v^m 
 
 
 
 
 Baccalaureate Sermon, 
 
 AND 
 
 Oration and Poem. 
 
 CLASS OF 1875. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
 1875. 
 
Baccalaureate Sermon, 
 
 AND 
 
 Oration and Poem. 
 
 Ho>uuojdi UA\!uvot4Jfop L A S S OF 1875. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
 1875. 
 
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 M 
 
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 i vrtfzJzxj 
 
 D^ »S"« 
 
 Class Commtttee* 
 
 JAMES ALBERT HODGE. 
 BENJAMIN ROBBINS CURTIS. 
 MANLEY AMSDEN RAYMOND. 
 
 Class Secretary. 
 WARREN AUGUSTUS REED. 
 
£ 
 
 
 OUR COUNTRY'S PERILS, NEEDS, AND CLAIMS. 
 
 A SERMON 
 
 PREACHED IN THE CHAPEL OF HARVARD COLLEGE TO THE 
 
 GRADUATING CLASS OF 1875, 
 
 BY 
 
 ANDREW P. PEABODY. 
 
SERMON. 
 
 "Instead of thy fathers shall be thy children." — Psalm xlv. 16. 
 
 THE centennial celebrations of epochs in the conflict through 
 which our country struggled into being have recalled my 
 attention to the history of those times and the lives of the prin- 
 cipal actors ; and I am strongly impressed with the prominent 
 part then borne in public affairs by graduates of Harvard Col- 
 lege. The earliest resistance to oppressive laws and arbitrary 
 officials was, as you know, in Massachusetts ; and there is not an 
 important patriotic measure or movement on record in which our 
 University is not represented. Some of those who were con- 
 spicuous in the opening scenes, as Joseph Warren and Josiah 
 Quincy, were still young men, having passed directly from col- 
 lege into the arena of verbal strife, on which the great drama was 
 rehearsed before the first shot was fired. Of others, their seniors, 
 like Samuel and John Adams, we find abundant evidence that 
 they were in their earliest manhood known for advanced opin- 
 ions in the direction of liberty, and for weight and power of char- 
 acter and influence. At the same time the clergy of the province, 
 who were almost all educated here, were, with few exceptions, 
 leaders in the cause of the people, and that with a discretion 
 fully equal to their zeal, and with a courage and self-devotion 
 which quickened more languid, energized colder, and sustained 
 fainter hearts in their congregations. Felix prole virum, 
 "Happy in her progeny of men worthy of the name," would 
 have been the appropriate motto for our University in the 
 last century. 
 
 There are some reasons why the manhood of the graduates of 
 that day seems precocious by the standard of our time. There 
 
were then few amusements, little news, no collateral interests, 
 tastes, or pursuits ; and the college studies of that period, re- 
 stricted though they were in compass and deficient in accuracy, 
 yet were stimulating, and supplied highly concentrated food for 
 thought and feeling. There was a decided predilection for clas- 
 sical reading, not to say study (which would be a misnomer) ; and 
 there was an easy, uncritical faith in the freedom, civic virtue, 
 and untarnished fame of the ancient republics, which made their 
 literature a perpetual source of inspiration to the ardent youth of 
 the republic yet to be born. And there was a much more potent 
 influence at work. There is no such ripener of mind and char- 
 acter as impending emergency, impatience of the present, and 
 earnest aspiration for a better future. 
 
 Have we not had experience of this power in our recent his- 
 tory? When the news of Fort Sumter flashed through the land, 
 there were in these halls those who seemed to their teachers 
 mere boys, who started at once into vigorous manhood, grew by 
 gradations more rapid than we could trace into high places of 
 command, sought posts of the most perilous service, won ever- 
 green laurels, — many, alas ! only to deck their graves, — w T hile 
 those who survived achieved for themselves a culture for which 
 twice the term of peaceful civic life would have been inadequate. 
 We had one with us at our last Commencement, the mere muti- 
 lated trunk of a man, whose after-dinner speech, with the fervor 
 and fire of youth, which his maimed and suffering life had not 
 chilled or dimmed, had a depth of prescient wisdom which 
 would have found fit utterance from the lips of the elders in the 
 gravest councils of the nation. Indeed, in none of her sons can 
 our University take a more honest pride than in those who gained 
 in war the virtues and endowments that can best adorn and fruc- 
 tify the era of restored peace and renewed prosperity. 
 
 If we could only view them aright, there are now for our re- 
 public emergencies, perils intense though insidious, a present to 
 be spurned, a future to be striven for, which ought to awaken the 
 patriotic feeling of our young men, and to urge them on to early 
 maturity for efficient public service. I avail myself of the pres- 
 ent as a fit opportunity to speak of the claims of our country on 
 her educated men. Our imminent dangers are from popular 
 ignorance, financial folly, political corruption, and religious lati- 
 tudinarianism and indifference. If I can only arouse in those 
 of whom we to-day take leave a sense of the responsibility which 
 
rests upon them as to these sources of evil, I am sure that I shall 
 not have spoken in vain as regards the public and even the 
 national well-being ; for, though a hundred and fifty right- 
 minded youth seem of no account or weight among the millions 
 of our people, there may be among them single minds and 
 voices that shall make themselves felt and heard through the 
 whole length and breadth of the land, as there were, a hundred 
 years ago, individual young men fresh from our halls, but for 
 whom certain most momentous passages of our history would 
 have remained unwritten. 
 
 i. I named popular ignorance among our chief dangers. Our 
 unlimited freedom of suffrage — in theory plausible, if not fitting, 
 and, whether right or wrong, irreversible — is safe only with an 
 intelligent people, and is fraught with peril if the voters know 
 not what they do. The early settlements on every part of our 
 soil, with hardly an exception, were made for causes that implied 
 not inferior, but even superior intelligence on the part of the im- 
 migrants, who were drawn or driven hither, not by poverty and by 
 the pressure of a population outgrowing the supply of its needs, 
 but by political or religious dissent, persecution, or ambition. 
 In their posterity, intelligence and the aptitude for it were a tra- 
 dition and an inheritance, — not, as has sometimes been said, 
 created and sustained by the common-school system, but originat- 
 ing, energizing, and supplementing that system, which else would 
 either have never come into being, or have died early of inanition. 
 The posterity of those colonists is now nearly equalled, if not 
 outnumbered, by the descendants of exiles forced from their native 
 homes by poverty, and of captives sold into slavery, who had no 
 culture to transmit, and whose homes can have furnished only 
 the most scanty educational inducements and helps. The com- 
 mon schools accomplished for the majority of their pupils, in an 
 earlier generation, very much more than they can do now. They 
 taught fewer things, indeed, but the few more thoroughly : not 
 that schools or teachers were better, but they had more receptive 
 pupils, — for the most part children from families where there was, 
 if not extended knowledge, mental activity, — where, if there were 
 not many books, there was at least the English Bible, which every 
 child was trained, expected, nay, required to read, and which 
 (to say nothing of its religious uses) expanded and deepened the 
 thought of its readers, gave them a rich vocabulary to think with, 
 checked the growth of provincialisms and vulgarisms in diction, 
 
- 8 
 
 and imparted a higher, purer tone to common intercourse and 
 daily life. 
 
 But the system, which seemed so efficient when buttressed and 
 subsidized by home-influences, is inadequate to its assigned work 
 for the children of the unprivileged, even here in New England, 
 much more so in the western and south-western sections of the 
 country ; yet it might be made adequate without any added ex- 
 penditure of time or money. When, nearly forty years ago, the 
 public schools were thought to have fallen behind the demands 
 of the age, a reform-movement was started, and a new spirit was 
 infused into the whole system, mainly through the labors of Hor- 
 ace Mann. That spirit has been so materialized and solidified 
 into soulless formalisms, organisms, routines, and repetitions, that, 
 were he to reappear among us, he would recognize but little of 
 what is still called his work. More red tape is now used in 
 many single schools than would have sufficed for the whole State 
 half a century ago. By a Mezentian classification, the children 
 that are capable of progress are kept at the snail's pace of their 
 dull and immobile schoolmates, and the slowest of the flock 
 mark time for all the rest. Meanwhile, public munificence wastes 
 in costly structures, that are hardly, built before some fresh pre- 
 vailing fancy requires that they be remodelled, the funds which, 
 expended in brain-power, might perform efficient service. A 
 large proportion of the pupils leave school without having even 
 learned to read with sufficient ease for the art to be of any prac- 
 tical benefit. They have, indeed, by dint of wearisome and use- 
 less reperusal memorized a few fragments of prose and verse, 
 generally of second or third rate literary merit, but have not ac- 
 quired the ability to read understandingly a common newspaper 
 paragraph. The fault lies not with the teachers, who perform 
 their appointed routine-work with fidelity and zeal, many of them 
 with amazing skill ; but the very best of them, under the require- 
 ments of a lifeless, obsolete, yet imperatively exacting system, 
 are cramped as David was when he put on Saul's armor to go 
 into battle with the Philistine giant. 
 
