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ORATION AND POEM, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 COMMENCEMENT 
 
 COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 Wednesday, June 7th, 1865, 
 
 TOGETHEK "WITH THE 
 
 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE VICE PRESIDENT 
 
 OF THE COLLEGE, 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 PRINTED BY TOWNE AND BACON. 
 
 1865. 
 
♦».'« 
 
ORATION AND POEM, 
 
 DELIVERED AT THE 
 
 COMMENCEMENT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 COLLEGE OF CALIFORNIA, 
 
 Wednesday, June tth, 1865, 
 
 TOGETHER WITH THE 
 
 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE VICE PRESIDENT 
 
 OF THE COLLEGE. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 PRINTED BY TOWNE AND BAOON 
 1865. 
 

 \ 
 
 c^\s>- 
 
OM JETTON . 
 
 T.T PROF. HENRY DURANT, COLLEGE OF CALTFORNIA. 
 
 Mr. President, Ladies, and Cf-entlemen : 
 
 Were it " The University," as contra-distinguished from the 
 more common methods of our Popular Education, that I were about 
 to discourse of, I should hardly introduce the fact directly, and to 
 begin with (invidious as this would be) but only through some sort 
 of insinuation by which I might seem to have won your sympathy, 
 or your prejudice, in its behalf. But as it is of " The University," 
 in connection with the popular methods, and not in contrariety to 
 them — as working with them and for them — fostering them in its 
 loving care — drawing them into its own life — and growing them, 
 with itself, into the same structure, that I venture to speak, may 
 I not hope to have given no offense to the partisans of either a 
 Common or a Liberal Education, possibly to have conciliated both 
 in the interest of a common cause, in having thus announced my 
 theme. 
 
 It has seemed strange to some persons, that " the tree" — (if it 
 were a tree) " whose mortal taste brought death into the world, and 
 all our woe," should have been " the tree of the knowledge of good 
 and evil ;" and that man should not have found, in the fruit of that 
 very tree, a proper preventative to his fall, and all the ills which 
 have followed in its train. But if we no longer make the eating 
 in question, and the knowledge, interchangeable terms ; if by the 
 eating of good and evil, we understand a practical experiment at 
 living, in the contradiction of the two, and by the knowledge, that 
 observation of nature and that hght of the Reason and of the Con- 
 
science which, prehmmary to choice, and anticipating its conse- 
 quences, should have forestalled any such experiment — then we 
 have a distinction, which shows us the nature and the origin of evil, 
 the sphere of good, and vindicates knowledge as a faithful monitor 
 and a righteous judge — the fiery cherubim set in the milder form of 
 fruit and flower, in the midst of the garden, to keep the thoughtful 
 soul in " the way of the tree of life." 
 
 But knowledge, to serve such a purpose, must be knowledge in 
 the proper sense of the term ; knowledge in the sense of science ; 
 knowledge not of things merely, but of principles ; not of elements 
 alone, but of organisms ; not of parts only, but of wholes. There 
 are three states or moods of matter, as likewise of humanity, and 
 of universal mind, in the distinctions of which we have the char- 
 acteristics, also, of three methods of education (the only methods 
 possible), and in the history of which moods, as developed by these 
 methods, all knowledge and all good and evil. The first of -the 
 moods is that of merely occupying space, or simple existence, with- 
 out distinction of form or sort, everywhere the same, homogeneous. 
 The second is that of elements — individuals, and is a progress upon 
 the first by the intervention of the law of species, or specialization. 
 The third is that of organisms, under a law of proportion or har- 
 mony, constructing the simple forms of the second into unities and 
 wholes. This last mood is the proper ultimatum of all existence ; 
 the perfection of all ends ; the ideal and the realization of good 
 and of right; the soul and the embodiment of science. It is the 
 fulfillment, as we see, of the two laws of which we have spoken, 
 which are the two laws of aU development and progress — the 
 right hand, if I may so say, and the left hand of the Creator and 
 of His Providence, and of all subordinate, responsible power work- 
 ing everywhere through the realm of created existence, in the first 
 mood of it, producing thence, on the one side, individuality and 
 multitude ; on the other, society — organization ; in the one of wliich 
 we have the Higher Law, in the other the Lower ; in the subordin- 
 ation of the lower of which to the higher — all good ; in that of the 
 higher to the lower — all evil ; in the conflict and alternation of the 
 two — the whole history of this world — the eating of good and evil. 
 
 Of the three methods of education answering to these distinc- 
 tions, one Hmits itself to the sphere of the Lower Law, and is 
 
special ; another allows neither of the laws, and seeks to suppress 
 all development and progress ; the other unites the two in itself, 
 and affords the idea of the true University. " 
 
 Now, it is obvious that any education which denies all liberty to 
 its subjects, allowing them neither to run into diversity, nor to grow 
 into union, but attempts to coerce them into sameness or uniformity, 
 must be wrong, inasmuch as it is contrary to destiny, which implies 
 progress ; contrary to nature, which is a something yet to become, 
 and not already finished — contrary to creation itself, crushing, back 
 its beautiful order into chaos. It is equally obvious that any 
 education which has for its sphere, that merely of the Lower Law, 
 or which revolves about the lower as its center, at whatever dis- 
 tance, is wrong, and just in proportion wrong, as it disallows the 
 domination of the higher ; and that the true method is one which 
 unites and fulfills in itself the two laws — is at once elementary and 
 constructive, the one for the other, in the interest alike of the parts 
 and of the whole. 
 
 This idea of education will startle no one, we trust, as seeming 
 new. For it is new only to those who are ignorant of what is the 
 very first and most familiar of all the ideas that have ever been in 
 the world. It is new only in the sense in which love was new as a 
 proclamation of gospel, only because it had been blindly overlooked 
 from the beginning, or grown obsolete through long disuse. It is 
 that very light in whose shining man woke to his first consciousness 
 of himself as man — as an individual, that is to say, responsible to 
 the law of his whole kind ; that light which already confronted his 
 very first outlook upon life, and anticipated even the first step of 
 what was yet to be his eventful, adventurous career : " Be fruitful 
 and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it '■' — divide and 
 conquer, by virtue of the lower law ; by that of the higher, recon- 
 struct, unite, and " have dominion^ 
 
 Give to every clime and zone its own especial type of man — to 
 every place, its especial individual, till the whole earth is filled with 
 its peoples, and every son and daughter of Adam has wrought the 
 special task assigned to each, in subduing it, so it be subdued for 
 all as a common good ; and ruled for all by the higher law of a 
 common right and a common duty. A work for every one and 
 every one for a work, so, the division of labor merge private con- 
 
