• "^0* 
 
 ^0* 
 
 ^o* Z, 
 
 6 °* 
 
 ^C$ 
 
 
 
 v ,. ^ * o , "-%» 
 
 
 "tP 
 
 
 <£ -& 
 & % 
 
 ^t>M<$ 
 
 ^ 9^ : 
 
 ^ Oft 
 
 
 ' J> * 
 
 ;oy ^^/??o\<r v^^\# l 
 
 ^ 
 
 :%/ 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 % ^ «^%i/k % % ^ ^Wa % % & * r 
 
 <?5 3* 
 
 \ %.o^ 
 
 %^ 
 
 
 c^ 
 
 ^ G < 
 
 r / % p." ^ % 
 
 ^o^ 
 
 
 
 r$ 
 
 
 
 
 s A G «* *'7*V ' ^ 
 
 
 
VK\ "^ *■ 
 
 
 "^o* : 
 
 s °^ 
 
 5> ^ 
 
 
 * */7. s s A G <* *-**.* s A G <^. ****** A G <* 
 
 V^ -f> * jA W/h. p _ Vu « * jA W/k ", Hs* « * ..A W/h. °~ 
 
 ° ^-o 
 
 ,° .#^ 
 
 
 
 v^ 
 
 rS 3 
 
 
 * * * * ° * ^ 
 
 r p^ ^\"^, < h 
 
 <****** 
 
 ^6* 
 
 
 %<* ^mV%^ ^»V^ *W-^* ^ 
 
 # ^ 
 
 ^.tf 
 
 $ 
 
 
 & s ^7^" a g <* * 
 
 
 2. "* 
 
 
 ^0^ 
 
 :/°- 
 
 
 <^ ^ 
 
 - %^ 
 
 
 -%.^ 
 
 z ▼ 
 
 - ^ 
 
 
 - s A G S- ' * * s * -AV <^ ^ft ft s 
 
 ° "^ g 
 
 r cF ». x * ° * Mb 
 
 **$£*<#> V^vo'<^ V^V ^'*^\\^ 
 
*s 
 
 ADDRESSES AND POEM 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF THE 
 
 §m fpratteMj ^tmitosarg 
 
 INCORPORATION OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 JUNE 27 AND 28 1894 
 
1794 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 1894 
 
 ADDRESSES AND POEM 
 
 ON THE OCCASION OF THE 
 
 §m Jtmbrrfri| ^rarita'arj 
 
 INCORPORATION OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 JUNE 27 and 28 1894 
 
 BRUNSWICK MAINE 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE COLLEGE 
 1894 
 

 PRINTED AT JOURNAL OFFICE, LEWISTON, ME. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE 
 
 EGBERT COFFIN SMYTH D.D. 
 
 Wednesday June 27 1894 
 
fi~** 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 BY EGBERT COFFIN SMYTH, 
 
 CLASS OF 1848. 
 
 Mr. President and Brethren : 
 
 OUR centennial day, like the first in the narrative of 
 creation, begins with the evening. It carries us 
 back, also, as does that ancient and inspired record, to 
 the appearance of light ; — light which has shone through 
 the century with so pure and beneficent a radiance that 
 we may gratefully and reverently say: it came from 
 God, and He saw that it was good. 
 
 It belongs to others who will address you to analyze 
 its seven-fold ray, and show what has been its illumin- 
 ing and enlivening power. It is my office, if it may 
 only be given me in some measure to fulfill it, in the 
 opening of these services to turn your thoughts, in 
 grateful recollection, to the goodness which has pre- 
 served and blessed, as it called into being, the College, 
 which, more than ever perhaps to-day we think of, and 
 love to think of, as our own, and to unite with you in 
 the recognition that a peculiar value and honor belong 
 to the religious element in the education for which 
 it stands. 
 
6 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 For only, I have supposed, from some such point of 
 view could it have occurred to those who have arranged 
 these exercises to devote this hour to the topic which 
 has been assigned me. To narrate the history of the 
 religious life of the College for a hundred years is, 
 obviously, a task too large for such an occasion. In 
 the enthusiasm of early years I sought to make a begin- 
 ning of this enterprise, and it is my hope that Professor 
 Little, who has so clearly and gracefully sketched for 
 us the general history, will spare from his many labors 
 time to gather up, ere they are irrecoverably lost, the 
 religious reminiscences of the last fifty years; but 
 nothing of the sort has seemed to me to be implied in 
 the duty of this hour. This service, I conceive, is a 
 holy vigil, like that of Christmas Eve, — not kept with 
 fasting and humiliation, albeit we may not forget our 
 shortcomings, if only by this we may be helped to bet- 
 ter life, — but rather with thankful remembrances and 
 joyful anticipations and new consecration. In a word, 
 it is a religious service in which we would share. Other- 
 wise I might feel, for one, that it should not precede 
 the other exercises, nor even form a distinct part of our 
 centennial, unless this were distributed far more than is 
 contemplated or would be practicable. If, for instance, 
 I were called here to speak of the history of religious 
 instruction in the College, or of its dogmatic or theolog- 
 ical forms and expression, I know not why Law or 
 Medicine or the noble profession of the Teacher, or any 
 other vocation for which college life prepares, or any 
 
ADDRESS 7 
 
 science or language or art which enters into its curricu- 
 lum or has had a history here, might not prefer a claim 
 to similar recognition. But our religion, — is there any- 
 thing besides, in this world of ours, to which there 
 belongs so plainly the right of pre-eminence, is there 
 anything, whatever our differences of opinion, of dogma, 
 of ecclesiastical relationships, so common to us all, so 
 deep in our hearts, so intimate to our personality, so 
 capable at last of binding us together in a supreme 
 fellowship with each other, and a communion with all 
 spirits elect and pure, and with Him who is "over all, 
 blessed forever ? " And is there anything else which so 
 enters into the whole being and purpose and life of 
 such a college as ours has been, and so binds together 
 its golden years, and hallows them in our memories, 
 and has a place in its history so unique and pre-emi- 
 nent? This, therefore, if I interpret it aright, is the 
 significance of this occasion, and by it my task is 
 defined. 
 
 Professor Packard has preserved for us an utterance 
 of the saintly Appleton which we may take as a watch- 
 word : " God has taken care of the College, and God 
 will take care of it." 
 
 One marked instance of this care was Appleton's own 
 coming hither to its leadership in the dark days when, in 
 the summer before the graduation of the second class, 
 its admired and eminent first President was removed 
 by death. Was there not a similar providence when, 
 more than a generation later, by the consenting action 
 
8 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 of many eminent representatives of different persua- 
 sions, the College was so adjusted to its environment 
 that its life became secure, and its work could go on 
 in peace and strength? How marked a favor to it, 
 also, was the singularly long tenure of office on the 
 part of a number of its earlier professors, notably 
 Cleaveland and Packard. 
 
 But it is not upon special mercies that I would lay 
 the emphasis of our gratitude. These we may regard 
 too much from some eccentric point of view and too 
 narrowly interpret. For my purpose I would refer 
 chiefly to causes and influences which have worked 
 through successive generations for its good. Among 
 these I mention, first, one which is from the beginning : 
 the recognition and erection of moral and spiritual 
 ends as imperative and essential aims in the education 
 which the College was chartered to bestow. 
 
 The Act of Incorporation, passed June 24, 1794, 
 institutes and establishes Bowdoin College for the edu- 
 cation of youth, and prescribes that its funds " shall be 
 appropriated to the endowment of the said college, in 
 such manner as shall most effectually promote virtue 
 and piety, and the knowledge of such of the languages 
 and of the useful and liberal arts and sciences, as shall 
 be hereafter directed, from time to time, by said cor- 
 poration." 
 
 The phrase "virtue and piety" is a traditional one. 
 It bears a trace of the coloring which the thought of 
 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries assumed in 
 
 ; 
 
ADDRESS 9 
 
 reaction from the preceding predominance of theologi- 
 cal modes of conception, and emphasizes the practical 
 turn which the human mind had taken, the stress which 
 was laid on religious and ethical truth as an affair of 
 life and conduct. Yet it retains no less the strong 
 Puritan tradition which ever recognizes a fundamental 
 relationship between the soul and God, and knows of 
 no righteousness which has not the double aspect of 
 obedience to the Infinite Sovereign and fulfillment of 
 duty to our neighbor. 
 
 Even if our charter contained only the word "vir- 
 tue," and not the phrase "virtue and piety," I suppose 
 there could be no reasonable doubt of the religious 
 animus and basis of its injunction. For virtue in the 
 common speech of our fathers was a quality of charac- 
 ter too sacred and authoritative to be other than of 
 divine origin and sanction, however fulfilled in the 
 ordinary connections and plain and homely offices of 
 common life. Through the century at whose close our 
 charter was framed no treatise on Education had, I 
 suppose, so high a place and wide influence as John 
 Locke's "Some thoughts concerning Education." He 
 lays the greatest stress on virtue as the indispensable 
 and highest aim of education. "I place virtue," he 
 says, " as the first and most necessary of those Endow- 
 ments that belong to a Man or a Gentleman; as abso- 
 lutely requisite to make him valued or beloved by 
 others, acceptable or tolerable to himself. Without 
 that, I think, he will be happy, neither in this nor the 
 
10 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 other World." x " ' Tis Virtue . . . , direct Virtue, which 
 is the hard and valuable Part to be aimed at in Educa- 
 tion All other Considerations and Accomplish- 
 ments should give way, and be postpon'd to this." 2 
 When we inquire what Locke meant by virtue we 
 are struck both by his opposition to any narrow the- 
 ological or dogmatic interpretation of it, and no less 
 by the firm basis he finds for it in religious truth. Its 
 foundations, he teaches, are laid "in a true notion of a 
 God such as the Creed wisely teaches." 3 The Creed or 
 Symbol to which he refers is now traced, in its old 
 Roman form, nearly up to the confines of the Apostolic 
 Age, and it may be earlier still. It is not a speculative 
 or theological confession. It bears no traces of the 
 process by which the primary articles of the Christian 
 faith became translated into the language and dialectic 
 of the schools. From a point of view purely historic 
 and scientific it is a marvellous creation, expressing 
 unconsciously and in the spontaneity of the primi- 
 tive piety and in a simple statement which could be 
 expounded by an Origen to the keenest intellects and 
 most eager students of Alexandria, or taught by some 
 humble missionary in the wilds of Caul or among the 
 barbarians of Germany, a conception of God in which 
 the clearest and purest spiritual outcome of Hellenic 
 science, logic and metaphysic, the profoundest insight 
 
 i Works, Vol. Ill, p. 61, §135. Ed. MDCCXXVII. The dedicatory 
 
 preface is dated 7 March, 1690. 
 2/6., p. 26, §70. 
 sib., p. 62, §139. 
 
ADDRESS 11 
 
 of Oriental mysticism, the Hebrews' revelation of the 
 infinite majesty and transcendence of the High and 
 Holy One, are blended with the faith inspired in his 
 disciples by Jesns of Nazareth, — a conception without 
 which neither the highest extra Christian thoughts of 
 God, as in Platonism or the Meditations of Marcus 
 Aurelins, nor the Jewish monotheism itself conld proba- 
 bly have been saved for mankind by being put to use, 
 and which is the burthen of the philosophy, the religion, 
 the life, which to-day has promise of ethical and spirit- 
 ual leadership in the century before us. And it is this 
 apprehensible, palpable, definite, yet broad and deep, 
 foundation of virtue which was in the faith of those 
 who united in founding this college ; present to them, 
 it may be, not as a formal confession but in their 
 acceptance of its historic facts, in their trust in the 
 Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth, and in 
 Jesus Christ His only Son, our Lord, and in the Holy 
 Spirit, and in their consecration to the life of virtue 
 whose intellectual basis is given in such beliefs. They 
 did not, however, speak of virtue alone, — were they not 
 too close to the Pilgrims and the Puritans for that? 
 They coupled with it, as belonging to it and not to be 
 divorced from it, piety, leaving no possible ambiguity 
 as to their intent. 
 
 Having said this they stopped. I note this as a 
 second occasion of our gratitude. They set up no creed 
 for student or teacher. Bowdoin College, by its char- 
 ter, is open to all who desire its instructions according 
 
12 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 to its purpose, and conform to the conditions necessary 
 to their communication. The manner in which "virtue 
 and piety" shall here be cultivated, is not denned by 
 particular rules. It is only prescribed, that the funds 
 of the College shall be so used as most effectually to 
 promote these appointed ends. The ends are unquali- 
 fied, peremptory, absolute. The means are appointed 
 only in so far as it is required that all who administer 
 the funds shall conscientiously and faithfully provide 
 those instrumentalities and agents most conducive to 
 the attainment of these unchangeable aims. 
 
