excess is poison. But on this head I believe Madame Roland made long ago a pregnant and familiar observation at a, for her, highly emotional moment. Recurring to the general problem: The old Pro- crustean system of college education was based on the assumption that certain things went to make up what 118 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES was, and for that matter still is, conventionally known as a man of liberal education. All men, moreover, were assumed to be alike. What experience had shown was good for most, was good for all and for each. The edu- cated man, so-called, must know certain things, or at least have a smattering knowledge thereof. They were always the same things. The only conception of a men- tal training was confined to a thorough grounding in what were known as the "humanities." This system was traditional ; and it was accepted as final in univer- sity circles until a time almost within the memory of men now living. It was first broken into at Harvard during the presidency of Josiah Quincy, and his remark when a chair of physics was then suggested has become a Harvard classic. "Throw physic to the dogs! " the old president exclaimed. Whether through accent and in- tonation in this case the word "dogs" was intended to designate the student body, or whether in a general way Mr. Quincy merely relieved himself of an apt Shakes- pearean quotation, does not appear. Nevertheless, the system was, and by tradition had always been, one of strictly prescribed studies, uniform in character and application. Once released, and in motion, the pendu- lum swung far back. In fact, it swung to the other extreme. The cry was liberty, aptitude, individualism ! Originally, and distinctly so in my time, the concep- tion of a university, or liberal, education was that the baccalaureate had at least a rudimentary insight into a great many branches of useful knowledge, — for example, the classic tongues, history, physics, meta- physics, philosophy, mathematics, — including arith- metic, algebra and geometry, — logic, astronomy, political economy, the use of the spheres, etc., etc., etc. These studies were hot much regarded from the mental SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 119 gymnastic, or training, point of view; but, like silver dollars in the pocket, they were good things to have in the head and memory. A little knowledge of chemistry or algebra might come in handily some day; almost as much so as a happy classical quotation. More recently this mid-century practice has given way to the special- ist theory now in vogue. I find myself as much dissatisfied with the new as I was with the old. Neither squares at all with my experience or my observation. What have I to propose as a substitute for that which exists, and which I thus unsparingly condemn? Something, I unquestionably have; like Touchstone's Audrey, perhaps, "a poor virgin, sir, an ill-favored thing, sir, but mine own; a poor humor of mine, sir, to take that no man else will." But, before propounding a system, it is necessary to agree on first principles. To begin with, it is essential to define a college education, — that is, an education which prepares for life's specialty or calling. It is, I con- tend, purely a training of the mental powers, — the suppling and development of the intellectual muscles and sinews, — the proportioning of the faculties. So far, I imagine, there will be a general concurrence; no paradox has yet been enunciated. But both my obser- vation of others and my self-experience next tell me that all the faculties, as seen in every human mind I have had occasion to study, group themselves under three dis- tinct heads: first, and highest, the imaginative; second, the reasoning; and, third, the observing. There is no attribute of the mind, so far as I know, which will not find its proper place in one or another of these groups, and be subject to its laws. The imaginative includes, of course, the literary and the artistic; the reasoning, logic, mathematics, and cause and effect; the observ- UNIVERSITY ] OF £*U FOR MIL 120 THREE 3> B K ADDRESSES ing, all outward manifestations of matter and inward of mind, the subjective as well as the objective. Every man's aptitudes lie in one or other, or possibly all three of these directions; if in all three, he is apt to be afflicted with what is commonly known as a fatal facility. If exclusively in one, he has a manifest call, — he is then known as a poet, astronomer, naturalist, — Shakespeare, of imagination all compact; Newton, who, as Lord Erskine tells us, " carried the line and rule to the utter- most barriers of creation, and explained the principle by which all created matter exists and is held together; " Darwin, who, through observation, rewrote Genesis. The educated man — what we colloquially call the all-round educated man — is next to be defined. An educated man is, I take it, one in whom the imaginative faculties, the reasoning faculties and the observing faculties have all been properly and adequately devel- oped, — developed to such a degree that each becomes a usable tool for accomplishing the work in hand to do. The imaginative man should be trained to reason and observe, to a degree. The reasoning man, devoid of imagination and unable to observe, becomes, whether in religion, in politics or in philosophy, notoriously a pitfall. On the other hand, the observing man finds himself at fault unless he can imagine and reason. No man, moreover, is fit to be called educated unless in him each group of faculties has been suppled and trained. Newton, for instance, observed an apple drop; he fell back on his imagination; his mathematics did the rest. Judged by this test, who of us can claim to be an educated man, — a well-developed mental athlete ? Let each recall his own experience. Mine can be very briefly told. When I went to Harvard, what did I — a SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 121 boy of seventeen, fresh from a school-desk — know of my own aptitudes and limitations? What even glim- mering perception had I of that mental training of which I stood in most crying need ? Now, too late, I realize that I had not the slightest either of knowledge or of perception. I know that in my case, as in the case of every man I ever met, the education I most sorely needed was of those faculties in which I was most de- ficient. For example, I suppose to-morrow, as often before, I shall find myself accused, possibly convicted, of much of what the critics are pleased to call "loose thinking" in this address. As a general rule I have no- ticed the term is a convenient one, used to describe any thinking or result of thought in which the person criti- cising fails to sympathize; but, assuming in the present case its truth, what does it imply ? Simply that, as re- spects the reasoning faculties, my early education was neglected, a natural deficiency was not, to some extent at least, made good. And this was indeed the case. But the deficiency is, I submit, to be laid at the door of the college elective system. I had no aptitude for mathe- matics, — for close reasoning in any form. I got rid of them under the Harvard elective system at the earliest moment possible. Like the others, I followed the line of least resistance, — my inclination to avoid hard, irksome thought. We all did it then; they all do it now. It is the natural, as well as logical, outcome of the college elective system as at present in vogue. I have ever since been laboring to make good that lack of early training. In my case what took its place in college ? I browsed about, sampling this, that, and the other. I gave up the classics ; I got rid of mathematics ; and I have since learned that, educationally, the thing of all things I needed for my subsequent good, was a severe and 122 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES continued training in mathematics and in Greek. I now devoutly wish I had never been allowed a choice. Whether I liked it or not, I should have been trained to reason closely; I should have been thoroughly grounded in literature. As to the observing faculties, in my college days their existence was unrecognized. 1 In the Life of Charles Darwin, written by his son, there are some curious passages, throwing a vivid gleam of light on the edu- cationalist and university point of view as it then ex- isted here as well as in Great Britain. The son writes: "It is curious that my father often spoke of his Cam- bridge life as if it had been so much time wasted, for- getting that, although the set studies of the place were barren enough for him, he yet gained in the highest degree the best advantages of a university life, — the contact with men and an opportunity for his mind to grow vigorously." The reason the father thus looked upon his university life as "so much time wasted" is explained earlier, when he says, in his autobiography, speaking of his boyhood, "Nothing could have been worse for the development of my mind than Dr. But- ler's school [at Shrewsbury], as it was strictly classical, nothing else being taught, except a little ancient geo- graphy and history. The school as a means of educa- tion to me was simply a blank. Looking back as well as I can at my character during my school life, the only qualities which at this period promised well for the future, were, that I had strong and diversified tastes, much zeal for whatever interested me, and a keen plea- sure in understanding any complex subject or thing." Towards the close of his school life, Darwin got hold of some books on chemistry; and, being naturally of an 1 Supra, p. 25. SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 123 observing turn of mind, he says they interested him greatly. He adds: "This was the best part of my education at school, for it showed me practically the meaning of experimental science. The fact that we worked at chemistry somehow got known at school, and as it was an unprecedented fact, I was nicknamed 'Gas.' I was also once publicly rebuked by the head- master, Dr. Butler, for thus wasting my time on such useless subjects; and he called me very unjustly a poco curante." Transferred from Dr. Butler's school to Edinburgh University, and then to Cambridge, he says: " During the three years which I spent at Cambridge my time was wasted, as far as the academical studies were concerned, as completely as at Edinburgh and at school. I attempted mathematics. The work was repugnant to me, chiefly from my not being able to see any meaning in the early steps in algebra. This impa- tience was very foolish, and in after years I have deeply regretted that I did not proceed far enough at least to understand something of the great leading principles of mathematics, for men thus endowed seem to have an extra sense. But I do not believe that I should ever have succeeded beyond a very low grade. With respect to classics I did nothing except attend a few compul- sory college lectures, and the attendance was almost nominal. Although, as we shall presently see, there were some redeeming features in my life at Cambridge, my time was sadly wasted there, and worse than wasted." Thus totally disqualified in the student period for the wise selection of his own college electives was one of the most remarkable minds England in all its long history has ever produced. Naturally, Darwin was above all an observer. For this branch of training the 124 THREE ® B K ADDRESSES university, as then developed, furnished no opportun- ities. No provision was made for it; nor was the want considered worth supplying. It did not come within the sphere of university work as then understood. But Darwin's imaginative powers were naturally defective. So defective that, looking back at the age of sixty-seven, he wrote, "Later in life I wholly lost, to my great regret, all pleasure from poetry of any kind, including Shakespeare." Incomparable as an observer, what Darwin's mind educationally called for, as he himself later noted, was literary development and mathematical training. But my immediate point is that, if Charles Darwin was, in his university days, quite unqualified to settle for himself the instruction he most needed to develop his faculties, what can be said in favor of the free elective system when applied to the average youth ? Clearly, it is not calculated for the production of the well and symmetrically propor- tioned mind, with every faculty .suppled and made available. Its logical tendency would be towards a slip- shod and slovenly mode of thought in the average man, with exceptional instances either partially developed or developed abnormally. Recurring once more to myself and my own experi- ence, I have already told of the advice I received during my college course; let me now add with perfect confidence that the course pursued by me, acting on my own unaided volition, was as wrong and as mis- chievous, so far as my future was concerned, as it well could have been. On the other hand, it must be ad- mitted that in those days advice on this subject was not within the student's reach, or the college purview. In- deed, I can now easily picture to myself the outcome of a student's interview with a typical professor of that SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 125 period had the latter been consulted as to a course best calculated to train the observing faculties. At first there would have been a bewilderment; the profes- sorial mind must have been allowed time to work over the possible connection of the habit of observing with any recognized conception of college training. Then the light would have dawned in the oracle's eyes, suffusing his face with intelligence, as he remarked: "Oh, yes! — Development of observing faculties; I see! I should by all means recommend a thorough grounding in the Greek and Latin grammars. Nothing like it to make boys construe correctly; — and what is that but correct observation ? " But, on this subject, a very popular writer, Mr. A. Conan Doyle, has something to say in the instructive, as well as entertaining volume known as The Adven- tures of Sherlock Holmes. The amateur detective there critically remarks to his friend: "'You see, but you do not observe. For example you have frequently seen the steps which lead up from the hall to this room.' "'Frequently.' "'How often?' "Well, some hundreds of times.' "'Then how many are there?' "'How many? I don't know.' "'Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just my point. Now, I know that there are just seventeen steps, because I have both seen and observed.' " I have already alluded to the familiar case of Newton and the apple; the great mathema- tician observed, where the college professor would only have seen a far from unusual occurrence. There is a like illustration of the difference in an anecdote I have heard, probably false, of Jenner in connection with his 126 THREE B K ADDRESSES discovery of vaccination. It is said he was looking for a nurse to care for a patient suffering from a well-de- veloped case of small-pox. A milkmaid offered her ser- vices. The physician put the usual question, "Have you had the small-pox P" " No," answered the woman, "but I've had the cow-pox." The practical fact that having had the cow-pox rendered one immune to the small-pox was well known to every milkmaid, but not until an exceptionally intelligent physician was, so to speak, clubbed over the head with this reply did it dawn on any one that by giving a person the cow-pox you might preserve him or her from the small-pox. It is simply amazing to note the extent to which, liberally educated through generations, having eyes we see, and yet fail to observe. Problems of greatest mo- ment when once solved obvious of solution, thus remain unsolved even by those most thoroughly grounded in the humanities. Could a more striking instance be im- agined than that of the mosquito? Immemorially we have gone on staggering under the burden of malaria and the terror of yellow fever; and, all the time, we have persisted in regarding the mosquito as an annoy- ing and irritating but quite harmless insect of the order Diptera, against the bite of which hardly any precau- tion was taken. Recently the trained observer has turned his attention upon the buzzing torment the inobservant naturalist had carefully classified, and we slowly awoke to the fact that the serpent kingdom, combined with that of all varieties of beasts of prey, are, so far as the human race is concerned, comparatively speaking innocuous. The mosquito is more to be feared by man than the entire reptile creation. Thus the work of the trained observer is of infinite importance in every branch of research. That the habit SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 127 of careful observation can be educated is obvious; that it should be imparted early few will be disposed to deny; that even now it is recognized, except incidentally, in any college curriculum nobody pretends. Yet it is at the very foundation of every course in natural science; and, for that matter, of every course in social and applied science also. At Harvard they for two centuries lived and moved contentedly with implicit faith in the truth and finality