6 
 
 venience into public economy, and make private advantage promo- 
 tive of the common weal. A place for everything and everything 
 in its place ; a use for every talent and every talent to its use ; a 
 sphere for every social order ; a polity for every State ; the greater 
 the number, and the greater the liberty of each — the better the 
 union of all, provided the union be impartial, and provided it be 
 maintained. Analyze and differentiate to any extent ; disintegrate 
 the masses ; break down the sects to their lowest denominations — 
 even to insects — so you construct from these lower forms which you 
 have destroyed, the higher unities. If there be a harmony of colors 
 more beautiful than the unity of light in which the colors are all 
 lost, it is well that light should resolve itself into its" elements, so. it 
 paint in that higher beauty the world which it reveals. It is well 
 that water should give up its oxygen to the fire, and its hydrogen 
 to burn with it, that in the heat of its own elements thus reunited 
 it may spring again into steam, to drive the ships of commerce over 
 its own wide wastes, so it near the nations which it has been wont 
 to separate, and annihilate itself as a barrier between them, and 
 " there be no more sea." Sharpen the points of character in ev- 
 erything and every person, no matter how acutely ; project them, 
 no matter how extremely ; differentiate them, no matter how widely, 
 so you hold them in their due relations to one another, and unite 
 them in beauteous, loyal consistency of system, to serve the uses, 
 not of your single self indeed, nor of a single people, nor of a single 
 color or type of men, but all the proper uses together of the whole 
 human race. So win, so wear your crown. This be your culture ; 
 this your Alma Mater; this your degree. Educated thus in proces- 
 ses of thought and of practice so special and yet so comprehensive, 
 so particular and yet so liberal — true alumnus of such a university 
 — graduate, at once, a subject and a king. 
 
 This is the idea — the normal idea — of a truly hberal education, 
 set forth in the basis and curriculum of God's own university. 
 
 As opposed to this, the other two methods must be noticed again, 
 and with more particularity. First, the special method, and I know 
 not how I may better introduce it in this connection, or illustrate it 
 at all, than by recalling the very brief history of its origin. Its 
 best exponent, I would observe, is to be found in, the cognomen of 
 its author — Diabolos — derived, no doubt, from the peculiarities of 
 
his own profession ; the divider^ dissipater, analyser. It followed 
 into the world immediately upon the first method; indeed, as an 
 experiment — an accomplished fact — it anticipated the first and 
 superceded it. It took the form of a private enterprise, on the 
 very plausible line of observation and experiment ; the Baconian 
 method anticipated — all but the method ; the facts and phenomina 
 the same, without the laws — a polytechnic school — rolling stock, 
 without a railway — a curriculum without a lasis. It began with 
 ohjectrteaching, in the favorite way of analysis and specialization — 
 the grand significance of the object, its own integrity, and its rela- 
 tions to other objects, as parts of a greater whole — left out. It was 
 to have nothing to do with wholes. " Take care of the parts ; 
 wholes may take care of themselves : " " Masticate well ; digestion 
 follows of course : " "Or whether it follow or not, the whole interest 
 in eating ends with the pleasure of the palate : " "All beyond is terra 
 incognita :^^ "Life and assimilation are neither here nor there:" 
 " These do not come within the range of observation : " " We have 
 to do ya\h. phenomina :^^ "Substance is a mystery or a myth:" 
 " The tailor makes the man : " " Society is nothing better than a 
 dress-parade, if it be anything better than a parade of dress : " 
 " The kingdom of heaven comeih by observation : " " The life is not 
 more than meat : " " Nor the body than raiment." This we sup- 
 pose to have been the introduction of his first lecture, delivered to 
 his auditory, Adam and Eve. The lecturer proceeds : " Lady and 
 Gentleman : Rare tree is this which we have here in the midst of 
 the garden — this ' tree of the knowledge of good and evU ' — ^fine 
 shade — fine fruit ! Rare apple this which reaches itself down to 
 us on this bending bough ! Let us pluck it, and analyse it. Han- 
 dle it, weigh it, measure it, look at it, smell it, taste it, eat it — and 
 be wise. Mellow tints ! What a fragrance ! How delicious it 
 must be to the taste ! Paragon of fruits ! Crowning luxury of 
 Paradise ! Who would be a drudge, a slave, to reclaim the earth, 
 in the preposterous hope of emerging, at some time or other, from 
 such a degradation, a king! when, if you only eat this apple, 
 just now, forthwith ye become as gods, knowing good and evU." 
 
 Never was special pleading more specious. Never was specific 
 more plausibly palmed upon the world. This first of the quacks 
 may have had his imitators in abundance, scarcely his equals, 
 
8 
 
 either for the magnitude of the mischief compressed into the 
 minuteness of his doses, or the amount of credulity with which his 
 patients were made to swallow them. 
 
 It was a special point which the tempter pressed upon man. It 
 was a special passion in man which was touched bj the temptation. 
 " Only eat, (a felicity in itself) and the keys of knowledge and 
 of heaven, are your own." Self-aggrandizement by self-indul- 
 gence. 
 
 The bait is no sooner taken than the death-fall is sprung ; the 
 tie that binds man to his Maker, and to his kind, is severed ; the 
 law of separation becomes supreme ; society is dissolved ; the age 
 of individuaHty, carried to its ultimatum, in absolute selfishness, 
 ensues. Cain and Lamech, and the Giants become its represent- 
 atives ; lust and license prevail, and run riot ; and ruffianism rides 
 rough-shod over the world. Costly experiment at specialty ! 
 Cheap, had it been the last ! . 
 
 It will help us stiU the better to appreciate the method which we 
 have assumed to be the true method of education, if we notice 
 more particularly than we have done, that other false one which we 
 have characterized as the method of uniformity. Despairing of 
 any orderly reconstruction, by force ,of the higher laws, when once 
 the elements are set loose under license of the lower, it goes back 
 for rehef to the first mood of all things, homogeneousness. UnUke 
 conservatism, which it assumes to be, which, at the worst, only 
 stereotypes humanity where it is ; this method, so far from fixing 
 the types, which it finds already set up, breaks down and fuses 
 them into the mass from which they were originally molded, to 
 secure them against collision on the one hand, or dissipation on the 
 other. It would reproduce the old glacial period, and stiffen our 
 fluent seas and oceans into solid ice, to save the fishes from running 
 wild through the deep, or making havoc upon one another. It is 
 the recoil of timidity and distrust from what seems to have hap- 
 pened so disasterously to the world through its attempts hitherto at 
 progress. It seeks peace and stability in consolidation. This has 
 had much to do with the social life and civilization of the race ; it 
 must have something to do with our estimate of the true University. 
 It crops out into history, for the first, in the institution of Babel. 
 That " the whole earth was of one language and of one speech," im- 
 