 I confess to no little admiration of the reserve, as 
 of the explicitness, of such a constitution. It follows 
 the law and method of nature. In setting up and dis- 
 closing ends of indisputable and commanding worth, it 
 reveals and appoints the pathway of an orderly devel- 
 opment; in leaving room for variation and survival of 
 the fittest it ordains progress. It justly conceives of 
 the function and sphere of a college, or university. 
 Thought may not be lawless; neither may it be fet- 
 tered. There is a religious meaning and end to the 
 life of our College, to its constitution, its being, as 
 there is for the universe in which it plays its part. It 
 can never disregard this end and purpose without vio- 
 lating its fundamental law. But its thought and life 
 are free as religion itself. J^Tay, in being virtuous and 
 pious they must be free. And the Christian conception 
 of God and life to which I have referred has come into 
 its history, and has always been present there, not by 
 
ADDRESS 13 
 
 specific enactment or the signature of "the dead 
 hand," but in the way of truth and freedom, on its 
 own merits, because it is the best yet attained, 
 because it has the highest and truest authority, and 
 has proved itself to be the most effectual method for 
 the attainment of "virtue and piety." And for this 
 reason, and by no arbitrary requirement, our College 
 has always been and is to-day, a Christian College. 
 Some of our fathers would have said, perhaps, that it 
 is so " in the nature of things." It seems to me to be 
 so unquestionably in the nature of Christianity. What- 
 ever else we may think of it, we cannot doubt that 
 Christianity has wonderfully quickened man's spiritual 
 life and ministered to human progress in all the ways 
 of virtue. The most scientific investigation of other 
 religions leaves it still without a rival in its ethical 
 power. But one religion, apart from Judaism, offers 
 even the semblance of an approach to its central prin- 
 ciple and motive of virtue, the religion of the pure- 
 minded, meek, and noble Gautama Buddha. But here, 
 where to a superficial acquaintance the resemblances 
 seemed indicative of a formidable rivalry, a better 
 knowledge has left beyond dispute the uniqueness 
 and the supremacy of our Christian faith; and what 
 has become clear in principle has been demonstrated 
 in fact by the long histories of these two religions. 
 Nor is there yet any perceptible limit to the power 
 of Christianity, save the consummation declared in its 
 prophecy, its living hope, its undeniable progress, its 
 
14 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 unceasing and indomitable endeavor, and the will and 
 purpose of its Founder. And so long as this remains 
 true the way of this College to the appointed ends of 
 "virtue and piety" will be the way in which He goes 
 before. 
 
 A further reason for gratitude we recognize in 
 the devotion to our College of those who have been 
 charged with the duty of carrying into effect the 
 provisions of the charter. 
 
 No similar institution has been supported, distin- 
 guished and governed by a larger, or a more represen- 
 tative and faithful body of men. This service has 
 been rendered not only without remuneration, but 
 mostly by men in the full tide of professional and other 
 forms of active life. In no respect has it been more 
 honorable and useful than in the careful selection and 
 appointment of officers of instruction. With requisite 
 qualification for the specific work in view, the mark of 
 high character has always been deemed essential to 
 appointment. No one, so far as I am aware, who has 
 been called here to serve as a teacher, through these 
 nearly a hundred years, has brought reproach upon the 
 College by any stain upon his reputation, while not a 
 few have been conspicuous, not only in their several 
 departments of instruction, but also for their services 
 to the public in literature, philosophy, and science, in 
 labors of philanthropy, in promoting the cause and the 
 arts of peace, in the strenuous contest for the unity 
 and life of our nation. 
 
ADDRESS 15 
 
 If the selection of such teachers properly elicits our 
 gratitude, certainly we may be thankful for the men 
 themselves. 
 
 Mr. Charles Francis Adams has said quite recently : 
 " The older I have grown and the more I have studied 
 and seen, the greater in my esteem, as an element of 
 strength in a people, has character become, and the less 
 in the conduct of human affairs have I thought of 
 mere capacity or even genius. With character a race 
 will become great, even though they be as stupid and 
 unassimilating as the Romans; without character any 
 race will in the long run prove a failure, though it may 
 number in it individuals having all the brilliancy of the 
 Jews, crowned with the genius of Napoleon." ' What- 
 ever besides we may justly claim for the men who here 
 have taught the more than five thousand pupils who 
 have sought their instructions, we recognize grate- 
 fully the worth of their character. Not a few have 
 been marked men in this regard, peculiarly fitted by 
 nature and grace to train the sturdy mental and moral 
 strength and inborn energy of the pupils annually sup- 
 plied by a people not exceeded by any in these sterling 
 qualities. 
 
 Brief as was his Presidency Dr. McKeen left an 
 impress on the College which it has never lost. His 
 standards for it were intellectually and religiously 
 high, because they had been so for himself, far above 
 outward conditions, superior to incidental adversities, 
 
 1 Proceedings of the Mass. Hist. Soc, Jan., 1894, 2 ser., vol. viii., p. 408. 
 
16 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 high, when of its material or sensible resources we 
 may almost say that they were 
 
 Nil nisi campus et aer. 
 On the day of his inauguration, before a student had 
 been admitted, he entreated " all good men here present 
 to unite in fervent supplications to the great Father of 
 light, knowledge, and all good, that His blessing may 
 descend upon this seminary; that it may eminently 
 contribute to the advancement of useful knowledge, 
 the religion of Jesus Christ, the best interests of man, 
 and the glory of God." He was, says the Rev. Dr. 
 Jenks, who knew him well, " a man of piety as well as 
 a scholar," " a Puritan in heart," " a humble pupil of the 
 Redeemer." His impressive exclamation in a closing 
 address to the first class on Commencement day (the 
 earliest form of our long series of notable Baccalau- 
 reate Sermons) : " God forbid that you should ever be 
 ashamed to be governed by the principles of the gospel 
 of Jesus Christ," shows his own standard. This type 
 of character, this love of knowledge and appreciation 
 of its usefulness and aspiration to promote it, this zeal 
 for "the best interests of man," this transcendent yet 
 most practical aim — the glory of God, have marked 
 and lighted up the history of our College from that 
 early day until now. The education given has been 
 most profoundly practical, for it has helped to make 
 men. It has been most real, for it has never lost the 
 sense of the value of life, nor of an end which is fit 
 to be followed because of its own intrinsic and abso- 
 
ADDRESS 17 
 
 lute worth. It has touched the deepest springs of 
 motive, and worked from the centre of personality, 
 because it has been given by men whose own person- 
 alities commanded respect and who were themselves 
 in living touch with the One Person they delighted 
 to confess, the only perfect type of character and the 
 glorious ideal of our humanity. 
 
 Cicero, in the de Legibus, in words some of which 
 have been applied to the poet Herbert at "Westmin- 
 ster school, puts into the mouth of Atticus a senti- 
 ment which comes home to us as we return to these 
 scenes of our early training. "We are moved," says 
 Atticus, " I know not in what way, by the very places 
 in which are present the vestiges of those whom we 
 love and admire. Indeed even our own Athens itself 
 no longer delights me by the magnificent edifices and 
 exquisite arts of the ancients as by the remembrance 
 of its eminent men, where each was wont to dwell, 
 where to sit, where to teach." 1 Imperishably dear to 
 us, here or elsewhere, is every spot that associates itself 
 with the pleasures, the fresh awakenings, the early 
 growths of our lives, — the brook in which as boys we 
 fished, the river, pond or bay on which we rowed or 
 sailed, the hills we climbed, the roof that sheltered us. 
 More memorable to us still are the place and the 
 
 iMoveinur enim nescio quo pacto locis ipsis, in quibus eorum, quos 
 diligimus aut admiramur, adsunt vestigia. Me quidem ipsae illae nostrae 
 Athenae non jam operibus magnificis exquisitisque antiquoruni artibus 
 delectant quam recordations summorum virorum, ubi quisque habitare, ubi 
 sedere, ubi [qui, ed. Klotz\ disputare sit solitus, studioseque eorum etiam 
 sepulcra contemplor. Be Leg. II. 2, § 4. 
 
 2 
 
18 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 influence which stirred within ns some eager intellectual 
 
 aspiration we have never lost, some undying sense of 
 
 law or order and method in the transitory scenes and 
 
 events of our existence. And our strongest and most 
 
 cherished associations, those we most love to date from 
 
 and that most of all seem to have become part of our 
 
 being, always, I imagine, have in them the most of 
 
 what is ethical and spiritual. They come to us through 
 
 persons, and quicken us in our deepest personality. 
 
 They lead us up to 
 
 " truths that wake, 
 
 To perish never/' 
 
 on and out to the good which is unseen and eternal. 
 Such associations, it may be, we have with these scenes, 
 and, more than we may have realized earlier, through 
 influences transmitted from the men of faith and prayer 
 who first taught in these halls, through McKeen and 
 Appleton and Allen and ]STewman and Cleaveland, as 
 well as through those whom we personally knew, and of 
 them all we think to-day, as did Dante of the souls he 
 saw returning to their stars, that they had felt "the 
 eternal breath," or as Matthew Arnold of those in 
 whom his father's memory helped him to believe : 
 
 "souls temper'd with fire, 
 Fervent, heroic, and good, 
 Helpers and friends of mankind." 
 
 Nor may we forget in recalling the spiritual forces 
 that have entered into our College's history the men 
 who in successive classes have kept alive the fires on 
 
ADDRESS 19 
 
 the altars of our faith. Although there was appar- 
 ently something of declension in the religious life of 
 the community at the time when the College was 
 started, and a marked inadequacy of provision for its 
 nurture in the young, its flame was early kindled here 
 never since to be extinguished. Not a few seasons of 
 unusual earnestness mark its record, to some of which 
 I have elsewhere referred. What, I imagine, impresses 
 us most of all to-day is, the tenacity and continuity of 
 this Christian life. Voltaire is said to have remarked 
 "that Christianity would not survive the nineteenth 
 century." 1 Professor Tholuck once took me to a spot 
 near Halle, to which the students of its University, 
 early in the century, marched to burn the Scriptures. 
 He lived to see an entire change of sentiment there; 
 and here, as in other colleges to-day, I think, the spirit 
 of reverence for religion and the power of Christian 
 consecration are more apparent than they were in the 
 opening of the century. 
 
 The permanence, the abiding force, the great re- 
 sults of the Christian lives here formed or trained, 
 are other salient features of this history. Comrades 
 we have known, here have seen the heavenly vision 
 which called them into paths of service that brightened 
 more and more unto a perfect day. Here ideals have 
 grown clear that never faded, high born resolutions 
 have been formed that issued in heroic deeds, ministries 
 
 1 I quote the words of Professor Adams, Civilization during the Middle 
 Ages, p. 387, where other kindred predictions are referred to. 
 
20 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 planned that have blessed many a community, missions 
 that are transforming nations. In the shaded walk, at 
 the hour of prayer, in the solitude of night, heaven has 
 touched with its beauty and strength lives that have 
 ended in its glories. 
 
 Our oldest living alumnus, a pupil of President 
 Appleton, still wears the Christian armor which he 
 girded on in the brilliant promise of his youth. Our 
 fifth President, 
 
 Serus in coelum redeas, 
 
 still teaches at one of our highest seats of learning, 
 with clearness and power unsurpassed, the faith which 
 in the class of 1833 he not only professed, but purely 
 and nobly lived. On the Bosphorus I see a light, 
 harbinger of the day which we hope will follow the 
 gloomy night of Turkish despotism, a Pharos to many 
 a voyager on the troubled and darkening waters of 
 the Orient, — it is there because of a resolve made here 
 sixty-one years ago, by a member, who is with us 
 to-day, of the class of 1834. 
 
 I may not venture thus to refer to others among 
 the living, — how can I call the roll of the sainted dead, 
 how speak worthily of such a man as Rufus Anderson, 
 for more than half a century connected with an office 
 comparable even in visible power, in some particulars, 
 only with that of a Secretary of State, immeasurable 
 in its moral and spiritual reach; of Calvin E. Stowe, 
 at once original and learned, witty and wise, contesting 
 here the palm of oratory with John P. Hale, contending 
 
ADDRESS 21 
 
 everywhere and always, through his distinguished ca- 
 reer, for justice and right, the same true, open-hearted 
 Christian man in his college days as ever after; of 
 Jacob Abbott and his four brothers, pioneers in medi- 
 ating Christian truth to the intelligence, conscience 
 and love of the young; of Henry B. Smith and Daniel 
 R. Goodwin, both, like Rufus Anderson and many 
 another, beginning their Christian confession in their 
 college days; of Ezra Abbot, reading from his Greek 
 Testament as he led the Sunday morning meeting of 
 the "Praying Circle," a continued embodiment of 
 the Renaissance in his constant appeal to the sources 
 of knowledge and authority, 1 an Erasmus in scholarship 
 and more than an Erasmus in moral courage, the 
 scholar's ever helpful friend; of George B. Cheever, 
 that fervid and fearless prophet of the Lord; of 
 George B. Little and John O. Means and the Drum- 
 monds; of "Father" Snow and "Father" Rich, both 
 ministers of kindliness and helpfulness; nor of these, 
 or such as these, alone, who here lifted high the banner 
 of the cross, but of many another, not here perhaps 
 in name, but at least in heart already belonging 
 to the Christian host, or destined to its ranks in 
 God's high purpose, classmates true and fair and noble 
 in spirit and aim, whose lives have shown the then 
 unrealized grace that since has crowned them. And 
 what courage and hope come to us in these suggestions, 
 and in this merest glimpse of the inward conflict and 
 
 !See Prof. Adams on Erasmus and the Renaissance, op, cit. pp. 381, 
 382, 384. 
 