 Our schools, to do their work, must be emancipated from dead 
 prescription and Procrustean methods and standards ; they must 
 be officered throughout by teachers who are enamoured of their 
 profession and magnify their calling ; and those teachers must be 
 left free to do the very best that is in them for children of all types 
 and grades of capacity, disposition, and home-training. This is 
 
9 
 
 an interest which craves the attention and effort of our educated 
 men, and especially of the young men of high culture, who are 
 soon to fill foremost places of trust and influence in the commu- 
 nity, and to whom we are to look for reform and renovation. 
 Many of you will occupy positions in which you will be called to 
 bear part in the charge and oversight of public education ; and 
 there is no service that } 7 ou can render which will be more fruitful 
 of benefit than the endeavor to make our schools the nurseries of 
 citizens worthy of their trust, — the seats of a culture thorough 
 in its rudiments, stimulating in its processes, direct in its aims, 
 definite in its results, and such as shall impart the desire and 
 capacity for a prolonged self-culture. If there be among you one 
 who shall have the genius and ability so to demonstrate the defects 
 of our present system, and so to point out the better way, that 
 he can gain the public ear and act on the general mind, he can 
 do no nobler work, and win no higher praise. 
 
 2. Second on the list of our imminent perils I named financial 
 folly. Whether it was necessary for us in the late war to set aside 
 our fixed standard of value, is perhaps an open question, though 
 to me it does not seem so. But to remain without such a standard, 
 and to take no measures for its restoration, is at once foolish and 
 atrociously criminal. It incapacitates us for knowing our actual 
 condition, and the fact and rate of our progress or decline in 
 national wealth ; it leads to individual extravagance, by exag- 
 gerating the nominal and reputed value of property and income ; 
 it encourages over-trading and rash adventure, by the frequent 
 fluctuation of our irredeemable currency ; it adds to every ex- 
 tended commercial operation that element of pure hazard, which 
 constitutes the difference between legitimate speculation founded 
 on calculating foresight, and gambling, which trusts to incalculable 
 chance ; it thus compels many of our merchants to be gamblers 
 against their will, and vitiates the moral natures of the rest with 
 the foul passions that preside over the orgies of the roulette-table ; 
 it generates the state of mind, and nourishes the habits of thought 
 and life, which induce embezzlements, peculations, forgeries, and 
 the whole dark brood of pecuniary crimes; and the fearful multi- 
 plication of these crimes within the last few years is chargeable 
 much more to our financial condition than to all other demoral- 
 izing influences combined. I think myself authorized in saying 
 this, by the admitted fact that more than half a century ago 
 pecuniary crimes of all kinds grew with an appalling rapidity in 
 
 2 
 
IO 
 
 Great Britain during a like condition of the currency, and be- 
 came again infrequent when the metallic standard of value was 
 restored. 
 
 Our present financial regime is sustained in part by the pre- 
 ponderant influence of the debtor class, always far outnumbering 
 the creditor class, and always ready to advocate the policy which 
 will enable them to pay or compound their dues at the lowest 
 rate. But it could not retain its hold, were it not for the lament- 
 able ignorance of a large part of those who are intrusted with 
 the management of our public affairs. We have been doomed, 
 over and over again, to see the first principles of financial science 
 not denied, not disputed, but qufetly ignored by our political 
 leaders. Men have undertaken the management of our national 
 treasurv, who have shown no knowledge of even the existence of 
 such a science as political economy. Therefore is it that I name 
 our financial interests as among the responsibilities of our edu- 
 cated men. You, my friends, have learned better things. You 
 have been made conversant in the lecture-room with the princi- 
 ples that have been so shamelessly violated in our public policy. 
 Sooner than you think, you will fill places in which your opinions 
 and influence will have an appreciable weight. Our present sys- 
 tem, or abnegation of system, may continue long enough for you 
 to take part in the inauguration of a sounder policy. If not so, 
 subsequent crises may claim the preventive energy of those who 
 can understand the true financial interests of the community. 
 There is no part of your culture here that better deserves to be 
 cherished, expanded, and utilized in your future life as citizens, 
 as office-bearers, as men of standing and influence, than that which 
 relates to the principles and laws that underlie commerce, trade, 
 and currency. They have a bearing upon the moral well-being 
 of the people fully equal to that which concerns their material 
 prosperity. They demand for their conservation and their prac- 
 tical working the highest intelligence, no less than the integrity 
 and patriotism of those who would do the good service which the 
 country will demand of you, as you become what you are trained, 
 and, I trust, destined to be, leaders in opinion and action, — 
 reformers, or rather rebuilders in the fabric of the body politic. 
 
 3. Political corruption is another of our dominant evils and 
 imminent perils. Unscrupulous ambition, cupidity, and venality 
 have attained a most portentous magnitude. Entire departments 
 of our government seem to be administered with hardly an inci- 
 
II 
 
 dental reference to the service of the people, certainly with the 
 prime intent to buttress party, to reward adherents, and to appro- 
 priate public funds for private emolument. The integrity of the 
 suffrage is constantly assailed ; elections are secured by bribery ; 
 offices are openly bought and sold ; and every political triumph 
 is succeeded, or oftener preceded and effected, by a scramble for 
 its spoils. Instead of a government by the people, we are threat- 
 ened — if the threat be not already fulfilled — with an oligarchy 
 of demagogues, from which a decent constitutional monarchy 
 would be a welcome relief and refuge. 
 
 You are, all of you, as I suppose, already citizens ; and I would 
 have you possessed of a profound sense of the sacredness of the 
 trust and obligation incumbent on the citizen, the co-sovereign of 
 a free people. It is a kingly office and function ; preserve it then 
 in all its purity and dignity. Your every vote is an exertion of 
 your moral agency for good or for evil. You assume responsibility 
 for the man whom you help choose, for the measure which you 
 help carry. Your accountability is the same as if you yourself 
 chose the man, or enacted the measure. Dare, then, to dissent 
 where you cannot approve. It is because honest citizens forbear 
 to let their protest be heard, or to register it by their ballots, that 
 corrupt men gain the ascendency, and evil counsels prevail. There 
 are among the less informed many who would gladly follow the 
 intelligent leading of upright and public-spirited citizens. Follow 
 they will at all events, and they ought never to lack leaders worthy 
 of their confidence. 
 
 As regards public office, many cultivated and high-minded men 
 greatly err by refusing it, when they might obtain, it without 
 unworthy concessions, and hold it for the welfare of the com- 
 munity. I would have you prospectively look upon public 
 charges as positions not of emolument or ambition, but of ser- 
 vice to be rendered, if need be, with the sacrifice of personal aims 
 for the general good. I would have you, in the future, shrink 
 from no trust which you are adequate to discharge, and assume 
 none which you cannot consciously occupy as a post of duty. The 
 country, whose protection you share, whose honor or shame is 
 yours, whose glory should be your ambition, whose prosperity 
 you should regard as identical with your own, has indefeasible 
 claims on your conscientious fidelity, whether in a private or a 
 public station, whether in the wary and judicious exercise of the 
 right of suffrage, in your voice and influence in behalf of the true 
 
12 
 
 and the good, or in your performance of whatever functions of 
 whatever grade may be devolved upon you. It was said not long 
 ago of one of our best and foremost men, that he would not lift 
 his ringer to evade the meanest or to win the highest office in the 
 nation's gift ; and that, in either, his only question would be, not 
 how the place ranked or what revenue it yielded, but how much 
 of sincere and thorough work he could put into it. Such a man 
 is the true citizen of a republic ; such were the men whose names 
 have been preserved for us from the earliest time in unfading 
 honor ; such are the men whom our seminaries of liberal culture 
 should train for the service of the state. 
 
 Loyalty is a term which has been too exclusively employed in 
 connection with kingship, and in our history loyalist and royalist 
 have been generally treated as synonymes. They are very far 
 from being synonymes. There is a heaven-wide difference be- 
 tween blind devotion to a sovereign who may be a usurper or a 
 tyrant, and firm allegiance to impersonal, or rather multi-personal, 
 sacred, venerable, eternal law. The true loyalists of our Revolu- 
 tionary epoch were the men who armed themselves against the 
 oppression, which was galling mainly because it was in defiance 
 of fundamental law and constitutional right. Such loyalty is now 
 our nation's need, in antagonism to mal-administration and usur- 
 pation, to the abuse of trust and the invasion of right, to bribery, 
 corruption, and favoritism. As loyal citizens of the republic, you 
 can have no better models, no more worthy examples, than those 
 who a century ago did honor to their nurture here by services and 
 sacrifices that won for them imperishable renown. Be it your 
 care that equally honored names shall appear on your list in the 
 Catalogue, a century hence. 
 