9 
 
 plies mucli less a community of mere words or letters than of 
 beliefs and sentiments ; just as language and speech are matters 
 much less of sound and sight than of significance. The people 
 were one in their professions, their formularies of faith, and their 
 terms of social intercourse ; they had not yet fallen to wranghng 
 about usages and doctrines ; their faith in each other had been im- 
 plicit. But a new era has come. Some signs of disaffection 
 appear ; some fears of it, at least, are felt. Prudence dictates the 
 adoption of some means to forestall the recurrence of the late dis- 
 astrous adventure of the race. What shall it be ? Individuality 
 had wrought the mischief before ; individuality must therefore be 
 repressed. Personal liberty must be denied. Society, which 
 results from the interflow and interaction of individual wills, ideas, 
 and affections, is impracticable. The conflict between " the law 
 of the members," and "the law of the mind," is irreconcilable. 
 The parties to it can never be pacificated ; they must both be 
 emptied of their respective powers, and then fused or compressed 
 into one brute mass. The idea of Babel, doubtless, was to destroy 
 the individual and the kind, alike, in an absolute consolidation. 
 What could not be held in one, by mutual attractions, like the 
 molecules of a crystal, must be piled like bricks, and cemented 
 together by slime. The living body of society must be reduced to 
 a petrifaction, or rather its vitalities, its liberties, its wishes, and its 
 wiUs, hke the fossils of the old geology, must be caught and entombed 
 in a formation of rocks. " Go to ! let us make bricks and burn 
 them thoroughly ; and they had bricks for stone, and slime had they 
 for mortar ; and they said. Go to, let us build us a city, and a 
 tower, whose top may reach unto heaven ; and let us make us a 
 name, (sJiem — ism — charm — talisman) lest we be scattered abroad 
 upon the face of all the earth." 
 
 " They formed the design," suggests Morison, author of " The 
 Rehgious History of Man," "of rearing a building, or temple, 
 whereon the insignia, or sensible images, of a common faith and a 
 common practice, should be portrayed, and a standard erected, 
 that non-conformity might be prevented, schisms avoided, and 
 diversities of sentiment and culture averted from the world." The 
 execution of such a scheme would, of itself, unite them in a work of 
 many years ; and then standing before them visibly, as the reali- 
 
10 
 
 zation and triumph of tlieir common hopes and labors, how would 
 this temple, with its '•'■ insignia''^ emblazoned upon its walls for 
 belles-lettres ahke, and ritual, hturgy, and cook-book, Lord Chester- 
 field, and Statesman's Manual, serve as a charm — a talisman — to 
 draw them together, and to trance them, it might be, into uniformity ! 
 With their eyes all fixed on the same objects, like any modern circle 
 of mutual mesmerizers, spelluig out the same characters, and their 
 lips all rehearsing the same sounds, their minds also following after 
 each other in the same rounds ; and their hearts all flowing togeth- 
 er into the same mold, would they not soon become as uniform and 
 fixed in idea and character, as in ceremony and discipline ? No 
 circle of mesmerized mortals would be more likely to fall into com- 
 mon rapport, and to lose their personal faculties in a common 
 passivity and stupefaction, than these formalists of Babel. We 
 recall, as an illustration of the talismanic force that might be ex- 
 pected to result from this contrivance, the rallying center of the 
 Mahomedan world, the City of Mecca, to which, from every quarter 
 of the earth, the Moslem pilgrim repairs to drink of its holy zem- 
 zem, or well ; to stand in its sacred mountain — ^Arafat ; to enter its 
 consecrated Kaaba, and there to kiss the black stone — Kebla — 
 which was dropped froiji heaven, and towards which, as towards 
 heaven itself, the eyes and the hearts of the faithfal are turned 
 forevermore in their devotions. 
 
 Such was the idea of Babel. It must be arrested. It is no less 
 hostile to the genius and the mission of man, than the scheme be- 
 fore the flood. " And the Lord came down to see the city and the 
 tower which the children of man builded. And the Lord said, be- 
 hold, the people is one, and this they begm to do ; and now, nothing 
 wiU be restrained from them, which they have imagmed to do ; go 
 to ; — let us go down and there confound their language, that they 
 may not hearken to each other's speech. So the Lord scattered 
 them abroad from thence, upon the face of all the earth." Not, 
 however, that they began to talk in unknown tongues, or in different 
 dialects — a difficulty easily to be overruled — their written sig^is, or 
 hieroglyphics remaining the same to all, as now is the case with the 
 many dialects of China, but began to hold a different language, or to 
 express a disagreement between themselves, as to the objects and mer- 
 its of the enterprise in hand. Their individualities began to appear. 
 
11 
 
 They were not to be forced or cajoled by a few usurpers, into an 
 unnatural uniformity. From this point dates a new era — the era 
 of that conflict, which events are now fast bringing to a close — 
 the conflict between the spirit of independency in man, roused and 
 fired by the providence of God, yet guarded by the same Provi- 
 dence ; and the idea of uniformity, as laid down in the foundations 
 of the tower and the City of Babylon. Into this great structure — 
 Babel and Babylon — (no mean Bastile of Paris, or Tower of Lon- 
 don) — this world-prison, were the whole human race to be cast, as 
 beasts into a den, by that " mighty hunter before the Lord," or to 
 foUow the Hebrew closely, " that mighty religious marauder, Nim- 
 rod." This was the beginning of the Papacy. In Babel and Baby- 
 lon we have the germ of " world-empire," and of the Church of 
 Rome. So long does this establishment antedate its name. Nim- 
 rod, the father (^papd) of this scheme of uniformity, and the first 
 persecutor to sustain it, was the first Pope. Shall it prevail ? Not 
 without resistance. The spirit that is stirred up against it, and in 
 behalf of the individual, and of the human race alike, shall be 
 allayed only in reaching its own ends. Its destiny is that of man 
 himself — " to be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and 
 subdue it and have dominion." Sliding down from Nimrod and 
 his times, through many centuries, along the line of prescription 
 and conformity — a facilis descensus — we reach that fatal break, 
 which nQ ages shall ever repair — the defection of the Greeks from 
 the Eomish Church, and the fall and partition of the Rorilan Em- 
 pire. In these great events, which inaugurate our own era, the 
 many causes which had long been threatening dismemberment, cul- 
 minated, not to find a level where to rest, but a head, from which to 
 flow the more freely and widely over the world ; as if the bands, 
 which had held the fountains of the great deep to their places, had 
 been broken up, and the waters had come over the earth, to sap 
 and loosen its sohdarities of Church and State, and to set its peo- 
 ples afloat, each in their own ark, to drift their several ways, upon 
 new coasts of life, there to settle themselves apart, and there to 
 grow the more freely out of centers of their own, according to their 
 own understandings, and after the desires of their own hearts. 
 