22 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 victory, struggle and deliverance, promise and fulfill- 
 ment, which make up the story of the religious life 
 within these halls, — courage and hope from what has 
 been achieved, courage and hope as we reflect that we 
 are thus lifting or turning to the light but a corner of 
 one of the smallest pages of that voluminous book of 
 life in which are recorded the names of those who are 
 dear to Christ, and will be so to all good men at last 
 for His dear sake, — that long and bright succession and 
 unnumbered host who shall share his triumph; for 
 what here has been wrought, is what has been before, 
 and will be in days to come, until Truth has won its 
 final victory, and Goodness its eternal crown, and all 
 that He has begun, who died for us all, and in whom we 
 and all men are complete, shall be fulfilled. 
 
 I have sometimes tried to think what the history of 
 this institution would have been if it had not been 
 chartered for " virtue and piety," and solemnly dedicated 
 to the service of Christ and the glory of God. But the 
 attempt is of the impossible. It requires us to think 
 out of the history the glorious company of teachers 
 who have made it illustrious, and not only these but its 
 generous benefactor, whose name it bears, and the 
 whole Huguenot tradition behind him; its early trus- 
 tees and overseers, with the Puritan blood that coursed 
 in their veins; no less, the hallowed homes and fireside 
 altars, the countless prayers and untold sacrifices of 
 many and many a hero and heroine of our faith, who 
 wrung by hardest toil for sons or brothers the educa- 
 
ADDRESS 23 
 
 tion denied themselves, but whose desire burned and 
 flamed in their own unquenchable aspirations for truth 
 and goodness, and in their pure sacrificial love, — nay, 
 it were to try and think away the whole community 
 and social order and civilization out of which our 
 College sprung. We cannot and we would not do it. 
 We walk here on consecrated ground, and the air 
 which inspires our life is still tremulous with the songs 
 that welcomed to our earth the Son of God. 
 
 Religion gives to education what nothing else can 
 bestow, "the vision of the whole." 1 It adds the vision 
 of an absolute good, without which even ethics has no 
 stable authority or constraining force. It crowns all 
 by engendering and liberating the power which turns 
 all acquisition into service — science, art, learning into 
 ministry, — that altruistic force which students of the 
 social problems of our day affirm with increasing 
 agreement and emphasis is indispensable to their 
 practical solution. I know of but one influence in 
 human history that has shown itself equal to the pro- 
 duction of this force on any scale sufficient to give us 
 a sure hope for our own time and for what is before 
 us. Were this divine power to be spurned from our 
 halls of learning and from our seats of science, I 
 believe that the breath of the Almighty would scorch 
 them to blackness and desolation, while it raised up 
 
 i Bishop Westcott, as quoted frora a volume entitled Cambridge Sermons 
 preached before the University in St. Mary's Church, 1889-1892. Selected and 
 edited by C. H. Prior, M.A. 
 
24 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 from the stones of the earth the men that should lead 
 the nations to their Hosannas. 
 
 But far from our thoughts may such shadows flee 
 away. Our past, indeed, alone, is no security for our 
 future. The College is, each year, what the men who 
 guide its affairs, who teach and study in it, make it. 
 Yet the great experience we have had of God's good- 
 ness for the century now past is a warrant for still 
 greater hope and expectation. Forms of religious 
 thought will continue to change, beliefs take on new 
 meanings, methods vary and improve. Justice, dear 
 ever to the Puritan heart, may gain distincter tones 
 and diviner aspects, mercy a more "celestial sheen," 
 truth a wider sway and more commanding authority. 
 Better Christians, too, we may hope will come up 
 hither, and, as called of God, remain here, or go forth 
 to their appointed work. But still the greatest thing 
 in our College will be the character of its guardians, 
 its teachers, its students; still will remain here the 
 Christian type, more and more clearly discerned, per- 
 haps, to be the goal of human history 1 as this draws on 
 to the manifestation of the sons and the Kingdom of 
 God; still ever will be heard, by those who are of the 
 truth, the Voice of Him who spake to men as never 
 man, who rules the world from his Cross, who came 
 to give Life, and to give it abundantly. 
 
 iKorn. viii. 19 has been interpreted as inclusive of this conception. 
 
ADDRESS 25 
 
 O Thou great Friend to all the sons of men, 
 Who once didst come in humblest guise below, 
 Sin to rebuke, to break the captive's chain, 
 And call thy brethren forth from want and woe : — 
 
 We look to Thee ; Thy truth is still the light 
 Which guides the nations, groping on their way, 
 Stumbling and falling in disastrous night, 
 Yet hoping ever for the perfect day. 
 
 Yes ! Thou art still the Life ; Thou art the Way 
 The holiest know ; Light, Life and Way of heaven ! 
 And they who dearest hope, and deepest pray, 
 Toil by the Light, Life, Way, which Thou hast given. 
 
ANNIVERSARY ADDRESS 
 
 MELVILLE WESTON FULLER, LL.D. 
 
 Thursday June 28 1894 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 BY MELVILLE WESTON FITLLEK, LL.D., 
 
 CLASS OF 1853. 
 
 ALTHOUGH to an institution endowed with peren- 
 nial existence, and engaged in work which con- 
 tinually opens up untraveled fields, its first century is but 
 a part of its youth; yet the lapse of that period, in 
 contemplation of the limitations on human life, imparts 
 somewhat of the dignity of age without its infirmi- 
 ties, somewhat of the gravity derived from experience 
 without the consequent loss of enthusiasm; while the 
 rapid march of events; the questions in respect of 
 human destiny which have been pressing for solution; 
 the recollection of what she has herself accomplished, 
 inevitably heighten the sense of the passage of years 
 as we meet to celebrate the coming, a century ago, of 
 that gentle mother, whom time has touched only to 
 adorn, and who has grown in sweetness and maternal 
 power with the increasing number of her children. 
 
 In one of his delightful letters, Mr. Lowell, engaged 
 in the preparation of the Harvard address, which, he 
 says, " drags like an ox-sled caught away from home in 
 
30 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 a January thaw," exclaims : "Why did the Lord make 
 us with ten fingers and toes that we might count up to 
 the fifties and hundreds and so make ourselves capable 
 of this superstition of anniversaries ? " but the golden- 
 mouthed orator furnished the best answer to his own 
 jocose complaint, and the shining current of his 
 eloquence was ruffled by no sign of the mental irrita- 
 tion that occasioned it. 
 
 The truth is that nothing is more natural, nothing 
 more useful, than the observance of anniversaries 
 which may serve as landmarks in the progress of 
 humanity; and communion with the past is but inter- 
 course with a dear, familiar friend, chastened by trial, 
 and wise through experience; intercourse fraught with 
 instruction, with encouragement, and with guidance for 
 the future. 
 
 This finds ample illustration in the comparatively 
 recent series of national celebrations, which, as they 
 have commemorated the Declaration of Independence; 
 the adoption of the Constitution of the United States; 
 the inauguration of Washington; the organization of 
 the Federal Judiciary; significant events of the Revo- 
 lutionary struggle ; have recalled, with the trials, the 
 illustrious figures of the early days of the Republic; 
 the principles upon which the foundations of the gov- 
 ernment were laid ; and that development of civilization 
 from which those principles were evolved. 
 
 So, but a few years since, occurred the commemo- 
 ration of its eight hundredth birthday by the renowned 
 
ADDRESS 31 
 
 Italian University, through the interpretation of whose 
 schools, the influence of the civil law on organized 
 government and civilization has apparently been placed 
 beyond the power of time to lessen or destroy, though 
 even the victorious flights of the eagles of Rome had 
 their appointed end. Other similar festivals, as for 
 example, those in celebration of the three hundredth 
 anniversary of Edinburgh, of Dublin, and of Leyden, 
 as well as the two hundred and fiftieth of Harvard, 
 the one hundredth of Williams, of Dartmouth, and of 
 many another of our sister colleges, have alike borne 
 testimony to the increase in vigor that comes through 
 progress in the cultivation of the human mind; have 
 alike summoned up a past, whether of greater or less 
 duration, justly entitled by its fruits to veneration ; and 
 have alike demonstrated the benefit of such periodical 
 reviews of what has been suffered and achieved, and 
 what may, therefore, fairly be anticipated. 
 
 The name which our College bears is associated 
 with precious memories, and the inauguration of its 
 government had a picturesqueness all its own. And 
 the repetition to some extent of the attractive story of 
 its life, on a day like this, expressly devoted to its 
 contemplation, can hardly be avoided, however familiar 
 through the better qualified labors of others. 
 
 Doubtless the people of the District of Maine, 
 possessing distinctive characteristics derived from the 
 situation, nature, and capabilities of the Province; 
 the circumstances of its original settlement; and the 
 
32 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 character of its immigration; desired their own estab- 
 lishment for the acquisition of higher education, while, 
 moreover, distance had not then been annihilated nor 
 the cost of travel reduced, and such an establishment 
 appeared to be an absolute necessity. When that 
 desire, springing from the spirit of independence and 
 attachment to locality, as well as the pressure of 
 necessity, took formal shape is matter of speculative 
 interest, but the movement is said to have begun before 
 the Revolutionary War, and probably speedily ensued 
 upon the close of the French and Indian hostilities. 
 
 We know that the attempt in 1787 was earnestly 
 renewed in the fall of 1788 through petitions to the 
 General Court, after which the legislative journals 
 show unremitting effort to attain the end, in spite of 
 inevitable differences as to name and location. In the 
 proposed act of 1791, still to be found in the Massa- 
 chusetts archives, "the particular place and site" was 
 to be thereafter "ascertained and fixed by the legis- 
 lature;" and while the college was styled "Maine," 
 it was provided that the corporation might change the 
 name "in honor of the greatest benefactor;" and the 
 power to acquire and hold property was subjected to 
 the limitation that "the annual income of the whole 
 estate, both real and personal, for the use of said 
 college shall never exceed six thousand pounds." The 
 thrifty suggestion as to the name was, however, aban- 
 doned, perhaps because, as intimated by our latest 
 historian, some assurance rendered it unnecessary; but 
 
ADDRESS 33 
 
 we prefer to believe, because general conviction deter- 
 mined the final choice. 
 
 And while the apprehension of too great opulence 
 still induced the General Court to retain a limitation 
 on the income, the six thousand pounds was increased 
 to ten thousand, which it took nearly a hundred years 
 to render an inconvenient restraint. 
 
 When on the 24th of June, 1794, Samuel Adams 
 approved the charter of Bowdoin College, he must 
 have recalled the ancient friend • with whom for so 
 many years he had been associated in the struggle for 
 American liberty and American independence. 
 
 The annals of the time record the harmonious 
 action of these two patriots as respectively members of 
 the Massachusetts Council and House of Representa- 
 tives, and Hutchinson's complaints were deep and 
 bitter over the reciprocity of communication between 
 them, which kept both branches of the legislature in 
 steady and concordant opposition. They were elected 
 together to the Continental Congress, family illness 
 preventing Bowdoin's attendance, thereby giving Han- 
 cock the opportunity to sign the Declaration in his 
 place; they were fellow-members of the Convention 
 which framed the Constitution of Massachusetts, and 
 of that by which the Federal Constitution was ratified; 
 and in the suppression of agrarian outbreak the man 
 of the town meeting stood by the Governor of the 
 State in the establishment of order and the restoration 
 
34 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 of peace by the vigorous exercise of the State's whole 
 civil and military power. 
 
 Bowdoin's Huguenot descent, that stock, whose 
 virtues cast 
 
 " Such healthful leaven 'mid the elements 
 That peopled the new world ; " 
 
 his eminent public career, so largely contributing to 
 successful resistance to arbitrary power, to the union of 
 the colonies, and to the formation of the new govern- 
 ment; especially the part he took in respect of the 
 grant to Congress of that unifying power, the regula- 
 tion of commerce with foreign nations and between 
 the several States ; his distinction in the cultivation of 
 science and letters; his intimate relations with Wash- 
 ington and Franklin; his unaffected piety and his 
 Christian death; these things carry their own lessons 
 and give cause for felicitation that they are inseparably 
 connected with the day we celebrate. 
 
 James Bowdoin, the son, succeeded to close terms 
 of friendship with Washington, as the well-known inci- 
 dents of his accompanying the General when he threw 
 up his redoubts on Dorchester Heights, and his taking 
 him to dinner at his grandfather's after the evacuation, 
 sufficiently show. The historian and the orator have 
 alike recorded that the best that the market afforded 
 for that dinner was a piece of salt beef, but have left 
 the cooking to conjecture — a vital consideration accord- 
 ing to Hawthorne, who declares that when he dealt with 
 
ADDRESS 35 
 
 that article of diet in a culinary way, it was so artisti- 
 cally done that it seemed irreverential to eat it. 
 
