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HAMILTON COLLEGE.
HISTORY
OF THE
PERRY H. SMITH LIBRsARY HALL,
WVIT:'
OMMEMORATIVE fXERCISES,
IELD
JULY 18, 1866,
JULY 15, 1868,
JUNE 25, 1872.
Published by the Trustees.
UTICA, X. Y.:
ROBERTS, BOOK AND JOB PRINTER, 60 GENESEE STREET.
1872.




At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Hamilton College,
held at the Perry H. Smith Library Hall, June 27, 1872, it was
Resolved,
That all the Public Exercises, connected with the PERRY H. SMITH LIBRARY
HALL be published, including the Laying of the Corner-Stone, the Presentation
of the Building to the College, by the Western Alumni, and the final Opening
and Dedication of the Hall; and that Rev. A. D. GRIDLEY and Professor EDWARD
NORTH be a committee with power to carry into effect this Resolution.
[coPY.]                           O. S. WILLIAMS, Secretary.
*.  Ka.a rovg?oaavpovg rUi v 7rdXata oo0pv avdpGov, ovg
EIlEvoL KaTE1G7Trov  v f3t3XioLg ypa 4ba'aZ e, aV, deveT7 v CKOLvr  oVv T7rot
iXt~ 46,tpXlopats,'cai, aiv r  oput ev a yamov, etXeyyoe9a KaaIi  leya
voi,[oliev ckp doq, Eav dar;otqg 0i;tot ytyv'oPEeoa.
— XENOPHON'S MIEM., 1., VI., 14.




Perry H. Smith Library Hall.
The erection of the Library Hall of Hamilton College is chiefly
due to the liberality of the Alumni of this Institution residing at
the West. The need of such a building had long been felt by the
Faculty and Trustees, and some steps had been taken to procure the
funds necessary for erecting it; but the project had not yet proved
successful. In the spring of 1866, a meeting of the friends of the
College at the West was called at Chicago, at which time much interest was awakened in behalf of the Institution. At this meeting
several measures were proposed for promoting the prosperity of the
College, and among them  that of erecting a suitable Hall for its
libraries. This project was well received, and the lion. PERRY H.
SMITH, of Chicago, generously offered to contribute one-half of
the sum, (825,000,) supposed to be necessary for erecting the building, on condition that the other half should be made up by his
fellow Alumni and other friends of the College residing at the
West. This proposition was at once responded to, and subscriptions of the required amount were easily obtained.
After the foregoing steps had been taken for raising the needful
funds, a site for the building was selected, and a plan drawn by
Mr. EDwARD D. HARRIS, of the firm of Rider & Harris, Architects, of Boston. This plan contemplated an edifice 75 feet long
and 50 broad. It was to rest upon a lofty and substantial basement of cut limestome, the superstructure to be of brick, and two
stories in height. The first story above the basement was to be
divided into a vestibule and hall, two rooms for the Librarian and
the library proper; the alcoves in the library to be arranged in
three tiers, one above another, and, with the adjacent walls and
Librarian's rooms, to furnish space for 60,000 volumes.  The




4                   Hamilton  College.
alcoves were to be lighted by windows in the side walls and by
sky-lights. Ample provision was also made for ventilation. Over
the entrance-hall and the Librarian's rooms, an apartment was
provided for a Memorial Hall and Art Gallery, designed to contain
tablets, portraits, busts and other memorials of the founders of the
College and its officers, benefactors, and distinguished Alumni.




I.
LAYING OF THE CORNER-STONE.
The corner-stone of the building thus projected was laid, with
fitting ceremonies, July 18, 1866. Early in the forenoon of that
day, the College Campus was thickly dotted with groups of Alumni
and other literary folk who had come from far and near to enjoy
the proposed celebration. At 10 o'clock, a procession was formed
in front of the Chapel, Maj. I. P. POWELL, Marshal, and marched
to the platform which had been prepared for the exercises, nearly
opposite Middle College. Prayer having been offered by Rev. S.
W. FISHER, D. D., President of the College, the following Oration
was pronounced by Col. EDWIN L. BBUTTRICi, of Milwaukee, Wis.,
Class of 1842.
ORATION,
BY COL. EDWIN L. BUTTRICK, OF M ILWTAUKEE, TWS.
To me has been assigned the pleasant duty of representing upon
this occasion, the Alumni of this Institution from the Northwest.
Twenty-four years' absence fiom these classic walls, all of which
have been spent in rude contact with the world, fighting the battle
which all who brave its buffets must fight, has perhaps unfitted me
to address you in the rounded periods and graceful diction of one
whose home has been with books; but not the less grateful is the
consciousness of your welcome, not the less pleasant to meet you
on this spot, hallowed by a thousand happy associations, or the
occasion, which, I trust, shall garner for us in the future, a thousand pleasant memories.
Standing here to-day, I leap the chasm of a third of a century,
and the old times come back again. In place of this picture of
rural beauty, charming the eye and refining the taste, I see the tall
poplars, straight and prim and shadeless, marshaled like a column
of attack, flanked by a row like a line of skirmishers, protecting the




6                    Hcamilton  College.
stone parapet surrounding the Campus, with here and there a
feeble, neglected sapling, struggling to live, but very certain to
die.
I look to-day upon the green hills and lovely valleys, rich with
careful husbandry, busy with the hum of machinery, and teeming
with active, energetic life, and recall the broad forest that swept
to the horizon of the Trenton hills, with here and there a church
spire reaching towards heaven, and spots of brighter green than
the forest foliage, where some adventurous farmer had carved out
for himself a home. The old Academy, then, as now, a stepping
stone to the more imposing building on the hill is almost the
only land-mark that has not changed, and even that, time, or a less
kindly hand, has turned to sickly yellow. The village church,
the ghostly sentinel of the treeless village green, is gone, with
its square, high-backed pews and wintry trnperature-pleasant
enough as a memory but terrible as an experience-all types of a
generation that has passed away-of a civilization which recognized in the necessities of life all that life required.
I look for the light-hearted, careless boys who, twenty-four years
ago, bade farewell to this quiet home, eager for the wealth, the
honors and the happiness their fancies painted1 in the great world
which was to be the theater of their struggles and success.
Some have fallen with their harness on, occupying positions of
high trust and confidence, others with ambition cooled, have settled down to quiet lives, content that in acquiring the means of
living they do not forget the end of life; while others are still
struggling, still hoping, with each success finding something yet to
be obtained.
By the aid of history, I go further back, to a time within the
recollection of a generation not yet gathered to its fathers, when
the spot whereon we stand to-day was dedicated to the cause of
education; to the time when this was, emphatically, the wilderness, the home of the wisest, bravest and most relentless of the
Indian tribes-the frontier which, in little more than half a century,
has stretched across the continent; to the little band of pioneers
who left the comforts and security of their New England homes
to educate and Christianize the Indians of the Six Nations-not
pioneers alone, but a forlorn hope-to grapple with powerful and
treacherous neighbors, the terrors of disease, the gnawings of hunger, the pangs of home-sickness, the loneliness of homes, with
little to cheer them but the consciousness of duties well performed.