 And what a spectacle of peoples, and of human developments it 
 is, with which the world is presenting us to-day ! Not a continent, 
 
12 
 
 nor a peninsula, nor scarcely an island ; not a mountain range, nor 
 out-spread valley ; not a desert wast^, nor forest wild, without its 
 own especial multitude of men — ^not less peculiar to itself in type 
 of constitution, than in circumstance and place, nor more peculiar 
 in either, or in all, than in language, sentiment, and character. Di- 
 versity and multitude would seem to have aproximated their limits. 
 What peculiarity of station for a man to fill, without its peculiarity 
 of a man to fill it ! What peculiarity of a task for humanity to 
 achieve, without its peculiarity of human talent to achieve it ! 
 What place so eccentric, or outlandish, that " the schoolmaster 
 abroad " does not find it ? What field of observation, on land or 
 water, which the prospector does not traverse, with the merchant, 
 or the settler in his tracks, to appropriate his discoveries ? Scarcely 
 a rood of the ocean's bed that has not been measured, and its sub- 
 stance analyzed, and booked. The very winds are identified, and 
 traced to the places whence they come, and whither they go. The 
 climates, the Fauna and Flora of each, this soil and that, adapted 
 to this and to that sort of vegetation — all have been discovered and 
 reported, and the whole earth is being comprehended and possessed. 
 The poet's wail over the waste of Nature's profusion, scarcely ex- 
 cites sympathy any more — scarcely longer is it true, that 
 
 " many a gem of purest ray serene, 
 
 The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear ; 
 
 Full many a flower is born to blush unseen, 
 And waste its sweetness on the desert air." 
 
 But what of it all ? " Counting one hy one, saith the preacher, to 
 find out the account " — what of it all.? That the human race have 
 replenished the earth ? — that men have subdued it piece-meal ? that 
 they possess it all, in fee simple, between themselves, as so many 
 individuals? This were a poor dominion over it, to have realized. 
 It may be well that the Emperor of the French should have given 
 to each of his Algerines a freehold in the soil of their own native 
 land. Fee simple is a fii'st step in progress from solidarity, but fee 
 simple is the lowest of all titles. What signifies fee simple without 
 the State to uphold and ennoble it ? Who so mean as be content 
 with a homestead without a country ? or with a country for the sake 
 of a homestead ? or for the sake of country itself ? There is a wider 
 range of sentiment. There is a higher organism ; a unity answer- 
 
13 
 
 ing to all the possibilities of man's social being — ^made immortal and 
 illimitable, as it is, in the image of God. Is it that we may sit, each 
 of us, under " our own vine and fig-tree, having none to molest us 
 or make us afraid," that we sacrifice vine and fig-tree, that our 
 country may be saved ? Is it that we may have a country to live 
 in, that we die for our country's sake ? and not rather, that there is a 
 higher principle, that survives the grave — that lives after us — ^for our 
 country to perpetuate — that lives on, in us, immortal as ourselves ? 
 What humanity now needs, is its reconstruction upon this enduring 
 principle : The education of its peoples in that which shall make 
 them one, and one forever — that which shall bring to pass, as a 
 universal fact, the sentiment, so familiar to us aU, as the motto writ- 
 ten in the scroll of our national escutcheon, so prophetic of our 
 destiny, and of our part, we trust, in the destiny of the Race — 
 E Plurihus Unum. 
 
 And this, we assume, is to be the work of what I would call the 
 University — that institution which every man, who is a man, and 
 every woman, who is a woman, has at least entered — from which, I 
 know not, who has graduated. Not a local institution, nor a ma- 
 terial one, but the educational power of all legitimate and loyal in- 
 stitutions — not the close corporation of a few partisan educators, but 
 the " open communion " of all denominations of genuine instruction 
 and enhghtenment in the world, with those light-giving, fife-giving 
 influences of Divine Grace which come directly from above — the 
 pulpit, with its sanctities, and its inspkations ; the press, with its 
 liberty, restrained only by the truth ; the common school, and the 
 college ; the nursery, and the play-ground ; the whole apparatus 
 and economy of life, with whatever of instrumentality or influence 
 may incorporate itself into the same method, to work out the grand 
 result. 
 
 Nor is there little in the spirit of the age to encourage our hope 
 of such a cooperation. Never before were the agencies for good 
 so numerous in the world, as now ; never before were these agencies 
 so active in their several spheres, as now ; never before did they 
 ensphere themselves in combinations of such a compass and of such 
 a unity, as now ; never before, as now, did the spirit of union flow 
 through them all and overflow them, like a baptism, to consecrate 
 them all — to initiate and enchurch them, if I may so say, in one 
 
14 
 
 comnmnion. What was once attempted occasionally and by here 
 and there an individual, in the way of doing good, is now pursued 
 as a business by large associations. The spirit of philanthropy that 
 embodied itself in the person of a single Howard, nay, rather in 
 that diviner form which stood so conspicuously alone before the 
 world in the person of Christ, is now represented by multitudes not 
 of individuals only. But of organized committees, of churches, 
 national and international societies, and world-wide missions, that 
 no human woe or want may escape its notice or fail of its relief. 
 What, a generation ago, afforded only a playful experiment to a 
 Franklin flying his kite, is putting minds and hearts, the world over, 
 into communication with one another, and into each other's moods, 
 and this by milhons, at the same moment. Commerce which began 
 in piracy between near neighbors, who had hated each other, has 
 become, like the ocean itself which once separated nations, one of 
 the great pacificators of the world. Steam-power, whose first 
 historic observer, a century since, was the youthful Watt, watching 
 its play on the lid of his aunt's tea-kettle and thought to be an idler 
 at that, is known and read of all men, now, as the grand motor of 
 commerce, travel, and the industrial arts ; and as a socializer, though 
 less observed, is not less eflicient or less extensive in its influence. 
 If it has increased mechanical production, a milUon-fold, and 
 distribution in the same ratio, it has done much to retire servile 
 toil from the field of competition, and to lift the menial classes into 
 something like society. It has given to mind its proper liberty and 
 leisure for study ; to social life, its proper means of enjoyment and 
 culture ; has broken down partitions and annihilated distances 
 which ahenated men ; and set the same men, face to face, and side 
 by side, together, to contemplate each other, to study and under- 
 stand each other, and to accept each other as neighbors and brethren. 
 Arkwright invented the spinning-jenny, and realized a private 
 fortune from the sale of his patent to a few subordinate monopolists. 
 Wheelwright, our own countryman, if it be lawful to identify such 
 a man with any country, is laying doAvn his railroad systems along 
 the mountain slopes, and over the table-lands, and! through the wide 
 savannas of South America ; building school-houses and churches 
 alongside of his dep8ts of business, for the home instruction of the 
 people — while, by the inter-oceanic steamship systems which he has 
 organized, he is giving locomotion, as it were, to the continent itself, 
 
15 
 
 and putting tlie people into correspondence, commercially and soci- 
 ally, with whatever is progressive or productive elsewhere in the 
 world. If Arkwright was justly famous, in his time, for the con- 
 tribution which he sold to the arts : Wheelwright deserves to be 
 famous through all times — immortal honor to his name — for he is 
 working not for himself, as his friends who know him well, well 
 know — nor yet for the development of so small a field as South 
 America alone ; but (we speak in the style of his own modesty) 
 " to contribute his mite," in this auspicious day, to the education of 
 the whole ^orld. 
 