 But the second Bowdoin, although filling responsible 
 public positions, including those of Minister to Spain 
 and to France, to acceptance, must always be chiefly 
 remembered here for the wise munificence with which 
 he sought to advance the cause of letters, in the per- 
 petuation of his father's memory and the family name. 
 Beyond the mere bestowal of land and money, his dis- 
 criminating thoughtfulness in many of his gifts marked 
 the liberal culture in the extension of which he was 
 engaged when called home from foreign travel and 
 foreign study by the news from Lexington. 
 
 Thus, as we are told by his eulogist at the annual 
 commencement of 1812, he formed his collection of 
 minerals and metals and the models of crystallography 
 deposited with them, for the use of the College, because, 
 " appreciating the value of a knowledge of minerals in 
 a new country like this, he was anxious to give every 
 possible facility to this study ; " and he endowed a pro- 
 fessorship of mathematics and natural and experimental 
 philosophy. Yet he could hardly have anticipated that, 
 but a few years after his death, the first American work 
 on mineralogy would carry the names of Cleaveland 
 and of Bowdoin throughout the civilized world ; or that 
 the College could boast in its centennial year, in the 
 Searles Science Building, of better facilities for teach- 
 ing the sciences than any college of its size possesses. 
 And so when he bestowed his collection of paintings 
 
36 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 and original sketches, that the ennobling influences of 
 this and its kindred arts might be joined to those of 
 literature, how little could he have looked forward to 
 the realization of his hopes in the splendid endowment 
 which has just been dedicated. 
 
 It was enough that he knew that fruit will sooner 
 or later be brought forth from seed sown in good 
 ground, with an honest and good heart, though the 
 sower may not himself be able to estimate, or be spared 
 to see, the harvest. 
 
 The classic pen of President Woods has embalmed 
 for us the scene of the inauguration of the first 
 President and the first Professor, the ceremonies being 
 conducted, for the most part, in Latin, on a stage 
 erected in the woods. "We may well imagine," he 
 says, "that even the whispering pines of the forest, 
 and the sylvan creatures inhabitating it, were hushed 
 into silence, as they heard for the first time the lan- 
 guage of the Augustan age and of the world of letters, 
 here pronounced in sonorous periods and with polished 
 utterance — here where the war-whoop of the Indian had 
 so recently resounded. . . . And what else than the 
 first notes of the Orphean harp were these classic words, 
 uttered on this rustic stage in the forest, by which a 
 new domain was here annexed to the world of letters, 
 and a fountain of Christian culture, purer than Helicon, 
 was opened here in this dry and thirsty land." Thus 
 at one graphic stroke the old and the new were brought 
 together, and with the creation of the instrumentality, 
 
ADDRESS 37 
 
 the culture of the centuries shown to be within the 
 grasp of the subduer of the forest and the soil. 
 
 This was in 1802, for various delays had accom- 
 panied the realization of the endowment, the erection 
 of buildings and the organization of a corps of instruc- 
 tion; but we are celebrating the planting of the tree, 
 and the eight years during which the sap was com- 
 mencing to run, and before the branches and leaves 
 began to put forth and the fruit to form, have rightfully 
 been included in the computation. Our book of remem- 
 brance contains entries of the struggles of that period, 
 which are part of the life we are commemorating. 
 
 Nothing can be added to the picture drawn by Dr. 
 Woods, with characteristically artistic touch, of the 
 use of Massachusetts Hall for the accommodation of 
 the President and his family, as well as the eight 
 students composing the first class, while also furnishing 
 chapel and recitation rooms. The vision of the good 
 shepherd leading his little flock with his staff is charm- 
 ing, although, as the rapping of the President's cane 
 on the stairs summoned to prayers and recitations alike, 
 the impressive disciplinary suggestion thus conveyed 
 may have obscured the sweetness of the pastoral 
 relation to some of the fold. 
 
 We must remember that at this time the wilderness 
 covered the larger part of the country, and that, 
 although Portland and Wiscasset were flourishing 
 seaports, Bangor was a hamlet, and Hallowell and 
 Augusta were just peeping from the forest. Access 
 
38 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 to the latter from Brunswick was on horseback, and, 
 according to Professor Packard, it was deemed a great 
 exploit, when in 1803 or 1804, that passage was accom- 
 plished in a sulky by Judge Parker of the Supreme 
 Court on his Eastern Circuit — Judge Parker, who, 
 elected to the presidency of the College by the Board 
 of Trustees, was preserved, by the rejection of the 
 Overseers, to succeed Theophilus Parsons as Chief 
 Justice of Massachusetts; as was Dr. Nott, by a like 
 rejection, to remain for sixty-two years the President 
 of Union College. 
 
 But, if we lost Parker and ]!^ott, we gained Apple- 
 ton, whose selection was hailed as a happy outcome of 
 the differences between the boards. 
 
 It was in that year, 1807, that President Dwight 
 visited Brunswick, and in his letters of travel described 
 the College as it then appeared, with its two College 
 buildings (one unfinished) , its chapel and " Presidential 
 house." Coming from a college with but one board, 
 Dr. Dwight was, perhaps not unnaturally, moved to 
 refer to Bowdoin as being " encumbered with two leg- 
 islative bodies," under which system he thought " the 
 interests of a public seminary can never become pros- 
 perous, unless by accident, or the peculiarly meritorious 
 labors of a wise and vigorous faculty;" the principal 
 objection which he urged being that the second board 
 would not be likely to become sufficiently acquainted 
 with the affairs of the institution to act with wisdom. 
 But the result has vindicated the usefulness of our 
 
ADDRESS 39 
 
 system, and demonstrated that the Doctor's particular 
 objection rested on an unfounded assumption. Those 
 letters, however, gave a vivid account of the difficulties 
 under which Maine was settled, and made a wiser 
 prediction in saying of its inhabitants that "in enter- 
 prise and activity they will be outdone by no people on 
 the globe." 
 
 Then and for many years the coaster, the lumbering 
 coach that brought the semi-weekly mail, the saddle, 
 and the private chaise or carriage, furnished the means 
 of travel; yet difficulty of access was not without its 
 compensations, and seems to have possessed a charm all 
 its own. Indeed, Horatio Bridge, when referring, in his 
 delightful reminiscences, to Franklin Pierce, Nathaniel 
 Hawthorne, Jonathan Cilley, and Alfred Mason as 
 among the passengers by stage-coach in the summer 
 of 1821, intimates that their life-long friendship (all 
 too short as to two of them) was the result of this 
 chance association, and declares that the stage-coach 
 gave better opportunities for acquaintance than the 
 modern railway car. If this be so, it has not had 
 sufficient influence to resist the demand for ease and 
 rapidity, and upon the whole it would seem that neither 
 Plato nor Cicero, Erasmus nor Hume, would have 
 attached importance as the proximate cause of the 
 close friendships formed by association in common 
 intellectual pursuits to the particular mode in which 
 the temple of instruction was reached. But the 
 mention of that stage-coach brings vividly before us 
 
40 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 some of the claims of our College to recognition, for it 
 carried him who was to become the great literary artist 
 of his time; a future President of the United States; 
 the rising hope of his party, who was to fall a victim 
 to a state of society, happily long since passed away; 
 and the son of a giant in the law, whose youth gave 
 promise of equal eminence in another profession. 
 
 The early commencements were impressive and 
 enjoyable occasions. Distinguished men, eminent in 
 official position, in letters, in theology (and the two 
 boards were made up of such) , were always present, 
 and they were enlivened by various incidents, such as 
 the overturning of General Knox's carriage during the 
 terrific storm at the first; the two commencement balls, 
 because of the storm, the flower, amusement, thus 
 being plucked from the nettle, danger; the attendance 
 of Governor Gore with great pomp and circumstance 
 at the fourth, and the like. It was at some one of 
 these earliest celebrations that the venerable officiating 
 clergyman invoked the blessing on the class " about to 
 be let loose on the community," although the year has 
 not been remembered, nor has it been possible to 
 identify it by the excess of depredation committed by 
 those particular graduates. 
 
 Perhaps the subjects of the parts of the first grad- 
 uating classes afford some indication of the compre- 
 hensiveness of the training the students of that day 
 received. "Whether utility be the foundation of 
 moral obligation;" "the use of history;" "the power 
 
ADDRESS 41 
 
 of language ; " " the solar system ; " " the progress and 
 influence of literature ; " " whether the light of nature, 
 without the aid of revelation, be sufficient evidence of 
 the immortality of the soul;" were among those in 
 1806 and 1807. Thorndike of the oak beneath whose 
 branches so many classes have exchanged their fare- 
 wells, discoursed at the first commencement upon " the 
 influence of commerce on public manners," while at 
 the second the accomplished Daveis discussed "the 
 infirmity of theory," and delivered a poem on " Tradi- 
 tion." 
 
 These topics have a familiar sound, but how differ- 
 ent the treatment from what they could have received 
 then, physical science and social evolution demand for 
 them to-day; as, indeed, the exercises of yesterday 
 sufficiently evidenced. 
 
 Obviously the progress of the century in every 
 direction would find fair illustration in the parts at all 
 the commencements, for the College has always kept 
 abreast of the times, and that fact would necessarily 
 thus be indicated. How far the future distinction of 
 the student can be predicted by the rank assigned, has 
 not been definitely settled. Macaulay said that "the 
 general rule is, beyond all doubt, that the men who 
 were first in the competition of the schools have 
 been first in competition of the world," and Bowdoin 
 has furnished abundant proofs in support of that 
 conclusion, though the exceptions have thus far been 
 sufficiently numerous to prevent the laying down of 
 
42 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 any hard and fast line upon the subject. As time goes 
 on and the curriculum is expanded, a nearer approach 
 to uniformity in that regard may be expected, but the 
 rule can never be so absolute as to discourage earnest 
 effort because of failure to meet its requisitions. 
 
 That the selection of the subject of his part is one 
 of the straws showing which way the wind of aspira- 
 tion or of ambition is blowing in the young man's mind, 
 has often been asserted, and that of Longfellow on 
 " Our Native Writers " has been instanced in support of 
 that contention, but "Chatterton" was the topic he 
 selected, and he changed his theme on the advice of 
 his father. Singularly, President Woods, on his grad- 
 uation at Union in 1827, gave a poem on " Suicide," 
 Chatterton being the hero ; but as Dr. Nott prescribed 
 the subject, form, and even meter, what his own choice 
 would have been it is impossible to tell, though the 
 incident shows that Dr. Nott considered our President 
 capable of anything. 
 
 The JSTestor of the old faculty, Professor Cleave- 
 land, appeared at the first commencement. Arriving in 
 the preceding October, for fifty years he attracted 
 attention to the College by that display of unrivaled 
 capacity which merged his renown as an author in his 
 celebrity as a great teacher. 
 
 Packard, Smyth, Upham, and Newman came later, 
 and to these, Goodwin, who succeeded Longfellow, 
 whose departure justified Mr. Daveis' remark that other 
 
ADDRESS 43 
 
 institutions not only borrowed our oil but took away 
 our lamps also. 
 
 Any attempt to retouch the lifelike portraiture of 
 their colleagues to be found in the pages of Woods, of 
 Packard, and of Goodwin, would be idle, while Packard 
 is immortalized in the lines of one of the most cele- 
 brated of his pupils and associates. 
 
 As to him, an observation may well be added. In 
 his address of 1858, Professor Packard quotes Chief 
 Justice Jay as saying that the French Revolution "ban- 
 ished silk stockings and good manners ; " but he fur- 
 nished in himself throughout the sixty-five years of his 
 devotion to the College and its work, indubitable proof 
 that, though knee breeches had disappeared, the latter 
 part of the opinion of the Chief Justice must be limited 
 in its application or be overruled. 
 
 The wide and varied learning, the accurate scholar- 
 ship, the critical and incisive intellect of Goodwin, con- 
 tinued in other fields of usefulness, the high distinction 
 which accompanied his efforts here, while his remark- 
 able power in debate gave him deserved weight in the 
 councils of the church of which he was a member. 
 
 ~No mist separates the memories of these early 
 laborers in this vineyard from the later time. They 
 live not simply in the published works by which most 
 of them won great distinction — not simply in the repu- 
 tation acquired by the excellence of their teaching, but 
 in the sweet remembrance of those daily lives of faith- 
 
44 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 fulness to duty, through which precept received its 
 chiefest value from example. 
 
 The charter established a College "for the purpose 
 of educating youth," by the appropriation of its income 
 "in such manner as shall most effectually promote 
 virtue and piety and the knowledge of such of the lan- 
 guages, and of the useful and liberal arts and sciences 
 as shall be hereafter directed from time to time by said 
 corporation." 
 
 Those were the days — we trust, in every fundamen- 
 tal sense, they still are with us — when all alike regarded 
 virtue and piety as essential elements of education and 
 religion as the chief corner-stone of an educational 
 institution. 
 
 It was impossible that any other view could be 
 entertained. Religion of some kind has been the basis 
 of education of whatever kind and at whatever time; 
 and as the things of truth, of honesty, of justice, of 
 purity, of loveliness, and of good report were the 
 acknowledged ends of education, these were to be 
 attained only through the spiritual forces of the Chris- 
 tian religion by which human culture had been pre- 
 served and through which it was to reach its highest 
 development. 
 