Perry H. Smith Librcary Hall.                      7
Unlike most whom  the love of adventure or a desire to better
their condition, tempted to try their fortunes in a new and unsettled country, they came with a purpose above the desire for mere
earthly aggrandizement, and dared to live heroic lives and win
heroic graves, in the sphere of commonplace duty.
But, sir, it is not for me to write the history of this Institution;
that task has been left to an abler mind-one better informed of
its rise and progress, and better able, by his eloquence and culture,
to do justice to the theme.
The Alumni of the Northwest have come back here, to sit beneath the trees their own hands have planted.  From  where I
stand, I see the noble elm, with its quivering leaves stretching its
broad limbs to heaven, which, when a lithe and tender sapling, I
transplanted from  its native soil.  How  I watched its feeble
growth, for,
When the leaf's in the bud, when the stem's in the green,
A light bird bends the branch, a light breeze breaks the bough,
Which, if spared by the light breeze, the light bird, may grow
To baffle the tempest and rock the high nest,
And take both the bird and the breeze to its breast.
As from year to year, I saw it strike deep its roots and spread
wide its branches, until it is broad enough and strong enough to
shelter the children of our common mother, so with the Institution we honor to-day. It, too, was planted in a sterile and ungenerous soil, but it has withstood the uncertainties of change and
the vicissitudes of age. It, too, has struck deep its roots and
spread broad its branches, until a thousand living sons sit beneath
its kindly shadow, and tens of thousands bless its kindly influence.
We have come back, too, to lay our offerings upon the altar of
our Alma Mater, and as she nurtured our youth, and gave direction to the tastes of our dawning manhood, like loyal children we
minister to the necessities of her age, and add our mite to her
dignity and honor.
A few weeks ago, at a social gathering in the city of Chicago, at
which a number of the Alumni of Hamilton College were present,
it was suggested that a necessity had arisen for a building to properly shelter and preserve the library of the college, which, by the
absorption of the libraries of the Union and Phoenix Societies, and
the munificent bequest of the late WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES, had
increased to such a degree that the facilities of the Institution were
inadequate to its proper care and suitable arrangement; and it




8                    E wHamilton  College.
was there also suggested by a gentleman here present, who graduated twenty years ago, and revisits for the first time the scene of
his boyish pranks and study, that the Alumni of the Northwest
contribute the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars, for the purpose
of erecting a building worthy of the library of the Institution and
its future accommodations.  This Alumnus of Hamilton-a true
type of the men who have made the West a power, and. its growth
a marvel-seventeen years ago, buoyant with youth and health
and hope, and little else save what his Alma Mater gave him, cast
his fortunes, like a leaf on the current, and drifted to the little
hamlet of Appleton, in Wisconsin. It was then one of the very
outposts of civilization-a narrow field in which to successfully
exercise great abilities, but broad enough to prepare him for the
duties he has since been called upon to perform. Here for years
he labored in private and public life, became largely interested in
the construction of railroads, and aided by practical labor, prudent
foresight and indomitable energy, he has been instrumental in building up and consolidating one of the largest railroad corporations
on this broad continent.  With its beginning at Chicago, it
grasps with one branch the trade of Lake Superior, with another it
is feeling its way slowly bdt surely to the fertile prairies and inexhaustible pineries of Minnesota and Wisconsin, and has thus far
outstripped all its competitors for the golden harvest of the Pacific
seaboard. Of all this mighty combination he is the active head and
fertile brain. And so at that pleasant, social gathering, he said:
"Let us build at once a spacious library and memorial hall, and by
one act, do justice to the necessities of the living, and honor to the
memory of the dead. As an earnest to my sincerity I will contribute one-half the sum myself."  With this starting point the
work was easy, and so to-day, we gather here with appropriate
ceremonies, to lay the corner-stone of the Perry Smith Library
Hall. This has been called a Western movement. But, sir, where
is the West? Time was when the spot whereon we stand was the
frontier of civilization; but, to-day, its progress is stayed only by
the golden sands of the Pacific. A little more than half a century
ago, all that vast territory, peopled by millions and rich with products to feed the world, comprised fewer white inhabitants than
now stand within the sound of my voice. Then the great lakes,
whose commerce now exceeds our commerce with foreign nations,
were unploughed, save by here and there an adventurous schooner
putting out into dangerous and unknown seas. The "Father of




Perry H. Smith Library   call.                  9
waters moved unvexed to the sea," and its tributaries, comprising
more than twenty thousand miles of steamboat navigation, flowed
unruffled save by the Indian canoe.  The mighty forests, now
yielding lumber enough every year to roof over the State of Massachusetts, put forth their green glories to glisten in the summer's
sun, and shed them to battle with the winter's storm, in undisturbed and solitary grandeur. The broad prairies, now the granaries of the world, budded and blossomed with no eye to mark
their beauty or profit by their wealth. Time was when the adventurous traveler beyond the great lakes, after weeks and months
spent in arranging his temporal affairs, bade a sad farewell to his
weeping friends, with many forebodings that his farewell would be
eternal. To-day; he can take a pleasure excursion to the base of
the Rocky Mountains, or the head waters of the Mississippi, in less
time, with greater security, and less discomfort than forty years
ago he could travel from Buffalo to Boston.
It may not be unprofitable for us, or unfitting the occasion, to
consider for a moment the causes that have wrought this marvelous change, or learn who are the sponsors of this nation born in a
day.
It may be traced, in part, to increased facilities for communication. The plan of connecting the great lakes with tide water by
means of the Erie canal, gave the first impetus to that portion of
the West accessible to navigable waters, but it was not long before
the necessities of commerce required wider and swifter outlets, and
water communication by way of the Welland canal, opened another outlet to the sea; but the prairies, the forests and the mines
were still unsatisfied, and swiftly but surely the railways stretched
forth their iron bands, bridging rivers, scaling the summits or
piercing the bowels of mountains, daring all things, and overcoming all things to minister to our necessities and prosperity.
The abundance of our national wealth, and the ease with which
it may be acquired, is another source of our rapid growth. It was
a new thing for the hardy son of New England, reared as he was
among granite hills, torturing the ungenerous soil year after year
for a scanty subsistence, to " tickle the earth with a hoe, and see it
laugh with a harvest."  He found there no dense forests to clear
to let in the sunlight, no necessity to wait half a generation for
stumps to decay and the wilderness to disappear. IIe could select
the prairie for his farm, the forest for his timber, and the marsh for
his meadow, ready prepared for his occupation, and it required
little time and labor to build for himself a home.




10                  Hamilton  (Collee.
But not to increased facilities of communication, nor the abundance of material wealth, or the ease with which it may be acquired,
security in its possession, or equality of its distribution, alone are
to be attributed the secret of our rapid growth and permanent
prosperity; these are results, not causes. The secret lies in the intelligence and enterprise and education of the people. When you
consider that of the two millions of native born inhabitants now
comprising part of the population of Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa,
and Minnesota, more than one-half emigrated from other States,
511,000 from New York and New England, and 380,000 from this
State alone, you can appreciate the mighty influence which the
schools and colleges of the East have upon the civilization and
prosperity of the West. The sons of the East carry with them to
their Western homes, the lessons of wisdom and experience they
learned here. They make haste to avail themselves of the munificent provisions of the General Government for the support of
schools and colleges.  School-houses and colleges are erected,
children are educated, laws are enacted, and the machinery of government in all its forms moves on harmoniously with the interests
of the people and the nation. As with the States I have named, so
with States and Territories further West-peopled by a race sprung
from the loins of New England, the spirit and energy, and hope
and success of the father, live and bear fruit in the child. For
him the earth yields its fruits, the forests grow and water runs.
He waters the desert, and it blossoms as the rose. He strikes
with his potent spear the rugged mountain, and it pours through
all the swollen arteries of commerce the golden life-blood of the
world. Viewed from this stand-point, who can estimate the work
we inaugurate to-day? It is for us to provide a fitting repository
for the intellectual wealth and experience of the past-a shrine to
which the student may come for knowledge, the weary for solace,
and the sad for consolation. Let us make it a casket worthy the
jewels it is destined to contain, a monument honoring the memory
of him whose munificence renders its erection necessary.
We can not claim WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES as a graduate of this
Institution. He was a graduate of no college, but he spent the
prime of his early manhood in the county of Oneida, where he was
recognized as an able lawyer, a finished scholar and an accomplished gentleman. For twenty years he held a high position at
the bar, and by his bequest showed a high appreciation of college
culture and training. The library he has bequeathed to us is the