 While many of our own countrymen, like Wheelwright, are de- 
 voting themselves to the common interests of humanity : what shall 
 we say of our beloved Country herself ? For what is she beloved 
 the most ? The great and bloody sacrifice which she has made — 
 shall we say, for herself, or for universal right and hberty as well ? 
 To maintain the Union of her 'States ? or to maintain the principles 
 on which that Union rests ? — principles on which States everywhere 
 may rest, and rest for ever. Had it been a Union on narrower 
 grounds, like that of the German Independencies — a mere com- 
 . pact ; had it been a Holy AUiance, to crush out the liberty of the 
 masses, or to absorb the weaker Powers ; or, like that provided in 
 "The Pragmatic Sanction" of Charles of Austria, to secure the 
 succession of a crown after an arbitrary line ; or, like that of the 
 late confederacy of our own Southern States, built on a foundation 
 of cotton and State-rights, in the pragmatic sanction of treason, 
 secession, and rebelhon ; to perpetuate its Crown of Slavery, after 
 the arbitrary line of a spurious chivalry — would our loyal Unionists 
 have fought for it ? Would they have won, in it, what they have 
 won — a Union worthy of our love ? We love our Country for the 
 moral of her example. We love her, that while she rises among 
 the nations, as a power, she rises also as a light ; that having hon- 
 ored God as his Magistrate, " not bearing the sword in vain, but as 
 a terror to evil-doers, and a praise to them that do well," she is 
 honored of Him, in turn, as His own chosen type of the beautifiil 
 consistency possible between the independence of a free people and 
 their loyality to the State — between civil liberty and constitutional 
 law. We love her, because He who has chastened her and taught 
 her to see and recognize His hand, in her discomfitures and reverses, 
 as weU as in her triumphs, and to center aU her hopes and wishes 
 
16 
 
 on His blessing still — that He who brought the light out of dark- 
 ness at first, — the natural light, — and thereupon, the harmonies of 
 Nature, out of chaos — is bringing her forth, a moral hght in these 
 latter days ; and crystallizing around the principles which she illus- 
 trates, the social order of the world. 
 
 With such a prestige, and such a responsibility — how well may 
 we feel not only what the poet has written for us, that 
 
 " We are living 
 In a grand and solemn time ; " 
 
 but that we owe the privilege and the subhmity of our position, 
 and should look for grace, that we be true to it, to Him, whose is 
 the kingdom, for which we have been taught to pray ever since we 
 lisped the Prayer — 
 
 " Thy kingdom come ; Thy wiU be done on earth as it is in 
 Heaven." 
 
 "We give the thanks, God, to Thee — 
 
 The glory of our Nation's birth ; 
 It was Thy power that made us free — 
 
 The power that guides the rolling earth. 
 
 As planets prove Thy wise control. 
 
 As if, in love, together bound ; 
 And the successive seasons roll 
 
 In harmony and beauty round ; 
 
 Empires, in all their changes, show 
 
 The law of Thine unerring will : 
 They rise and fall, decline and grow, 
 
 A perfect order to fulfill. 
 
 Yes, order here shall rise at last, 
 
 And wars and party strifes be done ; 
 A few more revolutions past. 
 
 And all mankind shall be as one. 
 
 And higher this than Nature's plan — 
 
 Perfection of our social good — 
 ■ Enthronement of the rights of man — * 
 
 A universal brotherhood. 
 
 We give the thanks, God, to Thee — 
 
 The glory of our Nation's birth : 
 It was Thy power that made us free — 
 
 The power that yet shall free the earth. 
 
r* O E M . 
 
 BY WILLIAM L. C R W E L L . 
 
 'Tis said that bards are bom ! not as a flower 
 
 Does Nature make her poets, hour by hour 
 
 Unveiling beauties, tUl the floral gem 
 
 In full perfection, crowns the parent stem ; 
 
 As the young eagle ere its tender form 
 
 Has stemmed the gale or struggled with the storm, 
 
 Cast from the nest to make its first essay. 
 
 In lordly grandeur threads its pathless way, 
 
 Fearless, unfaltermg to the upper air 
 
 With conscious pride that it is native there, 
 
 So the true poet, wrapt in genius' light, 
 
 Wings his serial and unerring flight. 
 
 Since this is so, and not to us belong 
 
 The shining talents of the child of song. 
 
 Aids adventitious we are forced to bring 
 
 To smooth our pathway, reckless whence they spring 
 
 Some by their draughts profuse of sparkling wine 
 
 Inspire a semblance to the fire divine : 
 
 We light our pipe ! our classic pipe we light ! 
 
 The curling smoke shall tell us what to write. 
 
 Unhke that other, of immortal name, 
 
 We seek a cloudy " path to epic fame." 
 
 We were a band elected ! 'Tis but play 
 
 To vote stars suns and turn the night to day. 
 
 Ballots are void ; in them no virtue hes : 
 
 To choose men governors does not make men wise. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 Day inauspicious, destiny ill-starred, 
 When we your servants, were elected bard. 
 Events shall prove a thousand times again, 
 That votes are votes, and men are only men. 
 
 But let's invoke ! the'bard of ancient story 
 Without his muse was never in his glory. 
 Smile on us now, all ye that aid the throes 
 Of poets chosen, making verse from prose ! 
 inspiration, thou that kindly bore 
 Shakspeare to realms man ne'er attained before, 
 Unbarred the safe where Genius kept his ware. 
 Till he purloined the choicest treasures there ! 
 Shakspeare, the darling of the gifted train, 
 Who dropped his gems ideal hke the rain. 
 Reversed the laws of nature with his pen, 
 And left an immortality with men. 
 
 Inspiration, whose almighty power 
 Suggests one dull, unpolished line an hour. 
 Smile ne'er so faintly or we're doomed to hear 
 The bright girl's laughter or the critic's jeer : 
 Smile once again ; or every hope misplaced, 
 Homer is libeled and we're both disgraced ! 
 
 Hard is the lot of him whose hope is fame : 
 
 Who takes the quUl becomes the public game ; 
 
 Men watch for faults as falcons seek for prey, 
 
 Intent on flaying if they find a way ; 
 
 Critics are ever eager for a shot, 
 
 And fling their darts at every vital spot ; 
 
 Fair though his motive, faultless though his creed, 
 
 They smile like fiends to see their victim bleed. 
 