 The charter did but adopt the language of the con- 
 stitution of the state, which declared not only that 
 knowledge, wisdom, and virtue were necessary for the 
 preservation of the people's rights and liberties, but also 
 that the people's happiness and good order and the 
 
ADDRESS 45 
 
 preservation of civil government essentially depended 
 upon piety, religion, and morality. 
 
 Persuaded of these truths, it was in their enforce- 
 ment that the godly men to whose care the infant years 
 of the college were committed found their inspiration 
 and their hope ; and if a certain narrowness has been 
 attributed to them, it must not be forgotten that the 
 strength of a foundation depends upon the carrying 
 quality of which it is composed rather than its breadth. 
 
 " If this institution," said Hawthorne, in that early 
 novel, which his fame has not allowed to be suppressed, 
 " did not offer all the advantages of older and prouder 
 seminaries, its deficiencies were compensated to its stu- 
 dents by the inculcation of regular habits, and of a deep 
 and awful sense of religion which seldom deserted them 
 in their course through life." It does not appear that 
 the severity of the presentation of religious truths pre- 
 vented him from indulging in the youthful pleasures of 
 the time, but in this reference is there not to some 
 extent a key to the sombre undertones of the works of 
 this great artist? Did not the influence to which he 
 alludes impress itself upon his imagination and find 
 expression in the treatment of the profound problems 
 of life, the nature of sin, its relation to crime, the 
 mystery of pain, the reason and the value of existence, 
 the law of repentance, the cure for the sinning soul, 
 with which he deals in those masterpieces of fiction? 
 
 JSo doubt intellectual discipline and not religious 
 instruction is the object of the modern college, but the 
 
46 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 importance of religious influence on the life and char- 
 acter of the student has never been underrated here, 
 and the golden strand still runs through the cable that 
 moors the College to its anchorage, and marks it as one 
 of the ships of the King. 
 
 The requirement of the observance of the Lord's 
 Day and attendance at Chapel exercises and upon public 
 worship still obtains, and the religious atmosphere of 
 the earlier years still pervades those which have suc- 
 ceeded. 
 
 If worship be necessary, and decay marks the nation 
 which neglects it, that necessity has not been weakened 
 in the advance of science ; the increase in business and 
 political activities; the multiplication of human wants 
 and the means of their gratification; the progress of 
 man in the solution of the problem of self-government. 
 
 Physiology demonstrated the experiment of Revo- 
 lutionary France of one day in ten to be inadequate for 
 the rest required by nature, and the soul should be 
 accorded no less for its repose. 
 
 True, the President of the United States would not 
 now be halted by the "tythingman" for violation of law 
 in riding to church on Sunday morning, nor would the 
 student be fined "for unnecessary walking on the Sab- 
 bath ; " but less rigor in the enforcement leaves the rule 
 unchanged, and the reasoning has not lost its force, 
 that so " outward obedience may come to foster inward ; 
 for submission becomes habit, and habit inclination, 
 and inclination love, and love piety, and thus, though 
 
ADDRESS 47 
 
 of mean origin, may grow np a sentiment that shall be 
 high, no less than a sacred sentiment inspiring man's 
 spirit with all that is holy on the holy day." 
 
 Naturally the first two presidents, McKeen and 
 Appleton, both scholars with marked aptitudes for col- 
 lege government, are chiefly remembered as men of 
 piety. McKeen died all too early to leave a particular 
 impress on the institution, although the students he 
 matriculated testified in their after life to the benefits 
 of his instruction ; while the saintliness of Appleton so 
 marks the twelve years of his presidency as to with- 
 draw attention from other and adequate grounds of 
 commendation. 
 
 Dr. Allen was evidently equally devoted to the cause 
 of religion though perhaps less felicitous in his efforts 
 to advance it. Of much industry and learning, he was 
 a man of many works, including many verses, to which 
 one of his pupils obviously refers when he says that 
 the students "regarded him with an affection that was 
 strengthened by the little foibles which occasionally ex- 
 cited their ridicule," an admonition that persons in high 
 station should be cautious in venturing into rhyme. He 
 was manifestly an excellent fighter, and enjoyed the 
 satisfaction, though losing the presidency of Dartmouth 
 University through the judgment of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, of retaining that at Brunswick 
 by the decision of one of the most eminent members of 
 that court. 
 
 The establishment of the Medical School signalized 
 
48 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 his administration, and may be attributed in large 
 measure to his efforts, as is fairly to be inferred 
 from his address on the death of his ancient friend and 
 colleague, Dr. Nathan Smith, whose name is insepara- 
 bly connected with the institution. The school, Presi- 
 dent Allen says, assumed " at once a rank and character 
 among the best institutions of the kind in America," 
 and this it has always sustained. 
 
 That discourse is a characteristic one, and Dr. Allen 
 makes it perfectly plain that his views of the nature 
 and merits of the celebrated controversy, from which 
 he had so recently emerged, remained unchanged. 
 
 Considering the distinguished statesmen and jurists 
 who graduated under his regime — such men as William 
 Pitt Fessenden, John P. Hale, Franklin Pierce, Seargent 
 S. Prentiss (George Evans had preceded them), Chief 
 Justice Appleton, Drummond, Boyd, and others — more, 
 in proportion, than have ever passed the portals of any 
 college in this country, at a given time — his remarks 
 on the various professions and occupations of men are 
 extremely interesting. He assigns the first rank to the 
 teacher of divine truth, the next to the skillful and 
 faithful physician, and then says that the ministers of 
 justice, including the expounders of the law, as well as 
 those "who argue on opposite sides of every question, 
 may be useful, especially in a contentious community, 
 in maintaining the rights of property and of charac- 
 ter." "The race of statesmen," he continues, "may 
 be of some advantage, although it is understood by the 
 
ADDRESS 49 
 
 intelligent, that their wisest measures are such, as 
 interfere the least with individual enterprise; or, in 
 other words, that they are wisest, when they make the 
 fewest enactments; wisest, generally, when they do 
 nothing." And after some observations upon govern- 
 ment in the spirit of Mr. Jefferson's first inaugural, 
 he adds: "Besides, a great statesman is very apt to 
 seize upon a great project, and a great project is 
 usually full of mischief." 
 
 President Woods was a man of different tempera- 
 ment and of different methods. He came to the presi- 
 dency though "young in years, in sage experience 
 old ; " and his profound scholarship ; his exquisite cult- 
 ure ; his wonderful colloquial powers ; the breadth of 
 his views ; his love for all that was old, which never- 
 theless did not lessen his deep sympathy with all that 
 was progressive, at least progressive along the ancient 
 ways, carried the reputation of the College to the 
 highest point, and endeared him to all who sat under 
 his instruction. The chapel commemorates not only his 
 love of art in connection with religion, but the facility 
 with which he applied the analytical capacity, which 
 had served him so well in threading the mazes of the- 
 ology, to the mastery of the law of contingent remain- 
 ders. He was regarded by some as a poet, and he was 
 certainly a born orator in that the highest exercise of 
 his powers was called forth by the audience before 
 him. He seemed to realize the thought of Gladstone, 
 and to receive the influence of the minds of his hear- 
 
50 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 ers in vapor and pour it back upon them in a flood. 
 He never swerved in his allegiance to the church of 
 his fathers, but his mind dwelt on the points in which 
 ecclesiastical organizations agreed rather than those in 
 which they differed, and he hoped the time might come 
 when they might co-operate " as parts of one common 
 church," a hope significant of the sweetness and light 
 of his character. 
 
 The discipline he believed in and exercised was 
 based upon personal influence and the invocation of 
 the principles of honor, and the reverence and affec- 
 tion of those upon whom it operated were paid him in 
 life and follow him now that he rests from his labors. 
 And yet how little in permanent form remains to us of 
 this eminent man! A Phi Beta Kappa oration; eulo- 
 gies on Professor Cleaveland and Daniel Webster; the 
 address on the opening of the New Medical College — 
 all perfect in their kind — a translation with an intro- 
 duction, equal, if not superior, to the text ; a few review 
 articles; and while these demonstrate that half his 
 strength he put not forth, they are not enough for that 
 enduring fame that should have been his. "Why was 
 it so? Was it because aspiration filled his mind with 
 ideal visions to which he despaired of giving adequate 
 expression, while he lacked the ambition to leave visi- 
 ble monuments to posterity on his own account? Or 
 was he content with that influence on minds which by 
 transmission will move the undercurrents for unnum- 
 bered years, though the original source of impulse be 
 
ADDRESS 51 
 
 forgotten? In that sense, a great teacher may rest 
 satisfied with the work which he has accomplished, 
 though the remembrance of his personality may be 
 chiefly perpetuated in the long survival of regret that 
 he had not so embodied the results of his intellectual 
 toil that hither, as to a fountain, "other suns" might 
 return, "and in their urns, draw golden light." 
 
 The College is not, and has never claimed to be, a 
 university, in the sense of a place of universal instruc- 
 tion, or of an examining rather than a teaching body. 
 ]STor is it a school of science or of professional train- 
 ing, but it is a school whose scheme of discipline and 
 culture aims to fit the student for the pursuits of practical 
 life or to advance in any line of further development, 
 whether in the professions, in letters, or in science. 
 True, the Medical School is under its charge and joins 
 to it one of the great faculties belonging to universi- 
 ties, and the expectation is reasonable that in due time 
 there may be others, including that of theology, when 
 that foolish virgin, as President Woods remarked, has 
 replenished her lamp with the oil of her sister sciences ; 
 but thus far the College has wisely been contented with 
 its position as a school for fundamental liberal educa- 
 tion, afforded at a cost that places it within the reach 
 of the humblest, and has left larger institutions to 
 occupy their own fields without being tempted into 
 perilous competition. ISTor is it likely to change 
 its essential characteristics when all the professional 
 schools are grouped about it. The storm in respect of 
 
52 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 classical culture passed over its head undisturbed, and 
 it has adhered to the mathematical and classical curric- 
 ulum from the first; but broadened to open up to the 
 student every department, whether in the cultivation 
 of the humanities or of the phenomena and laws of 
 nature, or of economics, according to the advancing 
 standards of the time. The conservatism which secures 
 that which is best in the past has been united to the 
 progress which is essential to any future, for with 
 educational, as with every other human institution, 
 growth is the essential condition of preservation from 
 decay. 
 
 And now glancing back over the years that have 
 gone, to what extent have the alumni of the College 
 vindicated the training that they here received and the 
 influences by which they were surrounded during this 
 formative period of their lives? Huxley says practical 
 life is a rule of three sum, in which your duty, multi- 
 plied by your capacity and divided by your circum- 
 stances, gives your deserts. Let us, for our purpose, 
 put it thus, what has the result been of the multiplica- 
 tion of duty by capacity and again by college training 
 and environment? What have been the results in char- 
 acter, in power, in culture, and in the exertion of bene- 
 ficial influence? Doubtless in a given course of years 
 there are seasons of peculiar richness of bloom in every 
 college and university. Such was the time when Long- 
 fellow and Hawthorne shed undying lustre on the class 
 of 1825, for in that class, and in the classes that imme- 
 
ADDRESS 53 
 
 diately preceded and followed it, covering a period of 
 seven years, we find the names of men of such eminence 
 as jurists, physicians, authors, teachers, and divines, 
 statesmen and orators, as would render any school 
 illustrious. Among them were six members of the 
 Senate of the United States, of whom two still survive, 
 one of them, born the year that witnessed the entry of 
 the first class, we welcome to this Centennial of the 
 College, on which he has reflected so much honor, and 
 to which he has given the faithful service of so many 
 years. And both before and after this particular period, 
 graduates of the highest distinction, sometimes rising 
 singly rather than in constellations, have given our 
 Alma Mater just cause for honest pride. 
 
 Obviously a roll of alumni upon which appear a 
 President and nine Senators of the United States, a 
 Speaker of the National House, twenty-five members 
 of Congress, many governors, foreign ministers, and 
 members of state legislatures, attests marked adapta- 
 tion to participation in political affairs and the conse- 
 quent acquisition of prominence in that direction, in 
 respect of which it may be added that there has recently 
 been nothing to indicate any diminution. 
 
 We need not dwell on that. When we run 
 
 over the list of our graduates — the number of college 
 presidents of professors in colleges, theological semin- 
 aries, and medical schools; of those who have given 
 themselves to the ministry of the gospel, the practice 
 of law and of medicine; to teaching and to journalism; 
 
54 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 review the record of their useful lives and consider the 
 far-reaching influences for good they have exerted upon 
 the community, we may well congratulate our Alma 
 Mater upon results, the achievement of which has been 
 aided or rendered possible through her nurture. 
 
 It has been said that college education unfits for 
 practical life and business affairs ; but it is difficult to 
 see why in any walk of life, in any field of exertion, in 
 any department of trade, of commerce, or of business, 
 the trained intellect and disciplined mind should not be 
 sure to tell, although, of course, there will be educated 
 men who fail, but not by reason of their education. 
 If Cyrus Hamlin was qualified here to found a college 
 amid the greatest difficulties in a far-off land, did not 
 his Bowdoin training likewise enable him to literally 
 superintend the actual erection of his college buildings ; 
 to bake bread for divisions of the Crimean army; to 
 wash the clothes from the army hospitals? Was that 
 education unavailing when he cast his own steam-pipe 
 for his mill, and shut himself up with his forge, good 
 charcoal, a can of oil, and Ure's Dictionary of Arts, 
 and tempered the points of his steel picks? Are not 
 the interests of science and industry identical, and is 
 this any the less so because to obtain the highest ends, 
 truth must be sought for its own sake? 
 