Perry H. iLSmith LibrLary Hall.              11
careful selection of a life-time. It contains works of rare interest
and great value. In accepting it, this Institution assumes a sacred
trust.  May we so honor the gift as to keep the memory of the
giver forever green.
But not alone to contribute to the necessities of the living, do
we erect this building. By it, we would honor the memory of the
dead. To the illustrious dead of the Institution, who have fallen
by the way in the peaceful walks of life, we rear it. To the memory of those who poured out their fiesh young lives upon the battle-field, in defense of the nation's honor, we make it beautiful.
When the Roman legions returned from conquest, flushed with
victory and laden with spoils, the Romans reared for them  triumphal arches, and crowned their brows with victorious wreaths.
The marble reared to perpetuate their glory, has crumbled; the spot
whereon it stood is forgotten, but the valor of the Roman legion
has come down to us, untarnished by the dust of two thousand
years. So we rear the monumental marble, and weave victorious
wreaths for our triumphant heroes, but we can rear no column
high enough, there is no marble white enough, there is no laurel
green enough to commemorate their virtues or their valor. When
the Institution we found to-day, shall have crumbled, or the object of its erection shall be forgotton, the heroism of a people that
sprung to arms at its country's call, in defense of constitutional
liberty and human freedom, shall live in history and in song, an example and a warning to all generations.  The contest in which
they fought was no common stuggle.  The foe they met was, in
courage and sacrifices and endurance, worthy of their steel, but
they fought for an inheritance which was theirs by the title deeds
of blood and tears-theirs by unity of time, unity of title, unity of
interest and unity of possession; and they wrote with the point
of the bayonet, in lines broad as the continent, deep as the graves
of their fallen comrades, lasting as the mountains they stormed
and the rivers they opened to the sea, the fallacy of its alienation.
The mighty armies of the republic have dissolved. The thousands whose march was majestic as the swell of the ocean and resistless as its waves, have melted away into the masses of the
people, to be distinguished from them, as Macaulay said of the Ironsides of Cromwell, only by their superior intelligence and industry.
We recognize no longer in our citizens about us the exultant tread
of Sherman's unconquered legions, nor the gallant dash of Sheridan's rough riders; but the spirit that carried, with unshotted




12                  fHamilton  College.
guns, the hights of Mary's, and held, with a death grasp, the destinies of the nation upon the field of Gettysburg, still lives and
burns as brightly as when the tocsin of war was first sounded, and
the nation travailed in the throes and agony of its second birth.
Our heroes dead upon a hundred battle-fields, the starved and
wasted skeletons, laid to their last rest in loathsome prison pens,
the weary march, the dreary bivouac, the lonely picket post, the
fierce charge, the bitterness of defeat and the shouts of victory, belong to history; but the maimed and wounded Veroes who survive
the shock of battle, the disabled whom the hospital spared, feeble
and helpless, are the children of the nation, bound to it by an obligation no care or tenderness can cancel.
It is especially befitting that the Alumni of Hamilton should rear
a memorial to their heroic dead, and that in it should be garnered the
fruits of learning and the records of the historic past. More than
seventy years ago, fresh fiom the Revolution, our first great struggle for freedom, Kirkland, who, ministering for the God of battles,
had nerved our soldiers to conflict, and brave old Baron Steuben,
who had marshaled them  to victory, with others scarred and
veteraned in the service, came to this same spot, and upon a slope
just to the westward, laid the foundation of Hamilton Oneida
Academy,-Education as the first fruits of freedom. We, in a
later day, fresh from a more fearful struggle, for even a nobler,
larger liberty, follow illustrious examples, as we lay the cornerstone of this library edifice. And it shall rise, ere long, more befitting still, as a memorial to those who have gone from these
classic haunts to die in the din of battle.  Some of them-Crane
and Curtis and Cozzens, I remember. I remember others-to you
here, mothers, brothers, classmates-ah! they need no memorials
in your hearts, no tokens at your firesides. Turner, Cook, Bacon,
Cady, Lathrop, Morse, Peebles and Butts, Sheldon, Hinckley, Buckingham, Bradbury and Curran, Brown, Johnson, Watson and West.
Young, noble lives-all they were-all they might be, offered on
the altar of their country. Their memories will be here, long after
the hearts that now love them here shall have ceased to beat with
an earthly love forever. Yes! here where they loved to labor and
to wander, lengthened among books, such as they loved to read, and
treasured up with the names they loved to honor. And evermore,
this shall be a constant memorial for all who love their Alma Mater,
and as we and they all fall in the ranks, here our names will be
placed, and tokens of our memory cherished.




Perry H. Sm ith Library Hall.               13
We of the West are proud and glad to-day, to give you of the
East this token of our love which shall embalm so much of memory for the past, and be so noble:in ornament for old Hamilton in
the future.
Col. BUTTRICK was succeeded by Hon. GUY K. CLEVELAND, of
Mankato, Minn., Class of 1850, who read the following Poem:
POEM,
BY COL. GUY IK. CLEVELAND, OF MANKATO, MINN.
All hail! great valley of the West,
Vhere mighty rivers roll the tides
Whose tawny but voluptuous breast
Heaves wildly, like a waiting bride's,A river, fed by thousand springs
Wherein the white swan bathes her wings,
And men find strength for nobler things;
By lakes that stretch from Saginaw
Far past the solemn, wild Couteau
And from Montana's mountains draw
The affluence of their overflow!
Thou mighty valley, to whose arms
Old Europe's brawny millions flee
From cold Conscription's wild alarms,
From soul-devouring Tyranny,
From Famine gaunt, from mocking Caste
And the black shadows of her Past,
To mingle with the Pilgrim race
Whose sons press close upon the track
Of the scared buffalo;
Whose laws and liberties keep pace
With rifle, plow and haversack;
And both in friendly toil unite
That rich world-garner to unlock,
To charm its yellow hoard to light,
With mystic signs that cleave the rock!
As rivers, hidden long below,
Up-gushing from their underflow,
Seek out the distant nations, so,




14                  Icamilton  College.
Rivers of golden wheat and corn,
To feed the nations faint and lorn,
In that enchanted land are born.
There common work and hope make one
The sinewy stock of every clime,
From which shall stand beneath the sun
A man, the noblest type of time;
A man right loyal to his youth,
With life transparent as the day;
Who dare avow and follow truth
Though burning plow-shares pave his way.
Ah! had ye seen it, as I saw,
When traitor hands defiled the ark,
The West's great love for land and law,
A conflagration from a spark!
As in that far, Dakota land,
From Blue Earth towards the burning West,
Where fair Chanyuska weaves a strand,
Of gleaming silver on its breast,
After autumnal rain and frost
Have turned the billowy prairies brown,
A hunter, by Sketek, has tossed
His evening brand too careless down;
A crackling hiss, a sudden gleamThe tall crisp grasses shrivel, fall;
Iead-fires like phantoms in a dream,
Run, willing, at the west wind's call;
They coil on high, they leap in air,
No Arab steed can match their bound,
The startled hunter swears a prayer,
The timid deer darts eye around,
Takes the near water of a lake;
The hoarse crane screams amid the brake,
And quick ears hear, from far, a sound
Awful as when young earthquakes play
Below upon their holiday.
Red rolls of flame are wide unfurled,
Like banners of a burning world;
Commingled light and smoke ascend,
Volcanic volumes pall the sky,
And when the midnight stars attend,




Perr/y H. Smith Library Hall.                 15
Full thrice nine leagues behind it lie;
And that fire-army hears, before,
Wild Minne-inne-opa's roarTazouka kiss its midnight shore.
So rose, so rushed the legions forth
From that grand empire of the North;
With farewell to the land of pine
They swept their long, unconquered line
Below the palm and luscious cane,
Till Mississippi rolled again,
Free from his mountains to the main.
Our souls are gloomed; bright, brave ones fell;.
Each shrines some star-names in his heart,
Who bravely fought, but died as well,
Taking the silent way apart.
In such a land, in such a clime
Where filial sons bless "Alma Mater,"
This temple rose-a thought sublime,
So justly named for its creator.
Dear sons, well marked your comings are,
From homes by lake and rivers green;A radiant company repair
From homes beyond the Empyrean.
To bless a deed so nobly planned
Delights the Teacher, poets, sages,
Whose starry eyes light up a grand
And glorious pathway down the agesHim who on Judah's sacred hills
And oft by stormy Galilee
Proclaimed the creed whose cadence thrills
The nations yearning to be free;
Gamaliel's son, whose eloquence
Shook Rome's proud empire to its fall;
Who burst the gates of darkness dense,
And. reared the cross in Spain and Gaul;
That peerless genius, Angelo;
Beatrice's lover, wild-eyed Dante,
And him whose long-imprisoned woe
Is told in every Roman shanty;
Fair Strafford's son, whose regal brow
So shames the coronets of Kings;




