-^^tLj^-^^ 
 
 INAUGURATION 
 
 Milllam Iberbert Iperr^ jfaunce 
 
 President of Brown University 
 
 October Seventeenth, 1899 
 
INAUGURATION 
 
 MUliam Iberbert perr^j J^aunce 
 
 President of Brown University 
 
 October Seventeenth, 1899. 
 
 PROVIDENCE, R. I. 
 
 REMINGTON PRINTING CO., 63 WASHINGTON ST. 
 
 1899. 
 
 189950M 
 
ORDER OF EXERCISES 
 
 
 Music 
 
 Invocation 
 By the Senior Fellow of the University 
 
 Address 
 By the Presiding Officer, the Chancellor of the University 
 
 Address 
 By the President of Harvard University 
 
 Music 
 
 Address 
 By the President of Princton University 
 
 Music 
 
 Address 
 By the President of the University of Chicago 
 
 Music 
 
 Inaugural Address 
 By the President of the University 
 
 Hymn 
 
 Alma Mater 
 
 Benediction 
 
 By the Secretary of the Corporation 
 
 2 
 
INVOCATION 
 
 REV. DR. ALVAH HOVEY 
 
 vi O, Thou who art our Maker and Preserver, and who 
 
 ' art at all times manifesting Thy love and kindness to 
 
 the children of men, we come unto thee at this time, 
 seeking Thy blessing. We look upon this as an aus- 
 picious and blessed day; one in which we have a right 
 to hope for Thy grace and the success of the work to 
 which we have put our hands. We thank Thee, Heavenly 
 Father, for all the history of this University, and for the 
 many years in which it has so successfully carried on the 
 work of instructing the young and preparing them for the 
 great duties of life. We believe that Thou hast been with 
 Thy servants who have been in charge of this school of 
 learning; we believe that Thou hast given them grace 
 from above that they might be more anxious for the for- 
 mation of character — more anxious to send forth those 
 into the world who honor truth and righteousness and are 
 ready to give themselves to the service of all that is holy 
 and true — than even for their success in the attainment of 
 knowledge. We bless Thee, O God, that the two are so 
 harmonious ; that the knowledge of Thy works and Thy 
 ways is a preparation for the superior and effective service 
 which we need to render to our fellow men. 
 
 We thank Thee for the long life of the eminent 
 
 men who have presided over this seat of learning; for 
 
 Vjj their fidelity ; for their wisdom; for their diligence, and 
 
 ^^ for their earnestness in the service of instructing those 
 
 '^■" who have come hither to prepare themselves for life ; for 
 
 -v- their great success in sending out so many good and true 
 
 s^ workers for the cause of right and of Christ. We thank 
 
 yi^TThee, Heavenly Father, that Thou hast, in Thy Provi- 
 
dence, brought to us one who is to enter upon the duties 
 which have been so ably performed by his predecessors. 
 We bless Thy name for the culture which Thou has per- 
 mitted him to acquire, and for the service Thou hast given 
 him to render to the cause of Christ and of humanity, and 
 for all the success which he has had in other forms of 
 labor. And now as he comes to this place to take the 
 position at the head of this great University we invoke 
 Thy blessing upon him and upon his associates. We 
 believe that Thou will dwell in their hearts and by Thine 
 own divine wisdom and grace qualify them to do the work 
 to which they have put their hands. Give unto them 
 strength of body and of mind, hope in the Lord and in 
 those who are beside them. Give unto them wisdom in 
 teaching the truth and perseverance in guiding those who 
 are under their care into the straight and narrow way, the 
 narrow way of honest service to God and man, and yet 
 the broad way as it leads into relations with all mankind. 
 We pray, O God, that Thou wilt be with him who has 
 come to the head of this University and enable him to 
 seek for those under his care the highest of all qualifica- 
 tions for life — a noble character and devotion of spirit to 
 what is worthy of men and of our Lord Jesus Christ. We 
 pray that all other institutions represented here to-day 
 may share in Thy favor ; that Thy grace may be upon 
 those who stand at the head of them, and that it may be 
 in the hearts of all that give instruction ; so that the learn- 
 ing may be Christian learning, and the increase of mental 
 power be accompanied by an increase of faith and devo- 
 tion to whatever is noble and true. Grant Thy blessing 
 upon those who speak unto us to-day, and unto all of the 
 friends of this University and of other schools throughout 
 our land. May the benediction of God rest on them and 
 make them fountains of true life to all nations. All of 
 which we ask in the name of our Blessed Redeemer. 
 Amen. 
 
 4 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 CHANCELLOR WILLIAM GODDARD 
 
 The coronation of a ruler rarely takes place upon 
 the day of his accession to power. The rites and 
 formal observances with which, in the presence of princes, 
 high officers of state and the representatives of foreign 
 powers, he assumes the insignia of office, cannot take 
 place at the moment of his accession. We are as- 
 sembled to-day not to invest a monarch with the insignia 
 of office ; not to clothe him with imperial purple and to 
 place in his hand the regal emblems of power ; but we 
 are here to inaugurate the President of an American uni- 
 versity. 
 
 It is fitting that in the presence of the great leaders, 
 who, in their own seats of learning form the characters 
 and develop the intellects of their pupils, he should 
 ratify and confirm the solemn vows taken upon himself 
 at the moment of his consecration to his high office. 
 It is our right that we should learn from his lips a 
 declaration of his theory of academic education, according 
 to which he purposes to train the sons and daughters of 
 the Republic committed to his charge. 
 
 This occasion is graced by the presence of many 
 of the Presidents of the most eminent Universities in 
 the land. They are here to testify to their interest 
 in Brown University, and to manifest their sympathy 
 with our effiDrts to promote the higher education of men 
 and women. May I not also assume that their presence 
 in Rhode Island to-day is an assurance of their sympathy 
 and their fraternal interest in him whom we deem worthy 
 of their confidence and of our strong support? 
 
 5 
 
Never in the history of Brown University — never in 
 the annals of our beloved town — has there been such 
 an assemblage of scholars who bring to us the warm 
 sympathies of lovers of learning and the inspiration of 
 lives devoted to the noblest of earthly tasks. We greet 
 them to-day with pride and gratitude. We welcome them 
 to the city which still bears "the name her righteous 
 father gave," and to the hearts and homes of the loyal 
 sons of Brown University. 
 
 We are honored to-day by the presence of the Presi- 
 dent of Harvard University, the oldest of American 
 Universities, that great seat of learning upon which he 
 has left the ineffaceable mark of his own power. Our 
 own President, Dr. Faunce, was for three years a member 
 of the Board of Preachers at Harvard University, and 
 it is a graceful recognition of this happy association 
 which brings to us on this inauguration day the President 
 of Harvard. 
 
 I have the honor to present to you Dr. Eliot, President 
 of Harvard University. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 PRESIDENT CHARLES W. ELIOT 
 
 Brown University is in some proper sense a denomin- 
 ational institution. Of the 36 trustees, 22, by the 
 provisions of the charter, must be Baptists, the re- 
 maining 14 being distributed among three other denomi- 
 nations. Of the 12 Fellows, eight must be Baptists; and 
 the President must forever be a Baptist. Clearly, there- 
 fore, the University was intended, so long as these founda- 
 
 6 
 
tions should endure, to remain in the control of the Bap- 
 tist denomination. But in New England what do we now 
 understand by a denominational college or university? 
 Do we necessarily take it to mean an institution with a 
 narrow, an exclusive policy? By no means. In these 
 days denominational colleges make welcome students of 
 all denominations. Even the Catholic colleges do that. 
 Even English Oxford and Cambridge, which are extreme 
 types of the denominational university, have in our gene- 
 ration done that. Brown University, as becomes a Rhode 
 Island institution, goes much beyond this common prac- 
 tice, and expressly declares that all its members — teachers 
 and students alike — shall be exempt from religious tests, 
 and shall have "full, free, absolute and uninterrupted 
 liberty of conscience." Some denominational colleges 
 have, indeed, given special privileges to students belong- 
 ing to their own denomination ; but Brown University ex- 
 pressly undertakes that youth of all religious denomina- 
 tions shall be freely admitted to the equal advantages, 
 emoluments and honors of the college. The professors 
 and instructors of Brown University may belong to any 
 denomination, and do, in fact, represent a great variety of 
 denominations. It is in no narrow sense, then, that Brown 
 University is a denominational institution. 
 