 When after less than seventy years of the century 
 of the College had passed, the integrity of the nation 
 was threatened, and the experiment of self-government 
 on an imperial scale trembled in the balance, was there 
 
ADDRESS 55 
 
 any debilitating influence derived from the cultivation 
 of letters or the possession of academic education, 
 that withheld the sons of Bowdoin from their country's 
 call ? Did not the lessons they had been taught here, 
 the lessons of duty, the lessons of patriotism, the les- 
 sons of that spiritual wisdom that finds its central 
 truth in self-sacrifice, bring forth abundant harvest in 
 that hour of peril? 
 
 Let the names of Howard and of Chamberlain and 
 of all those inscribed on yonder walls reply; while 
 on the graves of those who died we found a stronger 
 faith in immortality. 
 
 The record so briefly sketched is one of excellent 
 and progressive teaching; of wise and faithful train- 
 ing; of successful and honorable results. 
 
 With a President and corps of teachers, young, 
 vigorous, in grasp of the accumulated treasures of 
 the learning and experience of the past and in touch 
 with the spirit of the time; with Boards acting in 
 harmony, and numbering in their membership now, as 
 always, men eminent in letters and in the exercise of 
 public functions, and devoted to the cause of higher 
 education; with needed endowments gradually being 
 bestowed as the usefulness of the College becomes 
 more widely recognized, and the esprit de corps of its 
 alumni becomes more and more awakened; we look 
 forward in confidence that much as she may fairly 
 claim to have already accomplished, the future of our 
 
56 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 Alma Mater will be still more useful and beneficial 
 and crowned with still greater renown. 
 
 But the duties and responsibilities resting upon the 
 College as it advances into its second century have 
 increased in importance with the increasing gravity of 
 the questions which unexampled progress in its first 
 has necessarily evolved. 
 
 The men who signed the Declaration and framed 
 the Federal Constitution regarded equality and the 
 rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, as 
 attainable, not through violent and casual forces, but 
 by the effective power of law exerted through a 
 definite scheme of government so ordered as to best 
 secure that sober second thought, whose operation 
 renders popular government possible. 
 
 And by written constitutions, National and State, 
 the people themselves set bounds to their own power 
 as against the sudden impulses of mere majorities, and 
 made the protection of life and liberty, the sacredness 
 of contract and the stability of private property, the 
 basis of the State. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking incident in Governor 
 Bowdoin's career was the suppression in 1786 of the 
 armed outbreak against constituted authority in Massa- 
 chusetts, which sprang from the discontent engendered 
 by the miseries succeeding the close of the Revolution, 
 and which so alarmed Washington, among other 
 reasons, because, as Knox wrote him, the insurgents 
 declared for agrarian laws and the annihilation of all 
 
ADDRESS 57 
 
 debts, public and private, "easily to be effected by 
 means of unfunded paper money, which shall be a 
 tender in all cases whatever." 
 
 In 1794, Washington, in the second term of his 
 Presidency, moved at the head of the troops called 
 out to put down resistance to the enforcement of the 
 laws of the United States. 
 
 The approval of these exertions of governmental 
 power thus early in our history indicated the popular 
 consciousness that government is not a thing that goes 
 by itself, and that grievances must be redressed by the 
 pursuit of orderly methods, and not through the over- 
 throw of all authority. 
 
 Closely coincident with the year of our foundation 
 the industrial movement began which has led to such 
 marvellous results in the domain of invention; in the 
 increase of production by the application of machin- 
 ery; in the development of the means of locomotion 
 and intercommunication. Physical science was then 
 in its infancy, and steam and electricity were waiting 
 to be summoned to the service of mankind. 
 
 Stupendous as the achievements in these directions 
 have been, we are admonished that Science trembles 
 on the borders of discoveries to which these are as 
 nothing. Nevertheless, the flower in the crannied wall 
 holds the secret of what it is, "root and all, and all 
 in all," and the religious instinct, unrepressed by 
 science or reason, triumphs over the infidelity with 
 
58 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 which the century began, and answers the question of 
 Pilate with the Master's life. 
 
 But the world is not to be made over on the 
 instant, and the problems of modern civilization can- 
 not be solved by revolution. With the enormous mul- 
 tiplication of population and wealth, that civilization 
 has assumed new political and social aspects. Capital 
 combines; labor organizes; and the demand is made 
 that all corporate power shall be exercised, and that all 
 the instrumentalities of intercourse, all the operations 
 of production and consumption, shall be not simply 
 regulated but conducted by the State. 
 
 Thus the liberty of the individual and the cultiva- 
 tion of the virtues essential to real progress, the prin- 
 ciples which lie at the base of popular government, 
 are insiduously threatened, and the old question as 
 between reliance on private energy on the one hand 
 and on governmental interposition on the other, again 
 emerges, as between the interference that enables and 
 the interference that destroys. 
 
 It was said of Turgot, that he "was filled with an 
 astonished, awful, oppressive sense of the immoral 
 thoughtlessness of men; of the heedless, hazardous 
 way in which they dealt with things of the greatest 
 moment to them ; of the immense, incalculable misery 
 which is due to this cause ; " and although the hundred 
 years may have somewhat modified this conclusion, 
 that thoughtlessness still keeps alive the seeds of 
 peril. To overcome it is the beneficent mission of 
 
ADDRESS 59 
 
 that training" and education which, apart from the 
 acquisition of knowledge, develop character and per- 
 fect the man. 
 
 It does not follow that the successful actor in affairs 
 need necessarily be the graduate of a college or univer- 
 sity. Washington and Franklin and Lincoln were not 
 college men (though each a student according to his 
 opportunities), but Samuel Adams and John Adams 
 and Otis and Hamilton and Jay and Jefferson and 
 Madison, and a host of others — the majority of the 
 framers of the Constitution, and the hundreds who 
 through the pulpit and the press prepared the way for 
 the Revolution — were; and at this juncture nothing is 
 clearer than that in the coining years the higher educa- 
 tion will play the most efficient and saving part in the 
 preservation of institutions and in the leadership essen- 
 tial to avert or to control whatever crisis may be threat- 
 ened or arise. 
 
 A few months since, in the White City by the Lake, 
 the creation of a municipality whose location was the 
 carrying place of the red man a hundred years ago, the 
 marvellous material, intellectual, and spiritual progress 
 of mankind was exemplified in honor of the discoverer 
 of America. 
 
 The fruits of civilization thus displayed signally 
 commemorated the faith, the endurance, and the pa- 
 tience which gave a new world to the old. Those are 
 the qualities which, slowly it may be, but certainly, 
 
60 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 outweigh whatever ignorance, or unbelief, or brute 
 force may cast into the other scale. 
 
 May the faith, the endurance, and the patience 
 which characterized those who laid the foundations of 
 this institution, safe guarded its early progress, and 
 secured the great measure of success which has 
 attended it, be with its government, its teachers, and 
 its pupils as aforetime, enabling the sons of Bowdoin 
 in the centuries to come, in the pursuit of lofty ends, 
 whether in science, in letters, in philosophy, in the 
 professions, or in public affairs, to serve well their 
 day and generation, to efficiently aid in sustaining and 
 perpetuating the institutions of their beloved country 
 and the complete accomplishment of its great destiny, 
 and so to contribute their whole part to the final 
 triumph of humanity. 
 
POEM 
 
 THE TORCH-BEARERS 
 
 ARLO BATES, Litt.D. 
 
 Class of 1876 
 
Copyright, 1894, by Arlo Bates. 
 
ONCJE in this 'place I saw a poet stand, 
 In all the dignity of age, ivith hair 
 White as the foam on Androscoggin's falls; 
 And heard his silver voice over the hush 
 More eloquent than noisy plaudits say : 
 " O Ccesar, we who are about to die 
 Salute you ! " While all those who listened knew 
 Fame had so crowned him that he still would live 
 When death had done its worst. To-day the grace 
 Lies in the high occasion, not the lay. 
 To-day we mark the rounded century, 
 And pause to say : " Our fathers have done well; 
 Let us take counsel what their sons may do." 
 
 At such a time, in such a place as this; 
 Here, where a melancholy whisper comes 
 From the thin breezes yearning toiuard sea; 
 Where wistful sighs of long remembrance stir 
 The bosom of the ever-murmuring pines; 
 Here, where a thousand varied 7nemories 
 Rise up to waken pride or touch regret; 
 Where our lost youth lies wait and peers at us 
 As if some dryad shy peeped from her tree; 
 What word is fitting here and fitting now f 
 
 We find our hearts too full for lightsome speech. 
 The burden of the century which ends, 
 
64 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 The burden of the ending century, 
 
 Together weigh upon us, and incite 
 
 To thoughts of grave and deep solemnity. 
 
 The empty babble of things idly said 
 
 By lip alone were insidt to the time. 
 
 Not for a day like this are gleeful song 
 
 And amorous lay, — melodious nightingales 
 
 Fluting enchantment to the southern moon; 
 
 Qay mockery of life, like dancing foam 
 
 Flashing and crackling at the wine-cup's brim. 
 
 Not for a day like this regretfid plaint 
 
 For all that has been, but, alas ! is not. 
 
 Jocund bravado of high-thoughted youth 
 
 And bitterness of grief-acqiiainted age 
 
 Alike would jar. For, lo, here Duty waits 
 
 With finger on her lip, unsmiling, stem, — 
 
 And yet with eyes of passionate desire 
 
 Which yearn for that which is beyond all speech; 
 
 Her mien austere, and yet her lofty look 
 
 An inspiration and a benison. 
 
 It is in Duty's name that one must speak, 
 Or let the silence prove more eloquent. 
 
THE TORCH-BEARERS 
 
 ONCE on a night so dark it might have been 
 Ere God had yet commanded : " Be there light ! " 
 When all the spirits of the dread unseen 
 
 Had burst their bonds, and joined rebellious fight, 
 I stood among the fisher-folk, and heard 
 
 The innumerable tumult of the storm sweep down, 
 Till the earth quivered, and the sea seemed stirred 
 
 To its remotest deeps, where they who drown 
 Sleep calm in water still as lucent stone. 
 
 The wind and wave were all commingled. Sea 
 And air were one. The beaten surf was blown 
 
 Like sand against our faces ; mockingly 
 A million voices clamored in the dark, 
 
 Deriding human might. They who upheld 
 The flaring torches stood there gaunt and stark, 
 
 And fought for breath; while yet they stood un- 
 quelled, — 
 For there were boats at sea. 
 
 A woman lay 
 Face down along the sand, her brown hands clenched, 
 Her hair mixed with the drifted weed, while spray 
 
66 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 And rain and icy sleet her garments drenched 
 And froze her as she lay and writhed. Her love 
 
 Was in the boats. His mother at her head 
 Crouched with white locks storm-torn; while bright 
 above 
 
 The red glare by the flaring torches shed 
 Fell on white faces, wild with fear and pain, 
 
 Peering with eyes hand-shaded at the night 
 In vain endeavor some faint hope to gain. 
 
 But the black wall of darkness beat the light 
 Backward as from a block of ebony. 
 
 The spume and spray like snow-flakes whirling flew 
 Where the torch-bearers stood, half in the sea ; 
 
 From every torch the flakes of red flame blew 
 Backward, as float the blood-stained tufts of down 
 
 Torn by an arrow from a fleeing bird. 
 The wind beat down the flame, the rain would drown; 
 
 Almost it seemed shrill voices might be heard 
 Crying against the beacon set to guide 
 
 The tempest's prey to safety. " Quench it ! Quench ! " 
 The voices clamored; while the angry tide 
 
 Leaped on the bearers to drag down and drench 
 The saving flame. Yet none the less they held 
 
 Their bright, wind-beaten torches high 
 Amid the storm, and as it fiercer swelled 
 
 Flung out defiant hope to sea and sky. 
 
POEM 67 
 
 II 
 Like those brave torch-bearers around whom foam 
 
 And wind-blown spray flew blindingly, to-day 
 Stands man upon these shores, refuge and home 
 
 Of Liberty, who fled in sore dismay 
 Across the seas, escaping lash and chain, — 
 
 The nameless tortures of the sullen East, 
 Where souls are thrown like dice and manhood slain ; — 
 
 The tyrannies of Europe, rack of priest 
 And knout of Tzar, the dungeon and the spy; — 
 
 The cunning craft of Bismarcks, gluing up 
 With blood an empire; — the infuriate cry 
 
 Of France, drunk both with blood and pleasure's 
 cup;— 
 England's supreme brutality, which leaps 
 
 To strike each weak, defenceless land, and leaves 
 Her bravest sons to die unsuccored; keeps 
 
 Ireland in chains beneath her feet, and weaves 
 A net of tyrannies around the earth 
 
 Until the sun can never on them set. 
 