 4. 1 should suppress my most profound conviction, did I not 
 number religious latitudinarianism and indifference among the 
 imminent perils of our time. A century ago, there was free-think- 
 ing, loose thinking, infidelity in our land ; and there are well- 
 known names of that period, which have been transmitted with 
 the very reverse of the odor of sanctity. The undoubted services 
 of Thomas Paine, and the merited popularity and efficiency of 
 his political writings, hold a prominent place in our history ; 
 though his scurrilous and profane assaults on Christianity did not 
 appear till several years after the close of the war, his opinions 
 were proclaimed much earlier, and were shared by some of the 
 foremost men in our Revolutionary crisis ; and iconoclastic, de- 
 
13 
 
 structive work, though in the cause of truth and righteousness, 
 nay, of religion and piety, always enlists among its zealous co- 
 adjutors those who are mere destructives and nihilists. On the 
 other hand, there is at the present moment among religious 
 people a higher type of piety, a more intelligent, and therefore a 
 more steadfast faith, a more energetic propagandism, than existed 
 a hundred years ago ; and if men would only own the kindred of 
 spirit which remains intact in and through wide divergencies of 
 creed and form, it would be seen that there never was a stronger 
 array than now of those who are ready, without compromise, 
 doubt, or qualification, to take their stand in life and death, and 
 to identify themselves, for time and eternity, with Christ and his 
 Gospel. 
 
 But, a century ago, the vast majority of families and of men 
 and women in our land, especially in New England, believed in 
 the Christian revelation as of divine origin and authority, accepted 
 its moral laws as of binding validity, and conscientiously did and 
 refrained from doing many things solely from a sense of religious 
 restraint and obligation. There was, indeed, a transition-period, 
 when human law and authority were feeble, doubtful, and vacil- 
 lating, during which our people were saved from anarchy mainly 
 by a surviving, though declining, loyalty to the rigid theocratic 
 discipline of their founders and fathers. This has all passed 
 away. The sense of spiritual and divine realities has ceased to 
 pervade the mass of our people, and seems utterly wanting in the 
 greater number of those by whom it is not distinctly and emphat- 
 ically recognized. In many circles, indifference to all religious 
 subjects and interests is regarded as the normal state ; and utter 
 unbelief, even blank atheism, or some euphemistic alias for it, is 
 not considered even as regrettable, or as impairing the soundness 
 of one's judgment or the safety of his influence. Much of our 
 current literature deals irreverently and flippantly with the objects 
 of Christian faith ; and not a little of our popular poetry is utterly 
 heathenish. Religion as a life-power — never stronger than now 
 in individual hearts — is no longer, as formerly, a shaping and 
 controlling force in society and government. But no government 
 has yet lived, no society has yet prospered, without it. Nowhere 
 in human history has the experiment been thoroughly and persist- 
 ently tried but in France ; and she, after her baptism in the blood- 
 bath of infidelity, was only too happy to rebuild her shattered 
 altars, to recall her banished priesthood, and to adopt the Church 
 as an ally of the State. 
 
14 
 
 Above all, in a free country, where no man or body of men 
 can claim superior reverence, where in its human aspects law has 
 no higher source or sanction than the mind and will of the people, 
 is there intense need that there be a public and general recognition 
 of its source beside the throne of God, and its sanction in his 
 eternal justice and retributive providence. He who fears not God 
 will cease to regard man ; and wanton, law-despising autonomy 
 is the natural and inevitable outgrowth and expression of religious 
 unbelief. 
 
 While an ambiguous, undefined position as to religion, an in- 
 difference tantamount to denial, can be at the present moment 
 affirmed of large numbers of persons of (so-called) liberal culture, 
 it is a position unworthy of them, even pre-eminently. For abso- 
 lute unbelief, if it be reached by inquiry and reasoning, I blame 
 no one. But I do regard him as intensely blameworthy, who of 
 his own choice remains indifferent and undecided, — who treats 
 the whole subject as one of those inferior interests from which 
 it is the part of a wise man to keep aloof. Be it true or false, 
 religion, Christianity, has a paramount claim above all things 
 else on inquiry, decision, and corresponding action. It is either 
 God's best gift, or man's most sorry and despicable delusion ; and 
 he w T ho cannot be for it ought to be with his whole heart and soul 
 against it. 
 
 I fear not for you, my friends, any results from the faithful 
 study of Christianity, its records, proofs, and claims. But I do 
 deprecate your indifference to it, in part because the community 
 needs the strength which such as you can give to the cause of 
 Christian truth, yet still more for your own sakes. You are to 
 build for yourselves character, reputation, influence ; and I know 
 that Christian faith and piety are the only foundation on which 
 you can build with assured safety. Structures outwardly as fair 
 and as strong as any of you can hope to rear have, in the sight 
 of those who have gone before you, been swept away by the 
 onrush of sudden temptation, or have collapsed because the sand 
 on which they stood has been washed from under them. The 
 time will come when, if you build on any other foundation than 
 the living, eternal Rock, you will know and own that it was 
 the one fatal and irretrievable mistake and calamity of your life. 
 You are capable of determining for yourselves whether I speak 
 the truth. To know whether it is the truth is of so unutterable 
 moment to you that no subject ought to lie closer in your regard. 
 
i5 
 
 Not one of you ought to go forth into active life indifferent to 
 religion. Not one of you should fail to be either an earnest friend, 
 advocate, exemplar of Christianity, or its avowed and open ene- 
 my. Were you to go hence determined, each of you, to choose his 
 position with conscientious wariness, and then to take his stand 
 frankly, honestly, manfully, I feel persuaded that there would be 
 among you but one heart and voice, one aim and purpose, — 
 that of loyal devotion and lifelong service to God in Christ. 
 
 My friends, though I may seem from year to year to repeat the 
 same formulary of greetings and good wishes, I can assure you 
 that the old words come to my lips with an always new and ever 
 profounder feeling. Years only strengthen the affections and 
 deepen the sympathies ; and every new wave of the life-tide that 
 flows from our inlet into the great sea carries with it more and 
 more of my loving remembrance, dear appreciation, and fond 
 hope. I wish that those who go from us knew how much joy 
 they give here by their success and honor. Believe me, my 
 friends, that nothing that concerns you can be indifferent to us, 
 and take with you from each and all of your teachers a hearty 
 godspeed on your several careers. May our Father's loving 
 Providence and guiding Spirit be ever over you and with you. 
 May your powers and attainments be so consecrated to the ser- 
 vice of your age, your country, and your God, that the approval of 
 good men and the blessing of Heaven may be with you through 
 your earthly pilgrimage, and that by your fidelity here you may 
 be trained for the higher trusts and nobler stewardships of the life 
 eternal. 
 
BACCALAUREATE HYMN. 
 
 Tune, — " Eva." 
 
 i. 
 
 TOGETHER, Lord, before Thy throne, 
 Our heads in reverence bent, 
 With grateful hearts and lips we own 
 The blessings Thou hast sent. 
 
 ii. 
 
 Thy kindly hand for ever spreads 
 Fresh flowers our path along ; 
 
 Thy love its sunlight o'er us sheds, 
 And fills our lips with song. 
 
 in. 
 
 And though our common path must now 
 
 In many ways divide, 
 As ever in the past be Thou 
 
 Henceforth our God and guide. 
 
 IV. 
 
 Thy presence, Lord, alone we ask, 
 
 If days be dark or bright ; 
 And in Thy strength shall ev'ry task 
 
 Thy hand allots be light. 
 
CLASS-DAY EXERCISES. 
 
 JUNE 25, 1875. 
 
Artier of exercises. 
 
 >>*<C 
 
 
 iH tt s i c. 
 
 
 
 II. 
 
 
 
 P r a 2 1 r. 
 
 
 By 
 
 REV. A. P. PEABODY. 
 
 
 III. 
 
 
 
 fft tt s t c. 
 
 
 
 IV. 
 
 
 
 ©ration. 
 
 
 By LESTER WILLIAMS 
 
 CLARK, 
 
 
 Of New York. 
 
 
 
 V. 
 
 
 
 fH it s f c. 
 
 
 VI. 
 
 Poem. 
 
 By THEODORE CLAUDIUS PEASE, 
 Of Somers, Conn. 
 
 VII. 
 
 ©oe. 
 
 By JOHN WALKER HOLCOMBE, 
 
 Of La Porte, Ind. 
 
CLASS-DAY ORATION. 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen, Friends and Classmates of Seventy- 
 five : 
 
 ON this the last great day of our college life we meet together 
 for a few moments of communion, awed by the holy spell 
 of an occasion which marks a great epoch in our lives. And I re- 
 joice that I need not strive to bring your hearts into sympathy with 
 ours, that I need not burden you with cold assurances of welcome. 
 For where heart meets heart in sweet sympathy, where harmony 
 and "love prevail, where sunshine chides coldness away and in- 
 spires each breast with its own fervent rays, — what virtue lies in 
 spoken words of greeting? No censorious audience has assem- 
 bled to deride the hope or rebuke the enthusiasm of youth. 
 Your very presence is to us a pledge of your interest and indul- 
 gence, and assures us that a hearty " God speed you " follows us 
 forth into the world. 
 