 In these days a denominational academy, college or 
 university is a contribution made by a religious denomi- 
 nation to the national education. When the denomination 
 is numerous and widespread, like the Baptist, this con- 
 tribution may be large and continuous, and may have a 
 broad national quality. If the church polity of the 
 denomination is democratic, as is conspicuously the case 
 in the Baptist denomination, zeal for education is an in- 
 evitable outcome of a vigorous denominational life, A 
 democracy, whether in church or in state, must take 
 thought for the education of its voters. 
 
 7 
 
All the long-established New England academies and 
 colleges have had in time past denominational qualities 
 which the present generation would call narrow, and all of 
 them still have denominational characteristics and prefer- 
 ences ; nevertheless, taken together, they have made and 
 are making a splendid contribution to American scholar- 
 ship, to religious toleration and to civil liberty. What 
 denomination has a better right than the Baptist to pro- 
 mote the sacred cause of toleration and freedom? It 
 bought that right with the blood of its martyrs ; it bought 
 that right by the sufferings of its confessors in exile, at 
 the cart-tail and at the stake. Two hundred and forty-five 
 years ago Henry Dunster, the first President of Harvard 
 College, was turned out of his office by the Congregation- 
 alists, who then ruled Massachusetts, because he had 
 ceased to believe in infant baptism, finding adult baptism 
 more scriptural and edifying. He was turned out on a 
 cold, rough, thankless world after 14 years of devoted 
 service under the most adverse conditions ; but to-day 
 Dunster is one of Harvard's saints and heroes, and for a 
 hundred years Harvard has been devoted in every fibre of 
 her body and every drop of her blood to freedom of 
 thought and speech. 
 
 The wrong policy for a denominational academy or 
 college is exclusiveness and partiality towards members of 
 its own denomination. This is an enfeebling policy, be- 
 cause it results in the education of the young members of 
 a single denomination apart from the youth of other de- 
 nominations, and keeps them in ignorance of the condi- 
 tions which prevail in the real world into which they must 
 go out. American society to-day is in the highest degree 
 heterogeneous as regards tastes, habits, political opinions 
 and religious convictions. The well-educated youth, who 
 is to win success in such a heterogeneous society, should 
 have been made familiar with this variety, and not se- 
 
 8 
 
eluded with those of his own sort. In a free country, 
 which has no established church, it is against the interests 
 of any denomination, no matter how large and venerable 
 it may be, to educate its youth entirely by themselves. 
 Brown University, then, is an institution conducted by a 
 great denomination of Christians on principles of complete 
 equality and liberty in a Commonwealth which the founders 
 chose as the seat of the institution expressly because it 
 was a State pledged to perfect toleration. 
 
 It should be observed that the rite to which the Baptist 
 denomination attaches especial importance is one of the 
 most universal of religious symbols; though it cannot 
 have in our well-watered, temperate regions the intense 
 significance it has in arid or desert countries. The " water 
 of life " is a phrase which was Egyptian centuries before 
 it was Hebrew or Christian ; and the Egyptian felt the 
 force of that imagery with an intensity born of his absolute 
 dependence on one source of water, the river Nile. Its 
 strong insistence on a rite allies the denomination also to 
 the religious parent of Christianity, the Hebrew religion ; 
 for the Hebrews were the most complete ritualists the 
 world has ever known. The rite of baptism and insist- 
 ence on that rite have behind them, then, an immense re- 
 ligious significance which is at once historical, climatic and 
 racial. 
 
 A firmly established denominational college reaches out 
 all over the country, on the one hand to schools con- 
 ducted by the denomination, and on the other to the theo- 
 logical seminaries of the denomination. Streams of influ- 
 ence and power flow inward to the central college year 
 after year, and flow outward from it to the widely scat- 
 tered schools and seminaries with which it is affiliated. 
 These inward and outward currents, flowing far and strong, 
 are both beneficent, and both are essential to the vigor- 
 ous life of the institution ; but in addition to these streams 
 
the college lives by and for its local influence. Brown 
 University is the chief institution of education in Rhode 
 Island ; it is the chief institution of education in Provi- 
 dence, one of the richest of American cities in proportion 
 to its population. The resort to Brown University from 
 the city and the State is large, and is in good measure 
 independent of denominational affiliations. This local re- 
 sort is the source of a real obligation resting on State 
 and city alike, the obligation to befriend and support 
 the institution of learning from which thousands of their 
 sons have received, or are receiving, a good part of 
 their intellectual and moral training. This support should 
 be of two sorts ; first, sympathy, respect and good will, 
 and secondly, the pecuniary support which provides build- 
 ings, collections and permanent funds. 
 
 There is nothing which characterizes a community more 
 accurately, nothing by which its intelligence may be more 
 fairly estimated, than its attitude towards the institutions 
 of education within its borders. The steady giving to 
 schools and colleges which goes on generation after gen- 
 eration in some American communities is the effect of a 
 diffused public opinion rather than of exceptional wisdom 
 on the part of the few individuals who actually take the 
 beneficent action ; that is, the form in which the good-will 
 of individuals toward posterity or contemporary society is 
 expressed is a result of a wide-spread conviction as to 
 what kind of giving is the most expedient and profitable. 
 In some American communities the beneficence of private 
 persons is directed chiefly to hospitals, asylums, refuges, 
 homes for the aged and similar objects ordinarily called 
 charities. These are all necessary institutions, but they 
 are only palliatives ; they afford relief from existing evils 
 or from common calamities. In other communities private 
 benevolence is directed to the maintenance of churches, 
 schools, colleges, museums, gardens and parks. These 
 
 lO 
 
also are really charities, though they are not commonly so 
 called, but they are constructive charities, which do much 
 more than mitigate evils; they defend society against 
 threatened evil, fortify good and supplant evil by good. 
 The intelligence and prospective vitality of any community 
 may be safely judged by its preference for one form or the 
 other of benevolent action. Eastern Massachusetts, ever 
 since it was settled, has conspiciously preferred the second 
 form of benevolence, while not neglecting the first. Has 
 Rhode Island, has Providence exhibited the same intelli- 
 gent preference? Brown University incessantly offers the 
 State and the city opportunity to pursue effectively the 
 better way. 
 
 The day is long past when the University could be 
 chiefly the care of a few benevolent individuals or families. 
 The somewhat exaggerated individualism of Rhode Island 
 has probably tended to postpone the effective co-opera- 
 tion of the people of the city and the state in the building 
 up of the University. But now a new era dawns. A young, 
 large-minded minister has been chosen President, who has 
 proved in a great church that he possesses sagacity, per- 
 suasiveness, perseverance and foresight. May he be 
 enabled by the patient exercise of these noble qualities 
 and with the good-will of this entire community to guide 
 wisely the intellectual and moral policy of the institution, 
 and to make it rich in all the best resources of modern 
 education. 
 
 Chancellor Goddard: 
 
 The sympathy which, in the early days 
 existed between Brown University and Princeton Univer- 
 sity has not yet spent its course. The close connection of 
 the two Universities is a matter of history and of great 
 interest to all, and I trust that the bonds which unite 
 these institutions of learning will never be weakened. 
 
 II 
 
I have the great pleasure of presenting to you the dis- 
 tinguished scholar who is now the President of Princeton 
 University, the Reverend Dr. Patton. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 PRESIDENT FRANCIS L. PATTON 
 
 When Dr. Faunce kindly wrote me to the effect that he 
 would be glad to have me say a few words this afternoon, 
 I was in Great Britain, and did not receive his letter until 
 some days after my return. It was some time after that 
 before I could make up my mind that it would be possible 
 for me to be here to-day, and so I come with no set 
 speech, but simply to say out of my heart how cordially 
 I rejoice with the authorities of Brown University on this 
 occasion, and how heartily I congratulate Dr. Faunce, and 
 how I welcome him to the goodly company of college 
 presidents. 
 