16                  Hamilton  CYoleye.
And sightless Milton, clear-eyed now
To earthly as celestial things;
Newton, with pebbles in his hands
Culled on some strange immortal shore;
The lightning-tamer, Franklin, stands
With these benignant as of yore.
Behind, more shadowy forms appearHomer and Plato side by side,
Brundusium's bard, of happy cheer,
And Tully in his toga'd pride.
Not all unworthy of the place,
That bright procession follows one,
The foremost statesman of his race,
Our murdered patron, Hamilton.
We raise our hands, we clasp in air
The hands of comrades stretched to ours;
Clear brows beam on us, eyes so fair
They must have looked on Eden's bowers.'The tried, the lost of other days,
Whose souls were to us as our own,
Who walked with us the rugged ways
That lead to Learning's golden throne;
On whom the noon of summer heat
Burned into brow and eye and brain,
Whose bleeding and unsandaled feet
Refused the march that made their pain;
Or they whom Fortune coldly threw
On Labor's crushing, killing rack,
Who saw afar life's morning dew,
And prayed but could not win it back;
Or they who, at their country's call,
Put by the plough, the book, the pen,
Who threw their sword, their life, their all,
Into the mortal strife of men;
Who met the clash of traitor steel,
Who felt the blood of traitors flow,
And saw his drunken legions reel
At Malvern's gory overthrow;
Who saw at sodden Antietam
Brave Reno rush to death and story,
Who heard at Gettysburg the psalm




Perry H. Snith Library IHall.
Which welcomed their high hearts to gloryThese all are with us, shining sons
Of Her we honor this proud day;
We, mortal with immortal ones,
Unite, this Temple's stone to lay.
Ah! were our senses purged of dross
To hear these shining spirits' singing,
This strain the shadowy bourne world cross,
Both warning and instruction bringing:
On wisdom let your temple rise
With justice for its nether-base;
Then shall it blossom to the skies
A thing of beauty, joy and grace.
Let this high aim inform your planTo rear a scholar-haunted place
Where earnest, eager-visioned man
Shall find the light to guide his race.
Fair, fair the light in beauty's eye
And soft the heaving of her breast;
Youth's rosy beaker, brimming nigh,
Allures to drink, to dream, to rest:
Ah, bitter are the lees of wine!
And lotus-dreams must end in waking;
Then beauty's smile, grown less divine,
Beguiles enamored hearts to breaking.
A nobler impulse, nurtured here
On wisest thought of human tongue,
Shall make this spot a Mecca dear,
Where NOYES shall live forever young;
And young hearts quaff the stream it yields,
As pilgrims drink at desert fountains,
And science point to purple fields,
To gold-fields on the purple mountains.
0, Freedom! consecrate this fane;
Hang high your garlands on its wallYour banners, red with many a stain
From young hearts bounding to your call.
B




18                  Hamilton  College.
That Alma's sons did bear a hand
To set the wailing millions free,
A rarer glory crowns the land,
A richer purple robes the sea.
The Scholar should be true to Peace,
Its white, immortal lilies wear;
But sleepless watch, without surcease,
His country's foes-the traitor's snare:
Then, when her trumpet's summoning cheer
Rings out the rallying battle-cry,
The learning, valor taught him here,
Shall teach him how to fight and die.
Rev. N. W. G oERTNER, D. D., the College Commissioner, next
announced that the casket, which it was proposed to place in the
corner-stone, contained the following documents:
1. Resolutions and Circular of the Chicago Committee on the
Perry H. Smith Library Hall.
2. Memorial Book of the Half-century Jubilee of Hamilton
College.
3. President Fisher's discourse, commemorative of William
Curtis Noyes.
4. The last Triennial Catalogue of Hamilton College.
5. The Annual Catalogues of Hamilton College for 1863, 1864,
1865 and 1866.
6. The last Iramiltonian, cHamilton CUapus, and Hamilton
Literary Magazine.
7. The Hamilton ROLL OF HONOR, containing the names of all
graduates and students who have served their country in the army
and navy.
8. Photographic views of Hamilton College, and the old Hamilton Oneida Academy.
9. Baron De Steuben's Address at the laying of the cornerstone of the Hamilton Oneida Academy.




Perry IDL Smith Library Hall.               19
10. The latest issues of the Utica Morning Herald, the Utica
-Daily Observer, the Utica Evening Telegraph and Clinton Courier.
11. Schemes for the 54th Commencement of Hamilton College.
At this point in the exercises, the assembly proceeded to the
site chosen for the new building, and whose foundations had
already been commenced, and there, in the presence of the entire
audience, the corner-stone was set in its place, and the casket
mentioned above deposited therein. This ceremony was concluded
with a brief address by the Hon. PERRY H. SMITH, Class of 1846,
in these words:
ADDRIEESS,
BY HON. PERRY H. SMITI, OF CHICAGO, ILL.
In the name of Science, Learning and Letters, and at the request
of the Western Alumni of Hamilton College, I lay this cornerstone. It rests upon soil that was given to the Trustees of Hamilton Oneida Academy, seventy-two years ago, by the Rev. SAMUEL
KIRKLAND. The prayer, with which that good missionary closed
his deed of trust, is our prayer to-day: "That the Institution
may grow and flourish; that its advantages may be permanent
and extensive; and that under the smiles of the God of wisdom,
it may prove an eminent means of diffusing useful knowledge, enlarging the bounds of human happiness, and aiding the reign of
virtue and the kingdom of the Blessed Redeemer."
At the conclusion of Mr. SMITH'S address, Ex-Gov. HORATIO
SEYMOUR was introduced on behalf of the Trustees, and, with
that polished grace of manner and of speech so natural to him, expressed the congratulations of the Board on the favorable beginnings of this important work.  Gov. SEYMOUR'S address was
wholly extemporaneous, and we are unable to present it in this
place, as we could have desired.
He gave good reasons for not entertaining the idea, sometimes
advanced, that the Noyes' Library belonged in New York City
rather than in Hamilton College. He remarked that KIRKLAND
founded the Old Academy, partly for the benefit of the wisest and
bravest of the Indian tribes, the Oneidas. He considered the
advancement of the College as an answer to the prayers of that




20                   Hamilton  Colleye.
devoted missionary. It was just after the close of our war for
Independence that brave STEUBEN and others met on these grounds
to lay the corner-stone of the first academy building. So we, just
after the war for the Union, meet to lay the corner-stone of a new
library building, which shall be a receptacle of what the great
minds of the past have left us.  The speaker referred to the
soldiers from Hamilton College in most complimentary terms; and
recalled the sadness with which, as Governor of the State, he had
filled out commissions for those who took the places of the
lamented BACON, CURRAN, BROWN, and others.
The exercises were concluded with the Benediction pronouncecd
by Rev. ROBERT W. CONDIT, D. D., of Oswego.