 To-day severs us, in all but memory, from our four years' 
 happy home. Our work here is ended ; and, the last labor of 
 duty or love performed, we pass out over the threshold. The 
 old household gods will welcome new worshippers, and our 
 names, fluttering briefly on a few lips, will soon be forgotten. 
 Ah, friends ! can you then wonder that each classmate gazes wist- 
 fully upon faces on many of which he may look no more ; that 
 this hour of separation, fraught though it is with sorrow, is 
 all too fleeting ; and that we fain would dream the Past once 
 more ! For as the receding tide is checked from time to time, 
 when a wave dashes farther up than those which had preceded 
 it, so the ebbing of our joys at to-day's parting is arrested by 
 each refluent wave of memory. When, too, Learning, abandon- 
 ing for a season its lofty citadel, sits in the midst of us ; when 
 Age renews the emotions of youth ; when kindred blood beats 
 
20 
 
 in sympathizing hearts ; when Beauty and Grace smile their 
 approval, — the veil of sadness is lifted, leaving only a remem- 
 brance 
 
 " Which is not akin to pain, 
 And resembles sorrow only 
 As the mist resembles the rain." 
 
 What wealth of recollection oppresses at this hour ! How 
 strong the temptation to recall the many events of our college 
 life, to gaze once more together upon many a well-remembered 
 scene, as the long panorama of former joys and sorrows move 
 slowly by ! How impressive would be the solemn pageant ! But 
 I may not employ the delicate tints which more properly enrich 
 the canvas of poetry. Mine is the sterner duty to catch the fad- 
 ing outline of the Past, to add the soberer hues of reflection, and 
 then commit the unfinished picture to the great world-painter, 
 Time. 
 
 And in reviewing the marked features of a college course, we 
 must not forget how necessary, yet how inappreciable withal, is the 
 part played by each class. To the long chain of college history 
 every class on graduating adds another link. And though time 
 obliterates peculiar characteristics, and covers the chain with the 
 rust of oblivion, the essential existence of each link is recognized 
 in the existence of the whole. No class may claim the honor of 
 having shaped college destiny. The influence which it boasted 
 most proudly, the achievements which were thought the brightest 
 jewels in its crown, may be rejected ; its fondest fancy may prove 
 vain and delusive. As a little stream, it merges with a mighty 
 current, and what but presumption dares calculate its effect? 
 Each class, encountered by precedents which it unconsciously 
 adopts, subscribes to the old college regime. Gradually, as the 
 spirit of advance waxes strong, reforms, guarded by valuable 
 restraint, are inaugurated. But with us, Conservatism exercises so 
 vigorous an influence that premature reforms are seldom made. 
 Warned by the dangers of innovation, the College authorities bide 
 a fit time for action, and then remodel with firmness and inde- 
 pendence. Of this prudence — which, wiien it alters, alters advis- 
 edly and permanently ; alters, too, with intent to broaden the field 
 of culture and foster the student's most valuable interests — the stu- 
 
21 
 
 djnts of Harvard reap the rich fruits. It is this that has matured 
 the student mind ; that has tended to expand the narrow relation 
 which so long existed between instructor and pupil; that has 
 ripened our college into a University, infusing arterial life through 
 its many departments. 
 
 Of the reforms which have been instrumental in producing this 
 marked advance, we may notice first the privilege of voluntary 
 attendance at recitations. It was believed that students who 
 possessed the average maturity of twenty-one years ; whose college 
 course had been opened to free choice in valuable elective depart- 
 ments ; who had for three years passed the ordeal of intellectual 
 and moral requirements ; who might reasonably be expected to 
 devote labor and attention to their elected studies, as incidental 
 or necessary to the pursuits of life ; — it was, I say, believed that 
 such men might be placed outside the pale of censure-marks and 
 admonitions. This year, therefore, for the first time in the his- 
 tory of our college, the old penalties for absence were suspended, 
 and the attendance of Seniors at recitations became optional. It 
 is yet too early to pronounce with certainty upon the future of this 
 system. Yet, judging from its success in this the first year of its 
 existence ; remembering, too, that its novelty will soon disappear, 
 and with it whatever license its almost unrestrained freedom has 
 caused, we may, with no weak assurance, augur its permanent 
 establishment. The benefits of this system, mental and moral, to 
 instructors and students alike, can hardly be over-estimated. On 
 the part of instructors, it necessitates original and untiring re- 
 search. It develops the lecture system, induces the abolition of 
 text-books, and strengthens that activity of mind which their use 
 discourages. Each lecturer desiring a large attendance at his 
 course, pressed by active inquiry, followed by the critical investi- 
 gation of his pupils, will feel an incentive to careful preparation. 
 By this means mental apathy, which renders students indifferent, 
 and urges them to escape an unprofitable hour, will be crushed. 
 And while this system tends thus directly to elevate the char- 
 acter of instruction, it also exercises a powerful influence on the 
 morale of the student. It gives him a glimpse of the responsibili- 
 ties of life ; it encourages in him seriousness of purpose and inde- 
 pendence of action, — qualities which insure success in that world 
 of which his college course is the prototype. By necessitating only 
 
22 
 
 partial attendance at college exercises, it gives to all the opportu- 
 nity to advance beyond prescribed limits, and to approach that 
 Utopia where duty is done for duty's sake. In connection with 
 the elective system, it develops mature consideration and judg- 
 ment, by teaching each student to weigh his own powers, to 
 strengthen his deficiencies, to perfect his peculiar talents, and 
 to adapt his college work to the pursuits of after-life. It strips 
 from him boyish dependence, and clothes him with the attributes 
 of a man. 
 
 Have I, then, erred in presenting this subject to you to-day? 
 Do I overestimate the importance of this system when I ask 
 undergraduates to treasure it as a valued privilege, to exercise it 
 conscientiously, and so transmit to others the advantages which 
 they themselves will have enjoyed? On the action of the classes 
 now in college depends, in great measure, the future of volun- 
 tary exercises. But, in the issue, I doubt not that the students of 
 Harvard will establish this system to which the other colleges of 
 America nod only a hesitating approval. 
 
 Another department which we have seen advancing with bold 
 strides is that of Literature. Four years ago our facilities for 
 learning even the topics of the day were few and meagre. Stu- 
 dents felt the serious need of a comfortable room where the 
 newspapers of the country might be filed for reference. For this 
 purpose it was decided to open a Reading Room, and to place on 
 its tables the journals, magazines, and reviews of this country and 
 of England. Thus the active life of two worlds was placed within 
 our reach. We were carried beyond the limits of our life here, 
 were transported across the Atlantic, and gazed with interest on 
 the working of great Europe. And, while foreign mechanism 
 was opened to view, we were necessarily brought into commu- 
 nion with foreign mind. As each review laid before us valuable 
 digests of new works; as the character of to-day's intelligence 
 dawned upon us, we were gradually led to peer farther back into 
 the thought of antecedent times. Little by little this curiosity 
 increased, until, by a system of free readings, it was at last satis- 
 fied. This system purposes to furnish a student, during his four 
 college years, with a general knowledge of Greek, Latin, Ger- 
 man, French, and English classics. Thereby will be laid a broad 
 foundation for future reading, and the intelligent understanding of 
 
23 
 
 Literature. Until within the last few years the average student 
 has lived in profound ignorance of those ancient structures on 
 which the course of modern thought are laid. Content with a 
 partial knowledge of the present, we have failed to remove the 
 clouds which obscure the past. This lethargy is passing away, 
 and in its place we hail awakened interest and useful incredulity. 
 We may now consider with advantage the more purely aesthetic 
 side of college life. Heretofore colleges have been content to 
 train their students in Literature and Science, ignoring the third 
 division of instruction as frivolous and unnecessary. To our 
 University has fallen the honor of adding the last element in 
 the great triad, assigning to Art its lawful place by the side of 
 Literature and Science. The impetus which the study of Art 
 received from University lectures, from the Gray collection of 
 Engravings, and their imperfect, but in many respects valuable, 
 reflection in Heliotypes, led to the establishment of Elective 
 Courses and a professorship in the Fine Arts. It was a bold 
 innovation on the severer routine of college studies. There were 
 many prejudices to be overcome. Too long had the study of the 
 Fine Arts been considered a superlative pursuit ; too long had it 
 been judged the mere gloss of manners, unworthy of a vigorous 
 mind. The public pictured the art-student as the exquisite, who 
 passes his time, — 
 
 " .... as life were but a rose," 
 " To rumple bee-like with luxurious feet." 
 