 There are close relations between Princeton and Brown. 
 The first president of Brown University, I believe, was a 
 Princeton man. That debt, however, has been very hand- 
 somely paid in the gift to Princeton, on the part of Brown 
 University, of my dear friend, the lovable Dr. Murray, 
 whose loss, as Dean of Princeton, we still mourn. 
 
 I am not of those who had the honor of counting them- 
 selves as pupils of Dr. Wayland, but Dr. Wayland's text- 
 book was the first book in moral philosophy that I ever 
 read. It was the text-book in use in my undergraduate 
 days, and I have never ceased to have the greatest rever- 
 ence for the memory of Dr. Wayland, whom I always think 
 of as associated in my mind with those other conspicuous 
 college presidents. President Woolsey, Dr. Mark Hopkins 
 and Dr. McCann — a peculiar type of college president. 
 
 12 
 
I welcome Dr. Faunce to the work in which he is to 
 engage with some experience of the pleasures and of the 
 responsibilities and labors connected with that work. But 
 in spite of the work I nevertheless congratulate him on 
 the opportunity that he has of doing a great service. 
 There will be times (if I may venture to say this to him), 
 I imagine, when he will envy the college professors, for 
 they will have the undisturbed opportunity for carrying 
 on special research. If he finds time for special 
 research and microscopic study, he will be the only 
 university president of my acquaintance who has that 
 rare power of uniting minute scholarship and mar- 
 velous executive ability — except President Harper. There 
 will be times when the university professor will come 
 to him and say, " I would like to go to Europe a little be- 
 fore Commencement, for I have some studies that I wish 
 to prosecute in the libraries of Europe." He will say, 
 " Certainly you can go." Or, waiting until a little later, 
 they will come to him and say, "Will you mind if I do 
 not come back just at the beginning of the term? There 
 are some duties I cannot very well fulfill before the middle 
 of October. They are all along the line of my department, 
 and I will be all the better fitted for the work I am called 
 upon to do." And he will say, " Certainly, make the 
 largest possible use of all your opportunities." Not so he. 
 He will have to be here when the University opens, and 
 he will have to be here when the University closes. He 
 is the captain of the ship. He must be on the bridge when 
 it leaves port and when it makes port; when the wind 
 blows and when it calms. So there are difficulties con- 
 nected with the administration of this great office, and yet 
 there are very pleasant duties associated with it, too. 
 
 I do not think of him as leaving the ministry when he 
 leaves his parish. I congratulate him on coming here in 
 the prime of his manhood with an opportunity to make a 
 
 13 
 
still fuller proof of his ministry. I do not regard this as 
 a secular calling at all. It is a very holy calling indeed. 
 It is a holy calling, because the President of this Univer- 
 sity has a great opportunity given him to direct the moral 
 forces, which, of themselves, whether he wills it or no, 
 will have a great deal to do in shaping the moral destiny 
 of the American nation, and it is in the light of the rela- 
 tions of the University to the country and out of high 
 patriotic consideration that I look upon the position of a 
 college president as being one of such magnitude and im- 
 portance. 
 
 Now Mr. Lecky says somewhere in his History of 
 Europe that the world is governed by its ideal. Whether 
 a nation deliberately forms an ideal or not, it has one, and 
 the keen observer can gather it by induction. Whether 
 every individual forms an ideal for himself, or not, he has 
 one, and he is moving in the direction of self-realization 
 whether he knows it or not; and the keen observer, 
 watching his history, can tell him what that ideal is. The 
 most important thing is that the nation's ideal shall be 
 right, and a moral ideal. Far more important is it that 
 we should be right than that we should be victorious or 
 prosperous, and the bearing of the University upon the 
 nation's ideals is very marked, very close, very definite. 
 I do not say that we have never done wrong as a people. 
 I do not say that Great Britain never has done wrong as a 
 people ; but I do say that if these two Anglo-Saxon peo- 
 ples do not habitually realize right and are not governed 
 by high moral motives, then there are no nations in the 
 world thus actuated. The time has not come, but it will 
 come, and that there are so many who are praying for it, 
 looking toward it and believing in it, when international 
 difficulties shall be settled by arbitration. The time has 
 not come, but I trust there may come the time when there 
 will be a proper realization of the relation that the indi- 
 
 14 
 
vidual sustains to the organization, that will keep us from 
 unduly exalting the individual at the expense of the great 
 doctrine of self-sacrifice, and will keep us, on the other 
 hand, from so exalting the doctrine of self-sacrifice as to 
 practically blot out as nothing the life of the individual. 
 And if there has been an era of selfishness, and individual- 
 ism has been overdone, it is very much a matter of ques- 
 tion whether, just now, something ought not to be said in 
 behalf of the value of the individual, and his right to him- 
 self. Reckless views of life and thoughtless views of 
 death and false conceptions of glory are worthy only of 
 men who do not believe that the individual is endowed 
 with immortality and is responsible for the way he lives; 
 and I do not believe that there is any place where the con- 
 science of the nation can be so well cultivated and where 
 an international conscience is so likely to be evolved, as in 
 connection with sound views inculcated in the class rooms 
 of the Christian university. It is because I believe that 
 the moral life and the moral instinct will not survive the 
 moral conviction, that I believe that I am not far wrong 
 in saying that the university professor, to a very large 
 extent, holds in his hand the key to national destiny so far 
 as moral ideals are concerned. 
 
 Now the university student is likely to part company 
 with fundamental morals in two directions, and he needs 
 the constant stimulus of moral life from two distinct 
 sources. He is in great danger of weakening with respect 
 to his moral life, and he needs, therefore, to come under 
 the constant religious influence of the university. It is 
 better for Latin and Greek and better for mathematics 
 and history that a man is no longer regarded as a proper 
 person to teach in these departments simply because he 
 was ordained to the Christian ministry; but, on the other 
 hand, the fact that so few of our professors are now min- 
 isters of the gospel raises the question whether we are not 
 
 15 
 
in danger (I do not say we have suffered from it) of 
 suffering a loss of moral momentum on that account. 
 Whether that be so or not, this certainly is the case, that 
 when undergraduates have passed through those years, 
 acquiri-ng a knowledge of Latin and Greek, mathematics 
 and elementary history, and come to deal with the funda- 
 mental problems in jurisprudence and science, and the 
 fundamental problems with reference to the structure of 
 the cosmos, and fundamental questions touching the inter- 
 pretation of history, they find that all these questions go 
 down, at the root, to certain fundamental metaphysical in- 
 quiries that carry with them the very life of one's religious 
 being. I say that the question as to whether a man shall 
 graduate at the university, continuing to believe in author- 
 itative morality, and continuing to have place for an 
 authoritative use of the ten commandments is a far more 
 important subject than the question as to whether he shall 
 be familiar with the classics and shall have read over a 
 large area of the Greek tragedians. I do believe most 
 devoutedly and sincerely that all of the questions resolve 
 themselves into two. A certain professor of philosophy 
 told us the other day that out of the philosophers, and we 
 had three or four hundred of them in this country, there 
 were only about ten who were doing anything ; and the 
 worst of it was that the theologians had struck work and 
 were standing absolutely idle waiting for the philosophers 
 to furnish them with the material which they were to use 
 in the resolving of theological questions. I think he over- 
 estimated the idleness of the philosopher and the depend- 
 ence of the theologian. For myself, I am not asking 
 philosophy to give us very much material for the theolog- 
 ical structure, but we do ask it not to destroy these two 
 things; and these are the only two philosophical questions, 
 generically speaking, in theology. One is whether 
 Almighty God exists as numerically separable from the 
 
 i6 
 
universe he has made ; and the other is whether finite 
 souls exist numerically separable from each other and 
 eternally and immortally separable from God. The first 
 truths of philosophy are the existence of God and the im- 
 mortality of the soul, and if a man goes wrong and be- 
 comes a Pantheist, we may ask whether we are to have 
 any candidates for the ministry after that. I hope not — 
 of that kind. I believe not. However, 1 believe in spe- 
 cific supernaturalism and that the philosophical question is 
 logically first, indeed the very warp and woof of the uni- 
 versity curriculum, and I believe it is fundamental, and is 
 bound to go when fundamental religion expires, and that 
 Ichabod is written upon the state's history, when it loses 
 faith in fundamental morality. I believe that the key to 
 the situation is very largely in the hands of the professors 
 of philosophy in the American university, and therefore no 
 higher post can be given to any man than that of being 
 the guardian of the best and fundamental ethical interests 
 of the university such as is involved in the being the presi- 
 dent of that university. For whatever other duties he may 
 have, he has at least this privilege of standing at that gate 
 and saying that the Agnostic and the Atheist shall not 
 enter these halls as an accredited teacher of fundamental 
 truth. 
 