 Such things have been. Alas for man when birth 
 Means slavery! 
 
 Her snowy shoulders wet 
 With unstaunched blood, torn by the biting lash ; 
 
 Her wrists scarred with the gyves ; her pleading eyes 
 Piteous in wild entreaty; bruise and gash 
 
 On her fair brow, — fled Liberty, with cries 
 Which startled to the stars with piercing dread. 
 
 Daring to draw our daily breath like men, 
 
68 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 To walk beneath the sky with lifted head, 
 
 How should we know man's degradation when 
 His every heartbeat slackens with the fear 
 
 Of lash and chain, — life's meaning to the slave? 
 It was from this fled Liberty, and here 
 
 She finds a refuge or she finds a grave. 
 For, O America, our country ! Land 
 
 Hid in the west through centuries, till men 
 Through countless tyrannies could understand 
 
 The priceless worth of freedom, — once again 
 The world was new-created when thy shore 
 
 First knew the Pilgrim keels ; that one last test 
 The race might make of manhood, nor give o'er 
 
 The strife with evil till it proved its best. 
 Thy true sons stand as torch-bearers, to hold 
 
 A guiding light. Here the last stand is made. 
 If we fail here, what new Columbus bold, 
 
 Steering brave prow through black seas unafraid, 
 Finds out a fresh land where man may abide 
 
 And freedom yet be saved? The whole round earth 
 Has seen the battle fought. Where shall men hide 
 
 From tyranny and wrong, where life have worth, 
 If here the cause succumb? If greed of gold 
 
 Or lust of power or falsehood triumph here, 
 The race is lost! A globe dispeopled, cold, 
 
 Rolled down the void a voiceless, lifeless sphere, 
 Were not so stamped by all which hope debars 
 
 As were this earth, plunging along through space 
 Conquered by evil, shamed among the stars, 
 
POEM 69 
 
 Bearing a base, enslaved, dishonored race ! 
 Here has the battle its last vantage ground; 
 
 Here all is won or here mnst all be lost; 
 Here freedom's trumpets one last rally sound; 
 
 Here to the breeze its blood-stained flag is tossed. 
 America, last hope of man and truth, 
 
 Thy name must through all coming ages be 
 The badge unspeakable of shame and ruth, 
 
 Or glorious pledge that man through truth is free. 
 This is thy destiny ; the choice is thine 
 
 To lead all nations and outshine them all ; — 
 But if thou failest, deeper shame is thine, 
 
 And none shall spare to mock thee in thy fall. 
 
 Ill' 
 
 As when an avalanche among the hills 
 
 Shakes to their very base the mountains hoar 
 And with a din of vibrant voices fills 
 
 All air and sky, there answer to its roar 
 A hundred empty echoes, poor and thin, 
 
 So words come after deeds; so must words stand 
 For all that men hold holiest, all they win 
 
 By might of soul no less than strength of hand. 
 What generations desperately brave 
 
 Have fought through war and woe, through doubt 
 and pain, 
 To break the bonds which make of man a slave ; 
 
 How poor are words to gather up their gain ! 
 
70 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 We hear with even, hardly quickened breath 
 
 Or one poor thrill, freedom's supernal name ; 
 The word our fathers cried in blood and death 
 
 Leaves but a dying echo, weak and tame. 
 "We read the patriots' roll with hearts unmoved, 
 
 And count their deeds as old wives' tales grown 
 stale ; 
 The glorious fields in which their worth was proved 
 
 Grow thick with grass ; heroic memories fail. 
 
 O men, sons of the world's one land left free, 
 
 What shall bring home to you the mighty truth, — 
 The burden of your sacred destiny, 
 
 The office which is yours in very sooth? 
 What word will make you feel that you must stand 
 
 Like those torch-bearers in the night and storm? 
 That mankind struggles desperate toward land, — 
 
 Lost, if your beacon-light do not inform 
 Their tempest-blinded eyes? Not yours to sit, 
 
 Sheltered and warm, and hear the gale sweep by 
 Unheeded. Let the blazing torch be lit, 
 
 And stand like heroes where the surf is high ! 
 The night roars round us as if tempests cleft 
 
 The solid earth and made the heavens bow; 
 If now the torches fail, what hope is left, — 
 
 For never was more need of aid than now? 
 
 IV 
 
 Yet not alone from base indifference 
 
 Do her sons fail the land in her sore need. 
 
POEM 71 
 
 Easy it were to arm in her defence, 
 
 And on the splendid fields of glory bleed. 
 The land lacks not sons at her call would die, — 
 
 It is a harder task for her to live ! 
 And who may say which way duty doth lie? 
 
 Who tell what aid we to our land may give? 
 Lo ! like the thunders by a prophet heard 
 
 Telling the things which future days shall see, 
 Far down the ages rolls the mighty word, 
 
 The voice of God: "The Truth shall make you 
 free!" 
 The Truth ! Not now we fight with sword and lance, 
 
 ~Nor yet with eager bullet swift for prey ; 
 Strife is not fiercest now where foes advance 
 
 In ranks embattled, in mad zeal to slay. 
 Thus have men fought of old, and thus while life 
 
 Is made a pawn in the great game of fate 
 Men may fight on; but keener is the strife 
 
 Where bloodless triumphs upon victory wait. 
 
 When first rude savage brutes — but half aware 
 
 That they were men; feeling their doubtful way 
 To reason and to manhood, — chose some lair 
 
 Where crouched and huddled like wild wolves they 
 lay, 
 They made him chief who beat them down and broke 
 
 Their pride with fear ; — but if he did them wrong, 
 If he betrayed, their sullen rage awoke ; 
 
 And stealing on him stretched in sleep along, 
 
72 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 They slew him, — doing sacrifice to truth 
 By very treachery, in guiltless crime. 
 
 Oblivion-lost, dull generations, youth 
 
 And age melted together in the lapse of time, 
 Sped from the womb swift-footed to the tomb; 
 
 And learned of life and love a little, learned 
 Of death and hate how much ! From out the gloom 
 
 Of those dim centuries, long since returned 
 To chaos whence they came, whatever gleam 
 
 Of light glances to sight is but the flare 
 Of sword or lance ; or, if a brighter beam 
 
 Leap up a moment, 'tis the dancing glare 
 Of blazing town, or pyre where in flame 
 
 Some warrior goes in fire to claim reward 
 For hardihood in battle. What was fame 
 
 But echo from the din of fight? Abhorred 
 Was he who dared name peace. All history 
 Is writ in blood and stained with battle-smoke; 
 While still that word: "The truth shall make 
 you eree ! " 
 
 Uncomprehended, down the ages spoke. 
 
 But what is truth? Wise sages long inurned 
 And countless generations craved it still 
 
 With unavailing passion, faith which yearned 
 In ecstacies of hope, and ardent will 
 
POEM 73 
 
 Which stormed high heaven and groped in utmost deep. 
 
 Since time's first day the history of man 
 Has been this quest; and yet of all who sleep 
 
 In graves unnumbered how few won to scan 
 The open secret blazoned all around ! 
 
 What far lands have been searched, what battles 
 fought, 
 What stress of soul endured; yet men have found 
 
 It not ! And found it not because they sought 
 For that which is not; thinking truth a thing, 
 
 Cold concrete fact, their very hands might touch, 
 To which their weakness, their despair might cling. 
 
 How could they know the truth, deeming it such? 
 How many ages needed man to learn 
 
 That that which changeless is may changeful show ! 
 Alters the sphered moon, although it turn 
 
 With varying phases to our eyes below? 
 Truth is not brought from far; it comes not fair 
 
 Like delved gold drudged darkling from the mine ; 
 It breathes about us like the morning air ; 
 
 For every eye its quenchless glories shine. 
 Wide as the light, truth is not formal creed, 
 
 Or fact or law or theory ; it takes 
 A thousand shapes protean, now in deed 
 
 And now in doctrine, like a wave which breaks 
 Forever on the jagged rocks, and yet 
 
 Is never twice the same. A passing word 
 Holds it a moment, as a jewel set 
 
74 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 In a king's signet if his hand be stirred 
 Kindles with sudden light, then darkens straight; — 
 
 So with the word npon the very tongue 
 Sudden 'tis false. Truth's trumpet tones elate 
 
 Awake to deeds such as the bards have sung, — 
 Then ere their echoes die the clear notes jar, 
 
 And harshest discords crash upon the ear; 
 Till that which has been truth from truth is far, 
 
 And they who fought in faith shrink back in fear. 
 
 How many noble souls in ages old 
 
 Have given life itself to testify 
 That that was true which now as false we hold; 
 
 Faiths which to-day discarded, trampled lie 
 Have been the war-cry thrilling hearts austere; 
 
 Legions have rushed their triumph to achieve, 
 And with their blood have written crimson-clear 
 
 Upon a hundred fields : " This we believe ! " 
 From fallen truth to truth shall fall the race 
 
 Goes ever forward. What to-day is true 
 To-morrow will be false, and in its place 
 
 New creeds as frail will live their short day through. 
 Like bubbles on a flood, brief as a breath, 
 
 Yet telling how the stream flows ceaselessly, 
 Truth's brave illusions have their birth and death, 
 
 Immutable in mutability. 
 For truth is as a ray of light let fall 
 
 Upon the sea, — for every wavelet bright 
 
POEM 75 
 
 A different beam ; the same for all 
 
 And yet diverse in every mortal's sight. 
 
 It were as easy for a babe to reach 
 
 And gather np the sunshine on the floor 
 
 As to enchain elusive truth in speech, — 
 Though changeless yet evasive evermore. 
 
 VI 
 
 Who then shall know truth? Who the glory claims 
 
 To feel his being kindle with its fire? 
 How amid falsehood's thousand dancing flames 
 
 Know the pure spark of man's supreme desire? 
 Stand with thyself alone. Let mankind be 
 
 As if it were not. Question then thy soul : 
 " Say now what thou believest? " That for thee 
 
 Is truth the ultimate. The hoar stars roll 
 ISTo surer in their orbits, firmly stayed 
 
 By unseen bonds of elemental force, 
 Than man's inmost integrity is swayed 
 
 By that which is of verity the source. 
 
 Eons through space and through eternity 
 
 The universe sweeps forward on its way; — 
 Whence, who shall say? While whither utterly 
 
 Is hid from knowledge as night hides the day. 
 Yet all men feel the current of its tide; 
 
 We know the push of unseen hands behind. 
 Man's earliest conscious thought barbaric tried 
 
 With groping speech a name for this to find, 
 
76 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 And called it God or destiny or fate ; 
 
 "Weighing assurance by the weight of doubt; 
 Greater in faith because of fear more great; 
 
 Believing most what least man might search out. 
 To-day Doubt, with her sneering, chilling smile, — 
 
 She who destroys all faiths which time hath spared 
 As the weird sphinx with her entangling guile 
 
 Devoured them whom her riddle had ensnared; 
 Doubt, who with her destructive finger breaks 
 
 Each gleaming bubble of fair fancy frail, 
 And of its iridescent beauty makes 
 
 A drop discolored, — laughs to scorn the tale 
 Of other days as fable void and vain. 
 
 Only one thing remains she may not reach; 
 One thing which man can never doubt, though slain 
 
 All other verities the ages teach. 
 Conviction moves us still. What man believes 
 
 We reverence, whether we his faith may share 
 Or wonder how some wile his faith deceives. 
 
 We feel the truth, beyond all doubt aware 
 That truth lies in sincerity, though shame 
 
 And ignorance have bred and folly mean, — 
 As fire is pure although its lambent flame 
 
 Feed on heaped foulness, festering and obscene. 
 
 On this rests all the faith of man in man; 
 
 All brotherhood, all knowledge and all hope. 
 On this rests love. All human dealing scan, 
 
 Nor find the limits of its gracious scope ! 
 
POEM 77 
 
 Why is the martyr's name the highest crown 
 
 Which man may win, save that it proves him true 
 To that which speaks within? Lo, up and down 
 
 The wide, cold earth their influences renew 
 Courage and faith, till all true men thereat 
 
 Are steadfast in their turn, aroused thereby; — 
 Not for the thing which they believed, but that 
 
 They did believe, and dared for this to die ! 
 
 See where a broken host, desperate and torn, 
 
 Reddened with blood as with the sunset's glow, 
 Sweeps down the field in one last charge forlorn, 
 
 Knowing their cause is lost, yet choosing so 
 To fling their fives up in the face of fate, — 
 
 Too resolute to fear, too great to grieve, — 
 Exultant thus their death to dedicate 
 
 To that which they through life might not achieve. 
 And all mankind shall honor them, — yea, all ! 
 
 Though they fight in an evil cause, they fight 
 For truth who hold conviction firm ; and fall 
 
 Martyrs for truth, and children of the light. 
 
 There was a morn when all Rome stood aghast. 
 
 Riven with a thunder-bolt from Jove on high 
 Yawned in the forum a chasm deep and vast 
 
 As hell itself might at the bottom lie. 
 Tumultuous terror through the city sped. 
 