 But the time is not far distant when an appreciation of Art, 
 as furnishing the highest mental satisfaction of pleasures, will 
 be regarded a necessary element of high intellectual life ; when 
 the student of Art will be no longer considered a drone, but 
 the gatherer of Nature's, rich fruits; when blunted sensibility 
 may no longer hold communion with refinement of mind ; when 
 incense will cease to be burned to false and depraved taste. Art, 
 as a transcript of the character of a nation, as a reflection of its 
 rise and decadence, has increased the resources of historical 
 research. Its light illuminates those paths wherein history alone 
 would grope blindly. It shows us how Persian wealth raised 
 audience-halls of barbaric splendor ; how Egyptian superstition 
 
2 4 
 
 pierced Heaven with mighty pyramidal cenotaphs ; how con- 
 quest enabled Athens to express her devotion in marvellous Pen- 
 telic temples ; how the religious enthusiasm of the Middle Ages 
 was sung in the " frozen music " of Gothic. And in all we learn 
 this lesson, that when the mind of a nation is pure, its purpose 
 unselfish, its aim truth and simplicity, then is its Art character- 
 ized by beauty, elevation, sympathy ; but when morality wanes, 
 when individuality descends into consciousness, when worship 
 becomes ungodly, then Art, sucked into the same perverted cur- 
 rent, becomes debased. In extravagant developments, in gaudy 
 and meaningless decoration, it remains a tinselled monument to 
 deceased Truth. 
 
 Besides, history seems to show that the perfection of Art is 
 coexistent with high political excellence. National Art should 
 therefore culminate when a nation approaches the acme of its 
 glory. When, therefore, we consider our own country, we should 
 not wonder that she has produced no works of surpassing beauty. 
 For, if Art is a characteristic of age, it would ill become us m 
 our infancy to force its growth. We should watch our advancing 
 life, and mould it to perfect symmetry. Thus may the seed now 
 sparsely scattered by our colleges and seats of learning produce 
 precious fruits ; thus may public taste be elevated and refined ; 
 thus may our land, blessed with a new type of civilization, in- 
 crease in beauty and integrity, and utter, like the swan ere it 
 dies, its richest melody. 
 
 But while our opportunities for mental and moral advance have 
 been thus largely increased, physical culture has not been neg- 
 lected. Cricket has been forced from its old seclusion, and begun 
 life anew. Base Ball has retained its old popularity. Foot Ball 
 has taken a fresh start, and Harvard has brought back victory from 
 a generous rival in Canada. Jarvis Field has been prepared for 
 out-of-door sports, and the formation of an Athletic Association has 
 given an impetus to vigorous exercise. Increased facilities for 
 boating have been opened to the College by the erection of a 
 second Boat House on the Charles. The adoption of a new 
 boating system has quadrupled the number of rowing men ; and 
 even this proportion may, by judicious management, be increased. 
 Thus practice in river exercise is becoming general, and not only 
 induces health and pleasure in the individual, but also aids the 
 
25 
 
 boating interests of the College. Soon may we see the Univer- 
 sity six, with 
 
 "Cross of crimson on the breast," 
 
 restore to Harvard her long line of victories. Military drill and 
 Rifle-shooting have also been instituted, and the streets of Cam- 
 bridge echo the tread of the Harvard Rifle Corps. Thus do the 
 paths of physical culture ramify. And when we consider the 
 necessity for muscular energy, we cannot but rejoice at their mul- 
 tiplication. Within the last twenty-five years the physique of 
 Harvard students has visibly improved. But the discrepancy 
 between mind and body is yet too great. In the last annual 
 report of the College we read: "Many come to the University 
 with undeveloped muscles, a bad carriage and an impaired di- 
 gestion, without skill in out-of-door games, and unable to ride, 
 row, swim, or shoot." Through the increased interest in ath- 
 letic sports this picture is fast becoming a vanishing view, and to 
 students alone will soon be chargeable the penalties of physical 
 neglect. Nor would I be thought to elevate the physical man 
 and lower the intellectual. At the shrine of Learning all must 
 bow in humble adoration. But when time and means for physi- 
 cal development are allowed by the College ; when those in 
 authority strive to place physical training among the advantages 
 of a college course, it is pitiable to see an essential element in 
 after success recklessly neglected. If the body be handmaid to 
 the mind, let her administer faithfully and well ; lest, like some 
 mammoth engine whose motive power is gone, the intellect be 
 impeded, its advance cut off; lest it struggle to eminence, and 
 fall the more ruinously from its transcendent height. 
 
 There remains another theme before which I pause in humility. 
 It should be ushered in by the low roll of drums, and the solem- 
 nity of martial music. A few steps from where we are now 
 assembled, beneath whose shadow our Chapel is content to rest, 
 rises Memorial Hall. Its lofty tower strives heavenward, mutely 
 witnessing to the valor of our honored dead. Let us enter its 
 portals in reverent silence ; let mirth be for a season hushed ; let 
 the foot fall lightly on the marble floor, lest heroes be awakened 
 from slumber. They will welcome us from marble tablets, which 
 tell of duty and sacrifice ; which carry us back to other class-days 
 
 4 
 
26 
 
 as joyous as our own, when paths diverged to meet again on the 
 battle-field. 
 
 On the western fagade of Memorial one may read the history 
 of this noble cenotaph. There has the chisel inscribed three 
 simple words, — " Humanitas, Virtus, Pietas." How insepa- 
 rably are bound up in this inscription the attributes of those 
 lives which it commemorates ! Humanitas, which embraces the 
 higher education and polished acquirements of the scholar. The 
 perfection of intellectual discipline, the union of severe with refined 
 study, the elevation of mental desire, — all are included in this 
 one word, humanitas. In it is reflected the majesty of mind. 
 Virtus, the moral excellence of man, which enabled the Roman 
 of old to live the perfect life. Pietas, which gathers up the 
 qualities of morality and intellect, and devotes them to a chiv- 
 alrous end ; which inscribes loyalty on the brow of the patriot, 
 and teaches him how sweet it is to die for his country. Culture, 
 Morality, Loyalty, — how priceless to us and to the world is the 
 lesson embodied in these words ! How indelibly do they brand 
 the lie on his forehead who denies to college instruction the ele- 
 ments of good citizenship ; who regards a college as a panderer 
 to effeminacy, as the home of luxurious and enervating tastes ! 
 Too commonly has this opinion obtained in those minds which 
 the direct influence of college has failed to reach. It persuades 
 so-called practical men to put a false estimate on the capability 
 and industry of the college graduate. His application is too 
 often disregarded, and preference shown to one whose dulness 
 is mistaken for reserve. Thus is knowledge subordinated to ig-no- 
 ranee, and intellectual training to mental torpor. Against this 
 injustice Memorial Hall utters its solemn protest. It teaches 
 that college does not incapacitate her sons for the stern duties 
 of life ; that higher education does not cutoff the mind from com- 
 munity with public sentiment ; that loyalty to one's Alma Mater 
 is loyalty to one's land ; that loyal once, loyal for ever. 
 
 But Time's swift flight bids me hasten our farewell. A little 
 while, and the last pressure of the hand will have been given, the 
 last word of parting spoken. The friendships which we have 
 formed here will remain only as bright landmarks in the field of 
 college life. One by one the chains which bind us will be loos- 
 ened. But though memory be dimmed by age, there will cluster 
 
27 
 
 around the heart associations which perish only in the grave. 
 There will rise before us, in days to come, remembrances of 
 forms and faces to which we now bid a sad farewell. Such 
 memories can never die. And when again we meet, may the 
 same Mercy which has thus far kept death from our ranks call 
 together an undivided band ! 
 
 Ye walks, that have often echoed to our footsteps ; ye elms, 
 that have bent so tenderly o'er us ; ye college rooms, whose genial 
 hearths have listened to many a winters tale ; ye memories all 
 which sanctify this hour, — farewell ! Your benison shall accom- 
 pany and bless us in the paths of life, encouraging in sadness, 
 sharing in all our joys, and, in moments of revery, infusing new 
 blood into our veins, kindling once more the flame of youth, and 
 awaking our affection for a beloved class. 
 
 Thou, too, hallowed Alma Mater ! at whose knees we lisped our 
 first prayer to Wisdom ; whose hand first held to our lips the cup 
 of knowledge ; whose guiding care directed our footsteps to 
 mighty Olympus, — once more as in childhood would we kneel 
 before thee, feel thy loving hand upon our foreheads, hear thy 
 murmured blessing, and thy last long farewell. May thy sons 
 scatter in rich fields the treasure-seeds of thy granaries ; may 
 their lives of truth and loyalty reflect thy example and multiply 
 thy honors throughout the land ! 
 
 Thus, while the sun pours forth his kindly rays ; while earth 
 teems with promise of rich fruits ; while the very breezes seem 
 attuned to inspiring measures, our little band marches hopefully 
 towards the land of the Hereafter. 
 
POEM. 
 
 i. 
 
 A LOVELY Princess, lost in charmed sleep, — 
 Long years agone it chanced, as poets sing, — 
 Lay dreaming, while the palace of the king, 
 By the same spell, was hushed in slumber deep. 
 