 Chancellor Goddard: 
 
 "The youngest of our great universities, 
 whose marvellous development has bewildered the educa- 
 tors of two hemispheres, is to-day represented by her 
 President. I present to you President Harper of the 
 University of Chicago/' 
 
 17 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 PRESIDENT WILLIAM R. HARPER 
 
 A new stage in the life of an institution is at the same 
 time Hke and unlike a new stage in the life of an 
 individual. 
 
 The likeness is to be found in the fact that in both cases 
 the new stage marks growth based upon experience of 
 life, and, therefore, unless abnormal influences prevail, for- 
 ward progress. This progress signifies greater breadth, 
 as the result of experience, and greater strength, as the 
 result of the lapse of time. There may have been experi- 
 ence without a corresponding breadth, and there may have 
 been lapse of time without corresponding gain of strength ; 
 but without experience and without time there cannot be 
 breadth or strength. 
 
 The unlikeness is to be found in the fact that while the 
 individual, in becoming old, of necessity loses by degrees 
 the properties of youth, and with them the possibility of 
 self-renewal, the institution, however old, may take on 
 new youth, and thus both old and young may have all the 
 strength and experience of age. With all the freshness 
 and vigor of youth, we celebrate to-day a new stage in 
 the life of Brown University, and the celebration takes on 
 significance because it is a new stage in the life of an in- 
 stitution already old, an institution whose history is marked 
 by many stages of glorious achievement. It would seem 
 that at such a time as this all the mighty forces of this 
 magnificent past were still in existence, waiting only to be 
 summoned ; and that these forces, with their collective 
 influence, might easily be welded in conjunction with the 
 new forces which are now being set in motion. A herit- 
 age from the past is either a great blessing or a great 
 
 i8 
 
curse. In this instance it is a blessing, the greatness of 
 which the future prosperity of the institution will only 
 make more certain. 
 
 The occasion has for many of us a peculiar significance 
 in the fact that we celebrate the beginning of a new period 
 in the life of a college which represents a type of in- 
 stitution by which our country has been so signally 
 blessed. The New England college stands second only to 
 the Church in the beneficent influence which it has exerted 
 throughout the length and the breadth of these United 
 States. This type of institution has, indeed, controlled the 
 lower and the higher education of the entire land. It is the 
 New England college that has given the New England 
 States the place of supremacy in higher life and thought. 
 It has been men trained in the New England colleges who 
 have founded similar colleges throughout the Middle and 
 Western and Southern States. It is to this type of institu- 
 tion that the country at large owes the measure of intelli- 
 gence with which affairs of government as well as private 
 affairs have been so admirably administered ; and that the 
 Church is indebted for the steady, forward movement 
 which has characterized its history. 
 
 This institution, with its sister institutions, of like pur- 
 pose and organization, has lived a life so strong and so 
 helpful to our American humanity that any event in this 
 life which indicates renewed vigor or strengthened action 
 deserves to be celebrated as an event of high and holy 
 character. 
 
 For still another reason, this hour, it seems to me, is an 
 hour of solemn significance. The period upon which the 
 institution now enters, under the guidance of its new leader 
 is, essentially, synchronous with the beginning of a new 
 century. The first and last years of every great division 
 of time are felt to be full of meaning. The new adminis- 
 tration of this university will cover the opening years of 
 
 19 
 
the twentieth century; and will justly share the signifi- 
 cance of these years. The progress in the world at large 
 during the closing half-century has been phenomenal. As 
 examples of this progress we are accustomed to cite the 
 advance made in methods of transportation and com- 
 munication. The college man knows that the progress 
 in the college world has been equally great. The trans- 
 formation in methods and matter of college work wrought 
 within 50 years has been as marked as any that has taken 
 place in the business world, and the principles underlying 
 these changes are for the most part identical in the busi- 
 ness and the college worlds. If in these last moments of 
 the nineteenth century we stand amazed at what has taken 
 place in the sphere of commerce, we may likewise be 
 astounded at what has taken place in the sphere of educa- 
 tion. It is at this peculiar juncture that the new President 
 takes up his work. It is for him to appropriate all that 
 has been established, and with open mind to await the un- 
 veiling of the secrets of the new century, secrets which in 
 number and importance will surely equal those of the 
 days gone by. 
 
 In this connection I may be permitted to dwell for a 
 moment on one of the many features which, as the signs 
 of the times would seem to indicate, will characterize 
 20th century college education. 
 
 This feature is, itself, one of several outgrowths of the 
 application of the doctrine of individualism. Individual- 
 ism in education as distinguished from collectivism is the 
 greatest contribution of the 19th century to the cause of 
 college education. The application of the doctrine is 
 seen in numerous modifications already introduced, as in 
 the introduction of the elective system in courses of in- 
 struction, the encouragement of officers of instruction to 
 specialize in this or that department, or in this or that 
 sub-division of a department. The work of the student 
 
 20 
 
has been In large measure transformed as a result of the 
 wide choice of subjects placed before him, and by the 
 freedom given him to make his own choice. But now, in 
 order that this freedom may not be abused, and in order 
 that the student may receive the assistance so essential to 
 his highest success, another step in the onward evolution 
 will take place. This step will be the scientific study of 
 the student himself To-day the professor's energy is 
 practically exhausted in his study of the subject which is 
 to be presented to the student. In the time that is coming 
 there must be work performed either by the regular in- 
 structors or by those appointed especially for the purpose 
 to study in detail the man or woman to whom instruction 
 is offered. Just as, at present, in many institutions every 
 student upon entrance receives a careful physical examin- 
 ation, in order, if possible, to discover any physical weak- 
 ness, and to provide such special exercise as will tend in 
 time to remove it; and just as from time to time each 
 student is re-examined physically to note the progress of 
 such remedies as have been applied or to discover the 
 rise of new complications, so in the future it will be a 
 regular function of the college to make a general diag- 
 nosis of each student. 
 
 (i) This will be made with special reference to his 
 character, whether he is responsible, or careless, or shift- 
 less, or perhaps vicious ; (2) with special reference like- 
 wise to his intellectual capacity, whether he is unusually 
 able, or bright, or average, or slow, or dull ; whether he is 
 industrious, or irregular, or lazy; (3) with reference to 
 his special intellectual characteristics, whether he is inde- 
 pendent and original, or one who works largely along 
 routine lines ; whether his logical sense is keen, or aver- 
 age, or dull ; whether his ideas are flexible, or easily di- 
 verted, or rigid ; whether he has control of his mind, or is 
 given to mind wandering, and to what extent he has power 
 
 21 
 
to overcome difficulties ; (4) with reference to his special 
 capacities and tastes, whether these are evenly balanced, 
 or there exists a marked preference for some special sub- 
 ject; whether he prefers those aspects of study which are 
 of the book type, or those of a mechanical or con- 
 structive type, or those of a laboratory type ; whether his 
 special gift lies along lines of an aesthetic character, or 
 those of a literary, or scientific, or philosophical character ; 
 whether his special gift, if in literary lines, lies in criti- 
 cism, or interpretation, or creative work; whether his 
 preference in scientific lines is for the observational, the 
 experimental side of work, or for general principles ; (5) 
 with reference to the social side of his nature ; whether he 
 is fond of companionship ; whether he is a leader or fol- 
 lower among his fellows ; whether he is a man of aft'airs, 
 or devotes himself exclusively to his studies; the char- 
 acter of his recreation, the way in which he spends his 
 leisure hours ; whether he is compelled to work for self- 
 support, or for the support of others. These details and 
 many others which I may not now describe will be secured 
 in various ways, in part from preparatory teachers, in part 
 from parents, in part from the student himself, in part also 
 from careful observation of his work in the first months of 
 his college life. It will not be an easy task, but the diffi- 
 culty will be no greater than the importance of it. 
 