 What's left the writer ? to lay by his pen ? 
 
 No ; criticise the critics ! they are men : 
 
 Impale the vampires, who compose the world. 
 
 And not relent till every shaft is hurled. 
 
 Look up the stream ; its borders bear 
 
 The hulks of splendid manhood stranded there, 
 
19 
 
 While on the currents, smoothly gliding sail 
 Less graceful crafts before the prosperous gale. 
 Birth, wealth, or fame paves one man's path to power ; 
 Life's sweetest blessings brighten every hour. 
 While yonder wretch with all his keen desires, 
 Exists in sorrow, and unmourned expires. 
 These thoughts if ill-digested would distrust 
 The mind of Nature, and make God unjust ; 
 But tilings terrestrial scrupulously scan, 
 And trace our sorrows to the ways of man. 
 
 In other days when men, a lesser band, 
 Reviewed creation from a nearer stand, 
 Stout hearts and arms in times so unrefined, 
 Claimed and received the homage of mankind. 
 Position was the privilege of might 
 That vanquished foemen in the single fight. 
 The proud physique, the man of giant mould 
 Was chosen chief, and all the tribe controlled. 
 But time rolled on and change o'er swept the earth 
 Till strength of sinew bent to pride of birth ; 
 Nobles by lineage took the regal stand, 
 Enrobed in purple, claimed the world's command. 
 But when our father's sought across the wave 
 A happy haven or a quiet grave. 
 They deemed the noblest was the Christian's part, 
 A guileless conscience and a generous heart. 
 The pilgrims' was the sovereignty of soul ; 
 Their King was Deity, and his control 
 They recognized alone ; they deemed 
 Man's mission proudest where reUgion beamed. 
 
 But we, their sons, another race of men, 
 Have exhumed pride and avarice again. 
 'Tis a sad truth, professing what we may 
 Gold is the god the world adores to day. 
 'Tis even so ; behold the merchant fly 
 To put the morning journal to his eye — 
 
20 
 
 " Our army prospers and our cause, it thrives," 
 " Oh, curse the cause until my ship arrives ! 
 I'd sooner see the Union sunk in — ah ! 
 She has reached port — she's safely passed the bar. 
 Sooner the sunhght warm a world of slaves, 
 Than that staunch vessel sink mid coral caves. 
 Ah, well, rejoicing, most refreshing news : 
 I'd wish no better if 'twere mine to choose — 
 An Irish famine. Hunger here's thy health ; 
 The tears — thou causest float me on to wealth. 
 And sure, grim war is not without its charms, 
 My ship has freight of wooden legs and arms." - 
 And this is he who drives the noble steed, 
 Keeps liveried servants, dogs of generous breed, 
 Contributes freely for religion's sake. 
 And looks devout in church-time, if — aAvake ; 
 Ay, this is he who draws ihe public gaze ; 
 Men look to envy or they speak to praise ; 
 Epitomize his life ; he eats and drinks ; 
 Let none so senseless question if he thinks ; 
 He dons and doffs his dress each day : he dies, 
 And the tall pillar pointing to the skies, 
 Must lie itself to tell men where he lies. 
 
 The man of wealth is not passed rudely by 
 
 With men of pride, of intellect ; ask why ? 
 
 The problem's easy ; what though he don't boast 
 
 Vast erudition ? he's a splendid host ; 
 
 What though he think that Newton was a chief 
 
 In Russian wilds, George Washington a thief, 
 
 Rubens a tailor, and Saint Paul a sot. 
 
 His champagne sparkles if his wit does not. 
 
 What if the scholar's sense betimes rebels. 
 
 The palate's voice each rising tumult quells ; 
 
 And when the guest would wend his homeward way, 
 
 After the pleasures of their festive day. 
 
 Then bid farewell and strike a ruinous line ; 
 
 Each has much flattery mingled with his wine ; 
 
21 
 
 With this wide difference not to be forgot, 
 There's one that knows it, and there's one does not. 
 From our proud land be riches far away ; 
 The ignis fatuus glitters o'er decay. 
 
 Aside from that the Saviour has defined, 
 
 Be ours the aristocracy of mind. 
 
 Dark though the sequel, this sad rule is sure ; 
 
 So weak is human nature, 'twill endure. 
 
 Seek for the good man's record ; 'tis in vain 
 
 Unless the fire of genius warmed his brain. 
 
 Enrolled alone, there live on history's page 
 
 The names that stamped their thoughts upon the age. 
 
 Now, boys, suppose we offer some advice ; 
 'Tis only legal that requires a price ; 
 Self-constituted guide and though a youth, 
 Always accept where'r you find the truth. 
 Let it be yours uniting well to bind 
 The aristocracy of soul and mind. 
 No prouder blessings can the world bestow 
 Than those which from her classic fountains flow ; 
 A public force to polish common sense. 
 Refine the age and prove the State's defence. 
 
 " College diplomas, what indeed are they ?" 
 The dull alumnus is inclined to say : 
 
 *' Void, senseless scrolls, and though possessed by few, 
 Fools do oft buy them " — which is almost true. 
 Polish the sand-stone, canst thou make it bright ? 
 Wash the Ethiop, he will not be white ; 
 So wise professors' never-tiring pains 
 Make small impressions on a blockhead's brains. 
 Deep is the meaning of that symbol yet 
 And its possession must involve a debt. 
 The sturdy farmer yokes his ox at dawn, 
 The blacksmith's click salutes the early morn, 
 And the bent laborer every check surmounts, 
 That some fond son may drink at classic founts ; 
 
22 
 
 From you those sons a tribute rich is due, 
 
 To all mankind and they expect it too ; 
 
 That parchment scroll must mark an honest place, 
 
 Or like the " scarlet letter," stamp disgrace. 
 
 The Eastern student to his duties true. 
 Has an incentive never known to you ; 
 His Alma Mater of an ancient name. 
 Has scores of sons already known to fame. 
 There, many a man who walks in glory's train. 
 Sojourned his fleeting season — not m vain ; 
 And thoughts of these as he bends o'er the page,'" 
 Soften his labors and his griefs assuage ; 
 He sees them in his dreams like him perplexed ; 
 He sees his name hke theirs to fame annexed ; 
 He's proud to labor in the halls where these 
 Paved well their paths to honor and to ease. 
 'Tis yours to be as rolling years shall pass, 
 Perhaps the heroes to some future class ; 
 Proud and important then is your estate, 
 Theirs to despise or theirs to emulate. 
 
 Since this is so and the great boon was yours, 
 
 To breathe the air that sweeps these Attic bowers. 
 
 Where talent ever lent its kindly aid 
 
 To every flight your youthful flight essayed. 
 
 To Oakland's spring may you ne'er recreant prove. 
 
 But shower honors on the halls you love. 
 