of the Mosaic cosmogony; at last men came along who, in spite of their college training, observed as well as saw, and like the baseless fabric of a vision, the faith of centuries melted away. Confronted by really observing eyes, it proved an insubstantial pageant. It was merely Sherlock Holmes's query in another form. Generation after generation those learned professors had walked the familiar streets of Cam- bridge and contemplated the everlasting hills of Arling- ton, — all God's handiwork; and, until Agassiz en- lightened them, the significance of yonder boulder in the field, or those scratches on the stones by the way- side, or those layers of clay and gravel in the cutting, quite escaped their purblind gaze. Harvard taught the humanities and theology; the intelligent use of the eyes was beneath its dignity, and none of its affair. But the whole issue centres just there. What is its affair ? So far as I have been able to ascertain through twenty-five years of the discussions of the Harvard Board of which I have been a member, the authorities are as wide apart on that subject now as ever they were. There is no agreement; no united effort to a given end. Some still contend — I have heard them in debate — that the true end and aim of the college should be to send young men out into the world with their heads packed like valises with a choice assortment of odds- 128 THREE B K ADDRESSES and-ends, — some of the humanities, a smattering of Greek and Latin of course, a fair supply of mathe- matics, samples of natural science, a specimen or two of the world's stock of history and so-called philo- sophies, with a superficial familiarity with the master- pieces of literature. The young man whose brain and memory are thus loaded is, according to their view, well equipped. By him the college has done its whole duty. Next comes the propounder of the athletic dis- pensation. Do the authorities give proper attention to the intercollegiate contests ? Class standing is all very well; but who is captain of the crew, or the football team, or the baseball nine ? The great fear is lest the university "gets left" on the river, the gridiron or the diamond. When the prophet of the gymnasium sub- sides, the utilitarian takes the floor. His idea is that Harvard devotes altogether too much of the student's time to studies of no practical use in the life that now is. The up-to-date college training should, he insists, have more of business, or common-sense, character, — the humanities should be relegated to the background, and good, plain, bread-winning ends held steadily in view, — all else is what this philosophy of life some- what contemptuously designates as "mere culture." * A grade higher up is the advocate of specialism. Im- pressed with the immensity and diversity of knowledge, he sets it down as the function of the ideal college to prepare men to do that work for which they feel an aptitude, and to do nothing else. To that work they should be trained from the kindergarten; and, so far as direction is concerned, the college should stand aside, and content itself by aiding them in every way as they thus work out their inwardly inspired destinies. 1 Supra, p. 14. SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 129 From all of these views of the proper college end and aim I dissent. My own belief is that the college is sim- ply an intellectual training-school, — a mental gym- nasium; no more and no less. As it is the function of the physical gymnasium to turn out the athlete with no muscle developed at the expense of any other — every- thing, back, shoulders, arms, legs, lungs and heart in perfect proportion; so should it be the function of the college to turn out the student thoroughly trained in the use of his several faculties, and suppled in all brain action. The end in view is not acquired knowledge, but the control of every faculty for the quick acquisition of knowledge. With this definition in mind, let me close by pictur- ing the ideal college of the future as, nearing the end, I see it. It is something very different from what I know by experience was; or from what my observation tells me is. It is what, as I see it now, I required, but did not get; it is what my observation leads me confidently to believe those of the coming generation with whom I chance to be in contact ought to have. Fifty-four years ago, when the class of 1856 entered Harvard, the college, — and, be it remembered always it is the college, the undergraduate department alone, we are considering, — the college, as I have already said, in 1852, reported three hundred and twenty stu- dents, — four classes,, averaging exactly eighty mem- bers each. It was what would now be considered a small college, — for, one and all, Williams, Tufts, Amherst, Bowdoin, and Dartmouth average one hundred and fifty members to every class. Each of them is larger than Harvard then was. Harvard, accordingly, in 1856 was of just the proper size to allow in theory of close personal touch between instructor and student. Every 130 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES one, professor or student, — teacher or taught, — con- nected with the institution was supposedly individual. What in my own case that touch amounted to I have sufficiently set forth. A more complete separation of the mature from the immature could hardly have ex- isted. But assuming that eighty is the proper limit of a college, — the number of students a competent master can familiarize himself with personally and individually influence, mind acting on mind, — in that case Harvard then would have numbered four separate colleges, — we will say Holworthy, Stoughton, Hollis and Holden, each with its own directing head and mind, — president, dean, chancellor, master, however he might have been designated. Now, there would be some twenty or more such colleges. Presumably each college would have its specialty, — that line of instruction and electives to which its master most inclined, — classics, mathematics, history, physics, philosophy, and so on. Selecting his college as he inclined in his studies or for traditional reasons, the incoming student would on its books inscribe his name. Passing his admittance examination at the preparatory school at Andover, or Exeter, or Concord, or Groton, selecting perhaps the college more especially devoted to the classics, at the proper time he would present himself to, we will say, the master of Holworthy. Like a young horse going from the training-field to the racing-stables, a record of pedigree and performances would have preceded him, and be in the hands of the master. Then, face to face, the two would proceed to " size " each other. The result would be a programme of study reaching forward through the entire college course, — studies prescribed and elective, only to be changed with the consent and upon the advice of the master. Had such a system been SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 131 in use during the mid-decenniums of the last century, I now know well enough what my college course ought to have been, — what it might have been had I been blessed with guidance, wise or kindly; something, I ever- lastingly regret to say, wholly different from what it was. Grouping the faculties, and giving due emphasis to aptitudes and inclination, to the account of the imag- inative qualities would have been assigned Greek, Ger- man, and English, all to be followed up systematically, consecutively and persistently from the day of entrance to that of graduation. 1 To this I would readily have assented. Not so when it next came to providing for the suppling and developing of my reasoning faculties. For that, a continuous course in mathematics was neces- sary; and, even now, I can hear myself vigorously pro- testing, earnestly pleading against it. I hated mathe- matics. I had no aptitude for figures or demonstrations; I never could attain any considerable degree of alge- braic or geometric proficiency. Then would have come in the counsel of the maturer mind. '■' Young man," the master would have said, "you have now given a conclusive reason for the selection of that study as an elective in your particular case. Your mind calls for just that discipline. Loose, easy thinking is your besetting weakness. Mentally, you are active-minded ; also slovenly. Above all else you must accustom your- self to following out a train of thought, at once exact and sustained, to a given result." And, so saying, he would have simply uttered truth. I know it now. Accordingly, mathematics, diversified possibly by logic, would in my case have been prescribed for the entire college course, — from its A to its Z. Next, provision would have been made for the observing faculty; and, 1 Supra, pp. 11, 21, 41, 45. 132 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES again, having eyes I saw, and ever since have seen, at best but imperfectly. I stood in great need of a severe training in observation, — courses in chemistry, geo- logy, botany and forestry should have been provided. I should have been compelled to take note. And thus my college course would have been mapped out for me on scientific considerations from my own commence- ment to my college commencement. Would that it might so have been! But possibly, or more probably as matter of cer- tainty, it will be said that, for an educated man, such a course as that outlined would be strangely defective. Where, for instance, is history and political economy? Where physics, metaphysics, and moral philosophy? The idea of calling a man educated who knows nothing of these branches of knowledge ! Even so ! But, trained to reason and observe, with each faculty developed as a tool to the hand of the artisan, no longer an appren- tice, for what branch of research would I not have been equipped ? To him who can imagine, reason, observe and express himself, all knowledge becomes an open book. For him who graduated half a century ago, the game is now either won to a degree or irretrievably lost. But, reviewing his record, he is apt to see with great distinct- ness the nature of the game, and wherein his play was defective, wherein correct. For myself, thus retrospect- ing, I am constrained to say that, as a training-place for the game in which I was to take a hand, the colleges of the period, — and Harvard stood first among them, — viewed as mental gymnasiums, were ill-adapted to existing conditions, unsympathetic and, as respects or- ganization, already distinctly outgrown. In the matter of intellectual training, it was a period of transition, — SOME MODERN COLLEGE TENDENCIES 133 the system of prescribed studies was yielding to a theory of electives. So far as it had then been developed and applied, the new system proved in my experience a de- lusion, a pitfall and a snare. My observation, as I said in the beginning, leads me to apprehend that conditions in these respects, when taken as a whole, have not since changed for the better. The old organization yet lum- bers along; the implicit belief in the pursuit of aptitudes on lines of least resistance is in fullest vogue. Could I, on the contrary, have my way, I would now break our traditional academic system into fragments, as some- thing which had long since done its work, and is now quite outgrown; and I would somehow get back to the close contact of mind upon mind. I would to a large extent do away with this arms-length lecture-room education for the college period. I would develop an elective system based on scientific principles, and the study of the individual; properly regulated, it should be intelligently applied. I would prescribe one of the classic tongues, Greek or Latin, as a compulsory study to the day of graduation, the one royal road to a know- ledge of all that is finest in letters and in art. l I would force every student to reason closely all through his college days; while no man not trained to observe, and equal to tests in observation, should receive a degree. Beyond this I would let the student elect. He might follow his aptitudes. Having thus spoken, I submit what is said as a spe- cies of apologia pro vita mea. My generation was never properly trained; like our contemporaneous Topsy, "we just growed." 1 Supra, pp. 11, 14, 15, 22, 41, 43. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE Dealing as it did with educational topics exciting no incon- siderable interest in academic circles, the foregoing address, not unnaturally, failed at the time of delivery to pass unchal- lenged. Neither was it perhaps just matter of surprise that a portion at least of the criticisms made upon it were marked by a certain asperity of tone indicative of temper. The sub- ject of American collegiate education is, however, one which at just this juncture will not only bear discussion, but plainly is one which has got to be discussed; and not until it has been so discussed, and that from every point of view, can any sat- isfactory or generally accepted result concerning it be looked for. The American college is at present obviously passing through an experimental stage. The situation is with it, to say the least, mixed: — large colleges or small colleges; the elective system, or the prescribed system, or the intermediate system ; the short course, or the long course; the examination system, or the certificate system; the advisory or preceptorial experiments; the go-as-you-please, the aptitude, and the line-of-least-resistance theories of development, — all are on trial, and each has its critic and advocate. As many institutions, so many experiments. Each institution, also, be it Harvard or Yale or Princeton, seems quite satisfied that it, and it only, is on the right track; and that the desired end, if not actually reached, or in plain view, is safely located at the end of the path that particular institution is blazing. But to the outside observer, one thing only seems unde- niable: The present is, in America, a period of academic transition, and great changes are immediately impending. These changes also are called for, and will be exacted, to meet SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 135 existing American ideals — false or sound — American con- ditions — good or bad — and American requirements — real or imaginary. They must, also, be coextensive with the modi- fications and developments that American ideals, conditions and requirements have recently undergone or are now under- going. The noticeably restless and experimental disposition just referred to, evinced by the institutions of advanced ed- ucation, large and small, is due to an instinctive recognition on their part of this fact. The American college-bred youth, it is asserted, gets to the work of life too late, — at twenty- six instead of twenty- three; he gets to it, also, wrongly or insufficiently prepared. The genus parent is not satisfied with the situation, even if the educator at heart is. Under these circumstances the layman brought in close contact with the college has a right to his day in court; the conclusions drawn from his actual experience, though neither novel nor profound, are entitled to consideration. Brief refer- ence may, therefore, here be worth while to the criticisms which the address called forth, and the objections made in university publications to the views and conclusions ad- vanced in it. Passing over those accusations of "ignorance," or "funda- mental ignorance," of existing college conditions, and "mis- representation," whether wilful or from inexcusable remiss- ness, freely advanced by those who, there is some reason to apprehend, are themselves living in what bears close re- semblance to a fool's paradise, it will save both time and space to come at once to the real issue presented. That issue may .be tersely put. The existing American academic system, and its logical tendencies as of late developing under the exigen- cies of growth, are, it is charged, fundamentally and struc- turally wrong. The material organization, it is claimed, is radically out of date and defective; the soundness of the educational methods in use are very open to criticism. 