 This diagnosis, when made, will serve as the basis for 
 the selection of studies in the diff'erent stages of advance- 
 ment, for it is as certain that the student up to a certain 
 age should be required to do work for which he has no 
 special taste or ability as that, after such an age, he should 
 be guided to take that for which he has special taste or 
 ability. These facts will be of paramount value in deter- 
 mining the character of the instructor under whom he 
 should study ; for it is clearly manifest that students of 
 different disposition and of different attitude of mind, may 
 
 22 
 
not work with equal success under the same instructor 
 even in the same subject. It is here that the large insti- 
 tution with several instructors in a given department will 
 have the advantage over the smaller institution. It is as 
 important that students should have election on the matter 
 of teachers as in the matter of subjects. A student who 
 will utterly fail to do good work under one instructor will 
 often do excellent work in the same subject under an in- 
 structor of a different temperament, although both in- 
 structors are of equal ability as teachers. 
 
 The data thus gathered will determine the character of 
 all advice given the student and of any punishment admin- 
 istered ; for punishment as well as advice must be adapted 
 to each individual case and no two cases can possibly be 
 alike. 
 
 The material, likewise, will determine in large measure, 
 the career of the student. The most pathetic experience 
 of college life is to find a man at the end of his college 
 course as uncertain, with respect to his life work, as he 
 was at its beginning ; an uncertainty due, for the most 
 part, to the fact that he has not yet discovered his powers 
 and tastes; that he has not studied himself so as to know 
 himself; that he has not been studied by his instructors 
 so as to be known by them. 
 
 Here, in some degree, is the difference between college 
 and university. The college is the place for the student 
 to study himself and test himself in order that he may 
 learn for what God made him, the college is the place for 
 the instructor to study each student and to point out his 
 weak points and his strong points, that the former may be 
 corrected and the latter still more greatly strengthened. 
 The university is the place for men who have come to 
 know themselves, who have learned what they can do and 
 what they cannot do, to study in the line of their chosen 
 calling. University life begins only when a man has dis- 
 
 23 
 
covered the subject or subjects which are connected with 
 his Hfe work. No man has any business to enter the uni- 
 versity until his Hfework has been determined. Some 
 remedy must be found for the confusion as to the re 
 spective functions of college and university which now 
 exists almost universally in our country. 
 
 This feature of 20th century college education will come 
 to be regarded as of greatest importance, and 50 years 
 hence will prevail as widely as it is now lacking. It is the 
 next step in the evolution of the principle of individualism 
 and its application will, in due time, introduce order and 
 system into our educational work, where now only chaos 
 is to be found. May the institution under whose auspices 
 we meet to-day be one of the first to make this scientific 
 study of the student a part of its regular work. 
 
 I bring on this occasion the greetings of the University 
 of Chicago, and also those of the great West and North- 
 west to which the city of Chicago is the gate of entrance, 
 a territory which includes many worthy institutions of 
 learning, which numbers among its citizens many alumni 
 of Brown University, as well as alumni of other New Eng- 
 land institutions. The West gratefully acknowledges its 
 debt of gratitude to the East for the Eastern life and 
 thought which transplanted and adjusted to its new en- 
 vironment we now call Western life and thought. The 
 West gladly acknowledges the particular debt which it 
 owes to Brown University for the many men of strong 
 character and of forceful influence whom Brown has con- 
 tributed to the uplifting of the West. 
 
 The West unites with the East in a prayer for the long 
 and prosperous administration of the distinguished man 
 who now becomes Brown's President. 
 
 24 
 
Chancellor Goddard: 
 
 The President of Brown University needs 
 no introduction to a Rhode Island audience, nor to those 
 scholars who have come from afar to grace with their 
 presence his admission to leadership in the republic of 
 letters. 
 
 ADDRESS 
 
 PRESIDENT WILLIAM H. P. FAUNCE 
 
 Last June a host of loyal graduates of Brown Univer- 
 sity assembled from far and near in this venerable edifice, 
 and with a simple but solemn ceremony recognized a new 
 period in the unfolding history of their Alma Mater. 
 Technically and legally that memorable occasion was suf- 
 ficient. But in two respects it was incomplete. It gave 
 us no opportunity to welcome representatives of sister 
 Universities and to listen to their voices ; and it was too 
 brief to allow any discussion of the great problems now 
 before the educational world or any foreshadowing of the 
 future. 
 
 Therefore to-day we especially felicitate ourselves on 
 the presence of the official heads of two of the oldest and 
 one of the youngest of American Universities. How 
 much the higher education of the nineteenth century owes 
 to these educators we will not attempt to say. We cherish 
 gratitude for that educational insight which in Cambridge 
 thirty years ago pointed out the path which our colleges, 
 some eagerly and some reluctantly, have since followed, 
 that intellectual integrity which has never swerved from 
 truth, and that sympathy and counsel \yhich are ever ex- 
 
tended to the youngest and least experienced of the 
 presidential fraternity. We are grateful also for that 
 metaphysical and theological acumen, for that clearness 
 of vision and lucidity of speech which have made another 
 of our guests the leader of the Princetonian host, for that 
 mastery of difficulties and that sympathy with young men 
 which have enabled him to make the illustrious mantle of 
 his great predecessors more illustrious by wearing it him- 
 self. And we rejoice in that prophetic glance which dis- 
 covered only recently the academic coign of vantage in 
 the city of Chicago ; in that unique organizing and ad- 
 ministrative ability which can evoke a university from the 
 prairie; and in that power to inspire and energize which 
 has made every institution of learning in the western 
 states to throb with new impulse and advance with new 
 courage. 
 
 That these and other leaders in the realm of education 
 are here to-day is public demonstration that our Univer- 
 sity is no provincial and private school whose growth 
 concerns a limited circle of friends, but is an institution of 
 national significance, is one of the great sisterhood of 
 American colleges, born of the same deep devotion and 
 pressing by various paths toward the same great goal. 
 If from some island-dotted bay, like our own Narragan- 
 sett, the flowing tides were suddenly drained away, we 
 should discover that all the islands which now lift their 
 severed summits above the surface are united below. 
 Superficially divided and distant, they preserve an invisi- 
 ble but fundamental unity. In this presence the tide of 
 separating interests has ebbed away, and we perceive that 
 all the colleges of the land are parts of one historic move- 
 ment, sharers in a common tradition and a common joy. 
 