II.
PRESENTATION OF THE LIBRARY HALL.
In the summer of 1868, the building having approached its
completion, was formally presented to the Trustees. The time
chosen for this ceremony was the 15th of July, the day preceding
the annual Commencement. The interior walls of the Library were
decorated with national flags, and with wreaths and festoons of
evergreens. The weather was propitious, and the cool breezes
blowing through the unfinished windows contributed much to the
comfort of the large audience assembled. At 2- o'clock, a procession was formed in the College grounds, and marched to the
Library in the following order: The Marshal of the Day, Dodworth's Band, the Classes respectively of 1871-68, the Classes of
1867-58, the Classes of 1857-48, the Classes of 1847-15, invited
Friends and Citizens, the Faculty of the College, the Board of
Trustees.
The exercises at the Library were presided over by Rev. SAMUEL
G. BROWN, D. D., President of the College. Prayer having been
offered by Rev. Dr. GOERTNER, the Address of Presentation was
made by the Hon. JOHN DEAN CATON, LL. D., of Ottawa, Ill.
That address was as follows:
ADDRESS OF PRESENTATION,
BY HON. JOHN DEAN CATON, LL. D.
After long years of absence, filled with the trials and the vicissitudes of life, whether successful or unsuccessful, we return to the
scenes of childhood with emotions indescribable. Objects long
forgotten rise up all around us, each with a tale of pleasure or of
pain. They remind us of our early efforts, of our little triumphs.and of our many pleasures. We forget the intervening years,
with all their varied incidents, and as in a dream, are transported




22                    Hamilton  Cbllege.
back to that time when a trifle was a mountain of trouble, and a
toy was a fountain of joy. But with those even whose cares commenced almost with infancy, and who early knew privations, the
period of childhood is the time when happiness predominates:
hence so pleasing are the scenes of childhood and the memories of
early years. In truth there is no wide difference between the joys
and the griefs of the children of affluence and the children of indigence. The latter surely have as many hours of pleasure, and
no more moments of pain than the former. The improvised play —
things of the one are as gratifying as the finished toys of the
other. The sorrows of childhood are generally transitory. They
flit by, leaving scarcely more trace than the shadow of the passing
cloud, while juvenile joys leave impressions like sunlight pictures,
passing before us in after years like a pleasing panorama of bygone scenes.  The green, wild lawn where we played our little
sports; the old, dark wood whose shade we sought; the apple
tree whose fruit we gathered "are still to memory dear," though
changed they may be, or even gone, some of them forever; enough
is left as it was in the sunny time of childhood to revive within us.
the record of the past. The most pleasing and the most lasting
of all these memories are the reminders of parental love. If some
of us can not remember a father's face and a father's voice, the
memory of a mother's kiss and of a mother's blessing may still
glow warmly in our hearts, whose brightness time or change shall
never fade.
Surely it is no unmanly weakness, nor beneath the dignity of
age, to be for a moment a child again.
From childhood we pass to youth, and still the tale is much the
same.  Though cares appear and  responsibilities arise, so do
rational enjoyments and innocent pleasures. Still local objects
carry with them  their associations, and remind us when young
ambition came silently along and whispered in our awakened ears
a hope and promise of a future, new and magnified in every lineament. Then comes the stern resolve; the iron will to surmount
all difficulties, to overcome impediments and to accomplish success.
For myself, I may say that these hills and woodlands, these college
halls and pleasant walks, lift up before me the picture of the past,
in beholding which, I live over again my youthful days. If they
remind me of the many days of weary toil, they tell me also of
young hopes so bright that they chased away all fears, and of
young resolves so deep, so firm, as to permanently shape the course
of after-life.




Perry H. Smith Library Hall.                  23
Forty years have made some changes, it is true, yet many here
can testify they have been but few, at least, so they seem to one
who has spent most of the intervening time in the rapidly changing scenes in, what was then, the far-off West. I look around me
and it seems but yesterday I was here a boy. Then, as now, this
hill was crowned with academic halls, through whose portals passed
and re-passed, continually, teachers and students; inspiring by
their very presence a love of learning. The humblest boy could
stay his labors and drink in the inspiration of the scene. In
thought, at least, he could pass those doors and listen to the lessons told, and now may bless this seat of learning as the mother
of his hopes.
More than thirty-five years have rolled along and are buried in
the tomb of time, since with aching brow but unfaltering step, I
turned my back upon scenes so graven on the youthful heart,
and bent my way towards the setting sun, where lived no friend
to aid, to counsel and encourage me. If for a time a cloud of
gloom hung along the road, bright stars of hope soon broke
through the pall and dissolved the disheartening shadows, and
then a halo of inspiring light lit up the western horizon and beckoned me onward with a promise of success.
I believe but one who taught here then is left to hear me now.*
In early manhood his graceful form and elastic step gave promise
that time should deal gently with him, and that toil should nourish
rather than destroy his faculties. The fruits of his labors have
ripened in every field of usefulness. His name is spoken with reverence and affection wherever two or three are met together who
have profited by his instruction. How pleasing the consciousness
of such usefulness! How fragrant the memory of such benefits!
We may be permitted to speak the names of those who live
here, only in memory, and in their works that live after them.
Affection and gratitude constrain me to allude to one, who then,
had lately commenced his career of work in this Institution. His
early promise was richly fulfilled by his ripening accomplishments,
till he was cut down in the vigor of manhood. No one could be
better qualified to win the hearts or to inspire the respect of the
young. His influence, mildly and quietly exerted, was ever marked
and most beneficial. Learned himself, he was eminently qualified
to impart instruction. His virtuous life and excellent example
* Rev. SIMEON NORTH, D. D., LL. D., Professor of Greek and Latin, 1829-'39;
President, 1839-'57.




24                  Harmilton  College.
were a perpetual admonition to all around. Of all those who then
taught here, to him alone was I personally known. He knew of
my aspirations and sympathized with my early struggles. He
cheered me by his encouragements and aided me with his counsels.
Like an elder brother he led me by the hand; if though but a little
way, still far enough to see the path before me. Not I alone, but
many will ever bless the memory of the lamented Professor MARcus CATLIN.
The struggles of manhood differ widely in magnitude and importance from those of youth, but the experiences of the latter are
of the greatest importance to the success of the former. They
necessitate habits of thought, and systematize and discipline the
mind. They inure one to efforts and enable us to bear with equanimity and without despair, trials and disappointments. At least,
there are many who can appreciate the advantages of this early
discipline, and acknowledge that it has, in some measure, compensated for the want of other early lessons, which cultivate and discipline the mind, and enable one with more case and grace, and
with more vigor too, to accomplish those tasks which are imposed
upon all who aspire to occupy the higher walks of life. But they
can not fully compensate for the want of that early mental culture
which is afforded in the higher seminaries of learning, scattered
all over the land, and of which this is a bright example. While
an education, which is procured by self-exertion alone, may be
more appreciated than where the student is furnished with ample
means, there is too much danger that it will be incomplete. He
who educates himself is apt to be too impatient to enter upon the
career which he has marked out for himself in the actual business
4f life, trusting to make up all deficiences by industriously improving such leisure hours as may occur in after years. This may, no
doubt, be done to a certain extent, but he who adopts this course,
even with the most success, will often appreciate that he has committed an error.  He constantly finds himself engaged in the
embarrassing task of laying the foundation and rearing the superstructure at the same time. Undoubtedly time is saved and thoroughness secured by accomplishing the first before attempting the
second. In the midst of business responsibilities, often exacting,
it requires more force of will and industrious energy to make up
for such deficiences; and in too many instances the task has been,
sooner or later, abandoned. Still, certainly much may be accomplished in this direction by persevering and systematic effort, as is




Perry IH. Snmfih Library Hall.              25
shown by the history of a large proportion of those who have attained eminence in professional literary life, not only in this, but in
other countries. Even in England, where the accident of birth is
supposed to have a much more potent influence in determining the
destinies of the man, than in this country, many of the most emiment of her Lord Chancellors have risen from the humblest walks
of life, where they spent their boyhood in laborious services, while
their competitors for professional honors and the woolsack were
trained in the halls of Oxford and of Cambridge. But they attained eminence, not because of early disadvantages, but in spite
of them. Many who have made no mark in the world would have
become eminent, with a liberal education to build upon, while
many others who have become eminent, but for the foundations
laid in these seats of learning, would have passed through life unnoticed. Let none be deceived by the exceptional fact that many
have succeeded without a collegiate education, and conclude that
early educational facilities are not advantageous.
Wealth is not necessary to secure an education in our Institutions of learning. A large majority may render such assistance to
their sons, as to enable them to graduate, if they will practice that
economy and industry to which those who are determined to conquer success, are ever ready to submit. How abundantly is this
illustrated by reference to the Alumni of this Institution who have
gone forth from her halls, with the wide world before them, depending alone upon the lessons she has taught, and their own high
resolves.
If within half the period usually allotted to the life of man, but
few changes have taken place in the scenes around us, if the same
inspirations are awakened by inhaling the atmosphere surrounding
these halls of learning, marvelous have been the changes in other
parts of our country, denoting the most rapid advancement of the
arts and the sciences, of agriculture, manufactures and commerce,
of civilization and religion. Then the most rapid mode of travel,
even through this State, was by the canal boat or the stage coach;
but few steamers were on the lower of the great lakes, and the
surface of the waters beyond was seldom broken by larger vessels
than the Indian canoe, or the bateau of the fur trader. The great
plains beyond the lakes were the hunting grounds of the Pottowatamies, and the still greater country beyond the Mississippi was
almost an unknown land, clear away to the Pacific coast. Thirtyfive years ago a journey from here to Chicago occupied three