136 THREE 3> B K ADDRESSES (1) That the old American academic college system, in use down to the time of the Civil War (1865), is antiquated and outgrown, no one denies. The recent effort has been to adapt it to existing conditions. But, instead of reorganization on the old traditional lines, the attempt has been and now is to substitute for it the university system and methods rather than those of what cannot be better described than as the gymnasium. The result has naturally been an unscientific anomaly, — something neither American nor English nor yet German, from which the institutions are now struggling to extricate themselves. (2) The fundamental thesis of the new school seems to be that, if only trusted so to do, the boy of 17-18, fresh from the school form, is, if incidentally advised by one a few years older than himself, the most competent judge of his own in- tellectual structure and educational needs. This proposition it is unnecessary to discuss. Let every man over forty years of age sum up his own experience in life; having done so, let him answer the question for his offspring. (3) But it is replied that the present system in the larger institutions holds out a multiplicity of courses from which the student may select, and of these courses some are chosen by so few students that in them the individual student and instructor are brought into the closest preceptorial contact. But this, it is answered, obviously leads to a premature special- ization. Instead of an equalized, symmetrical training of the intellectual powers, the college student falls immediately under the influence of an older man devoted to a course of instruction, or to one branch of learning. He is from the very start, and as matter of system, influenced to an abnormal, and consequently an unscientific development. The work and methods appropriate to the university period are thus introduced into the academic period. It is the state of things naturally resulting from that confusion of the gymnasium SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 137 and university systems which the institutions are now trying to meet through the medium of advisers, preceptors, etc., etc. The somewhat obvious fact has become disagreeably ap- parent that nineteen boys at least in every twenty, suddenly released at eighteen years of age from a rigorously prescribed course of studies to one of the greatest possible freedom, will naturally drop into the lines of least resistance and personal convenience. The attempt to counteract this natural tendency through a machinery of so-called freshmen-advisers has, in student circles at least, hitherto been considered so much the reverse of successful as to be rather the object of derision. At best, it has been an attempt to cause the blind to entrust themselves to the guidance of those only partially, if indeed as yet at all, endowed with sight. In other words the advisers were as a rule only in degree less immature than those they were supposed to direct. (4) It is very currently believed that the system of electives as now in use calls for radical revision. That in the present broadened field of knowledge the elective system, in a modi- fied form and subject to close supervision, is in college work desirable, or even necessary, few are disposed to deny. But the feeling among parents, and the laity in general, is that in the strong reaction from the old prescribed course of study which has been so marked since 1840, the experiment has been carried to an extreme; and, in its present form, the sys- tem of academic as distinguished from university electives has a distinctly demoralizing, not to say debauching, tend- ency. Taking in hand the boy of fourteen, — for to that age it in practice extends, — it talks to him of his "aptitudes," — it encourages him to attempt nothing to which he does not naturally incline, or which he finds what he is pleased to term "hard." In subsequent life the boy, as a man, has habitually to face work and duties both uncongenial and difficult. He can then rarely " elect." The wisdom of a system which in 138 ' THREE B K ADDRESSES this respect distinctly tends to demoralize him at the thresh- old of active life is at least open to question. That these considerations have an ever-increasing weight in the minds of the laity is seen in the statistics of college growth. These, especially of late, are suggestive, if not even ominous. The larger institutions had best study the hand- writing on the wall, and be instructed in time. That the adviser and preceptorial experiment, — or rather, perhaps, the crude freshmen-adviser experiment developed into a more mature preceptorial system, 1 is next to be tried as a panacea 1 The Princeton preceptorial system has already been referred to. (Supra, p. Ill n.) In his Annual Report for the year 1906 (pp. 10-11) President Woodrow Wilson thus describes the progress made in the development of this system. The statement is distinctly encouraging. It indicates that a step, and a long one, is even now being taken towards the final result which it was attempted to foreshadow and outline in the address to which this is a note: "Our new method of instruction has now had a full year's test, and has stood the test most satisfactorily. It has produced more and better work; it has systematized and vitalized study; it has begun to make reading men; and it has brought teachers and pupils into intimate relations of mutual interest and confidence. I speak of it as a 'system' of instruction, but we have not given it the symmetry or the uniform rules of a system. We have sought to preserve the utmost elasticity in its use, in order that the indi- vidual gifts and personal characteristics of the preceptors might have free play. Not only must instruction in each subject have its own methods and points of view, but each instructor must be as free as possible to adapt himself to his pupils as well as to his sub- ject. What is true of all teaching is particularly true of this intimate way of associating teacher and pupil; the method is no more effect- ive than the man who uses it. His whole makeup conditions his success and determines its character. The almost uniform success of last year's work means that the teachers were singularly fitted for the new and delicate task for which they had been selected. "There were marked varieties of success, of course. The new way of teaching demands for its ideal success a very intimate and cordial sympathy between the preceptor and his pupils, and of course not all of the preceptors have been of the temperament to make close friends of the men they taught. Some are a little too SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 139 for an evil felt rather than understood is now obvious. It is in the air. But that it will meet the need is still open to grave doubt. 1 It remains to be seen whether the requisite remedial move is not to be more reactionary, — far more radical. Not impossibly it will then go yet further in the direction of the disciplinary gymnasium, — in a word, back to the earlier American forms. The mass and university college treatment will be abandoned in favor of the sub- limated academy, — the family or cluster of independent schools together constituting the college, and the college the gymnasium preparatory to the university. This suggestion, advanced in the foregoing address, is now looked upon as "revolutionary," as English, or at least as un-American. On the contrary, is it not simply a reversion to the original American idea of a college ? Not impossibly the mistake, so far as Harvard, for instance, is concerned, was made half a century ago, when the growth of the old college, exceeding the capacity of the original lines, made reorganization necessary. New colleges on the plan of the original organization should perhaps then have been formed, each with its own head, and not so large as to make it im- possible for that head, not as a specialist but as a friend and preceptor, personally to influence the individual student. In other words, the college would have undergone a process of much inclined to be mere faithful taskmasters, the supervisors of their men's work, and the intimacy between them and their pupils is hardly more than the intimacy that must in any case come from such relations of mutual responsibility. Some have succeeded be- cause they stimulated their men; some because they understood and helped them; some because they knew how to hold them to strict and frequent reckonings; some because they interested; others because they had the gift for congenial conference. But amidst all the variety there has been no failure, and the beginning of the second year of the system already shows interesting results in the new attitude of the undergraduates and the manifest fruits of the year of training." 1 Infra, pp. 169-70. 140 THREE B K ADDRESSES duplication, reproduction and differentiation within itself, instead of one of German university experimentation. Is it not, in fact, this university experimentation which has con- stituted the college revolution, the readjustment consequent upon which is still in process ? Can a satisfactory readjustment be brought about on the lines now proposed ? The academic mind is confident it can. The lay mind, in closer contact with the outer world, and more responsive to its demands, distinctly refuses to share that confidence. To the collegiate layman what is now being done has the aspect of an attempt to reconcile and coordinate conditions essentially alien, and which his life experience tells him do not admit of coordination. Boys of eighteen, in his view, are not matured men; and stern discipline has, he has learned, a distinct educational value. Moreover, a confessedly outgrown organization is at best ill adapted to meet satisfactorily the needs of new and wholly different conditions. Altogether, a large problem; to be successfully dealt with, it must be approached in a comprehensive way. In the immediate future it is obvious nothing will be done. The times are not auspicious; for it is plain to every one who observes at all that existing conditions are by no means and in no respect scholarly. The atmosphere of to-day is per- meated with athleticism and materialism ; the muscular and utilitarian is always and much in evidence. The spirit of high scholarship is suffering a consequent eclipse. In Europe, as here, it is matter of common, if somewhat bewildered, observation that " there is strangely little interest at present in any abstract or intellectual subject whatever. . . . In- difference and apathy seem to mark our generation. We are tired of old themes, and discover no fresh ones strongly to interest us." * The ideals may be strenuous in character; they assuredly are neither intellectual nor scholarly. 1 "D'une part, Tancien enthousiasme pour les lettres classiques, SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 141 To satisfy one's self of this it is only necessary to glance at the columns of the daily press. Whole sheets of it are periodically devoted to the season's games, — boating, base- ball, basket-ball, sprinting, football. The faces and figures of the captains and members of the "crew" or "team" are familiar to every one. They are the notorieties. Where are the high scholars ? Is there any "first scholar" now? Pos- sibly his name may be mentioned at Commencement; but, if printed in the morrow's journal, it will be obscurely and in small type. But the University Eight's race! — " Thirty thousand eager spectators lined the shore!" — columns are devoted to it. Here then are the college ideals. Here ! nor will they down. They directly and potently affect the whole theory and spirit of the higher education. A new dispensation is now consequently preached. The voices of its advocates are heard even in university circles. The American youth, it is argued, does not like discipline nor take kindly to severe work. Having now for a genera- tion or two tasted the delight of what has by high authority been well and recently termed this "tremendous access of [collegiate] freedom," — so "tremendous" indeed as at times and in instances to have bordered on license, — hav- ing tasted of this delight the American youth will no longer la foi qu'elles inspiraient sont irremediablement ebranles. Certes, il ne saurait etre question d'oublier le glorieux passe de l'humanisme, les services qu'il a rendus et continue meme a rendre; cependant, il est difficile de se soustraire a l'impression qu'il se survit en partie a lui-meme. Mais, d'un autre cote, aucune foi nouvelle n'est encore venue remplacer celle qui disparait. II en resulte que le maitre se demande souvent avec inquietude a quoi il sert et ou tendent ses efforts; il ne voit pas clairement comment ses fonctions se relient aux autres fonctions vitales de la societe. De la une certaine ten- dance au scepticisme, une sorte de desenchantement, un veritable malaise moral, en un mot, qui ne peut pas se developper sans danger. Un corps enseignant sans foi pedagogique, c'est un corps sans ame." Emile Dubkhem, L'Enseignement secondaire en France. 142 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES submit to the degree of restraint once deemed wise as well as usual. This fundamental proposition the college, whether it will or no, must recognize; and, recognizing, adapt itself thereto. For the youth in question, things must accordingly be made easy and attractive ; the dose must be sugar-coated. Anything approaching to compulsory mental discipline, "if now enforced, would/' it is confidently asserted, "have the singular merit of speedily emptying institutions like Harvard and Yale;" although those advocating a recurrence to that old-time process "seem to ignore so interesting a probabil- ity." Thus prescribed courses of study are out of date, and rigid tests will no longer go down; the college which insists upon such will simply lose its business. In these days it has got to compete for its patronage; and the institution which knows how to suit its goods to the taste of its patrons will attract the customers. And in this view there is unquestionably a great deal of sound market-place sense of the degree-mill brand. It is, moreover, further argued in the same line that, after all, it makes no great difference. In this old-fashioned talk of dis- cipline, training, high scholarship, etc., there is a good deal of cant and nonsense. We have changed all that! The proper ideal for the young man to hold out for himself is to be sure "to get there;" the "there," in his case, being a good sala- ried place, or a recognized success in some calling, profes- sional or "on the street." And, as matter of practical ex- perience, it is found that business concerns looking for young men now care very little for scholarship, and that sort of thing; on the contrary, they find as a rule the best material for their purpose in young fellows who have knocked about among their equals, enjoyed a good athletic record, and pre- sently settle down in a sensible way to the actualities of life. So, after all, what does it matter ? The American boy is a species by himself, and must be treated and humored as such. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 143 Anyhow, the college must not lose its business. If it once does, it may as well in these days shut up shop altogether. It will certainly "get left." If it is replied that scant justice is here done to the Ameri- can boy, or even to the era of athleticism, and the cases of the Academy at West Point and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology are cited to show that strictly prescribed courses may be severely enforced by instructors, and labo- riously followed up by the student body, — if this is urged, the answer is immediate: Such point is well taken; but, in the cases instanced, the student looks to a career, or salaried place, to be provided on graduation by or through the insti- tution. In view of that he will submit to discipline and undergo labor. But what does the college offer? Nothing but education pure and simple. The American boy of to-day will not submit to severe rule and training on any such one- sided conditions. This, of course, is an exaggerated statement of the case. The time-honored cant, unconscious subterfuge and sincere self-deception which generally prevail in those college cir- cles where such views are guardedly expressed are here thrown aside and the case is presented in cold, brutal naked- ness, — a nakedness which not a few will doubtless pro- nounce absolutely indecent. None the less, there it is; and it is that philistine spirit of the market-place, — the spirit of an age energetic, practical, and generous beyond precedent, but, withal, noticeably game-going, magazine-reading and salary-securing, — with which the American college finds itself confronted. What will it do ? Hitherto it has experimented. It is experimenting now. It will continue to experiment for some time to come. The "adviser," the "preceptor," the "tutorial influence" is the fad of the day; and, like other fads, it must run its course. But, as already observed, to the more reflective on- looker, 144 THREE 0> B K ADDRESSES deeply interested in the college and in closer touch with active life and the rushing world that now is, it seems very ques- tionable whether academic salvation will there be found. The remedy, some such apprehend, must, to be really found, be sought deeper down. The college must get nearer to the world. Recognizing actualities, it must adapt itself to them in so far as to prove itself a guiding, because sympathetic and intelligent, educational force. To do this effectually, must not the old traditional college — the college of the fathers — be broken up and wholly disappear; be sent, respectfully but finally, into the limbo of the past, — relegated thereto as a thing which has done its destined work ? The day of the exclusive A.M. degree at the expiration of a uniform fixed course of study is over; and, in future, college courses and college degrees, and con- sequently colleges themselves, must be differentiated and adapted to more clearly defined ends. In an educational way we are continually borrowing, — going abroad to find some- thing to supply deficiencies in our existing