 If wt are heartened as we look around us to-day, we 
 find still more to encourage as we look behind us. One 
 hundred and thirty-five years of academic achievement 
 
 36 
 
consecrate this spot forever to sound learning. This old 
 New England meeting-house, whose spire reminds us that 
 our educational impulse is English-born, was built, accord- 
 ing to the quaint old tablet, "for the worship of God and 
 to hold Commencements in;" and so long as the worship 
 of God survives in this region, so long shall survive and 
 flourish that education without which worship sinks to 
 superstition and God becomes an empty name. The 
 most permanent institutions of the world are its Universi- 
 ties. Families flourish and die out, governments are sub- 
 ject to revolution and decay, local churches function for 
 a time and are displaced by others, but the Universities 
 of Bologna and Paris and Oxford antedate most existing 
 institutions, and the established Universities of our time 
 will outlive all that surrounds them. To serve such a 
 University is to serve the nation and the race ; to be 
 identified through long years with its development is to 
 enter a happy immortality ; and to pass through its 
 opportunities is to enter with emancipated mind into the 
 intellectual heritage of humanity. He who would "hitch 
 his wagon to a star " may well select out of all the twink- 
 ling lights in the modern sky one of the constellation of 
 American colleges, and find in serving that the swiftest, 
 surest way to serve the world. The victory of Germany 
 in the Franco-Prussian struggle, her leadership in science 
 and philosophy to-day, her profound influence throughout 
 Christendom can be traced directly to the twenty Universi- 
 ties which in her small territory summon the students of 
 the civilized world. The victory of the United States 
 over Spain was the victory of academic and scientific 
 training over noble but blind patriotism, and the retire- 
 ment of Spain from the Western Hemisphere is part of 
 the inevitable and continuous withdrawal of those who 
 fear the light of truth before those who love it. The 
 English response to the call for a University at Khartoum is 
 
 2^ 
 
quite as notable as any victory of English arms, and no 
 man can hope to influence the future of our Republic if 
 he ignores the American college. Many an obscure insti- 
 tution in this country may be able to show few famous 
 graduates. But it may have rendered this distinguished 
 service : it has given its supporters an object of continu- 
 ous sacrifice and ideal devotion ; in a commercial age it 
 has taught the community that man does not live by bread 
 only; amid the fierce rivalries of party and sect it has 
 united good men in good work; and by quietly persisting 
 has deepened reverence for the past and given men hope 
 for the future. 
 
 What then are the duties of men associated in the 
 University life of today? Can we outline in a few words 
 some of the obvious obligations which rest upon the offi- 
 cers and the supporters of a modern University? 
 
 It is certainly the duty of the president to preside; i. e. 
 to master every smallest detail of the administration, and 
 sec that every task is faithfully and efficiently performed. 
 It is his duty to know what work is done in each class- 
 room and what is the influence exerted by each officer; to 
 hold the University to high standards of scholarship, even 
 though it means the sacrifice of numbers ; and to preserve 
 its ideals unquenched by petty details or weak concession. 
 It is his duty to relinquish all ambitions that conflict with 
 his service to the University, and devote all his powers to 
 its enrichment and upbuilding. It is his duty constantly 
 to make the needs of the University known to the public, 
 and to show the opportunities it furnishes for those who 
 wish to bless the world. But it is also his duty never to 
 degrade his office by becoming a mere business manager, 
 a general solicitor of aid, or shrewd manipulator of men. 
 Always he must think more of students than of studies, 
 more of the search for truth than of the search for 
 materials, more of the making of men than the contrivance 
 
 of machinery. 
 
 28 
 
It is the duty of the Corporation to realize the respon- 
 sibilities which attend their slightest action. Into their 
 keeping all the results of the past are committed ; to 
 them thousands of alumni look for wise and conservative 
 but fearless action ; and what they do today will echo 
 through the nation tomorrow. They can do far more 
 than to attend routine committee meetings, or make an 
 annual visit to the University. They must know the en- 
 tire history of the University and see that the history is 
 known to the world. They must stir up public interest in 
 education when stagnant, and conserve it when aroused. 
 They must secure by their example and influence the 
 means by which the college is to be enlarged and en- 
 riched. They must study educational problems and the 
 latest solutions of them. They must care for all endow- 
 ments with scrupulous fidelity, see that their original pur- 
 pose is fulfilled, and that no college property is allowed 
 to remain unproductive. They must bestow few honorary 
 degrees, and bestow them not to assist worthy persons in 
 achieving greatness, but as a recognition of greatness al- 
 ready achieved. In this University the Corporation con- 
 sists of two distinct but united bodies, the Fellows and 
 the Trustees. Upon the Fellows the ancient and noble 
 charter lays the responsibility of conferring degrees and 
 ultimately determining the course of study. Rightly to 
 perform the latter function is one of the great achieve- 
 ments in any human life. The methods of instruction 
 have vastly changed in twenty-five years. There should 
 be corresponding change in organization and administra- 
 tion. But that this change may come about by true 
 evolution from the past, that it may be intelligent and 
 permanent, we need to study the administration of all the 
 great universities at home and abroad. Such study might 
 wisely issue in a more complete organization of depart- 
 ments, and in a body of University statutes, so that the 
 
 29 
 
powers of the University officers should be no longer 
 determined by tradition, but by clear assignment and 
 limitation. Such definition of function is necessary to 
 the continuous pursuit of permanent academic policy. 
 
 The duty of the professors is first of all to love knowl- 
 edge and continually to advance it. They are to be both 
 discoverers and teachers. The teacher who has never 
 been at the circumference of human knowledge and made 
 independent research and fresh discovery, who has never 
 stood like the discoverer of the Pacific, " silent, upon 
 a peak in Darien," is necessarily an echo, growing fainter 
 as the years pass. On the other hand, the original 
 investigator in science, or history, or language, who fails 
 to keep about him a band of eager students and disciples, 
 easily becomes a doctrinaire, with no apprehension of 
 how knowledge should cuhiiinate in life. Research and 
 teaching are rivals only as the left hand is the rival of the 
 right. The faculty of an institution of the higher learning 
 must remember that a University is greater than any one 
 department, and that each department is preserved from 
 provincialism only by a vital contact with all the others. 
 The unity of the faculty fitly and finely symbolizes the 
 unity of knowledge — many facts, but one truth. 
 
 The teacher is at all hazards to preserve his intellectual 
 candor, and to maintain unsullied the Lehrfreiheit which 
 is a part of the birthright of every true school. Any col- 
 lege in this country that should receive any gift whatso- 
 ever on condition of making the donor's personal private 
 views the standard of instruction would be guilty of an in- 
 conceivable degradation both of itself and of the cause of 
 education which it misrepresents. In partisan politics, in 
 the petty disputes of the market place, in the heated 
 cries which fill the air in the morning and are forgotten at 
 night, the University can officially have no part. It can 
 no more descend to such things than can the Supreme 
 
 30 
 
Court of the State. The University declines to rush into 
 the arena on every pretext, or fling itself as make-weight 
 into every trembling scale, deliberately choosing to in- 
 fluence the world not by caucus and hustings, but by the 
 slow, invisible yet absolutely irresistible processes of edu- 
 cation. This does not mean the separation of the Univer- 
 sity from the life around it. On the contrary, that life is 
 to be permeated and moulded by the influence of the 
 teaching staff. Each member of the faculty will gladly 
 give time and strength to any cause that needs assistance. 
 But he will not seek to make the University as a whole 
 the organ of individual opinions, or attempt to force its 
 students into certain views. The University is to train 
 students into such independence of judgment, such clear 
 intelligence, such soundness of reasoning, such loyalty to 
 truth and reverence for righteousness, that whatever 
 views they hold, they shall hold them honestly, defend 
 them bravely, and incarnate them in unsullied lives. 
 
 In order to do this all the members of the faculty should 
 cultivate intimate personal relations with their students. 
 To be satisfied with purely official relations, to deliver a 
 lecture merely as a necessary interruption of more con- 
 genial private study is to miss one's greatest opportunity. 
 Our aim in undergraduate work is not to create specialists, 
 but to make men and women. The faculty, beyond all 
 others in the world, can by the personal touch of life on 
 life, communicate high-mindedness, courage, integrity, 
 faith, and those simple, homely virtues without which all 
 knowledge will vanish "as an insubstantial pageant faded." 
 No parchment or microscope or stuffed specimen can 
 serve as substitute for the living personality of the teacher, 
 and to him we may say with Emerson: "What you are 
 speaks so loud I cannot hear what you say.'' This Uni- 
 versity has during all its history been rich in powerful 
 personalities, men who were in themselves an education 
 
 31 
 
and whose radiant inspiring presence was more than books 
 or scrolls. Such men never rest content with technical 
 achievement, they lead us not only to the tree of knowl- 
 edge, but to the tree of life. 
 