26                  Hamilton  College.
weeks; now it is performed with ease and comfort in thirty hours.
Then Chicago had not two hundred and fifty souls, now she numbers two hundred and fifty thousand. No street could then be
traced, but her few inhabitants were sheltered in shanties and
cabins, scattered in apparant confusion over the low, wet prairie,
and along the margin of the river. Now her stately palaces and
magnificent halls stretch away for miles along her broad avenues.
She appears as a city of the old world, transferred on Houssan's
carpet, to the new, only no broken columns, no crumbling walls,
no mouldering arches, testify of departed greatness, but all is new
and bright and strong; all is activity and enterprise, an explanation of the past and a promise of the future. Here the force of
freeborn enterprise has rivaled the results of imperial power,
whether exerted by a Peter in building his palaces on the morasses
of the frozen North, or a Constantine when he erected his new
capital on the site of old Byzantium, along the banks of the Bosphorus and the shores of Propontis. This wonderful advancement
is not confined to Chicago alone. I might, with equal propriety,
refer to many other great cities in that occidental land, to illustrate its rapid progress.
Thirty-five years ago, when I first wandered over them, the great
prairies were unbroken by cultivation. Rank grass and brilliant
wild flowers covered their bosoms, and the silence of solitude
reigned over all, sometimes oppressing the lonely traveler who pursued the winding trail through those great gardens of wild nature's
culture.  All is changed.  Fences and fields are everywhere.
Waving corn is now where the wild grass grew. Now the deer
and the wolf are replaced by flocks and herds and the shepherd's
dog. Instead of the Indian trail, railroads traverse every part of
what was then called the West, and are already beyond the summit of the Rocky Mountains, and will soon span the continent,
and unite us to that great land of wonders on the shores of the
Pacific Ocean.
In all this, those sent forth from here have done their full proportion. I have met them everywhere; in all professions and in
every honorable calling, and I am proud to say, I never saw one
who did not reflect honor upon the place of his education.
It may be appropriate that especial reference be made to that
science and profession which forms a distinct department of study
in this Institution; the first and sure foundation for which was laid
by the munificence of the lamented Maynard; and to promote




Perry H. Smith Library Hall.                 27
which, is, at least, one of the grand objects of this new structure,
whose fair proportions present so gratifying a spectacle to all who
have contributed to its erection, and whose love for the Institution
is warmed into new life by the contemplation of her increased usefulness in the future. Especially may I speak of that eminent and
excellent man, whom I well knew, whose princely bequest has contributed so largely towards a great library for this department,
and for which, in part at least, this new hall was raised. He was
wedded to his profession, nor turned he aside to gather fruits or
flowers in other fields, however inviting may have been their
promise. He thoroughly studied and fully comprehended the
philosophy of the law, and so was enabled to fathom its most hidden intricacies, and so could make others understand and appreciate it, as he perceived it himself. He depended, not alone upon his
own conceptions of what the law should be, but he explored with
untiring industry all the sources of light, both ancient and modern,,
which could enlighten his understanding. He eschewed the arts
and tricks, to which only little minds resort, to secure success, and
only sought to triumph through truth and justice. His personal integrity inspired the confidence of all, and his merit was of that peculiar character which commanded the admiration without exciting the
envy of those of his competitors who felt his admitted superiority.
In a position of great public trust, to which he was called by his
eminent fitness for the task, he did much to improve the laws of
his own state, and the results of his efforts in that department are
read and admired by jurists and legislators in other states and in
other countries, and will be more and more appreciated as the wisdom of his labors is developed by time and experience. He was a
bright ornament to his profession, and when he was called from his
labors on earth, to a higher and brighter sphere of existence, one
of our great lights went out, but it has left a radiance behind
which illuminates the way that leads to eminence, to usefulness
and to honor. His bequest to this Institution gives you those
treasures of legal learning which he had collected with great judgment and at large expense, and which he carefully studied with so
much profit to himself and to the community. When the student
shall be engaged in the perusal of those works which were so much
the study of the munificent testator, it may well quicken his zeal
and ardor to remember that the same pages were read and deeply
pondered by one who, as the architect of his own fortune,
achieved greatness by his own energies and merit, and whose




28                   Hfiamiltonl  College.
memory will be revered while the science of the law shall continue
to be a distinct study. Whoever shall look for a model worthy of
the closest imitation, whose precepts, acted out through a useful
and a laborious life, clearly indicate the road to sure success, whose,career filled the measure of a most laudable ambition, who has left
behind him an imperishable fame, I would point him to the life and
to the actions of the late WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES.
The Divine Creator has prescribed arbitrary laws for the control
of inanimate matter. Upon the lower orders of creation He has
impressed natural laws, which we call instinct, yet these are not
absolute and irrefragable, as in the case of inanimate matter, for
He has endowed the brute creation with a will by which they are
enabled, to a certain extent, at least, to control their own conduct.
But man, the highest of His terrestrial creatures, He has not only
endowed with a will, but with intelligence; and while He has
written upon his heart and his conscience certain great general
laws for his government, He has permitted him, and indeed imposed upon him the duty to prescribe other laws, in harmony with
these for his own government, not only in his individual capacity
but in his aggregate relations. Man, He has endowed with power,
when in his perversity he so wills, to violate those divine laws;
hence arises the duty to prescribe human laws for the government
of perverse man, and to provide immediate and palpable penalties,
for their violation. I will add further, that no man in his fallen
state is so wise and so just, as to supersede the necessity of human
laws, even in his individual case, for so imperfect is human intelligence, so weak is the human judgment, that even the most enlightened and conscientious may differ as to what is right and just in,particular cases. From this difference of perception, as to the
right, and more from the fact that not all men are disposed to do
at all times what they know to be just and proper, also arises the
necessity of prescribing rules for the government of the conduct
of all men, and these rules we call laws.
No race of men has ever been found so rude as not to recognize
some laws for the government of individuals, and to adopt some
mode for their execution; and but few who have not provided
some organized form of government. In many, the individual has
been left to vindicate his own rights, and to execute in his own
case the violated law, which all instinctively recognize as right
and obligatory. Though the people be so low as not to know the
name of law, still they recognize its existence and its force.