system, — de- ficiencies made apparent by changes coming about or brought about in conditions strictly American. This proposal or makeshift is said to be German, that English, the other French. Then, applying such to American conditions we are surprised that they will not work. "Made in Germany " has of late years been the favorite educational brand. It is still popular. Meanwhile, so far as college education is concerned, is the German brand wholly adapted to the American mar- ket? That it is so is very open to question. A thoughtful and well-informed English writer thus recently expresses himself in a way quite as applicable to our American con- ditions as to those of his own country: "The [German] stu- dent, after having been under strict discipline so long as he is at school, where the curriculum ensures him a broad basis of liberal education, is free from the moment he enters the SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 145 university to follow any branch of study he likes and with whatever amount of zeal he likes. He can flit from professor to professor, and from university to university, in pursuit of the special course of study he has marked out for himself. . . . The high value of the German universities as scientific institutions is undeniable. But before [those enamoured with it] advocate the adoption of a similar system in this country, it will be as well to be clear in their own minds as to their ideal of university education. So far as the object of a univer- sity is the advancement of learning or the training of special- ists, the German system (given the above-mentioned driving power of a zeal for knowledge) achieves the end of its exist- ence; but so far as it aims at training the average man, espe- cially the average man of the governing classes — in short at forming character — its merits are less conspicuous. . . . It is, in fact, admitted that the German university system is tending to confine itself more and more to the production of specialists, to the exclusion of general education." Character-building, it is submitted, is what we in America most need also; and character-building should be the highest, though by no means the sole, function of the college. But to insure in some degree the building of character, must not the college recognize conditions, and differentiate itself to meet and satisfy them? Finally, then, has not the time come to do away with the single college, the uniform course, and the one degree ? Does not the American world ask for something else ? It so ap- pears; and hence, unrest. Nor is the demand of the world unreasonable. Education now exacts too much time in the case of the average youth, — an unnecessary amount of time if the end to be attained is kept steadily and intelligently in view. Would it not, for instance, be practicable as well as best for Harvard to have different colleges giving different degrees for different courses of study, all to feed the univer- 146 THREE B K ADDRESSES sity ? The machinery would then be adapted to the ultimate end in view. The ideals — material, utilitarian, scholastic, literary — would be in accord therewith. The gymnasium, or college, with a two years' disciplinary course, as in Ger- many, would feed the scientific school, giving its baccalau- reate degree; the college of three years, more or less, with its special -degree also, would feed the professional schools; the college of four years would be designed to build character, and supply the purely liberal education. The last might then be small, or it might be large ; but, in its ideals and methods, it could at least be scholarly, and present some degree of repose. What is required in each case is not the same. It is so far, indeed, from being the same as to be altogether different. Why then insist on one baccalaureate degree and one term of study ? Discipline and adaptedness of means to end are what is needed in each case; but beyond these there is difference in all respects, — time, methods, cost and aim. To carry out this idea — a purely American idea to meet purely American conditions — a dozen or twenty colleges — or sublimated preparatory schools — might possibly in the case of Harvard be now, or if not now then ultimately, de- sirable in place of the one which now exists. Yet they would in their aggregate constitute Harvard. Nor is the process of evolution to such a result so remote from what is now going on as might at first be supposed; neither would a gradual change necessarily imply any impossible, or, indeed, excess- ive outlay. The adviser, or preceptor, of to-day might almost imperceptibly develop into the head of the college, — he would become Master of Massachusetts, or of Holworthy, or of McKay. The traditional dormitory has already become the modern privately managed "Hall." Following easily and naturally in the apartment-house line of development so familiar now, the privately managed "Hall," endowed by SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE 147 bequest or, better yet, through the generosity of a living benefactor, would naturally enough become the college of the future, with its chambers, accommodating under the presidency of one master perhaps an hundred students. The entire group of these organisms, workiDg to the same or to different ends, would constitute the college, — differ- entiated, yet each part individual and complete in itself, a segment of the university and of Harvard. And, under some such system, organized, and yet the parts not merged to the extinction of all identity, meeting the re- quirements of the actual world whose purposes and desires it is its mission to study and fulfil, — under such a system might it not be reasonable to indulge the hope again to boast the existence of a complete scholastic institution; an institu- tion, small in numbers possibly, but freed from the exacting demands of the specialist, and the eager or needy professional student? There, exempt from business or material calls or ideals, the scholar could be trained, feeding, if need be, even on literature, philosophy and the humanities. The type is one worth perpetuating; but, under the traditional system still in vogue, is it not in imminent danger of becoming extinct from mere stifling in an uncongenial atmosphere breathed in an environment devoted to material, profes- sional and scientific, in a word, bread-winning and moifey- getting, aims ? l Thus far, however, the old educational one-price shop, renewed and replenished with fixtures and goods made in Germany or elsewhere, has hindered the realization of any such ideal; and, unquestionably, it will long continue so to do. The address, to which this will serve as an explanatory note, is merely a passing contribution to a debate which may weary, but, as yet, shows no sign of drawing to a close. C. F. A. November 30, 1906. 1 Supra, p. 43. THE JOURNEYMAN'S RETROSPECT THE JOURNEYMAN'S RETROSPECT 1 Some years ago a distinguished literary character, as well as accomplished and lovable man, — since gone over to the silent majority, — stood here, as I now am standing, having a few hours before received Harvard's highest degree. Not himself a child of the University, he had been invited here a stranger — though in Cam- bridge he was by no means a stranger in a strange land — to receive well-deserved recognition for the good life-work he had done, and the high standard of char- acter he had ever maintained. When called upon by the presiding officer of that occasion, as I now am called upon by you, he responded by saying that the day be- fore he had left his New York home to come to Cam- bridge a simple, ordinary man; he would go back, " ennobled." In America, patents of nobility may not be conferred, — the fundamental law itself inhibits; so, when from the mother country the name of Sir Henry Irving comes sounding across the Atlantic, we cannot answer in reply with a Sir Joseph Jefferson, but we do not less, perhaps, in honor of great Shakespeare's craft, by in- viting him, 2 to whom you have this day given the greatest ovation on any bestowed, to come up and join the family circle which surrounds America's oldest Alma Mater. Still, figurative though it was, for George 1 Speech at the Harvard Alumni Dinner, Commencement Day, Wednesday, June 26, 1895. 2 The degree of Master of Arts had, at the close of the day's Com- mencement exercises, been conferred on the late Joseph Jefferson. 152 THREE <£ B K ADDRESSES William Curtis to refer to Harvard's honorary degree as an ennoblement was a graceful form of speech; but I, to the manner born, stand here under similar circumstances in a different spirit. Memory insensibly reverts to other days, — other scenes. Forty-two years ago President Eliot and I passed each other on the steps of University Hall, — he com- ing down them with his freshly signed bachelor's de- gree in his hand, while I ascended them an anxious candidate for admission to the College. His appren- ticeship was over; mine was about to begin. For twenty-six eventful years now he has presided over the destinies of the University, and at last we meet here again; I to receive from his hands the diploma which signifies that the days of my travels, — my Wander jahre, — as well as my apprenticeship, are over, and that the journeyman is at length admitted to the circle of Master- workmen . So, while Mr. Curtis declared that he went away from here with a sense of ennoblement, my inclination is to sit down, not metaphorically but in fact, on yon- der steps of University Hall, and think for a little — somewhat wearily, perhaps — over the things I have seen and the lessons I have learned since I first as- cended those steps when the last half of the century now ending had only just begun, — an interval longer than that during which the children of Israel were con- demned to tarry in the wilderness! And, were I so to do, I am fain to confess two feel- ings would predominate: wonder and admiration, — wonder over the age in which I have lived, mingled with admiration for the results which in it have been accomplished and the heroism displayed. And yet this was not altogether what the prophet voices of my THE JOURNEYMAN'S RETROSPECT 153 apprenticeship had, I remember, led me to expect; for in those days, and to a greater degree than seems to be the case at present, we had here at Cambridge prophet voices which in living words continually ex- horted us. Such were Tennyson, Thackeray, Emerson, and, perhaps, most of all Carlyle, — Thomas Carlyle, with his Heroes and Hero Worship, his Latter Day Pamphlets, his worship of the Past and his scorn for the Present, his contempt for what he taught us to term this "rag-gathering age." We sat at the feet of the great literary artist, our 'prentice ears drank in his utterances; to us he was inspired. The literary artist remains. As such we bow down before him now even more than we bowed down be- fore him then; but how different have we found the age in which our lot was cast from that he had taught us to expect! I have been but a journeyman. Only to a small, a very small extent, I know, can I, like the Ulysses of that other of our prophet voices, declare "I am a part of all that I have met." None the less, "Much have I seen and known; cities of men And manners, climates, councils, governments; And drunk delight of battle with my peers, Far on the ringing plains of windy Troy." We were told in those, our 'prentice days, of the heroism of the past and the materialism of our present, when "who but a fool would have faith in a tradesman's wares or his word," and "only not all men lied;" and yet, when, in 1853, you, Mr. President, the young journeyman, descended, as I, the coming apprentice, ascended those steps, "the cobweb woven across the cannon's mouth" still shook "its threaded tears in the wind." Eight years later the cobweb was swept away; 154 THREE 3> B K ADDRESSES and though, as the names graven on the tablets at the entrance of this hall bear witness, "many were crushed in the clash of jarring claims," yet we too felt the heart of a people beat with one desire, and witnessed the sud- den making of splendid names. I detract nothing from the halo of knighthood which surrounds the heads of Sidney and of Bayard; but I was the contemporary and friend of Savage, of Lowell and of Shaw. I had read of battles and "the imminent deadly breach;" but it was given me to stand on the field of Gettysburg when the solid earth trembled under the assault of that Confederate Virginian column, then performing a feat of arms than which I verily believe none in all re- corded warfare was ever more persistent, more deadly, or more heroic. And our prophet spoke to us of the beauty of silent work, and he held up before us the sturdy patience of the past in sharp contrast with the garrulous self-evi- dence of that deteriorated present, of which we were to be a part; and yet, scarcely did we stand on the threshold of our time, when a modest English natu- ralist and observer broke years of silence by quietly uttering the word which relegated to the domain of fable that which, since the days of Moses, had been accepted as the foundation of religious belief. In the time of our apprenticeship we still read of the mystery of Africa in the pages of Herodotus, while the sources of the Nile were as unknown to our world as to the world of the Pharaohs; then one day a patient, long- suffering, solitary explorer emerged from the wilderness, and the secret was revealed. In our own time and before our purblind eyes, scarcely realizing what they saw or knowing enough to wonder, Livingstone eclipsed Columbus, and Darwin rewrote Genesis. THE JOURNEYMAN'S RETROSPECT 155 The Paladin we had been told was a thing of the past : ours was the era of the commonplace; and, lo! Gari- baldi burst like a rocket above the horizon, and the legends of Colchis and the Crusader were eclipsed by the newspaper record of current events. The eloquent voice from Cheyne Row still echoed in our ears, lamenting the degeneracy of a time given over to idle talk and the worship of mammon, — defiled by charlatans and devoid of workers; and in answer, as it were, Cavour and Lincoln and Bismarck crossed the world's stage before us, and joined the immortals. We saw a dreaming adventurer, in the name of a legend, possess himself of France and of imperial power. A structure of tinsel was reared, and glittered in the midst of an age of actualities. Then all at once came the nineteenth-century Nemesis, and, eclipsing the avenging deity of which we had read in our classics, drowned in blood and obliterated with iron the shams and the charlatans who, our teacher had told us, were the essence and characteristic of the age. And the College, — the Alma Mater ! — she who to-day has placed me above the rank of journeyman, — what changes has she witnessed during those years of probation ? — rather what changes has she not wit- nessed! Of those — president, professors, instructors, and officers — connected with it then, two only remain ; but the young bachelor of arts, who degree in hand came down the steps I was ascending, has for more than half those two and forty years presided over the destinies of the University, and, under the impulse of his strong will and receptive mind, we have seen the simple, tra- ditional College of the first half of the century develop into the differentiated University of the latter half. In 1856, when I received from the university my first 156 THREE 3> B K ADDRESSES diploma, the college numbered in the aggregate of all its classes fewer students than are found in the average single class of to-day. And in the meanwhile what have her alumni done for the Alma Mater? In 1853, when my apprenticeship began, the accumulated endow- ment of the more than two centuries which preceded amounted to less than one million of dollars; the gifts and bequests of the twoscore years covered by my ap- prenticeship and travels have added to the one million over ten millions! And this, we were taught, was the "rag-gathering age" of a "trivial, jeering, withered, unbelieving" generation! — at least, it gave! Thus, as I stand here to-day in the high places of the University and try to speak of the lessons and the theories of life which my travels have taught me, — as I pause for a brief space by the well-remembered col- lege steps which more than forty classes have since gone up and descended, and, while doing so, look back over the long vista of probation, — my impulse is to bear wit- ness to the greatness and splendor, not to the decadence and meanness, of the age of which I have been a part. My eyes too have seen great men accomplishing great results, — I have lived and done journeyman work in a time than which none history records has been more steadfast and faithful in labor, more generous in gift, or more fruitful in results; none so beneficent, none so philanthropic; none more heroic of purpose, none more romantic in act. More than thirty years ago, while those cannon of Gettysburg were booming in my ears, sounding the diapason of that desperate onslaught to which I have already referred, there came up in my memory these lines from the Samson Agonistes: THE JOURNEYMAN'S RETROSPECT 157 "All is best, though we oft doubt, What th' unsearchable dispose Of highest wisdom brings about, And ever best found in the close. Oft he seems to hide his face, But unexpectedly returns, And to his faithful champion will in place Bear witness gloriously." These lines, I say, I repeated over and over to my- self, somewhat mechanically I suppose, in the dust and heat and crash of that July day. I was young then; I am young no longer. But, now as then, those verses from Milton's triumphant choral chant bring to me, clad in seventeenth-century words and thought, the ideas of evolution, continuity, environment and pro- gression, and, above and beyond all, abiding faith in man and in our mother age, which are the lamps the last half of the nineteenth century has lit whereby the steps of the twentieth century shall be guided. THE HARVARD TUITION FEE THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 1 The financial result of the year was a deficit of ),403.07 in the combined account of the College, Sci- entific School, Graduate School and Library. . . . The larger part of the new expenditure [of the year] went to increase the amount of instruction offered; but a significant portion was used to improve the instruction already offered, particularly in the elementary courses resorted to by large numbers of students." "It is the clear duty of the Corporation to repair, as soon as possible, the mistake they made in the too large increase of the salary list for the year 1902-3. . . . This reduction can be made by diminishing the number of instructors and assistants annually appointed. There will result some diminution in the number of courses of instruction offered, and some redistribution of work among professors and instructors holding permanent appointments; but, in general, the reductions can be made without seriously affecting the interests of any considerable number of the undergraduates." The foregoing extracts from the Annual Report (pp. 48-50) of President Eliot are at once significant and suggestive. 