 In all the chase no creature was awake. 
 
 The banners drooped above the silent towers, 
 The lilies nodded through the weary hours, 
 
 The fountain played no longer in the lake. 
 
 And o'er his wine, before the festal board, 
 
 The drowsy king's long beard turned white with age ; 
 His beauty faded from the sleeping page 
 
 Behind the chair where dozed an aged lord. 
 
 A hundred Springs beheld the buds unclose, 
 And bade the thrush, anew, her song attune : 
 A hundred Summers, with the breath of June, 
 
 Made the wild desert blossom like the rose : 
 
 A hundred Autumns bound the ripened grain, 
 
 And stored their garners full with golden sheaves : 
 A hundred Winters whirled the fallen leaves, 
 
 And buried deep in snows the barren plain. 
 
 And still she slept, unmoved by changing skies, 
 
 Though seasons changed, and long years went and came ; 
 Anon, the red dawn touched her cheek to flame, 
 
 Anon, the moonlight bathed her closed eyes. 
 
;o 
 
 Till to her bower, at length, the Prince delayed, 
 Her fated lover, came to claim his own ; 
 Put back the curls that to her feet hud grown, 
 
 And, kneeling, kissed, with trembling lips, the maid. 
 
 Then, by the might of that awakening kiss, 
 
 Straightway the charm that bound the palace broke. 
 King, lord, and page, alike, from slumber woke ; 
 
 And, like a gay moth from her chrysalis, 
 
 The maid's heart, fluttering, felt that sudden change ; 
 While her sweet eyes unto her lover lent 
 Such light that, as from land to land they went, 
 
 He found the dull old world grown new and strange ! 
 
 II. 
 
 The legend comes from laureled lips, and long 
 And oft its tender grace the heart has stirred ; 
 But now for us there lies beneath the word 
 
 A larger meaning in the poet's song. 
 
 For we, to-day, within enchanted halls, 
 
 With footsteps strange and brain bewildered, tread 
 Beneath is blue-veined marble, — overhead 
 
 Grand arches rise from lofty capitals. 
 
 On either hand, in dimly-curtained gloom, 
 Broad galleries and fairy chambers lie ; 
 Whose walls are hung with stately tapestry, 
 
 The richly-woven fiction of the loom. 
 
 Familiar faces from the canvas gaze, 
 
 Each panel bears some well-remembered scene ; 
 
 The halls are lined with statues, and, between, 
 Sevres has for every nook a sculptured vase. 
 
 And here, methinks, there lies in slumber fast 
 A Princess, while her lover's steps delay : 
 
3i 
 
 And each of us, a fated Prince, to-day 
 Must wake with one long kiss the sleeping Past ! 
 
 Then let us, here and now, on bended knee 
 A moment fall, to kiss our Princess fair ; 
 A moment look into her eyes, and swear 
 
 By their kind light eternal loyalty. 
 
 Then forth we pass. And she will follow too : 
 Even as of old fair lady cheered her knight, 
 Her smile shall make the- future ever bright, 
 
 Her voice shall keep the present ever true. 
 
 III. 
 
 But leave the myth. This hour is something worth 
 If it but teach, what we too soon forget, 
 That happy days which live in memory yet 
 
 Are more our own than all beside on earth. 
 
 The hidden future lies with God alone. 
 
 We vainly strain our eyes to pierce the veil 
 Close-drawn before ; tear-dimmed and blind they fail. 
 
 The past, the lovely past, is all our own ! 
 
 The present, too, ungenerous and unkind, 
 Fills us at times with sad and anxious fears. 
 But naught can cloud our memory of the years 
 
 That lie in golden sunlight far behind ! 
 
 Oh ! how this truth, most true when lips on lips 
 Death-cold the farewell kiss of love imprint, 
 Beggars the tawdry dust of mart and mint, 
 
 And from our sordid gain its value strips ! 
 
 All other earthly treasures moth and rust 
 
 Corrupt, and thieves, perchance, break through and steal ; 
 
 For wealth the cruel touch of change must feel, 
 And honor lay its head low in the dust. 
 
32 
 
 Dear vanished years ! our lasting heritage, 
 That change and fate can never, never, take 
 From us away, your voices sweet shall make 
 
 The same low music in the ear of age ! 
 
 To you, dear years, this hour is consecrate. 
 And first to you for whom each bosom glows, 
 Ye latest four, that, as ye near your close, 
 
 Fling wide for us the great world's heavy gate. 
 
 IV. 
 
 No song have I to sing but such as each 
 
 Who may have placed beside his ear a shell 
 Has heard that poet of the ocean tell 
 
 Of ebb and flow upon his native beach. 
 
 My words are but your words ; my voice no more 
 Than the mere reflex of your own, — a sound 
 Like echoes that from cliff* to cliff rebound, 
 
 Or the sea's murmuring along the shore. 
 
 Nor is it fitting that my lips invoke 
 A single Muse of all the sacred Nine, 
 But rather, since it is my task to twine 
 
 Fond thoughts that cling, as ivy clings to oak, 
 
 Around this hallowed spot and hour, on thee 
 Alone to-day with eager lips I call, — 
 On thee, sweet Mother of the Muses all, — 
 
 Daughter of Heaven, deep-eyed Mnemosyne ! 
 
 And, brothers, help me tell this friendly throng 
 Of these old paths that we so oft have trod, 
 Than which earth has for us no greener sod, 
 
 And with me weave these memories in song. 
 
33 
 
 FOUR years ago, one sunny day in June, 
 (And of our number few, I fancy, soon 
 That long-expected morning will forget,) 
 Before the dusky doors of Harvard met 
 Two hundred youth, who, clustered on the green, 
 Viewed with strange eyes the unfamiliar scene. 
 One, timid, stood and pondered the advice 
 His teacher, parting, gave ; one, overnice, 
 Recalled a puzzling rule or paradigm 
 To keep it on his tongue ; and one, meantime, — 
 Of some designing Sophomore the dupe, — 
 Mysterious whispered to a. listening group 
 Of deeds these walls, had they but tongues, could tell ; 
 Till all breathed freer, when the awful spell 
 Was rudely broken by the dreaded bell. 
 
 To other hearers this may well appear 
 
 The common tale repeated year by year ; 
 
 But, classmates, unto you each word should seem 
 
 The charm that calls again a broken dream. 
 
 For Memory's wand, with magic virtue crowned, 
 
 Can change the humblest sod to hallowed ground, 
 
 Beauty in things most commonplace disclose, 
 
 Call song from silence, poetry from prose. 
 
 Then, friends, while o'er these scenes you swiftly glance, 
 
 Know that the realm you enter is Romance. 
 
 Let Fancy cast o'er all its colored light, 
 
 If aught be dull or common in your sight ; 
 
 See things that seem, not those which are alone ; 
 
 In fine, look through our eyes, and not your own. 
 
 Else you, to-day, will do my vision wrong, 
 
 Check the free flight and lame the light wings of my song. 
 
 We all knights-errant were, our glowing eyes 
 Intent on gallant deeds of high emprise, 
 Armed with " white shields of Expectation," 
 Dauntless to dare the fight in fields unwon. 
 Each youthful heart the flame of strong desire 
 And hopes untried united to inspire. 
 
 5 
 
 
Each longed to ride upon some noble quest : 
 To fix, perchance, his gleaming lance in rest, 
 And join in combat with that monster foul, 
 Who doth for luckless wights delight to prowl, 
 Ycleped Ignorance, and drive him back 
 For aye to howl in gloomy caverns black. 
 Each, generous, longed to free from durance vile 
 Some modest Truth, by craft and cunning wile 
 Too long constrained. And each, in lusty might, 
 Would sally forth with blade unstained and bright, 
 In mailed coat for bold adventure clad, 
 As brave as Percival, or Galahad, 
 Who sought the Holy Grail until he found, 
 Or any fearless knight of all the Table Round ! 
 
 Soon as we entered on our College course 
 
 We found the band of hazers.full in force, 
 
 And Sophomores became our constant dread. 
 
 At Commons, thrice a- day, they threw the bread 
 
 And biscuit at us, till sometimes their roars 
 
 Drove all the frightened waiters to the doors, 
 
 And made us realize the fables told 
 
 About the cloud-born Centaurs, who, of old, — 
 
 That prehistoric Sophomoric beast, — 
 
 Made such a tumult at a wedding feast! 
 
 Sometimes they visited our rooms at night, 
 
 Put some of us in bed, and some in fright ; 
 
 And some poor wretches, when they asked a treat, 
 
 Were forced to give the hungry bears to eat ! 
 
 Then, too, as oft as came a fall of snow, 
 
 They found hard balls were easy things to throw, 
 
 And such temptations pray who could resist, 
 
 When none who ever threw a snow-ball missed ? 
 
 For few indeed would find the aiming hard 
 
 To hit a window distant but a yard. 
 