 If now we pass from duties of individuals to the atmos- 
 phere of the University as a whole, we may say at once 
 that an American University should be thoroughly Ameri- 
 can. The New England college has sometimes been 
 depreciated as a hybrid product, the lineal descendant of 
 Oxford and Cambridge, but the imitator of Berlin and 
 Leipsic. The truth is that while we study all foreign 
 ideals, constantly realizing that our oldest schools are 
 juvenile compared with European foundations, we cannot 
 import any one of them. Our own American college is 
 peculiar, it may be, but it has shown itself vital and effec- 
 tive. It differs from the German University in the age of 
 the students, and consequently in their freedom of life, in 
 our didactic methods, and in the emphasis we place on the 
 work of teaching. It differs from the English in being 
 more modern in sympathies, more democratic in prin- 
 ciples, more flexible in meeting present needs. American 
 education must work out its own forms, suited to its own 
 environment. Foreign travel liberates the mind, and is a 
 true part of liberal culture. But hundreds of American 
 students have been by long residence abroad seriously 
 hampered in work at home. They have returned to their 
 native land detached from its institutions, critical of its 
 principles, confused in social standards, and have with 
 great difficulty found any position of congenial service. 
 Each nation has its own " psychological climate," and in 
 that climate its best fruits are ripened, and its noblest re- 
 sults obtained. Education should detach us from preju- 
 duce and provincialism, but never from our ancestral heri- 
 tage or the love of Fatherland. The *' man without a 
 country " is not an educated man. 
 
 32 
 
The University of our time must, however, be catho- 
 lic in its attitude toward all realms of knowledge. Never 
 again can it limit its vision to the old, narrow, rigid cur- 
 riculum, which was supposed to embody a finality of wis- 
 dom and to guarantee a liberated mind. The University 
 of today must recognize all honest intellectual endeavor, 
 both in requirements for admission and for graduation. 
 This involves radical changes, and in the transition period, 
 so perplexing and difficult, all American colleges now find 
 themselves. To the aged alumnus who returns to inspect 
 the course of study, present arrangements seem like chaos. 
 Where is the old curriculum giving the same drill to all 
 men, as preparing for all spheres in life? Where is the 
 dogmatic announcement of final truth, which the student 
 could learn to recite verbatim et liter attm P Where is the 
 old instructor seated on a lofty pedestal of authority, 
 handing down a great body of received opinions, which 
 the student must accept on penalty for insubordination? 
 This new education, with its freedom of choice, with its 
 fraternal relation between teacher and pupil, with its 
 mental independence and original investigation, with its 
 laboratory and seminar, will it create for us men as great 
 as those of a former time? In answer we may say two 
 things : 
 
 First : No education will ever be worth much which 
 does not largely depend on the personality of the teacher. 
 Those teachers of olden time educated men by contact 
 with themselves. When one New England college was 
 miserably poor, Webster said, " It is a little college, but 
 there are those who love it." When another college had 
 no laboratories, she had Mark Hopkins. When New Eng- 
 land schools could say, " Silver and gold have I none," 
 they could still say, " Rise up and walk." Never shall we 
 be able to do without the personality of the teacher, 
 flaming with enthusiasm for knowledge, pressing up the 
 heights himself and helping the student on. 
 
 33 
 
But we must also say that the old education had a 
 deadening effect on the minds that it failed to stimulate. 
 Why was it that some of the men who have done greatest 
 service for the world stood so low in college classes? Why 
 did many, of greatest subsequent achievement, remain in 
 college utterly unknown to their teachers, or known only 
 as stolid, impervious and hopeless? Simply because the 
 college course then appealed to a small segment of human 
 nature, and ignored the greater part of the student's per- 
 sonality. Knowledge was supposed to be confined in 
 books, to be extracted by patient drill, resulting in fitness 
 for any sphere in life. Astronomy was studied without a 
 glimpse of the stars, chemistry by passively witnessing 
 experiments in proof of previously announced proposi- 
 tions, botany by looking at pictures of flowers in a book, 
 history in primers and condensations, philosophy in dic- 
 tated lectures, and the delight of personal discovery of 
 truth through actual contact with the facts of the universe 
 seldom broke through the fences which our fathers set up. 
 If the boy possessed a ready memory, if he had decided 
 linguistic or mathematical ability, he could achieve bril- 
 liant success. But if he needed to see objects in order to 
 appreciate them, to handle in order to understand, to in- 
 vestigate in order to acquire interest ; if he needed train- 
 ing of the eye, the ear, the hand ; if he needed to see 
 original documents in order to feel historic enthusiasm, 
 to study nature rather than books reporting nature, and to 
 act in order to know — then under the old education he 
 was doomed. Such training was impossible in the Ameri- 
 can college. A few men were stimulated forever by the 
 contagion of a strong personality. But many a man went 
 forth with a deep dislike for subjects forced upon him, 
 and a resolve never to pursue them further. Many a man 
 left the college having no real sympathy with the classics 
 studied as illustrations of a lexicon, no mastery of modern 
 
 34 
 
languages sufficient to induce him to use them, no compre- 
 hension of the philosophical systems which have caused 
 the rise and fall of empires, no knowledge of the world at 
 first hand, and no glimpse of the fact that the only prep- 
 aration for life is in really Hving. 
 
 The revolt against narrowness of the old education in 
 America began with the memorable report of President 
 Francis Wayland to the Corporation of Brown University 
 in 1850. Whoever reads that report will perceive that 
 this University in broadening its courses of study is simply 
 realizing the vision of fifty years ago. Whoever reads 
 that report will see that our most radical educators are 
 not yet ready to adopt what Doctor Wayland fearlessly 
 advocated. He affirmed that the college course should 
 no longer be " confined to a fixed term of four years or 
 to any other term ;" that "every student should study 
 what he chose, and nothing but what he chose;" and that 
 "in addition to the present courses of instruction, such 
 should be established as the wants of the various classes 
 of the community require." These demands aroused our 
 New England colleges from slumber, and no other docu- 
 ment in American education has caused so great debate. 
 If Brown should ever settle back into the satisfied seclu- 
 sion of one hundred years ago she would be false to Way- 
 land's mighty leadership, false to Sears and Caswell, and, 
 false to the two later leaders whose grateful pupils some 
 of us have been, and whose trumpet-voices still summon 
 us to strenuous thought and action — Ezekiel Oilman Rob- 
 inson and E. Benj. Andrews. 
 
 Not for a moment do we dream of surrendering the 
 study of the classics. For more than three centuries they 
 have given us an indispensable culture. They have tamed 
 the Goth and the Saxon and brought us moderation, sense 
 of proportion, sanity and strength. They have stood 
 
 35 
 
before us in the calm beauty of a finished product, like 
 the figures on Keats' " Grecian Urn:" 
 
 " Forever wilt thou love, and she be fair." 
 
 But it is less than four hundred years since Reuchlin 
 and Melancthon and Erasmus were urging the introduc- 
 tion of Greek into Universities which regarded it as an 
 innovation and sad infringement on the accepted scholastic 
 program. Greek, which had to fight its way into modern 
 universities, should be the first to recognize that there are 
 other shrines also in the temple of truth, and Latin should 
 perceive that the languages which owe to it their richest 
 resources can never disown their mother. The classics 
 when left to stand on their own merits, forced on none, 
 offered to all, will vindicate their perpetual prerogatives 
 in University training. And whenever modern languages 
 shall be taught with as much patience, thoroughness of 
 drill, literary insight and historic sympathy as the classics 
 have received, they will be found not unworthy of their 
 linguistic ancestry. Whenever the sciences shall require 
 of the student the same quiet plodding, the same self 
 mastery as essential to mastery of material, the same 
 reverence for the past, shall teach him to utter the prayer 
 of Socrates " Make me beautiful within," then the sciences 
 will become a discipline as noble and ennobling as the 
 language of Seneca and Plato. The University must not 
 exalt one realm of knowledge at the expense of others. 
 Some kinds of knowledge we know how to teach with 
 defined method, sureness of aim and certainty of result. 
 Other kinds are still novel and the student's proficiency 
 cannot be attained or tested in the old ways. The exam- 
 ination in some modern subjects demands more than 
 paper and pencil ; it requires microscope and test tube 
 and experiment. In due time we shall find a new method 
 for the new subjects. But a school of liberal culture must 
 
 36 
 
surely believe that all sincere study deserves recognition ; 
 that one realm of knowledge is as dear to God as another, 
 and should be as dear to man ; and that any real pursuit 
 of truth, whether it be the search for a lost fragment of 
 Sappho or the meaning of a Babylonian cylinder, for the 
 path of a flying projectile or the orbit of a distant star, 
 may minister to the education of the truth-seeker and the 
 permanent enrichment of the world. 
 