2 They are significant, as disclosing the fail- 1 From the Harvard Graduates' Magazine for September, 1904. 2 The report referred to was that for the academic year 1902-3. In his report for the year 1905-6, President Eliot says (pp. 55-6) — "The deficit of 1905-6 in the combined accounts of the University, College, Scientific School of Arts and Sciences and Library was $59,296.31, the largest ever experienced. . . . The Corporation have now used up quick capital amounting to $488,841.69 by this process of charging annual deficits to unrestricted funds." From the foregoing extract from the last report of President Eliot it ap- 162 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES ure of the income of the University to cover its present annual outgo; they are suggestive, as indicating the way in which the Corporation proposes to make good the deficit thus created. The situation is simple, and in no way unusual In pursuing the policy of instruc- tion heretofore adopted, and in meeting the increased expenses thereby forced upon it, the University has exceeded its income, and economies are deemed neces- sary; those economies are to be effected in that portion of the annual expenditure included in any analysis of outgo under the head of Instruction, or Salaries. Harvard thus finds itself face to face with a question of policy of the first magnitude*. In order to decide it understanding^ it is necessary first to ascertain the real occasion of the deficit. The outgo of the University must be analyzed. That preliminary disposed of, the question of policy can be discussed. Is then the deficit which now confronts the Univer- sity due to preventable waste, calling only for measures of economy, and the lopping off of " a too large increase of the salary list; " or is it a necessary incident to that multiplication of studies inevitably imposed on any university which, in a period of rapid development — material and social — endeavors to keep, not in ad- vance of its environment, but only abreast of the for- pears that the financial necessities discussed in the paper here reprinted, and for which a remedy was suggested, still exist but in a more aggravated form. "It seems strange that, with such a remark- able inflowing of gifts for several years past [averaging, in the four years 1902-3 to 1905-6, a little less than two millions of dollars annually], it should be necessary to discuss the means of overcoming a large annual deficit. . . . The explanation is simple. Of the eight millions of gifts in four years, two millions went to increase the scale of salaries. . . . Finally, of the balance of the four years' gifts, all but a small fraction went to special objects designated by the givers." THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 163 ward movement of that environment? No better test can perhaps be applied in such case than a comparison between the present and the past, — let what is be con- trasted with what was; for it will hardly be alleged that, during the earlier periods, those entrusted with the administration of Harvard's affairs erred on the side of extravagance, or were addicted to waste. Taking for purpose of comparison the figures given in the Treas- urer's Report for the last year preceding the com- mencement of the administration of President Eliot, — 1867-68, — and those given in the report just sub- mitted, — that of 1902-03, — and dividing the ex- penses of those two years on the same basis, it will be found that they were as follows: 1867-68. 1902-03. Salaries $78,330.76 $616,656.39 Administrative Expenses . 17,210.84 145,987.07 Miscellaneous Expenses . 52,583.91 363,587.93 $148,125.51 $1,126,231.39 It will be seen that in 1902-03 the amount expended in salaries was nearly eight times what was so expended in 1867-68; the cost of administration had multiplied over eightfold; miscellaneous expenses between six and sevenfold. In the case of a university the number of degrees conferred may be taken to represent the out- put of finished product. In 1868, Harvard University conferred 282 degrees; in 1903, it conferred 1206. It would thus appear that in 1903, as compared with 1868, the Harvard educational output had increased 4.31 fold; while the cost of running the institution had in- creased nearly eightfold, or, speaking exactly, 7.6 fold. The increase of output had, therefore, not kept pace with the increase in running cost. Measured by annual running cost and output, each Harvard degree of 1903 164 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES represented an expenditure of $950, as compared with an expenditure of $525 in 1868, or an increase of close upon 81 per cent. Of the entire money outgo of the first (1868) period, approximately 53 per cent, was devoted to the pay- ment of salaries, and 55 per cent, was so devoted in the last (1903) period; administrative expenses consumed 12 per cent, of the increase during the first, and 13 per cent, during the last; miscellaneous expenses 35 per cent, during the first, and 32 per cent, in the last. 1 The division is, of course, more or less arbitrary, and some- what general; but the results reached are, it is believed, sufficiently accurate for present purposes. The analysis is noticeable as indicating a stability in the division of expenditures. The ratio of growth in annual cost has been about the same under all the heads; and a natural inference might hence be drawn that the outgo for no one department had increased at the cost of the others. Further examination, however, suggests grave doubt as to the correctness of this inference. During the thirty-five years between 1868 and 1903, the administrative expenses of the University would seem to have increased in the aggregate $128,776.23, or nearly sevenfold. Measured by the entire number of students those expenses stood at $23.87 per student in 1868; in 1903 they stood at $34.14, — an increase of $10.27. In view of the multiplication of schools and courses, involving of necessity additional buildings and plants of a character both costly and complicated, this increase can hardly be considered excessive. It repre- 1 Under the head of Miscellaneous Expenses in this division, the following are included: Botanic Garden, Herbarium, Gymnasium, Library, Bussey Institution, Peabody Museum, Observatory, etc., and all general expenses and repairs. THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 165 sents only that reasonable expansion of outgo neces- sarily incident to a growth at once rapid and complex. Nevertheless, the fact must be noted that, under the second head, — Administrative Expenses, — each stu- dent in 1903 cost the University 43 per cent, more than each student cost it in 1868. It is under the third head — Miscellaneous Ex- penses — that the results of any extravagance in man- agement would naturally become apparent. But the increase under this head, as under the second, or ad- ministrative head, has been almost exactly sevenfold, with a fourfold increase in the number of students. The cost of each student was $72.93 in 1868; in 1903 it was $85.03. Thus, under this head, each student in 1903 cost the University 17 per cent, more than in 1868. The great item of all university cost is, however, tuition, and falls under the head of Salaries. The de- velopment of Harvard as respects courses of instruction has, during the Eliot administration, been phenom- enal, and a source of pride to all connected with the University. In 1867-68 there were but 92 courses in the Academic Department; whereas in 1903 there were about 456 courses. It is needless to point out that every additional course, especially if post-graduate, imposes on the University a disproportionate expense. Some special courses are taken by few students, and, it may be, by one only. 1 It goes without saying that in 1 At Yale, it is stated that, out of 181 studies, 70 are taken by fewer than ten students each ; 36 by fewer than five; 8 by fewer than two, and 11 by a single student each only. It has recently (1903) been asserted that, for the first time in twenty-five years, Yale has this year found itself compelled "because of lack of funds" to reduce its courses from 263 in number to 249; while of these 249 between 50 and 60 "would be cut out unless a sufficient number of students elected them to make it worth while to give them." 166 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES such cases the tuition of the student costs from ten to twenty, or more, times as much as in courses largely attended. Under these conditions the increase under the head of Salaries during the thirty-five years has been the same as under the other heads, — roughly speaking, sevenfold, — or from $78,330.76 to $616,656.39. The cost of each student was $108.64 in 1868 and $144.68 in 1903. Thus in the matter of tuition the average stu- dent in 1903 cost the University $36.04, or 33 per cent., more than in 1868. Turning now from students to instructors, it next appears that, while the University is steadily increasing in the liberality of its expenditure so far as students are concerned, it is elsewhere effecting economies. An examination of the Treasurer's Reports for the two periods selected for comparison shows that, while the higher salaries paid by the University have, during the interval of thirty-five years, been raised, and most properly raised, from 25 per cent, to 40 per cent., the number of instructors receiving a lower grade of compensation has been disproportionately increased. The average amount paid per instructor has thus been decreased from $3444.78 in 1867-68 to $2070.28 in 1902-03, — a diminution of some 40 per cent. 1 The foregoing analysis is of necessity partial and 1 These figures are believed to be sufficiently accurate for present purposes; but they are necessarily deceptive to a certain extent. The system of instruction has changed greatly with the increase in the number both of students and courses. The number of instructors who give only a portion of their time to the work of tuition, and look to other sources for support, has increased out of proportion to the body of professional teachers attached to the University. Due allowance for this fact will not, however, affect the substantial cor- rectness of the conclusion drawn. THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 167 incomplete. It would be desirable in this connection thoroughly to go through the accounts of the Univer- sity for the period taken; but to do this would involve a vast amount of labor and great statistical skill. As a result of the figures presented, and the comparison made, it would, however, appear that, during the Eliot administration, the number of students has quadrupled; and, in every division of expenditure, there has been a marked increase of outgo on the average individual student over any income received from him. As a re- sult, each Harvard degree now conferred represents an outgo over 80 per cent, greater than it represented in 1868. The corps of instructors has been increased commensurately with the increase of students; but the average compensation paid the instructors has di- minished. Accordingly, in 1902-03, as compared with 1867-68, 28 per cent, more per student was paid out in excess of what the student paid in, on four times the number of students; while a 40 per cent, decrease took place in the average compensation of those engaged in teaching those students. That, under these circum- stances, the resulting deficit between the income and outgo of the University is not much more considerable than that now reported is due to three causes: (1) the income from a large increase, through gift and bequest, in the endowment of the University; (2) the decrease in the average compensation paid per instructor; and (3) the increase in the number of students attending certain standard courses. Harvard University has now acquired a position in the country which, from an educational point of view, is almost unique. It is, and should remain, an institu- tion of advanced education, where practically any branch of learning can be pursued by those, many or 168 THREE B K ADDRESSES few, seeking instruction in it. The special courses al- ready provided to that end may be numerous and costly, — indeed, they unquestionably are both; nevertheless few would be found willing to maintain that these special courses offer a field either fruitful or inviting in which to practice a niggardly economy. But, on the other hand, it must be at once conceded, such a gener- ous array of courses in the most developed branches of education cannot be maintained except through a heavy expenditure. It of necessity involves a "large increase of the salary list;" unless, indeed, the teaching force is to be recruited exclusively from those who, having other and independent means of support, feel an altru- istic call to instruct. For a great university this, how- ever, is obviously an uncertain reliance, besides being otherwise somewhat questionable. And this brings the discussion back to the one suggestive result of the com- parison of periods just presented, — the decrease in the average compensation of instructors. It is safe to say that no single salary now paid by Harvard University can be pronounced more than moderate. Measured, indeed, by the standard of living expenses in 1868 as compared with that now prevailing, it is indisputable that the compensation paid those engaged in instruc- tion is neither so large as it was, nor as it should be. For men to devote themselves to teaching under exist- ing conditions implies, as every one must realize, a con- tinually increasing sacrifice. From a material point of view the prizes of an educational career do not compare with those possible to be won in American business or professional life ; and the sacrifice thus involved should not be aggravated. On the contrary, it would be a con- summation greatly to be wished could the Harvard salaries, throughout the list, be increased by at least THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 169 50 per cent. This, however, under existing conditions, is manifestly impracticable. Efforts at economy through a reduction of expenses should never be discouraged in universities, any more than in business corporations or governmental depart- ments. Such always and everywhere are both in order and commendable : but it is worse than futile, — it is self-deceptive to suppose that in the important matter of engaging competent instructive ability, economy can be carried beyond a certain point without injurious re- sults. While the laborer is worthy of his hire, the field in which he labors should be taken into some account; and the hire of an instructor of Harvard University should be at least what is known as a living wage. Whether, if the present policy is pursued, — much more if it is intensified, — what the average instructor re- ceives will long continue to be so deemed, — much less will attract and retain in the University's employ the necessary talent, — is open to serious question. And, curiously enough, the contention of President Eliot that last year's deficit can be made good "without seriously affecting the interests of any considerable number of the undergraduates by diminishing the number of in- structors and assistants annually appointed" is, as soon as made, emphatically — almost rudely — contro- verted in the formal report of a committee of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences appointed under a vote passed May 27, 1902. According to that committee the respon- sibility of seeing that the work of the students taking the academic courses is properly done "must rest chiefly with the assistants, who come into more immediate contact with the students. As the University is now organized, these assistants are necessarily young men, and therefore without experience in teaching. 