 What royal fun it was to hear the crash, 
 
 As whizzing went the ball through pane and sash ! 
 
 Beside, no danger made the doing rash, 
 
35 
 
 For after dark there was no fear about 
 
 The proctors, and no Freshman dared come out 
 
 Of doors at night so early in the year, — 
 
 So dodge the watchman, and the coast was clear. 
 
 Hence, when we to the proud position came 
 Of Sophomores, we thought it fair to claim 
 That recompense, for wrongs upon us laid 
 When Freshmen, be by other Freshmen paid ; 
 That thus this constant debt might never fail 
 Of passing duly down, a strict fee-tail, 
 From class to class. 
 
 Methinks I hear one say, 
 Impatient, When will students put away 
 Things childish and attain to manly thought? 
 Yet hold, my friend, is not this lesson taught 
 By man to man in legends manifold, — 
 Alike by poets sung and sages told, — 
 From stolen Io, and Europa, down 
 
 To her whose beauty blazed through Priam's luckless town ? 
 Has not the boy, since first the world began, 
 Been child as well as father of the man? 
 No novel justice this. You still can find 
 It quite in common use among mankind. 
 From sharp-faced traders, who will coolly jew, 
 To-day, their double prices out of you, 
 And silence conscience at the slightest stir 
 She makes, by pleading that they also were 
 By other rascals cheated, six months since, 
 Up to the bold and brutal German Prince, 
 Who robbed but yesterday unhappy France 
 In recompense for fields by war's mischance 
 Lost in a darker age, and made defence 
 Of modern carnage, on this poor pretence ! 
 
 Oh ! when will kings and men, at length made wise 
 By that stern mistress, to whose watchful eyes 
 The world has paid a dear tuition long, 
 Learn well that right is not akin to wrong, 
 
36 
 
 And, though you make the series infinite, 
 
 The sum of wrongs can never make one right? 
 
 How long will men forget the simple fact 
 
 That evil will in evil still react? 
 
 And that the one way which can sure reduce 
 
 The list of ills, bring blessing from abuse, 
 
 And call again the world's primeval plan, — 
 
 A single rule for nation and for man, — 
 
 Is, that with earnestness and effort, each 
 
 Should right the wrongs that lie within his reach? 
 
 But when at length our turn for hazing came, 
 
 Resolved to free from stain fair Harvard's fame, 
 
 The Faculty their power and wisdom bent, 
 
 These oft-renewed disgraces to prevent. 
 
 They quelled at once our " Bloody Monday's " storm, 
 
 And made the rugged pathway of reform 
 
 So tempting, we could not refuse to tread 
 
 Therein ; and, by this first example led, 
 
 Two other classes since have helped to make 
 
 Successful what we could but undertake. 
 
 Till now that three years undisturbed have past, 
 
 We gladly see the die that Autumn cast 
 
 Has made the coward custom fall at last. 
 
 Here must the Muse, unwilling, pause to tell, 
 In measured grief, the fortune that befell 
 Our few and feeble contests at the oar, 
 Then turn to fairer victories ashore. 
 The less indeed we say about our Crew, 
 No doubt, the better. Yet a word is due. 
 And ere we draw the veil of charity 
 Before our failures, it is right that we 
 Should mention what has been done in the past 
 Four years of boating : how, from first to last, 
 Despite the large and oft-untaken bet, 
 The betting men were not afraid to set 
 Upon our winning, still our crew would fail, 
 And each regatta turned the crimson pale ! 
 
37 
 
 Each year our men have met by scores to strain 
 
 Adown the blue Connecticut in vain 
 
 Their longing eyes, and watch the distant oars, 
 
 Filling with lusty 'rahs the unaccustomed shores. 
 
 We always had some fine excuse to show, 
 
 And always boasted, " Next July, you know, 
 
 The tide will change : " but though reporters spoke 
 
 In perfect rapture of the Harvard " stroke " 
 
 And " Principles of Rowing," in each case 
 
 Diagonals or fouls have spoiled the race. 
 
 And therefore, here, our class to vindicate 
 
 From blame unmerited, I simply state 
 
 None ever hinted that defeat was due 
 
 To any Seventy-Five men on the Crew ! 
 
 But each year we were willing yet again 
 
 To give our places up, that better men 
 
 (Such modesty how rare it is to meet) 
 
 Might go and claim the honors of — defeat ! 
 
 In Ball our class has held a better place ; 
 
 From Freshman year we put on the first base 
 
 An eye unerring and a reach so vast 
 
 That Yale, in frightened wonder, stood aghast ; 
 
 Our short-stop was as famous until he 
 
 Made quite too long a stop beyond the sea ; 
 
 Our pitcher's " headwork " was acknowledged fine, 
 
 And other members of the changing Nine 
 
 Have fairly earned themselves a worthy name, 
 
 And won for Seventy-Five a modest fame. 
 
 The present year has seen, by happy chance, 
 
 New sports arise, and hailed the renaissance 
 
 Of games forgotten, that of old were won 
 
 At Elis in the Hecatombseon, 
 
 Which kept through Greece a civic pride alive, 
 
 And whence the long Olympiads their names derive. 
 
 You lift your hands aloft in holy fear : 
 
 " And can it be," you cry, " and even here, 
 
 A bold attempt like this to reproduce 
 
3§ 
 
 These rites in honor of Olj'mpian Zeus? " 
 
 Ah ! no, the passion in your bosoms curb, 
 
 Nor let a groundless fear your hearts disturb ; 
 
 No shrine we build, we consecrate no fane, 
 
 Our lips invoke no buried Jove in vain : 
 
 Though ours are like the sports described so long 
 
 Ago in Virgil's verse and Homer's song, 
 
 Or whereso'er on classic soil you meet 
 
 The peaceful contest and the trained athlete. 
 
 And we have made, in some respect, advance 
 
 Upon those early days of ignorance ; 
 
 For now no more the rustic garland, wove 
 
 Of common olive from a neighboring grove, 
 
 Alone allures the brave contestant's eyes ; 
 
 Our judges fix aloft a richer prize. 
 
 For every winner waits a costly cup, — 
 
 For the occasion newly furbished up, — 
 
 A miracle of modesty and taste, 
 
 All gold within, the silver rim enchased 
 
 With tendril, leaf, and flower that round it twine 
 
 With cunning work of exquisite design. 
 
 And now we turn from river and from field, 
 From all the trophies bat and oar can yield, 
 To lands where Mind extends her nobler reign, 
 And Reason holds the right of eminent domain. 
 
 Then hail ! while we in stately measures sing 
 Thine ancient praise, of games acknowledged king, 
 Wide-ruling Chess, whose name is handed down 
 From age to age with ever new renown ! 
 Secure thy sceptre, and thy crown unmoved, 
 While palace, prince, and dynasty have proved 
 How fruitless is the strife that monarchs wage, 
 When men are drunk with democratic rage ! 
 To thee old Harvard yields, thy rightful claim, 
 " A local habitation and a name." 
 Thy doughty knights have far outdone in bold 
 Adventure all the chivalry of old, 
 
39 
 
 Thy time-worn castles, faithful to their liege, 
 With colors fixed, have braved the stoutest siege, 
 And oft withstood assault and sudden shock, 
 Invincible as stern Gibraltar's rock. 
 Thy bishops hold a wider realm in fee 
 Than any Pontiff of the Roman See ; 
 Their power is owned by every sect of men, 
 Alike in Christian land and Saracen. 
 We mark thy standard borne triumphant far 
 Beyond the fields where Tamerlane made war, 
 Beyond the tribes that Caesar's legions knew, 
 And where Napoleon's eagles never flew, 
 And though we own no other king but thee, 
 To thee we yield a full supremacy. 
 
 Nor can the Muse forget again to call 
 To mind the glories of Memorial Hall, — 
 Yon massy pile, whose walls commemorate 
 The loyalty of Harvard to the State ; 
 Whose tablets, rich in cherished memories, tell 
 Of those who in our country's peril fell, — 
 Our Alma Mater's sons of noblest breed, 
 Who heard her voice in that dark hour of need, 
 Armed with their brethren, laid the treason low, 
 And dealt to slavery a deadly blow. 
 Stern was the conflict, terrible the cost, 
 Yet worth the price, if only be not lost 
 The lesson taught by blood and battle-stroke, 
 That not alone in hearts of steel and oak 
 Doth courage waken with the bugle's blare, 
 But timid souls are strong to do and dare 
 When love of country calls : that they who bled 
 At glorious old Thermopylae, though dead, 
 Still speak ; that culture does not fear to soil 
 Its robes by contact with the sons of toil, 
 But, breast to breast, when common zeal inspires, 
 They battle for their hearths and altar-fires'! 
 And while yon lofty tower its head shall lift 
 In memory of the great and lavish gift 
 
40 
 
 Our common Mother laid upon the shrine, — 
 In memory of the blood she poured like wine 
 In sacrifice, its presence shall renew 
 The ancient pledge, and keep the promise true, 
 That ever in the hour of treason's might 
 Her sons shall still be foremost in the fight ! 
 