Perrvy H. Smith Library Hall.                29'
In the earlier ages of the world, universally and necessarily,.
the laws were retained in the memories of individuals and preserved by the traditions and customs of the people; nor did this
cease to be the case when the art of perpetuating ideas by symbolic representations, and even by written characters, had become,
to a great degree, perfected and quite generally diffused among
the more advanced nations. Indeed written laws for the government of the conduct of men have existed only in comparatively
modern times, and it is a curious and even profitable study, to
trace the history of written laws from the first, till they became
general over the most civilized portions of the world.
As was most fitting, the first example we have of a code of written laws, comes directly from the Divine Author of all good; disregarding, as we well may, the apocryphal claims of the far East,.
arrogantly styled the Celestial Empire, and the Sacred Books of
Egypt, in the existence of which some have believed. When God
stood on quaking Sinai, from out the fiery clouds He declared His
laws for the government of His own peculiar people, and with His
divine finger these He registered in visible characters on slabs of.stone, and by the hand of His chosen instrument published them
to all the tribes of Israel. Worthy indeed that this first of all the
written codes to control the conduct of fallen man should come
from that Divine legislator, who had already, and from the begin —
ning, graven on all human hearts the fundamental principles of
right and wrong. Till then, not only the descendants of Abraham,..
but also as I have no doubt, the polished people of Egypt, as well
as the peoples and tribes of Asia and of Europe, were governed
by a few simple laws, told only from the mouth of man, which
were often perverted and distorted by rulers to gratify their ambition, their avarice or their pleasures.
Perhaps two hundred years later, we have some account of a
code of laws, by the first Cretan king, named Minos, for the government of his people, where now the Moslem foot, in the face of
a supine Christian world, ruthlessly stamps upon the necks of prostrate Christians. These laws, linos claimed, were dictated by
Jupiter, in order to insure their acceptance by a heathen people..
We have no evidence that these laws were ever written, though
for centuries the Cretans submitted to their sway, with what gradual changes we know not. Here then, something more than three
thousand years ago, we may persuade ourselves, we find the first
dawn of the study of the law with something of the system of a




30                   Hamnilton  Colleye.
human science. Although the many fables told of Minos have induced some critics to doubt if such a man has ever lived, I am
willing to believe in the existence of such an ancient legislator.
Later still, by some five hundred years we find the great Lycurgus, as he too claimed, by the inspiration of the gods, preparing a code of laws for the Lacedemonians, to which kings,
senate and people bowed in submissive obedience. Lycurgus had,
in Crete, studied the laws ascribed to Minos, and borrowed much
from that ancient code. But adhering still to the old custom of
unwritten laws which had generally prevailed, he expressly provided in his code that it never should be written.
The next legislator who attracts our attention, was Draco, who
nearly three hundred years after the time of Lycurgus, prepared
a body of laws for the government of Athens. After the Mosaic
laws, these are the first distinctly claimed to have been reduced to
writing. They were noted for their sanguinary character, which was
so marked that they were said to have been written in blood. The
most trivial theft, alike with the most atrocious murder, was punished with death; and this leveling of crimes, he justified by saying that the former derserved death, and for the latter he could
find no greater punishment. More than two thousand years later,
we find among our own ancestors in Christian England, this bloody
feature of the Draconian code in full force. At least one hundred
and sixty different offenses were punishable with death. Not only
the life of the great criminal was forfeited to the broken law, but
its offended majesty was not appeased till punishment had been
meted out to his nearest kindred; while for the larceny of a fowl
or a loaf of bread, the forfeit of the offender's life was deemed sufficient, at most, if to this was added the dismemberment of the inanimate clay. If antiquity of precedent lends sanction to authority,
we see that these modern legislators could repose upon a firm
foundation; claiming, no doubt, that they had improved somewhat
upon the wisdom of their predecessors. Happily, all this is lately
changed. A more enlightened civilization has inspired a wiser
and a more humane policy, which apportions punishment to the
magnitude of crimes.
The laws of Draco survived but a few years, when Solon, whose
name has become a familiar word, while that of Draco is seldom
heard, was selected as the second, and he was the great Athenian
legislator. So far as the lights of history enable us to judge, he
framed for the Athenians, as Lycurgus had for Sparta, a code of




Perry H. Smith Library Hall.                 31
laws well adapted to promote the rude and warlike polity of a Greek
republic; but in truth, we learn from either, little of those great
principles of jurisprudence which mark the progress of after times,
and which adapt themselves to the advancement of human thought
and enterprise. Solon repealed the laws of Draco and testified his
reprobation of the cruel features of his criminal code, for he
allowed the penalty of death only for the two great crimes of
murder and adultery.
During all the kingly period, and for nearly three hundred years
after the foundation of the city, I am not satisfied that Rome was
governed by any written laws, although critics may dispute about
this question. The first authentic record we find of these is the
Decemvirs laws of the twelve tables. It would be unsafe to say
how far the chosen legislators who framed them, borrowed from
the experience of Greece and the wisdom of her legislators, though
it has been claimed that these former lights were consulted in their
preparation, and that the learned Ephesian, IIermodorus, sat in
council with the ten. The concise laws of the twelve tables sufficed to govern the republic for a time, but soon the mania for
making laws seemed to seize the minds of men, till they were
loaded down and buried with new statutes, so that posterity might
regret that the twelve tables had omitted the provision of Zaleucus,
which he borrowed from Charondas, that he who proposed a new
law should do so with a halter about his neck. I have sometimes
thought that our own country might wisely borrow from  the
learned Locrian so sure a device to check hasty and inconsiderate
legislation.
Under the Roman republic we first find the law established as
an independent profession, and studied as a special science. There
it first raised its distinct schools, and called its separate professors.
It numbered in its ranks the most learned and distinguished of the
Roman citizens, and of the Roman Senate, and with the advantages of the increase of ideas, and the growth of the human intellect, with the examples of the ancients and of the culture of the
moderns, the two thousand years which have since intervened,
have scarcely produced any superior, especially in refined literature
and sublime elocution, to those Roman senators and advocates,
whose names are as familiar from one generation to another as
household words. What an amazing growth, from low and illiterate barbarism to astonishing greatness, do we here find developed
in a very few centuries, under a republic; and in this, as in their




32                   lnIamilton  College.
aggressions, they literally trod in the footprints of the Grecian republics, and it is hard to resist the temptation to pause for a single
moment and observe how quickly this growth in greatness subsided
after the fall of the republics, and never revived again, except in
occasional, though brilliant, flashes, through all the depotism of
the Cesars, and especially during the dark or the middle ages was
the culture of the human mind not only neglected but actually
held in derision by those who shaped the opinions of mankind.
Since then, upon the organization of the modern nations, since
man has been allowed again some voice in his own government, his
progress onward has been greater, vastly greater, because much
more diversified than in the glorious days of the ancients.
But all progress did not stop with the fall of the republic.
Rome was still great, though fading, in the culture of the arts and
in the exercises of arms; but above all else, the science of jurisprudence still grew and flourished, and it took centuries of imperial
rule to corrupt its votaries to the exercise of a venal trade, instead
of the practice of an elevating profession. Yes, under the empire
the study and the culture of the law still advanced, even after all
else seemed to retrograde.
The Roman law was still confused, no doubt, with a great multitude of conflicting statutes, and overloaded with commentaries
writtenl by Roman jurisconsults, although frequent attempts at
codification had been made, for which we may instance the Gregorian, the Hermogenian and Theodosian codes, till the time when
the twelfth of the eastern emperors ascended the throne, early in
the sixth century.  Justinian, himself a jurist, resolved upon a
reformation of the law, which was manifestly so much needed.
He appointed a commission of ten learned jurists, with Tribonian
at'its head, to revise and reduce to a system the statutes of the
empire, subsequent to the reign of Hadrian, as contained in the
three codes just referred to, while all others seem to have been
practically treated as obsolete or repealed. This Tribonian was a
man not only profoundly learned in the jurisprudence of his country, but like Bacon, to whom he has been compared, he was accomplished in the most refined literature of his age; he was deeply
learned in the arts and sciences of his times, and was well versed
in the various schools of philosophy which the learned of the
ancients so much affected. Nor does the parallel between these
two great men end here, for the reputations of both descended to
posterity with a venal blot upon them, which I am very proud to
say, has rarely stained the judicial ermine.