1 The 1 Supra, p. 137. 170 THREE B K ADDRESSES committee feels the extreme importance of selecting the very best available men, and the false economy in failure to get them by reason of insufficient salaries. Some of the men are now as good as could be desired, but even these have charge of too many students. The need of a larger number of competent assistants is felt by instructors and students alike." ' Thus the situation is simple, and can be put in few words: While, during the term of President Eliot, the endowment of the University has been vastly in- creased, both the number of students and their educa- tional requirements have increased in yet greater ratio. Viewed from a purely commercial standpoint, the Uni- versity finds itself in the not uncommon position of a man whose business has extended out of proportion to his plant. To maintain his former standard of excel- lence, he must, therefore, either restrict his output or devise some means of increasing his income. The outgo is neither extravagant, nor considering the work done excessive. On the contrary, in its most essential fea- ture, economy has been carried to the extreme limit of safety. Under these circumstances, it would, on the whole, seem to be less difficult, and far more in consonance with the true interests of the University, to increase its income than to decrease its outgo. It remains to con- sider the source from which the necessary increase may most fairly as well as easily be derived. 1 See Harvard Graduates' Magazine for June, 1904, vol. 12, p. 616. This very suggestive report, drawn up apparently by Professor LeB. R. Briggs, is signed by Professors Byerly, A. L. Lowell, Morgan, Woodworth, Cobb, Sprague and Grandgent, as well as by the pre- sent Dean, B. S. Hurlbut, and the ex-Dean, Professor Briggs. Throughout, whether intended as such or not, it is a conclusive rejoinder to President Eliot's plan of immediate retrenchment. THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 171 Were reliable data to be had, it would be interesting at this point to reach some conclusion as to the propor- tion the fees for tuition bear to the whole present cost of student life at Harvard. Unfortunately on this head approximations only are possible, as it is, of course, out of any one's power to say what the average amount spent by students is. Young men have been known to go through a university course at Cambridge on a little less than $400 a year. These, however, were extreme cases; and, after allowing for term-bills, such economy may well involve privations in matters of clothing, heating and food which might entail a permanent im- pairment of health. It would be safer to fix the mini- mum cost of education at Harvard at $450 to $500 a year. At the other extreme are those wealthy students, who, in some cases, spend, it is said, several thousand dollars a year. Between these two extremes, it would probably not be far out of the way to fix the average present outgo of the Harvard student, whether in the Academic Department or in one of the Professional Schools, at $800 to $900 per annum. The present term- fee ($150) therefore may, with the average student, be taken to represent from 15 to 18 per cent, of his entire expenses; while, with the most needy, it would repre- sent, possibly, as much as 30 per cent. This last fact must be borne in mind, and provision made accord- ingly. It is manifestly unnecessary to extend the investiga- tion into the relative cost of education at Harvard, either at present or after the change now proposed, as compared with the cost of education at other similar institutions, such as the School of Technology in Bos- ton, Yale, or Ann Arbor. In the matter of graduates 172 THREE B K ADDRESSES and degrees, whether in the Academic Department or in the Professional Schools, it is not a question with Harvard of quantity so much as of quality. Proposing to give the best education anywhere attainable, it is immaterial to the University whether it graduates a larger number of students than are graduated else- where, or a less number. Between universities, com- petition should be in excellence, not numbers. The quantitative aspect of the problem should not even be considered. The effect of any increase of the tuition fee may, however, well be considered in another aspect. In the evolution of education in this country, the position of Harvard is becoming more and more pronounced. The rapid increase in number of endowed institutions of advanced education during the last few years — an increase which shows no sign of diminution — has led to the inevitable result that a university degree has no necessary significance. It may mean much; it may mean little; it may mean nothing at all; or, finally, it may be an actual fraud. The degrees of certain in- stitutions, however, are known, and at once recognized everywhere; so to speak, they are, if not legal tender, at least current money. Among those institutions, it is needless to say, Harvard holds a recognized place. While, indeed, the degrees of numerous other institu- tions very possibly mean as much educationally, they have not all the same market-place value as that 6f Harvard. It is, therefore, becoming more and more the practice of students at other, and well-nigh innum- erable institutions throughout the country, to end off by a longer or shorter course at Harvard in order to receive what may be called the educational Mint-mark, or Tower-stamp. The more than probable result of an THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 173 increased cost of Harvard education would be to pro- mote this tendency. A larger and larger number of students would come to the University, especially to its Professional Schools, for shorter and shorter pe- riods, within given limits, looking forward merely to taking a degree after the necessary examinations could be passed. There is in this nothing which Harvard University, or the friends of Harvard University, should oppose, or which should cause in it, or to them, a feeling of regret; on the contrary, it tends to put the Univer- sity in its proper place in what may not improperly be described as that educational hierarchy of the country in plain process of evolution. It is now thirty-five years since the fees of the Har- vard academic course were fixed at $150 a year. Dur- ing those years, as the analysis presented in the earlier part of this paper shows, the cost of each student's edu- cation has largely increased, while the purchasing power of the monetary unit has, as is well known, steadily decreased. It is not unsafe to say that, as a matter of difficulty in getting or of value in spending, a dollar and a half now is not the equivalent of a dollar in 1868. A tuition fee of $225 a year would not, therefore, repre- sent either to the student or the College what the pre- sent fee of $150 represented at the time of its adoption. As compared with the average cost of student life at Cambridge, it would represent an increase of some 9 per cent., or, in the case of the more necessitous, 15 per cent. Assuming such an increase to be decided upon, it remains to consider the policy which, in other respects, should thereupon be adopted; for a measure neces- sarily so far-reaching as an increase in the tuition fee 174 THREE B K ADDRESSES ought to be treated as one feature only in a more or less comprehensive programme. Should the number of students seeking admission to the College not be diminished by the proposed change, the average addition of $75 a year to the present tuition fees would represent an annual aggregate income in- crease of $225,000. This sum would obviously far more than suffice to extinguish the deficit under considera- tion, and relieve the more pressing needs of the Univer- sity for an indefinite time to come. But so considerable an addition to the revenue of the University, derived from such a source, raises other questions. Included in the body of reports accompanying that of the President, is one of the present Dean of the Col- lege. The following passage (p. 109) in this Report of Mr. Hurlbut relates to the question' of aid given to the more necessitous students, towards meeting the cost of their education: "The increase in the number of scholars in the first group is gratifying, but points at the same time to a condition that the Committee on Scholarships has for a long time deplored, the lack of an adequate number of scholarships with stipend. . . . Every graduate of the College knows how mistaken is the idea, so commonly held by those who trust only to report, that the College has an abundance of money; but many graduates, especially those of the classes before the '90's, fall with the public into the error of thinking that the College has adequate resources to help all deserving students who must wholly or in part pay their way. A merely superficial examination of the facts will convince the investigator that this opinion is mistaken, but how greatly mistaken only those who are brought closely into contact with these men fully understand. Before THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 175 the great increase in the number of students, in the early '80's, there was probably a sufficient number of scholarships for the really deserving men; but in the years since that time the growth in the funds for as- sisting students has not kept pace with the growth in numbers." Here, then, is a crying present need of the University. Harvard is to-day educating out of its endowment a large and constantly increasing number of young men both able and ready to reimburse it the entire cost of their education; at the same time it cannot adequately assist those in great need of assistance, or even relieve them of their tuition fees. It is a condition of affairs which obviously calls for comprehensive remedial treat- ment. Both classes should be reached; the one should be made to pay, while the other should be relieved from paying. This double result could, it is submitted, be in great measure secured through the proposed increase of the tuition fee. The half ($115,000) of the increased in- come ($225,000) derived from this source might be divided into scholarships, respectively, of X, Y and Z dollars per annum, — say, perhaps, 500 scholarships in all, representing, on an average, $225 per annum each, — and these be assigned to those applicants for aid who should have established a grade, which may be designated, respectively, as A, B and C, in the studies to which they have devoted themselves. Or, if objection be made to this direct reimbursement from a fund thus created, the proposition could be put in a slightly different form. Such an addition ($225,000) to the free income of the University would release so large an amount, now otherwise utilized, that a sum of not less than $115,000 could be appropriated to scholar- 176 THREE 3> B K ADDRESSES ships from the income of the endowment. This, how- ever, is but an evasion. No student, not even the wealthiest, would under the proposed arrangement pay the College what his education will cost. He may now pay 50 per cent, of that cost; he might then pay two thirds of it. To the extent of that unpaid third he will, in common with all his fellows, be a charity student. The proposition is, therefore, one of reimbursement to the more needy. As such it had best be treated; and treated directly. There is no call for subterfuge. No student pays, or is likely to pay, for what he gets. All are recipients of aid ; and the only question is as to the equitable disbursement of an educational trust from which each receives something. But, must they neces- sarily receive equally? Is not such a proposition po- litical democracy run mad educationally? It remains to examine the practical working of this scheme, if adopted. In the first place, it may be as- sumed that the proposed increase in the tuition fee would not materially diminish the number of students. As already pointed out, $225 a year is in common ac- ceptance not a more formidable amount than $150 was thirty-five years ago; and the increase to that sum then seems to have produced no appreciable, and cer- tainly no permanent, effect on the University roster. On the contrary, it was at that time Harvard entered upon a period of great and continuous growth. The fact is the debate here strikes a very momentous con- sideration; one not to be lost sight of in developing a broad university policy. The problem before Har- vard is to adjust itself to existing conditions. The constitution and peculiarities of a community must be understood and allowed for. Now, it is a characteristic of the American people that they want the best. At THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 177 first they may hesitate before an increase of expense; but experience shows that, whenever an improvement is offered looking to a higher and better standard, the community at large is, in the case of the United States, eager ultimately to participate in it Speedily educating itself to a new standard, it is not long deterred from participation by the cost thereof, if within reasonable limits. Stated broadly, therefore, the mere fact that Harvard College, and University, is recognized as the most expensive — provided always it is also the best — institution of education in the country, might, in the long run, tend quite as much to increase as to diminish the body of those seeking admission. Assuming this result, Harvard would, then, practically take this posi- tion: It would announce to the American community at large, — "We propose to give the best, sparing no expense. The best is costly; our endowment, limited Those, therefore, who desire to enjoy the advantages we offer must be prepared to pay a reasonable propor- tion of the cost thereof. On the other hand, Harvard's policy is such that no youth of good ability, disposed to apply himself closely, and to take advantage of his opportunities, need hesitate to come to it. Provided he is endowed with a fair degree of intelligence, and applies himself faithfully, he can, so far as tuition is concerned, pay his own way almost from the outset. All depends on himself. The University, so far as it can avoid so doing, does not propose to expend its means on the education of those who, either from indolence or from deficient capacity, are not calculated to derive full advantage from the opportunities afforded. The Har- vard courses are not so difficult that any man of aver- age abilities cannot, with fair application, easily obtain a degree. For the wealthy, or well-to-do, therefore, the 178 THREE B K ADDRESSES situation presents no difficulties; for those less well provided, but who, with good natural faculties, show steady application, the cost of tuition is within reach. Ample opportunities for education are afforded by less expensive institutions for such as have neither the means to pay for tuition, nor the faculties which give reasonable assurance of benefit from the opportunity offered. The resources of Harvard University can be used to better advantage than by sharing them equally, promiscuously and indiscriminately among all, irre- spective of ability, industry or means. They should be economized." It has just been said that the problem now presented to Harvard is that of adjustment to existing conditions. In this connection Harvard may well take to itself, and bear carefully in mind, this recent utterance of the president of a sister university: "In order to become great — indeed in order to exist at all — a university must represent the national life and minister to it. When the university of any country ceases to be in close touch with the social life and institutions of the people, and fails to yield to the efforts of those who would re- adjust it, its days of influence are numbered." Turning to the consideration of the present problem with these weighty words in mind, the first essential fact to be recognized is that the United States is now the richest country in the world, as well as the most populous of those educationally advanced. Both in wealth and numbers, moreover, it is growing at a rate for which history offers no precedent, nor the present a parallel. The rich and the thoroughly well-to-do are increasing proportionately. The territorial area from which Har- vard should draw has practically no limits. That under these circumstances its resources will in future be taxed THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 179 to the utmost, admits of no question. Its whole problem is to adapt itself