 This hall was opened in the present year 
 
 For use as Commons. And a trifle queer, 
 
 And hardly in good taste it seemed, I grant, 
 
 To make in such a place a restaurant, 
 
 Where hungry men might dine, and chat, and mix 
 
 Their table gossip and their politics 
 
 With prophecies about the coming race ; 
 
 While fumes of chocolate rose in the face 
 
 And faded eyes of all the kindly souls, — 
 
 Those gentle ephors of our tea and rolls, — 
 
 Who, with their hard and half-forgotten names, 
 
 Stare silent from their newly-varnished frames. 
 
 Here Stoughton, sanctimonious, dressed in black, 
 
 Stands with the hall, his namesake, at his back : 
 
 While distant mountains, fabulously high, 
 
 Lift their blue tops to meet the azure sky. 
 
 There Winthrop, an Elizabethan ruff 
 
 Circling his neck, and close beside the bluff 
 
 The " Arabella " slowly sails to port. 
 
 Then Adams, with his wig, equipped for court ; 
 
 His right hand front, descending, — lifted eyes, — 
 
 As if declaiming for the Boylston prize. 
 
 Hancock and Hersey on the walls are found, 
 
 And duplicated Franklin, far renowned. 
 
 While Madame Boylston guards, benignant dame, 
 
 With Mrs. Appleton, our great-grandmother's fame. 
 
 But time would fail, (and patience), to recall 
 
 These worthies down from Ames to Saltonstall, 
 
 Whose wretched shades are doomed for aye to board 
 
 Where Commons doth its scanty fare afford. 
 
4i 
 
 This plan has brought about the best results ; 
 
 Pythagoras himself would dine on pulse, 
 
 And Graham turn again to leaven and yeast 
 
 If on these sages they their eyes might feast! 
 
 Ingrates, indeed, are all who would not be 
 
 Content to starve in such a company ! 
 
 So, when it happens that the bread is dry, 
 
 That milk and pudding both are watery, 
 
 When hard and hardly-cooked we find the roast, 
 
 Or when at tea we come too late for toast, — 
 
 'Tis sweet to turn our eyes, though weak and faint, 
 
 And view the faces Copley deigned to paint, 
 
 And gaze and gaze till vulgar Wants are stilled ! 
 
 Beside, the gallery is often filled 
 
 At tea " with store of ladies, whose bright eyes 
 
 Rain influence," while each successive tries 
 
 The opera-glasses, practising, perchance, 
 
 Her most bewitching attitude and glance. 
 
 And pray what else could give so fine a start 
 
 To bashful students, just electing Art, 
 
 As these renewed occasions to compare 
 
 The forms and features of the many fair, 
 
 Without the impoliteness of a stare? 
 
 W T hile for the Rifle Corps we find it made 
 
 A drill inspection and a dress parade. 
 
 Thus Memory builds the blessed past again. 
 Like one who puts aside his book and pen, 
 When the long winter evening waxes late, 
 And turns to muse before the glowing grate. 
 Without, around the dreary windows, moan, 
 For alHhe summer's sunny beauty flown, 
 The winds, in melancholy monotone : 
 Within, the cheerful blaze upon the hearth 
 Calls back sweet thoughts and buried hopes to earth. 
 Then, with no aid from spell, or charmed cup, 
 Or wizard's art, to bring their spirits up, 
 
 6 
 
42 
 
 He sees familiar faces in the coals, 
 Pores fondly over Memory's faded scrolls, 
 Or views again in scant and flickering light 
 Scenes buried long in deep oblivion's night. 
 Thus have we sought, like some magician old, 
 To bring the days departed near, and hold 
 Communion with the shades of moments dead, 
 Dreaming again of things once done and said. 
 Thus have we tried, whate'er the Muse could give, 
 To make the past for one brief hour relive ! 
 
 But while we linger, lo ! before the gates 
 
 The Future, with impatient gesture, waits, 
 
 And lifted hand. Her breath upon our cheeks 
 
 Is gathering cool, and, half displeased, she speaks, 
 
 While all around the sunlight warm is shed, — 
 
 " Haste, be the dead Past buried by its dead ! " 
 
 For each she holds a golden gift in store, 
 
 Which, half concealed, allures the fancy more. 
 
 For one, perchance, the helm of state to guide 
 
 With even hand against the surging tide ; 
 
 For one, to stir and charm the public heart, 
 
 Moulding his hearers with persuasive art ; 
 
 For one, to pierce through Nature's dark disguise, 
 
 And read the Truth with philosophic eyes ; 
 
 For one, to feel, within, the poet's fire, 
 
 And tune to melody the waiting lyre ; 
 
 For one, to walk in Learning's lowly ways, 
 
 Finding delight that passes human praise ; 
 
 For all, we trust, whatever Fate allot, 
 
 By men applauded, or by men forgot, 
 
 One boon beyond the touch of blame or blight, — 
 
 A life unsullied and an honor bright. 
 
 And though the winding paths before our feet 
 
 Diverge too widely, ere henceforth to meet 
 
 On earth, we pray the paths we all have trod 
 
 May reunite at last before the gates of God. 
 
43 
 
 As when the great sun low adown behind 
 
 The hills has sunk, the blue range still is lined 
 
 With light, and loath to pass so soon away, 
 
 Lingers the Indian summer of the day ; 
 
 Slow fade the clouds, with gold and crimson flushed, 
 
 And, one by one, the twittering birds are hushed, 
 
 Till, one by one, the stars peer through the skies, 
 
 And take the trembling twilight by surprise. 
 
 So fades our vision, all too sweet to last, 
 
 So dies for us the sunset of the past ! 
 
ODE. 
 
 FAIR child of the high aspirations elate 
 In the breasts of the Puritan band, 
 Proud nurse of the heroes who fashioned a state, 
 
 And the minds that bear rule in the land ! 
 With the memories clad of the great and the good, 
 
 With the fame of thy sons girded round, 
 Forget not thy youngest who throng where they stood, 
 Our brothers whom glory hath crowned. 
 
 We follow them forth in the struggle to win 
 
 Fresh honor for thee. For thy name 
 And thine impress are on us, thy spirit within, 
 
 And thine is our work and our fame. 
 As we turn to go from thee, we bring thee a song, 
 
 But our heart is oppressed with a sigh, — 
 O our friend in life's morning, fair Harvard, our love, 
 
 Our dear foster-mother, good-by ! 
 
CLASS SONG. 
 
 COME, classmates, clasp your hands around. 
 With pressure true and strong, 
 And let fair Harvard's halls resound 
 
 To this our parting song. 
 Four years are added to the past, 
 
 Four fleeting, happy years. 
 Since we our lots together cast, 
 With mingled hopes and fears. 
 
 The Future now, in accents stern, 
 
 Calls us from careless hours, 
 And bids us in real life to learn 
 
 That earth is not all flowers. 
 But when dark shadows cross our way, 
 
 And hope is lost to sight, 
 From college days will gleam a ray 
 
 To pierce the blackest night. 
 
 And though we're scattered far apart, 
 
 O'er every land and clime, 
 Firm bonds will e'er bind heart to heart, 
 
 Thoughts of the olden time. 
 Fond mem'ry will to each recall 
 
 Sweet friendship's brightening face, 
 To cheer us onward, lest we fall, 
 
 Faint in life's wearying race. 
 
 Then farewell, comrades, we have long 
 
 Conned lessons side by side, 
 But now must join the busy throng, 
 
 And stem life's surging tide. 
 Whatever fortune has in store, 
 
 Whatever may arrive, 
 We still must cherish evermore 
 
 The class of Seventy-Five. 
 
CLASS-DAY OFFICERS. 
 
 ORATOR. 
 LESTER WILLIAMS CLARK, New York, NY. 
 
 POET. 
 
 THEODORE CLAUDIUS PEASE, Somers, Conn. 
 
 ODIST. 
 
 JOHN WALKER HOLCOMBE, LaPorte, Ind. 
 
 CHIEF MARSHAL. 
 
 VINCENT YARDLEY BOWDITCH, Boston. 
 
 ASSISTANT MARSHALS. 
 
 ABBOTT LAWRENCE, Jr., Boston. 
 
 HENRY SAYRE VAN DUZER, Newburgn, NY. 
 
 CLASS-DAY COMMITTEE. 
 
 NATHANIEL HATHAWAY STONE, New Bedford. 
 JOHN HENRY APPLETON, Cambridge. 
 NELSON TAYLOR, New York, NY. 
 
 IVY ORATOR. 
 
 ALBERT SMITH THAYER, Worcester. 
 
 CHAPLAIN. 
 
 RICHARD MONTAGUE, Westborough. 
 
 CHORISTER. 
 
 HENRY WHITE BROUGHTON, Jamaica Plain. 
 
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