 But, students, now let us descend a while 
 
 And talk of things in our familiar style. 
 
 There's no great need the truth were thus suppressed, 
 
 There's many a gem was cradled in a jest. 
 
 Four years have rolled since you were doomed to bear 
 
 The stings and arrows of your cloister's care. 
 
 From college course — a dreamy isthmus thrown 
 
 Twixt boy and manhood — is forever flown. 
 
 The parchment's waiting : that recalls a sigh ; 
 We got another kind in days gone by ; 
 
Twisted and long, tears followed when it fell ; 
 Each schoolboy idler knew it passing well ; 
 This bears some marks to classic minds addressed, 
 That left the marks, as we could well attest ; 
 'Tis sheepskin now that challenges the gaze ; 
 We got the cow-skin in our early days. 
 
 Ay, there's the tablet with its ancient lore, 
 Replete as our strong Saxon — nothing more. 
 Prize not too highly ; in their riper age, 
 A roll of paper never makes a sage ; 
 So disregard the Latin and the seal, 
 And draw a moral with this strong appeal. 
 " You've tilled the garden of your brain, 
 You've sown it with a precious grain ; 
 Now tend it with a father's care, 
 And guard it by your daily prayer ; 
 ■ Swear by the shades that waich the brave. 
 To harvest laurels or a grave." 
 
 But let's reflect a moment ; my frail pen 
 Is instinct with the meaner thoughts of men, 
 While conscience whispers as she bids us pause, 
 Man wins no honors from an unjust cause. 
 That chaplet sits the lightest wove of flowers 
 Plucked in their sweetness fresh from duty's bowers. 
 Recall the hero laid in Springfield's tomb, 
 And mark the laurels there are seen to bloom. 
 
 A double lesson draw we from his fame, 
 " l^he glory and the nothing of a name." 
 Go, weeping patriot to that turf-grown mound, 
 Uncoveted, alas, as graves around ; 
 Beneath it lies the pilgrim of a day. 
 Whose nod shook thrones a thousand leagues away ; 
 Navies obej'^ed it, countless armies saw 
 And did such deeds as held the world in awe ; 
 A thought, a glance intent, a whispered tone, 
 Could shame the storm with thunder all his own. 
 
24 
 
 A nation grieves — for what ? because a power 
 Hath been eclipsed, hath hved its transient hour ? 
 Not this unsealed the fountains of our woe 
 And caused their bitter, burning tears to flow. 
 
 Let others mourn a king's eternal sleep. 
 Our action prouder : 'tis a man we weep ! 
 Columbia kneels above his silent tomb ; 
 To deck his grave our eagle plucks a plume ; 
 And Afric mourns ; her warmest tears are shed 
 For him the wise, the generous, the dead. 
 Ay, bitterly the nations weep, for he 
 Of earth-born sons desired to make men free. 
 When finer senses flee the souls of men, 
 When Honor's pulse shall never throb again. 
 When Vu'tue's self shall seek an unknown shore, 
 Then shall his laurels droop to bloom no more. 
 
 But blank oblivion is the human lot, 
 
 A man may shake the world and be forgot ; 
 
 Yet if there be one name that shall remain 
 
 When chaos claims the universe again. 
 
 One lingering star whose feeble rays shall climb 
 
 The lessening summits of dissolving time. 
 
 If such there be, it wiU be thine to stay, 
 
 And sadly flicker o'er a world's decay. 
 
OF THE 
 
 VICE PRESIDENT OE THE COLLEGE^ 
 
 T O T H E 
 
 BOARD OF TRUSTEES, 
 
 [ 18 64 — 1865- 
 
 [PUBLISHBB BY ORDER OF THE BOARD.] 
 
 REPORT. 
 
 The college laws require me to report annually to the Board, 
 " The method of instruction, the state of discipline, the condition 
 of the college premises and property, and all matters pertaining 
 to the general interests of the Institution." 
 
 With regard to the "method of instruction," the reports of the 
 Professors and Teachers, already read, are probably a sufficient 
 indication. The recitations and lectures are systematic, thorough, 
 and punctual, as much so as they are in the oldest colleges of the 
 country. The peculiar spirit and culture of college education are 
 beginning plainly to appear. 
 
 The state of disciphne in the college is all .that we could desire. 
 The year has passed without any serious breach of decorum. The 
 students are attentive and respectful, and show a commendable 
 improvement in a scholarly spirit, and in gentlemanly manners. 
 
 Of the departments filled by Professors Durant, Kellogg, Bray- 
 ton, and Hodgson, very little needs to be said here, since the facts 
 are familar to all the members of this Board. It is in these 
 departments that the college compares most favorably with the 
 best colleges in the East. 
 
26 
 
 The Department of Modern Languages is satisfactorily filled, so 
 far as it can be in the time which it is possible to assign to it. As 
 the classes came into college with better preparation, it will be 
 possible to push them further on in a knowledge of these lan- 
 guages, so as to bring the student into the enjoyment of the litera- 
 ture which they contain. 
 
 In the Department of Natural Science the text-book instruction 
 has been given by Professor Hodgson. A Course of Chemical 
 Lectures was given to the Senior Class by Professor Kinney, now 
 of the San Jos^ Institute. A Course of Lectures on Anatomy 
 and Physiology was given by Dr. W. P. Gibbons ; and Lectures 
 on Literature, History, and the Scriptures, were given by several 
 gentlemen invited by the Faculty. It should be said just here, 
 that in the Department of Natural Science is where we should 
 make immediate effo/ts to increase the advantages of the Institution. 
 Special note should be made of this by the Board, and proper 
 measures to this end should be immediately set on foot. 
 
 Moral and Intellectual Philosophy have been taught by Professor 
 Durant, while History and the Constitution of the United States 
 have fallen in Professor Kellogg's Department. In general it may 
 be remarked, that the college spirit more and more pervades the 
 Institution. It is pleasant also to be able to report that numbers 
 begin to increase. The entering Freshman Class numbers fifteen 
 already. • The number coming forward in the Preparatory Depart- 
 ment are much larger than formerly, and are likely to increase. 
 And touching that department it may be truly said that it is in a 
 very flourishing condition. Thus the reports herewith submitted 
 clearly enough show. In this school the Classical Department has 
 always, from the foundation of the Institution, been well taught. 
 But now it is so systematized under its present Teacher, Mr. San- 
 born, who devotes his whole time to it, and who succeeds in inspiring 
 the pupils with a true scholarly zeal, that it is bringing forward reg- 
 ular annual classes through a prolonged course of thorough classical 
 drill. It needs maturity, and this will come in time. Parents must 
 be convinced of the importance of holding their sons to a thorough 
 preparation for college, in order to their being able to receive the 
 proper and full benefit of the college course. At present this in- 
 stitution is the only feeder of the college. Without it, the college 
 could find no students. This, we hope, will not long be the fact. 
 