to its environment, — the environment, be it remembered, of the twentieth, and not of the nine- teenth century. Inequality, and an inequality ever increasing in degree, of worldly possessions is one of the facts of that environment; and, recognizing this fact, the effort of Harvard should be to equalize conditions in so far as it is in her power so to do. Finally, the system proposed is merely another appli- cation of the great natural law of the survival of the fittest. It may be assumed that, to a considerable, and ever increasing, portion of those seeking to obtain their education at Harvard College, the payment of $150 or of $225 per annum, for tuition, is immaterial. To another, perhaps a larger, portion, it is most material. Under the system proposed, one half of the total addi- tional amount paid for tuition would be refunded to the whole body of students, and applied to defraying the cost, in whole or in part, of the education of such as, by their work, should demonstrate that, under any reasonable doctrine of chances, the amount expended upon them would be expended most profitably both for themselves and for the community. The fittest would, under this system, naturally survive. To summarize: Through the adoption of such a policy as that outlined three excellent results would be accomplished. First, the College deficit would be am- ply provided for; secondly, Harvard would not, as now, be brought into direct and continued competition with other, and less elaborate, institutions for the education of a vast number of young men who could just as well, or even better, be educated elsewhere; and, thirdly, a sufficient additional fund would be forthcoming to aid that large and most deserving class of students, 180 THREE B K ADDRESSES for whom, confessedly, there is now no adequate pro- vision. Each and all of these things, it is submitted, are in themselves most desirable. Two objections have been advanced to the proposed policy: First, it has been urged that many of the stu- dents who are unable to distinguish themselves in their courses sufficiently to obtain a scholarship, prove, notwithstanding, in after-life, those upon whom the education has been most profitably bestowed. This argument has, in fact, been pushed to its extreme limit. The proposed system of scholarships would more than provide for every case of hardship in the first half of each class; but it is then urged the real "bone and sinew " of our college life is found not in the first half of each class, but in its third quarter, or, perchance, nearer to the foot thereof. In fact, poor scholarship, if combined with lack of means, has figured, somewhat sentimentally perhaps, as indicative of our most pre- cious educational material. Sympathy has at times even seemed to obscure discernment; for, while the dull, lumpish and mentally inert, provided only they are also poor, have been almost passionately adhered to as the possible flowers of the flock, others of the same general type, but more fortunate in their worldly be- longings, have been roundly denounced, and charac- terized as college barnacles. All this may be so. Schol- arship may, as asserted, be no test of capacity; and high college rank may serve only to excite doubt of subsequent success in life. If, however, such is indeed the case, experience is sadly at fault. But, reverting to experience for light and guidance, the answer to the first objection is obvious. No process of elimination is perfect; none, indeed, is otherwise than rough and general; and, in nature, most so of all. While, then, THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 181 there are exceptions to this as to all rules, it may fairly be assumed that the test of application, natural ability, and industry, as developed in university standing, is approximately correct as a basis of guidance for an estimate of the individual. In a general way, it may be anticipated that the young man who stands well in his studies in the college will stand high in subsequent life. While, therefore, it is impossible to adopt any sys- tem of elimination which will work no occasional hard- ship, or set all criticism at defiance, the system proposed — that of judging by established tests — will, it may not unsafely be asserted, produce, as a general rule, results as little unsatisfactory as can be reached through any test possible to devise. In the second place, it has been argued that the American student is unwilling to support himself, or be supported, through scholarships; such aids partake of the nature of charity, and his self-respect revolts thereat. It may well be questioned whether this argu- ment is sustained in practical experience. The extract quoted from Dean Hurlbut's report looks certainly in the opposite direction. The highest college author- ity is there on immediate record as recommending an increase in scholarships. He refers to it, indeed, as one of the more pressing present needs of the University. The obvious implication is that scholarships are not unpopular to any excessive extent, and that the demand for them even now largely exceeds the supply. Certainly it is not easy to see why any man should consider him- self degraded by recouping for himself or his family the expense of his education through high scholarship. But that such supersensitiveness exists at all taxes the credibility of almost every graduate of even moderate means. It is directly opposed to the facts of his expe- 182 THREE <£ B K ADDRESSES rience. The applications for aid to get a university education are both incessant and pressing, nor is hesi- tation in the acceptance of the same conspicuous. The exception is the case where gratitude is subsequently evinced, or effort at repayment made. But if, contrary to all individual experience, such a hesitation as to the acceptance of a fairly won money recognition does pre- vail to any large extent, those subject to it had better, with the least delay possible, be educated into a sounder condition, mental and moral. The winning of a schol- arship should be looked upon as the winning of a decoration, and as a source of pride. The suggestion that anywhere or by anybody it is held a badge of mendicancy is not worthy of consideration. If such is the case now, it cannot too soon cease to be the case. The discussion is as yet in its earlier stage. Of neces- sity it involves many points worthy of careful con- sideration. Harvard may, it is apprehensively argued, by making the well-to-do pay, and throwing wide its portals to the more capable poor, acquire evil repu- tation as being a "Rich Man's College; " or it may, by not bestowing its endowment impartially on the less capable, as well as the more capable, of the poor, be drifting away from " Democracy." These, and other similar considerations should, and doubtless will, be thoroughly thrashed out by those upon whom a final decision devolves. Many points of detail will also have to be considered. For instance, under such a system as herein suggested, it is obvious that some provision must be made to meet the requirements of students dur- ing the year of competitive test. A scholarship of the sort proposed can, of course, only be gained as the re- sult of work done; and cases of privation and hardship must necessarily occur during that preliminary period. THE HARVARD TUITION FEE 183 Such could, however, be met in various ways, once the necessary funds are provided. The tuition fees could be omitted on evidence of high scholarship; regulated advances could, on application, be made; or, finally, conditional scholarships might be awarded. Other provisions would have to be made as to the bestowal of scholarships when earned, and alternatives to a money recognition arranged. These, however, are all matters not now to be discussed. THE FIFTIETH YEAR 1856-1906 THE FIFTIETH YEAR 1 1856-1906 As I rise to respond for the Class of 1856, a vague recol- lection comes over me of a conversation — one of many — had, quite a number of years ago, with Presi- dent Eliot, in which we discussed commencement din- ner oratory. Possibly we were arranging an after-dinner programme. However that may have been, my recol- lection is that I referred to representatives of the two classes, that which had graduated twenty-five years before and that which graduated fifty years before, as being always called upon. As to the former, the class of twenty-five years before, the President — we were then both of us considerably younger than we now are — readily assented ; but to the latter, or half -century representative, his denial was distinct. That he said had, it was true, been tried; but, by general consent, it was abandoned, — the utterances in response having been found to be of a nature, if I remember his lan- guage correctly, "altogether too lugubrious. " Until within the last few days I had hoped and believed this salutary understanding still obtained; but, about a week ago, I was notified by representatives of my class that I was conscripted for this occasion. In re- sponse, I am here, and now on my feet. Not only, however, does President Eliot's observa- tion recur to me, but also a familiar quotation from 1 Speech at the Harvard Alumni Dinner, Commencement Day, Wednesday, June 27, 1906. 188 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES Bums, which I will not repeat, as to the desirability at times of seeing ourselves as we are seen by others. It is now the turn of those remaining of the Class of 1856 to figure as "venerable men;" and we may as well realize that we look, in the eyes of those who graduate to-day, very much as the members of the Class of 1806 appeared in our eyes when, in that old wooden church building still standing before the college gate and op- posite Harvard Hall, we walked up the aisle that July day to receive our diplomas from President James Walker. I must confess it does carry us a good way back. President Walker himself then seemed to me a pretty old gentleman; and he resigned, because of growing infirmities, four years later : but, when I took my degree from his hands, his class lacked eight years yet of the fiftieth milepost. Turning back in the pages of the Quinquennial to the Class of 1806, I find that, graduating 42 in number, 16 of the 42 were still alive in 1856; the names of those 16 I then scanned curiously for that of some one I remembered. One such I found, and my spirits rose at once. It was Jacob Bigelow; and if we of '56 only look and feel and think, and appear to others, as Jacob Bigelow looked and felt and thought and appeared as he passed the fiftieth mile- stone, we have no ground for either lugubriousness or discontent. Strong of body, active in mind, clear of vision, keen of wit, Jacob Bigelow was in 1856 still a man in middle life. Not for nearly another quarter of a century did the asterisk appear against his name; then, with one exception, the last survivor of his class. 1 1 Bora in Sudbury, Massachusetts, February 27, 1787, Jacob Bigelow, having been graduated at Harvard in 1806, began the practice of medicine in Boston in 1810, and there died January 10, THE FIFTIETH YEAR: 1856-1906 189 Again, I frankly confess I would very much like to think that fifty years hence some member of the class which took its degrees to-day could say at the Com- mencement dinner of 1956 what I can now say of Jacob Bigelow. I knew him well; and I can soberly assert he was one of the very few really great men it has been given me to know at all. A keen observer, of robust mind and shrewd native wit, Dr. Jacob Bigelow was a genuine product of New England, — he flavored of the soil, — he was as much to our Massachusetts manner born as Benjamin Franklin, who in mental makeup he to my mind strongly resembled. Except among mem- bers of his own profession the name of Jacob Bigelow is now scarcely known; and yet I do not hesitate to assert that to him can be paid the greatest tribute pos- sible to be paid to any man, — the tribute that, through him and by him, the calling to which he devoted his life was appreciably elevated and improved. The orig- inator of distinctly new theories of disease and its treatment, he left the profession of medicine other and better and wiser than he found it. So much for the class of fifty years syne, when that to which I belonged received its degrees. And my last remark in connection with Jacob Bigelow leads at once 1879. A family physician, he was also a scholar and observer, with strong natural literary and artistic aptitudes. A professor of the Harvard Medical School for forty years, he in 1811 delivered the poem before the Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity. A recognized authority in botany, he was the founder of the Mt. Au- burn Cemetery. His papers on what he termed the expectant treat- ment in medicine, and the self -limitation of diseases may fairly be said to have marked an epoch in medical practice; and he was a pioneer in advocating the establishment of technical schools. His professional eminence and intellectual virility were fully recognized during his life; and the volume of his miscellaneous papers entitled Modern Inquiries, published in 1867, has permanent literary value. 190 THREE 4> B K ADDRESSES to my real topic. Of those who graduated a century ago four in each ten were alive after fifty years; foretold on the same basis, of those who graduate to-day a hundred will be in position to take part in the commencement exercises of 1956. It is to them I propose to address myself, speaking as Jacob Bigelow might have spoken to us. In 1806 Harvard was Harvard College still. The University was in its earliest infancy. The Divinity School did not exist; the Law School had not yet come into being; the Scientific School was a dream; the Medical School, less than twenty years old, numbered but a dozen students. All told, of students the catalogue boasted some 160 names only. During the next half- century that number had increased to 670; the Uni- versity endowment meanwhile had swollen from a few hundreds of thousands to nearly two million dollars, — I deal in round numbers only, and cannot stop to enter into detail. Standing then on the threshold of the second half of the century which began in 1806, 1 can well imagine Jacob Bigelow forecasting the growth and needs of Harvard ; but, however large his forecast, I cannot imagine it would have equalled the reality. Since 1856 the schools have multiplied; the 670 stu- dents have become 4000 ; the endowment has increased from two millions to twenty millions. And yet, when he contemplated these results so far exceeding all possible expectation, what would not have been the surprise of Jacob Bigelow on learning that, in spite of this increase, the University was poorer than ever before, — its needs had never been so great! Such is the fact. There is, I admit, a certain fitness in my to-day repre- senting the class of fifty years ago; for it so chances that during close upon half of the period, — to be exact since 1882, — I have also been a member of the Board THE FIFTIETH YEAR: 1856-1906 191 of Overseers, the only one of my class who has ever served in that capacity. As an Overseer also, I have long been chairman of that committee of the Board whose duty it is to receive, consider, and digest the re- ports of the many visiting committees. Consisting, as those reports do, of one long and somewhat varied, and yet withal extremely monotonous, cry for aid and ad- ditional means to do the work in hand to be done, the study of them has led me from time to time to make rough estimates of the additional endowment the Uni- versity now needs to enable it to meet its requirements. The result has been somewhat startling; perhaps I shall be deemed indiscreet for publishing it. So doing might, some will argue, discourage giving. I do not think so; at any rate I propose to blurt the thing out. Best face facts; I have never found concealments ad- vantageous. In plain language then, the University to- day wants twenty million dollars. It stands in pressing need of twice its present endowment. In other words, to enlarge and renew its plant, to pay a fair living wage and adequately meet the increased and differentiated demands made upon it, the sum I have named in fresh money would not, if judiciously and carefully expended during the next ten years, more than suffice. The amount named seems considerable, — there are those who may regard it as staggering. Perhaps it is; and yet, during those same next ten years, this country will expend for the construction of the Panama Canal seven- fold that sum, and on its war-budget some hundred and fifty times as much, — say three thousand million dollars. In view of such an outgo what Harvard needs is, I submit, a mere beggarly pittance. The Class of 1856 thus tells the Class of 1906 what the University calls for. Let to-day's graduates give 192 THREE B K ADDRESSES heed. What it calls for, what it will call for all through the coming fifty years, is a twentieth-century John Har- vard. And, largely representative of money-bags, the John Harvard of the twentieth century must be a man quite different from the John Harvard of the seventeenth century. More material, perhaps, he will be not less