 Mothers their babies clasped, and maids as pale 
 As lilies lightning-seared, fear-smitten fled 
 
 Up to the pillared temples, with wild wail 
 
78 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 Crying to the immortal gods for aid. 
 
 Men whose undaunted might Rome boasted, now 
 Were weak as cowards, trembling and afraid. 
 
 The priests with smoking sacrifice and vow 
 Of hecatombs to the vexed deities 
 
 Strove to assuage heaven's wrath ; until at last 
 The sullen oracle what would appease 
 
 Indignant Jove proclaimed : " Let there be cast 
 Into the gaping depth Rome's choicest thing." 
 
 Then rode young Mettus Curtius to the brink, 
 And reined his curd- white horse in act to spring. 
 
 " Lo, here," he cried; " can hoary wisdom think 
 Of aught in Rome more choice, to Rome more dear, 
 
 More precious in the sight of gods and men 
 Than Rome's young manhood?" 
 
 Down the chasm sheer 
 
 He leaped to death and glory; and again 
 The rifted forum trembled, while as wave 
 
 Whelms into wave, the abyss shuddering closed, 
 Gulfing with greedy maw the dauntless brave, 
 
 Forever deathless there in death reposed. 
 We count 'his faith but folly; yet every heart 
 
 Still at his deed must thrill, because he died 
 For that which he believed, and stands apart 
 
 By that supreme devotion sanctified. 
 
 Woe were it mole-blind man if truth for him 
 Meant vision piercing down eternity, 
 
POEM 79 
 
 Solving creation's riddles far and dim, 
 
 The secret of infinity to see. 
 We scan the countless errors of the past 
 
 And know them false, yet these were very proof 
 Of mankind's truth. Brave hearts have held them fast, 
 
 And given life itself in their behoof. 
 Even at the very mouth of error's den 
 
 Will singleness of soul build truth a shrine ; 
 Truth's lily flowers, star- white, in falsehood's fen; 
 
 Sincerity makes even doubt divine. 
 
 See where Niagara majestic pours 
 
 Its flood stupendous down the precipice, 
 And from its thousand throats Titanic roars 
 
 Shoutings which quiver through the wide abyss. — 
 Seek not truth's image there ; but look below 
 
 Where wild the whirling, seething Rapids rush, 
 Striving in wrath and tumult to and fro, 
 
 Wave smiting wave as rocks together crush, 
 Force battling force in Nature's feud supreme, 
 
 Confusion infinite, uncurbable ; — 
 While underneath the turmoil still the stream 
 
 Makes ever seaward; undisturbable 
 The law which urges on. Each jarring wave, 
 
 Each boiling whirlpool, while it seems to stay, 
 Yet helps the river onward; floods that rave, 
 
 Current and eddy, all one law obey. 
 Thus truth goes forward. Every thought sincere, 
 
 Conviction's every word and every deed, — 
 
80 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 Although they seem to hinder, and appear 
 
 As counter-currents, — every passing creed, 
 Each noble error where the soul is true 
 
 Though human weakness blind poor human sight,- 
 Helps the truth onward. Be our glimpses few 
 
 Of that great tide which to some ocean bright 
 Flows on forever; be its surface vexed 
 
 With turmoils infinite ; hidden by spray 
 And foam and spume ; its channels all perplexed, — 
 
 Yet be thou sure nothing its course can stay. 
 
 What man believes is truth. To this alone 
 
 The ages cling. The greedy hand of time 
 Steals all but this. From origin unknown 
 
 To destiny unknown moves man, sublime 
 In this alone, that he forever dwells, 
 
 If so he will, with inmost being fit 
 By truth's clear light divine, which ever wells 
 
 From the deep glories of the infinite. 
 
 VII 
 
 Such then is truth, and truth shall make man free. 
 
 Strong is that land whose every son is true 
 To the clear flame of his integrity. 
 
 Strong any land, though armed guards be few, 
 Poor her defences, weak her armament, 
 
 Whose sons no higher good than truth conceive; 
 
 
POEM 81 
 
 But, each in his own sphere, remain unbent, 
 
 Unswerved from that which they at heart believe. 
 Mighty that nation, bless'd among the lands, 
 
 Whose sons think first of country, last of self; — 
 Woe were a state where men stretch greedy hands 
 
 Grasping for place, and palms that itch for pelf; 
 Whose senates have become a market-place 
 
 Where laws are to the highest bidder sold; 
 Where only honesty secures disgrace, 
 
 And honor has no measure save hard gold; 
 Where parties claim the people's sufferance 
 
 Not for their virtue but for foe's misdeed; 
 Where public trusts from shame to shame advance, 
 
 And faction vies with faction in its greed; 
 Where pledges are like balls which jugglers toss ; 
 
 Where no abuse of place can pass belief ; 
 Where patriotism means — profit and loss ; 
 
 And one scarce knows a statesman from a thief ! 
 
 Shall our land come to this? Is such the end 
 
 Of all our fathers' loss and toil divine? 
 Their burning hope, their faith which could transcend 
 
 All doubt and present agony; resign 
 All that the flesh holds dear, counting it naught 
 
 If thus they might to their own souls be true ; 
 If thus new freedom for the race be bought; 
 
 And truth its mighty kingdom here renew? 
 Shall our land ever come to this, — our state, 
 
 The last hope of mankind? Shall it betray 
 
82 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 The high trust of its destiny, — ingrate, 
 
 The mock of all the earth, shame of the day, 
 Stained with disgrace too deep for night to hide? 
 
 Shall our loud-sounding boasts of freedom, made 
 To all the globe ; the vows of swelling pride 
 
 Flung in the face of man and heaven, fade 
 Like wreaths of smoke? 
 
 Forbid it, all the roll 
 
 Of patriots who have died to make us free; 
 Forbid it, martyrs, great and stern of soul, 
 
 White as Sir Galahad in integrity; 
 Forbid it, noble forefathers, who gave 
 
 Life and all life's best boons of love and peace 
 In high-souled manhood, this one land to save 
 
 For its great destiny, lest freedom cease, 
 And mankind's hope be lost! 
 
 Forbid it, ye 
 
 On whom the burden lies; ye, by whose voice 
 Is made the choice of leaders, — yours to see 
 
 That these be men to make the truth rejoice. 
 Not statesmen, dazzling with shrewd eloquence, 
 
 Not politicians, weaving cunning snares, 
 Not even knaves who claim omnipotence 
 
 For bank-accounts, — self-damning unawares ! — 
 Can shape the destiny of this free land. 
 
 They are the hands, but back of them there lies 
 The great will of the people. All shall stand, 
 
 All fall by this, whatever chance arise. 
 However cunning tricksters may befool, 
 
POEM 83 
 
 Or crafty schemers turn the law aside ; 
 However leaders eloquent may rule, 
 
 Or generous statesmen strive for good to guide; 
 It is the people's will which must be done. 
 
 The schemer fears it as a slave the lash; 
 Power circles round it as earth round the sun; 
 
 It is the last appeal when factions clash. 
 It is your will, men of America, 
 
 Which yonder in the senate-house is wrought; 
 It is your will, and if anathema 
 
 Be its desert, upon yourselves 'tis brought. 
 Your will is law; and if you stand aloof, 
 
 Idle in indolent indifference 
 When shame and evil put the land to proof, 
 
 Where shall our country look for her defence? 
 It is from your conviction must be born 
 
 The truth which makes the nation nobly free. 
 Though night should mock the very hope of morn, 
 
 Hold high the torch of your integrity ! 
 Speak from your very souls, and be not stilled 
 
 By plea of party or by greed of gain; — 
 Freedom was ne'er by honest error killed; 
 
 By falsity alone can it be slain. 
 The chain has strength of its least link alone; 
 
 One loosened sod the avalanche lets slip ; 
 The arch falls crashing through one crumbling stone; 
 
 One traitor mars the goodliest fellowship. 
 That land alone is safe whose every son 
 
 Is true to his own faith and cannot fail ; 
 
84 BOWDOIN COLLEGE 
 
 Where men cannot be trusted one by one 
 
 Little appeals to all shall have avail! 
 Be not beguiled by busy theorists 
 
 Who would upon the state all burdens lay. 
 The state but subject to men's will exists, 
 
 Is wise or weak, is true or false, as they. 
 It is in self -hood which makes man divine 
 
 The strength of nations lies. J$o liberty 
 Can be where men are but a mass supine ; 
 
 Each must be true or all cannot be free. 
 
 Far off in the old misty I^orseland sang 
 
 A bard heroic ere the Viking prow 
 Had found out Vinland; and his song, which rang 
 
 Above the clang of swords, avails us now. 
 " Thyself thyself direct! " the old bard cried. 
 
 The inspiration of that high word still 
 Thrills through us. Thrust all meaner guides aside 
 
 And follow thy best self. Thy good and ill 
 Lie in thine own sure keeping. For the land 
 
 And for thyself thou art thyself as fate. 
 ~No other man can do thy part; none stand 
 
 An instant in thy place or soon or late. 
 Thine own soul be thy judge to prove thy worth, 
 
 To try thy deeds by thy conviction's law; — 
 And what were all the glories of the earth 
 
 If this tribunal dread find blame or flaw ! 
 Though plaudits of the nations to the skies 
 
 Proclaim thee great, if thou art small and mean 
 
POEM 85 
 
 How canst thou deck thy shame in such disguise 
 
 That by thyself thy baseness be not seen? 
 What though thy virtues choke the trump of fame 
 
 If thou shouldst know them false? Better despite 
 And burning infamy and bitter blame 
 
 Than praise unmerited. Better the blight 
 Of all men's censure undeserved than one 
 
 Quick taunt of self, — for what man is is all. 
 Only the truth can matter ; and undone 
 
 Is he who for the shadow shall let fall 
 The substance. 
 
 Yet, though self -hood be supreme, 
 
 The lowest deep to which man's soul is led 
 Is selfishness. Thyself from self redeem. 
 
 The man who lives for self alone is dead. 
 Better St. Simeon Stylites, caged 
 
 Upon his narrow pillar, than the man 
 With his own petty cares alone engaged. 
 
 !Not such shall save the land; but they who scan 
 The broad horizon of humanity, 
 
 Asking their very souls what they may do 
 To help men on and up. They are most free 
 
 Who most for others dare to self be true. 
 Speak out by action thy soul's deep belief; 
 
 Be true to all by faith to thine own sooth; 
 Amid whatever night of doubt and grief 
 
 Hold high the ever-blazing torch of truth ! 
 
86 BOWDOItf COLLEGE 
 
 Men of our college, gathered here to-day, 
 
 If this be an hard saying ; if I seem, 
 
 Too much to play the preacher, let the word 
 
 Or stand or fall as it to you is true. 
 
 To-day the land has bitter need of us. 
 
 Across the sea what myriads swarming come 
 
 From the dark pestilential dens which reek, 
 
 With all the Old World's foulness. Those to whom 
 
 Knowledge is given stand in double trust, 
 
 Guardians of liberty and of the right. 
 
 JSTo man can flee responsibility, 
 
 Which surely as his shadow to him clings. 
 
 Ye are the torch-bearers; stand firm, stand staunch. 
 
 Light all the coming new-born century 
 
 With splendid blazon in the name of truth! 
 
A*'° v>* *"■»'.'%, 
 
 ^ ^ ^^SPa r ^ ^ . %^SPa <# ^ 
 
 rO T ,. < * ° * > 
 
 ^o 1 ' 
 ^ 
 
 
 ^ ,. i« o t ■<< 
 
 0% 
 
 ,^e 
 
 W 
 
 « ^ 
 
 "W 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 X^ :*M£\%<^ :*M£\\^ ?d^\^ 
 
 4> <? 
 
 
 J? 
 
 ^ <** 
 
 A ^» 
 
 i# 
 
 
 '\<#A 
 
 -°a^ o° ^*°a^ o° ^^aA^ o° ^*°a% 
 
 ^> -ft * jAwa r ' ^ -a * »t{\ s» A o '^s <t * jA s» A. ° ^a <■ 
 
 
 $ V ■ * Y * °.* *% A 
 
 <i5 ^ 
 
 ,; ^o^ 
 
 
 Vo^ 
 
 ^ ^ 
 
 V ^ v * ° / % V * Y * ° *■ % v * ■ -■ * » / 
 
 
 ^ -ft * JA^gr/h %& v 
 
 v# 
 
 M^ ^ ^^/77a\<^ • ^'^?a\^ 
 
 (&J 
 
 
 %. .« 
 
" r , <p. 
 
 r <* 
 °*%\ 
 
 
 ^&> 
 
 
 
 5 ,A ,>> • j ^Silli^ «> 'Co 5 ^ ' (5=NiIllMir ° c5> Vv 
 
 ^ ^k,. J (iSiP? ° c5> ^ 
 
 
 ■ w 
 
 ^v.l,<5 
 
 $ 
 
 * <5^ 
 
 ; "^O* 
 
 
 ^ 9* 
 
 
 Q-, * 
 
 2, ^T..s* \^ 
 
 
 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
 0DD233^22fl.a • 
 
 1 i 
 
 %mm 
 
 m 
 
 
 m 
 
 WMl