27 
 
 In this connection it may be remarked that the recently established 
 classical department in the San Francisco free schools seems to be 
 working admirably. It is to be hoped that the boys to whom this 
 great advantage is now offered, will show by their perseverance in 
 the course of classical study, that they appreciate its value and are 
 determined to make the most of it. The classics are taught to a 
 certain extent in the high schools of some of our other cities but 
 not, so far as I am informed, to the extent of fitting pupils to enter 
 college. 
 
 Something should be said of the library. ' Our little collection of 
 books has been somewhat increased. In the spring came the fine 
 series of Coagt Survey Reports, with maps and profiles, from the 
 Department at Washington. Some valuable volumes were contrib- 
 uted by Mr. Day, and some by Rev. Mr. Brodt. In May, came 
 the books from Connecticut, the private library of the late Rev. Mr. 
 Hart, — contributed by Mrs. Hart, through the agency of Rev. Dr. 
 Baldwin, Secretary of the Western College Society. These books, 
 numbering between six and seven hundred volumes, are a noble 
 addition to our list, and will increase largely to the permanent value 
 of our library. 
 
 Suitable shelves need to be provided for these books before our 
 next term commences. The cases for minerals and geological speci- 
 mens should also be extended, since all the room we now have is 
 packed full, I take pleasure in saying here, that the free use of 
 the Odd Fellows' Library, in San Francisco, has been tendered to 
 the Faculty and to the members of the Senior Class of the college, 
 and has been used with great advantage during the year past. 
 This, library would Joe considered a choice one for any college. It 
 is one of the best, — if not the very best in the State. It is so 
 near to us, that it goes far towards supplying the deficiency of a 
 well-selected library of our own. Such a library we ought soon to 
 have. 
 
 A word respecting apparatus. Enough was procured two years 
 ago for Professor Brewer, to serve the purpose of his excellent 
 course of lectures on Chemistry. It was somewhat increased last 
 year by Mr. Kinney, who gave the lectures ; and all we have is in 
 good condition and will serve hereafter. One new piece, at least, 
 must be procured immediately, and that is an air-pump. And it 
 
28 
 
 should be of tlie best sort. What I have said before of our defi- 
 ciency, as an institution, in the department of science, pertains 
 equally to our apparatus. Our necessity must be made to appeal 
 strongly to the generous men of the State, till somebody is found 
 to contribute the means to enable the college to do its duty in this 
 wide field of science and scientific experiment. The institution ought 
 not to be left a single year so inadequately furnished in depart- 
 ments of knowledge where the world requires special thoroughness. 
 
 In reference to the college in general, the close of the year finds 
 its condition sound and healthful. The year past has brought about 
 decided advances in every feature of excellence. The examina- 
 tions at the close are fairly represented in the reports of Rev. Dr. 
 Dwinell and Rev. W. C. Pond, committee, submitted herewith. 
 These reports, as you observed when they were read, showed 
 both their good points for commendation, and their defects for 
 amendmends. y 
 
 The Commencement was superior to the former one, in the char- 
 acter of the performances, and in the order and dignity with which 
 it was conducted. The degrees were conferred in course upon 
 the members of the graduating class, and the Honorary Degrees, 
 according to the vote of the Board, as follows: That of M.A., on 
 John Bidwell, Delos Lake, John Swett, Saml. I. C. Swezey, W. 
 H. L. Barnes, and S. H. Parker; that of L.L.D., on Oscar L. 
 Shafter; and that of D.D., on M. C. Briggs. 
 
 The meeting of College Alumni on the day preceding, was again 
 this year, as it was last, an occasion of great interest. The num- 
 bers present were about as before, and the exercises were not a 
 whit behind in excellence. A permanent Association of Alumni 
 was formed, to meet annually with the college, on Commencement 
 week, to have its oration, poem, and supper, with accompanying off- 
 hand speeches, as heretofore. 
 
 The condition of the finances of the college are shown in the 
 Treasurer's Repo»t and the accompanying papers, together with the 
 statement of the resources by which the institution is to be sus- 
 tained for the year to come. 
 
 The Homestead Association, which has been organized during 
 the past year for the purpose of selling certain lands adjoining the 
 permanent site of the college, in order to open the way for the re- 
 
29 
 
 moval of the institution as soon as possible to its permanent home, 
 is progressing well. Bj the terms of its subscriptions, its monthly 
 installments will close with April next. 
 
 When all its shares are taken, and the dues thereon paid, a fund 
 will be accumulated with which to proceed with the improvements 
 necessary to placing of the college where it is to remain. In an- 
 ticipation of this, the survey and laying out of the College Park, 
 and, in fact, of the whole tract of land owned by the college, has 
 been put, by direction of the Board, into the hands of Fred. Law 
 Olmstead, Esq., who has already undertaken it. When this work 
 is completed, and a map shall be presented by which this property 
 can come into market, it is believed that enough can be sold to re- 
 alize the money that will be still further required for contemplated 
 improvements. 
 
 Already considerable has been done in the way of starting orna- 
 mental trees in nursery. Seeds of several kinds of trees were 
 procured last winter — some from Europe, some from the Eastern 
 States, and some from this State, and from them a great many 
 thrifty young trees are now growing. The work of planting seeds 
 should be prosecuted next winter on a still larger scale. 
 
 The growths will then be ready for use in two or three years 
 from this time, and be of great value. 
 
 With respect to water supply. Of the nine springs belonging 
 to us, one, the nearest to the college site, is only about three thou- 
 sand feet from the proper place of the reservoir. I have made 
 some inquiries and estimates as to the cost of bringing the water of 
 this spring into a reservoir, and leading it in iron-pipe to the places 
 on the college grounds, or homestead tract, where it may be re- 
 quired for use. I submit the figures from the engineer and others, 
 herewith, merely remarking in this place, that for a few thousand 
 dollars, this spring alone can be made to yield an ample and unfail- 
 ing supply of water for twenty or thirty houses, including all uses 
 for which, in a rural residence, it may be wanted, the reservoir 
 being at least one hundred and fifty feet above the buildings or 
 localities to be supplied. 
 
 When the flow of this spring is not enough, the others can be 
 brought in, in like manner, along the same line from their greater 
 distances, and altogether, you will remember, they were flowing, 
 
30 
 
 last October — the dryest month of the dryest year — over one 
 hundred thousand gallons a day. 
 
 Their daily flow, is, at this time, probably two or three times 
 that, and by proper treatment it could be made much greater than 
 it is. Properly developed and managed, this water may be made 
 a very important, permanent, and useful part of the college 
 property. 
 
 All of which is respectfully submitted. 
 
 S. H. WrLLEY, 
 
 Vice President. 
 College of Califoknia, ) 
 July 7th, 1865. ) 
 
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