large-minded. Quite as true, more far-seeing, he is greatly to be hoped for. And now let me close with a confession, — not with- out interest; and, perhaps, to be pondered well by some graduate of to-day holding the position towards me which I held towards Jacob Bigelow. I have said of Jacob Bigelow that in life he accomplished the great- est feat given any man to accomplish, in that he left his chosen calling other and better than he found it, — elevated through him. So now, looking back over these fifty years, — its victories and its defeats, its accom- plishments and its failures to accomplish, I have of late often thought how I would have had it go could I have shaped events in my own case so as now to please me most. As the shadows grow long, the forms things as- sume are very different from those once imagined. The dreams of ambition are transformed. It so chances I have had to do with varied callings; but now, looking back, I find I would not have greatly cared for supreme professional success, to have been a great physician, or divine, or judge. I served in the army once; but mili- tary rank and fame now seem to me a little empty. As to politics, it is a game; art, science, literature, — we know how fashions change! None of the prizes to be won in those fields now tempt me greatly; nor do I feel much regret at my failure to win them. What I now find I would really have liked is something quite dif- ferent. I would like to have accumulated — and ample THE FIFriETH YEAR: 1856-1906 193 and frequent opportunity for so doing was offered me — one of those vast fortunes of the present day rising up into the tens and scores of millions, — what is vul- garly known as "money to burn." But I do not want it for myself ; for my personal needs I have all I crave, and for my children I know, without being reminded of the fact, that excessive wealth is a curse. What I would now like the surplus tens of millions for would be to give them to Harvard. Could I then at this moment — and I say it reflectively — select for myself the result of the life I have lived which I would most desire, it would be to find myself in position to use my remaining years in perfecting, and developing to an equality with all modern requirements the institution John Harvard founded, — I would like to be the nineteenth-century John Harvard, — the John Harvard-of-the-Money- Bags, if you will. I would rather be that than be His- torian or General or President. So, as the Jacob Bigelow of the Class of 1806 died leaving his profession, through his individual contri- bution to it, other and better than it was, could the wish of my heart now be gratified it would be that I might chant my own nunc dimittis, feeling that through me and by me, though in the name of the Class of 1856, the University had been amply endowed to go on and develop that great work towards man's elevation, in comparison with which inter-oceanic canals and the outcome of war-budgets are mere dross and incidents. Perhaps some member of the Class of 1906 may profit by this confession of one who to-day speaks for the classes of 1806 and of 1856. INDEX Academy, equalizing influence, 111. Adams, C. F., Sr., result of study of Greek to, 33; advantage of modern languages to, 33, 34. Adams, C. F., Jr., result of study of classics to, 10, 17, 34, 35; and of lack of modern lan- guages, 36; identity with Massachusetts, 85; Harvard Overseer, 103, 190; mistakes in college training, 120-122, 124, 131 ; honorary degree, 152. Adams, John, result of study of Greek to, 28-32; study of French, 29; precepts for Adams Academy, 29. Adams, J. Q., result of study of Greek to, 32; advantage of modern languages to, 32; and State sovereignty, 85; personal effect of his views, 86. Adams Academy, John Adams's educational theory for, 29. Administration, Harvard ex- penses (1868, 1903), 163; in- crease considered, 164. Advisers and assistants, system of student, considered, 110, 136-139, 143, 146; proposed reduction in number at Har- vard, 161, 169. Appomattox, importance of meet- ing of Lee and Grant, 87-90. Arlington, attempt to restore to Lee family, 54. Assistants. See Advisers. Athletic dispensation in college training, 128, 140, 141. Bigelow, Jacob, at his class's semi-centennial, 188; career, 188 n ; character and achieve- ment, 189. Bismarck, Otto von, achievement, 155. Brown, John, ethics of his career, 65. Burkheim, Emile, on present college ideals, 140 n. Calhoun, J. C, abstractionist, 67. Cant and national glorification, 57-60. Carlyle, Thomas, on hero wor- ship, 51; contempt for present age refuted, 153-157. Cavour, Conte di, achievement, 155. Chamberlain, D. H., as Governor of South Carolina, 66; on typical Southron, 66. Civil War, predicted revision of judgments concerning, 53, 95- 97; English attitude during, 59; European attitude, 88; clemency at close, 90; glory, 154. See also Lee, Secession. Classics. See Greek, Latin. Cobden, Richard, on cant, 58; on sympathy for other people's rebels, 58. College education, fails to train for life's work, 8, 12, 16, 18, 132; character of events since 1856, 8-10; training given for this life, 10, 17, 36; necessity of fundamentals and severe training in them, 11; super- fluity of training in classic fundamentals, 11, 12; neglect of English, 12; resulting gen- eral superfluity, 13; true aim, 14, 129, 145; thorough training 196 INDEX in classics as best means to broaden culture, 14-16, 22; 133; but not only one, 15; position of modern languages, 19-21; insistence on entrance Greek considered, 22-24; mod- ernists' proposed alternative in entrance requirements, 39- 41; effect of this, 41; consider- ation of languages in foreign colleges not germane, 42; effect of proposal on classic studies, 43; notable changes in last fifty years, 104; in- crease in numbers, 104; in- crease undesirable, 105; sys- tem outgrown, 105, 132, 136; lack of individual direction of students, 106-111, 124, 130; system of advisers and assist- ants considered, 110, 136-139, 143; result to students of lack of direction, 111; small col- leges not a desirable alterna- tive, 112; group of colleges as remedy, 113, 130-132, 139, 145-147; their relation to uni- versity, 113; obstacles to change, 114; elective system as fad, 115, 117, 133, 137; its false assumption of student aptitudes, 116, 136, 137; as- sumption of prescribed work, 117; original conception of college, 118; true college edu- cation defined, 119, 120; fail- ure to develop faculties of stu- dents proportionally, 120-122, 124, 131, 132; neglect of training in observation, 127; theories of true aim, 127; present period of transition, 134, 143; dissatisfaction of laity, 135, 140; real issue of problem, 135; present un- scientific attempt at reform, 136, 140; premature special- ization through multiplicity of courses, 136; group colleges a reversion to original ideas, 139; present ideals unfavorable to reform, 140; eclipse of the scholar, 141; mental discipline and patronage, 141-143; at- tempted adaptation of foreign systems, 144; possibility of change to group colleges, 146; restitution of pure scholarship, 147. See also Harvard Univer- sity. Commencement-dinner speeches, Eliot on, 187. Constitution, Federal, intention- ally silent on secession, 64. Cromwell, Oliver, death and burial, 51 ; remains hanged, 52, reversal of opinion concerning, 52, 55; statue, 52. Culture, as aim of college course, 14; through thorough classic training, 14-16, 22, 133. Curtis, G. W., on ennoblement by Harvard, 151. Dana, R. H., Jr., effect on, of being "rusticated," 108. Darwin, Charles, result of college training to, 122-124; defect- ive imaginative powers, 124; achievement, 154. Education, necessity of funda- mentals, 11; evils of unintelli- gent memorizing, 25 ; educated man defined, 120. See also Academy, College education, Harvard University, Schools. Elective system, reaction desir- able, 104, 137; works along line of least resistance, 107, 121, 137; unguided selection, 107, 112; mischievous fad of pre- sent form, 115, 117; argu- ments in favor, 116; false as- sumption of student aptitudes, 116, 136, 137; failure to de- velop the faculties proportion- ally, 121-124; author's sys- tem, 133; premature speciali- zation, 136; freshmen-advisers, 137. Eliot, C. W., as President of INDEX 197 Harvard, 155-157; report on deficit (1903), 161, 169; on commencement-dinner speeches, 187. See also Har- vard University. Emerson, R. W., on study of classics, 5. England, sympathy during Civil War, 59. English language, neglected in college course (1856), 12; value of literature as compared with classic, 45, 46. Ethics, test, 62, 92, 93; of John Brown's career, 65; of South- ern cause, 66, 70, 95; of Lee's career, 92, 93. Entrance requirements. See Col- lege education. Faculties of the mind, classifica- tion, 119; need and result of harmonious development, 120, 129, 132; failure of college edu- cation to do this, 120-127; importance of observing fac- ulty, % 126; training in ideal college, 130-132. Franklin, Benjamin, idea bor- rowed from Plato, 31. Garibaldi, Giuseppe, modern Paladin, 155. German university system, at- tempted adaptation in America, 144. Gettysburg, battle of, equal glory, 94; and Waterloo, 94, 154. Gladstone, W. E., culture through study of classics, 15. Grant, U. S., importance of char- acter at Appomattox, 87-90; protects Lee after surrender, 9 1 . Greek, as college fetich, 5-48; as fundamental of college course, 11, 20; superfluity of college training, 12; reason for superfluity, 12; result of thor- ough training, 14-16, 22; not essential to modern life, 16; in schools (1850), 17; effect on study of modern languages, 21 ; effect of entrance requirement in, 22-24, 37; cant of intellect- ual training through elementary study of, 24-27, 36; result of study of, to John Adams, 28- 32; to J. Q. Adams, 32; to C. F. Adams, Sr., 33; . to his sons, 34-36; modernists' pro- posal of entrance requirement, 39-41, 44; study of both modern languages and, in schools not possible, 43; ad- vantage to study of, in mod- ernists' proposal, 43; modern value of literature, 44-47; prescribed course of thorough training in, advocated, 133. Harvard University, significance of honorary degree, 151; achievements since 1853, 155- 157; deficit (1902-06), 161, 162; proposed reduction in number of assistants, 161, 169; com- parison of outgo (1868, 1903), 162, 163; cost of each degree, 163, 167; stability in division of expenditures, 164; in- crease in administrative ex- penses, 164; in miscellaneous expenses, 165; in courses and salaries, 165, 166, 168; de- crease in salaries per instructor, 166; causes which retard de- ficit, 167; unique position, 167, 172; salaries too low, 168; increase of income proper remedy, 170; proportion of tuition fees to whole expenses of students, 171; recognized position of its degrees, 172; effect on this of increased tui- tion fee, 172; proposed in- crease compatible with cost and general prices, 173; need of additional scholarships, 174, 175; provision for scholar- ships in proposed plan, 175; no student pays fully for in- struction, 176; effect of in- 198 INDEX crease on number of students, 176-178; problem of adjust- ment to existing social condi- tions, 178; and to law of sur- vival of fittest, 179; objections to proposal based on scholar- ship and success in life, 180; on scholarships as charity, 181; other possible questions, 182; growth since 1806, 190; needs greater than ever before, 190; amount of money needed, 191; twentieth-century John Harvard, 192, 193. See also College education. Heredity, influence on men's ac- tions, 77-79. Hurlbut, B. S., on scholarships at Harvard, 174. Individuality, and ethical tests, 93. Jefferson, Joseph, honorary de- gree at Harvard, 151. Jefferson, Thomas, and Greek, 30, 31. Jenner, Edward, anecdote of dis- covery of vaccination, 125. Johnson, Andrew, as president, 90. Latin, as fundamental of college course, 11, 20; superfluity of college training, 12; reason for superfluity, 12; result of thor- ough training, 14-16; not es- sential to modern life, 16; in schools (1850), 17; effect on study of modern languages, 21 ; modern uses, 21; modern value of literature, 44-47; prescribed course in, advo- cated, 133. Lawyer, modern languages not necessary to training, 19. Lee, R. E., future statue and its svmbolism, 54, 97; Sumner's denunciation, 55; technical traitor, 56; treason compared with Washington's, 56, 57, 83, 84; hereditary influences on, 81; on secession, 82; reasons for resigning from army, 82; as commander, 87; importance of action at Appomattox, 87- 90; post-bellum life and loy- alty, 90-92; ethics of career, 92; highest type of Southern cause, 96. Lincoln, Abraham, achievement, 155. Literature, modern value of classic, 44-47. Livingstone, David, 154. Lodge, H. C. on views of framers of Constitution as to secession, 61, 63. Macaulay, T. B., culture through study of classics, 15. Massachusetts, author's identity with, 85; and State sover- eignty, 85. Memory-culture, vogue and evils, 25. Modern languages, necessity of training in, 19; attitude of colleges toward, 20; lack of, as handicap to John Adams, 29; advantage to J. Q. Adams, 32; to C. F. Adams, Sr., 34; proposed as alterna- tive entrance requirement, 39- 41, 44 ; necessity of thorough . training, 40, 41 ; value of mod- ern literature as compared with classic, 44-47. Newman, J. H., on personal in- fluence of teachers, 101. Observing faculties, failure of college education to train, 25, 122, 125-127; importance, 126. Parker, Theodore, on J. Q. Adams, 86. Plato, John Adams's opinion, 31. Preceptorial system at Princeton, 111 n., 138 n. See also Ad- INDEX 199 Present age, spirit and advance, 9, 152-157; Carlyle's croak- ings refuted, 153-157; martial glory, 154; Darwin and Liv- ingstone, 154; Garibaldi, 155; disinterested statesmen, 155 ; overthrow of Napoleon III, 155 ; scholarship and success in, 180. Princeton College, preceptorial system, 111 n., 138 n. Quincy, Josiah, and course in physics, 118. Rebels, tendency to sympathize with other people's, 58-60. Regimental colors, question of inscribing Civil- War battles on, 93-95. Rhodes, J. F., on Virginia and secession, 76. Salaries, total increase at Har- vard (1868, 1903), 163; in- crease considered, 165, 166; decrease in average, per in- structor, 166; too low, 168. Scholarships at Harvard, need of additional, 174, 175; addi- tional, as part of plan to in- crease tuition fee, 175, 177, 182; practically all students receive aid, 176; scholarship and suc- cess in life, 180; as charity and as an honor, 181. Schools, training of high, in fifties, 17, 23; cant of value of study of Greek in, 24-27, 36; Greek fetich, 37; advantages of public instruction, 38; in- struction in both Greek and modern languages not possible, 43. Scott, Winfield, influences which determined his loyalty, 79. Secession, issue settled, 61; views and actions of framers of Constitution, 61-65; South- ern belief, 65-67; peaceful, impossible in 1860, 67; South realized this, 67, 82; compre- hensive policy of Southern, 68, 69; real traitors, 70; Vir- ginia's, 70-77; Lee on, 82; early views in Massachusetts, 85. Second United States Cavalry, record of early officers, 80. Seward, W. H., on Virginia's first vote on secession, 74. Slavery, in Virginia, 70; future judgment concerning, 95. Smith, Goldwin, on early views as to secession, 61. Southrons, qualities, 65, 95-97; statesmanship, 66. See also Secession. Specialism, as aim of college training, 128; premature, 136. Sumner, Charles, on Lee, 55; battle-flags resolution, 93. Thomas, G. H., character, 80; influences which determined his loyalty, 81. Time factor in judgment of civil strifes, 53, 93, 95-97. Treason, defined, 56; considera- tion of motives, 57, 92. Tuition fee at Harvard, propor- tion to whole expense of stu- dent, 171; effect of increase on value of degrees, 172; pro- posed increase compatible with general prices, 173; increase and increase of scholarships, 174; probable effect of increase on number of students, 176- 178; other practical aspects of increase, 178, 179; objections to scheme, 180-182. Utilitarianism in college training, 128, 140, 142. Virginia, slavery conditions, 70; State pride, 71; Union senti- ment, 71; importance of her first refusal to secede, 71-74; why she seceded, 74-77. 200 INDEX Washington, George, treason compared with Lee's, 56, 83, 84 ; on secession, 63 1 65; hereditary influences on, 78. Waterloo, battle of, and Gettys- burg, 94. Wilson, Woodrow, on precepto- rial system, 138 n. Welling, J. C, on study of Greek, 5,6. Woods, Leonard, as tutor, 109. Yale University, decrease in courses, 165 n. OF THE UNIVERSE £al OF /FORN' CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS V . S • A RETURN TO the circulation desk of any University of California Library or to the NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station University of California Richmond, CA 94804-4698 ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS • 2-month loans may be renewed by calling (510)642-6753 • 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing books to NRLF • Renewals and recharges may be made 4 days prior to due date. DUE AS STAMPED BELOW JUL 01 2002 12.000(11/95) JUJL» 4i-ivuiit' YtJ 4A4Zb n^x\y ' 175601 A