 This breadth of horizon will lead the University of the 
 future to make ample provision for the instruction of 
 women. This provision must be made, not as a grudging 
 concession to a dubious demand, but as a glad response 
 to one of the greatest needs of our time. A century from 
 now it will seem incredible that >the great university libra- 
 ries and laboratories and museums of the world were once 
 closed to one half of humanity, and that our vast educa- 
 cational endowments were useless to our sisters and 
 daughters. A way must be devised to render the accumu- 
 lation of centuries available to women. One way is that 
 of genuine coeducation, which, logically carried out, de- 
 mands that young men and women, meeting in the same 
 class-room, shall be treated in the same fashion — treated 
 simply as " human beings," regardless of sex. It is suffi- 
 cient to say that whatever may be true of the great West, 
 New England is not ready for consistent coeducation, per- 
 haps never will be ready. Even in western colleges it is 
 difficult to ascertain the exact results of the coeducational 
 system. When the principle has once been adopted by 
 an institution, retreat is impossible, even though many 
 regrets are felt by college authorities. The whole ques- 
 tion is not one to be decided a priori, but to be debated 
 with due regard to environment and tradition and to be 
 solved by each community for itself. But in New Eng- 
 land to introduce women into what has for a century been 
 a men's college, with no change in customs and atmos- 
 
phere, to invite them to lounge about the campus with 
 the same freedom which men have exercised, to allow 
 them to think that the adoption of masculine tradi- 
 tion is essential to feminine emancipation — this is to 
 inflict a cruel wrong on young womanhood, and to pur- 
 chase technical scholarship at the cost of what is more 
 precious than rubies. I know not which is the more ab- 
 horent to normal minds and more useless to society — a 
 womanish man, or a mannish woman. To treat women 
 simply as "human beings" is to trifle with history, and 
 there are some experiments which strike against the bed- 
 rock of the eternal decree. 
 
 Therefore I believe that the ampler provision for 
 woman's education which the world rightly demands is, in 
 our Eastern States, to be found in the organization of 
 women's colleges within the University, where there shall 
 be offered to women equal access to University collections, 
 equal standards of admission, examination and graduation, 
 equal opportunity and equal degrees, but a distinct social 
 life organized around womanly ideals, and far richer in 
 content than anything that men's colleges have yet 
 attained. When the collegiate life of women is left free 
 to organize itself, neither excluded from the privileges of 
 men, nor forced into their social tradition, — and the latter 
 is now our danger — it will create its own ideal, and around 
 it will crystallize all educational activity. In this realm 
 imitation is suicide, and freedom to be womanly is the 
 only safety. A quarter-century ago it was thought that 
 woman's education should be in the line of elegant accom- 
 plishment, and the " female seminary " had one teacher of 
 Latin to three teachers of the piano. Still it is thought 
 that under the elective system women will probably choose 
 to pursue history and belles-lettres. But statistics show 
 that young women prefer to 'elect mathematics and the 
 natural sciences, and that the deftness of woman's fingers 
 
 38 
 
is only an index of the accuracy and fine discrimination 
 of her mind when trained. Let us have done then with 
 the imposition of an abstract theory. Setting woman free 
 from the forced exclusions of the past, and from forced 
 inclusions of the present, let us seek in every University 
 the establishment of a woman's college, affiliated or con- 
 stituent, whose students shall have passed beyond the 
 assertion of their rights into the possession of them, and 
 shall quietly realize an even richer type of womanhood 
 than ages past have known. 
 
 When the first woman applied for admission to Brown, 
 the tapping of her hand on the door of the venerable 
 University seemed portentous as the knocking at the gate 
 in Macbeth. Consternation prevailed among the authori- 
 ties, who wondered whereunto this would grow. That it 
 did grow and that it will not cease to grow is a matter of 
 congratulation to us all to-day. Without observation it 
 has grown, guarding against all misunderstanding by 
 making itself a constituent part of the University, until 
 now Brown alumni are beginning to send their daughters 
 to Pembroke Hall. In the natural constituency of Brown 
 there are as many daughters as sons, and the field of 
 opportunity for our Woman's College is unlimited. We 
 do not forget to-day that a very close tie binds our college 
 to another New England College for women, in that our 
 first woman graduate is now Professor at Wellesley, and 
 that when recently a Rhode Island woman was inaugurated 
 as President of that noble institution she carried with her 
 happy memories of Pembroke Hall, and a degree which 
 expresses our opinion of her scholarship, but cannot 
 express our deep and warm regard and our fervent wishes 
 for her lasting success. 
 
 If the ideals we have outlined are to be achieved, the 
 University must be in its dominant influence unequivocally 
 Christian. We need not apologize for our fathers' attitude 
 
 39 
 
when they founded colleges deep in religious faith. If 
 their thoughts of religion were contracted, they were at 
 least vital and effective, and if we whose knowledge 
 " grows from more to more " must confess that no longer 
 does " reverence in us dwell," we are unworthy to receive 
 and administer the legacy of the fathers. Sectarian in- 
 struction is of course excluded. The college exists not 
 for the aggrandizement of a particular church, but as the 
 contribution of that church, with many other churches, to 
 the higher life of the world. It is Christian, not as de- 
 manding subscription to any formula, not as wearing a 
 placard on official occasion, but as insisting that the 
 Christian view of life is the highest view, and the Christian 
 spirit is essential to the perfection of human personality. 
 As the heliocentric theory has displaced the geocentric 
 theory in astronomy, so the ethics of Jesus has forever 
 superseded all opposing systems. " Great Pan is dead." 
 We dare to affirm that no student has normal perception 
 until the voice of the Galilean prophet is in morals and 
 religion at least as weighty as that of Plato in philosophy, 
 Shakespeare in literature, or Beethoven in music. If to any 
 man such a faith seems bondage, we can only say that to 
 us it is the highest academic as well as spiritual freedom. 
 Because we have it, we insist that all knowledge must be 
 transmuted into life, and that perception and intellect are 
 for the sake of conduct. The human will is the core of 
 the human personality, and to make the will intelligently 
 and unswervingly righteous is the goal of all human edu- 
 cation. To speak with the tongues of men and of angels 
 profiteth nothing, unless faith energizes, hope beckons us 
 onward, and love abides. To turn out men with the 
 knowledge but the corruptibility of Lord Bacon, with the 
 brilliancy but the treachery of Aaron Burr, with the 
 shrewdness but cunning of Machiavelli, with the directing 
 energy but atrophied conscience of Napoleon, is not the 
 
 40 
 
function of the true University. And character in the 
 student comes not chiefly through exhortation or by 
 devotional exercises, but through character in University 
 officers of administration and instruction, and through the 
 ideals embodied in the lives of loyal alumni scattered 
 throughout the land. 
 
 To all her children the University sends to-day her 
 salutation. To them, performing their appointed tasks in 
 north or south or east or west, she confidently appeals. 
 From those far distant in Europe, Asia, and the islands of 
 the sea have come greetings recently that make us glad. 
 If some of us who bear great responsibilities are keenly 
 conscious of inexperience and insufficiency, we are con- 
 scious also of a simple desire to know what is true and to 
 do what is right; conscious of a friendly sympathy that 
 sweetens all drudgery and lightens all labor ; and confident 
 that if the stars in their courses fight for the truth, the 
 supporters of an ancient University, whose aim is to know 
 the truth and live the truth, will not toil without some kindly 
 light above and around them. 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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