Perry H. Smith Librcry Hall.                 33
The result of the labors of these second decemvirs, was the
Justinian code. He next appointed a larger commission, with the
same learned jurist at its head, to whom was assigned the task of
digesting the judicial decisions, the commentaries and the text
books of the civilians, whose very bulk had become so burdensome.
From their hands came the Pandects, which superseded the use of
the books, of which it was the digest. Still these presented no
consistent and orderly system of laws for the government of the
empire, but rather the germs and principles from which such a
system could be prepared. The Institutes were still wanting to
perfect the system  of Roman laws. By order of the emperor,
Tribonian, Theophilus and Dorotheus prepared this great work, in
which the principles of law, confusedly dispersed through the
other two, were arranged and systematized in a scientific manner.
The order adopted in this work has really served as a model in all
times since. It treats first of persons, then of things, then of
actions, and finally of wrongs, both public and private. By the
imperial sanction, these constituted the laws of the empire, and the
Christian emperor did not hesitate to adopt the policy of the
heathen legislators who had gone before him, and claim, as the
sanction of his works, the inspiration of the Deity.' Upon these
have been reared that great legal structure which we call the civil
law, now prevailing on the continent of Europe; and to them also,
the common law of England, which has been generally adopted as
the basis of our jurisprudence, is indebted for all those great fundamental principles which should govern the actions of men in civilized society, and upon which the wisdom of great judges has
reared so great and admirable a system. Still these ancient codes
could furnish but the foundation stones for modern jurisprudence.
The law is a great and growing science which must enlarge and
expand with the advancement of society; and herein is shown the
admirable adaptability of the common law. Under it, legislative
enactments do not attempt to provide for each of the varied and
complex questions arising in the intercourse among men. The
common law assumes, undoubtedly, that it has existing rules for
the determination of every question that can arise; but practically,
we are constantly meeting with new questions, arising out of new
facts or relations among men, springing from the advancing improvements and civilization of society; and these are usually presented first to the courts for adjudication, when it becomes their
duty to devise new rules or laws for the control of these new questions or relations.
c




34                   Hamilton  College.
We persuade ourselves that this is not making, but is interpreting the laws; but so has the great body of the laws in all times
and in all lands grown up, and so will it be in all time to come.
The progress of society, and with it necessarily, the rules by
which society must be governed, has made such advances in modern times that the law has now become especially a great and a
growing science. Indeed so great is it, that no single life is long
enough to learn it all, and no human intellect would be capable of
retaining it all. No student of the law need fear that the time
will ever come when he will have no more to learn, or mourn that
there are no more subjects for his conquest. His course may be
onward and onward, and still ever see before him new fields to be
explored and new thoughts to be gathered.
He who would be an accomplished lawyer must not content himself with learning merely the municipal rules which govern the
State. It is equally important that he learn how to apply those
rules; and to do this he must have a knowledge of the subjects to
which they are to be applied. These embrace all the arts, all the
sciences, all the employments of men. While none may hope to
become actually accomplished in all these, it is possible to obtain a
general knowledge of those most frequently brought in question in
courts of justice. Agriculture, architecture, engineering, the mechanical arts, physiology, commerce and navigation, are constantly
the subjects of controversy, and the themes for discussion in the
legal tribunals; and how can it be expected that one, who has no
knowledge of these subjects can enlighten courts and juries upon
them, or even understand the evidence applicable to them. Fortunately the profession may be, and is divided into classes, in
which some are devoted to one branch and some to another.
While the bar may thus divide its labors, it is not entirely so with
the bench. He who would qualify himself for judicial usefulness,
and would hope to secure judicial fame, must make himself learned
in the various branches of the law, for he must sit in judgment
upon all.
In every department and in every position in the legal profession, both on the bench and at the bar, the most exalted integrity
is indispensable to success; nay, to a settled government, and the
very existence of society. Whatever may be lightly said of the
arts and sharp practices of some lawyers, there is, and ever has
been, at least in modern times, a firm reliance upon the fidelity of
the bar, and an undoubted confidence in the integrity of the bench,




Perry H. Smith Library Hall.                 35
to which they are well entitled. This is proved by the extreme
rarity of the exceptions. Whenever an exception has been found,
it has been lifted up in history as a beacon to posterity, and has
become especially odious to all men, both good and bad. Exceptions have been found, it is true, and the two great men, whose
names have been mentioned, are instances; Tribonian and Bacon,
great as they were, still were believed not to be incorruptible. The
lustre of their greatness has been forever dimmed by suspicions of
venality, which in almost any other official position would have
made no lasting impression on the public mind; all would have
been overlooked and forgotten, almost as soon as proved.
There is something in the study of jurisprudence and in the
associations with the profession that implants in the mind of the
student, as almost his first lesson, unswerving fidelity to his client,
by the advocate, impartial and unbought justice by the courts. I
am sorry to say, that I have known in my time, dishonest lawyers,
quite regardless of the principles of morality and integrity, in their
general intercourse with their fellow men, but I never knew but
one whom I had reason to believe could be bribed to betray the
interest of a client. If others would act badly to advance even
an unjust cause, there was a deep seated feeling within them, that
was shocked, that spontaneously revolted, at the remotest proposition to betray that cause. Every other sentiment of honor and integrity may seem to be blotted out, while this remains unfaded
through life. No doubt it is the general appreciation of the absolute necessity of this measure of fidelity and integrity that tends,
in a very large degree, to secure it. Destroy public confidence in
the legal profession and the practice of the law must cease to be a
lucrative and an honorable occupation. Let it generally be believed that justice can be bought, that the judgments of the courts
can be controlled by political predilections, by favoritism to classes,
or by friendship to, or by the money of individuals, then he who
has suffered wrong, will seek to right himself, rather than resort to
tribunals, where the party of integrity is sure to be defeated by an
unscrupulous opponent. Soon would become loosened the very
ligaments that bind society together, and confusion and anarchy
would usurp the place of peace and order. If governments may
still live, and even prosper for a time, when other departments are
suspected of corruption, it is not so with this. Happy will it be
for our country, if no circumstance, neither the mode of appointment, the system of education, the laxity of public morals, or




36                   Hamilton  College.
inordinate ambition, shall lower the high standard of judicial
purity, or weaken the public confidence in the integrity of the
legal profession.
I have thus indicated the first, the last and the highest sentiment
that should be inculcated by every institution of legal learning;
and which has, and I am sure, ever will, receive special attention
in this. Here shall be shed the true lights of the law, tempered
with the highest precepts of morality, justice, moderation and integrity. From these halls, and from such as these, must go forth
those who must take an active and a prominent part in the government of the country; and especially those by whom the laws shall
be administered, upon a pure and a holy administration of which,
the welfare of the nation, the lives, the reputations and the fortunes
of its citizens depend. Let all, both teachers and learners, appreciate the high responsibilities of their respective stations, and so
bear themselves as to secure the substantial rewards of an appreciative public, the smiles of an approving conscience, and the favor
of Almighty God.
To those who are the chosen representatives of this Institution
of learning, I am especially commissioned to address myself, by
such of her Alumni as have selected the West for their homes, and
have identified their fortunes with its destinies. They are scattered
over the whole of that broad land. They are denizens of every
city there. They cultivate the broad prairies, and inhabit the
secluded valleys. They adorn every profession and are engaged
in every useful occupation. They sit upon the judicial bench, and
in the legislative halls of nearly every Western State. They occupy chairs in Universities and mark out railroads across the
plains and over the mountains. Indeed, wherever there is a field
for talent, for learning, and for enterprise, they are found, full of
life and energy, doing their share to promote the advancement of
that portion of this great nation, in its onward career. But amid
their cares and duties, with what fond remembrance do they recall
their college days, when they formed these friendships and
cemented their attachments, which are so pleasing and so permanent; and how gladly do they rest from their labors and join this
re-union around the maternal hearth-stone. If they gratefully
remember the benefits here bestowed, so do they feel an honorable
pride in the prosperity of the Institution which bestowed them,
and a pleasure in contributing as they may to her advancement
and her usefulness. Nor is this feeling confined to her own proper




Perry H. 7Smith Librcary Hall.               37
offspring, but is felt in an equal degree by the children of her
adoption.
This hall, erected exclusively with funds contributed by the
Western Alumni, I am instructed to present to you in their name.
It is an offering by them to their Alma Mater as an evidence of
the reverence and affection they feel for the maternal Institution
which tenderly watched over them in their younger days, of the
gratitude which animates them as they remember the benefits conferred in the lessons here taught, which have contributed so largely
to whatever of success has attended them in the several walks of
life. Pardon me for referring to one of their number whose memory they wish should be perpetuated in the name of this structure.
After he had received the lessons and the honors of this Institution,
he studied the profession of the law, in which he gave bright
promise of success, when he joined the teeming throng whose face
was turned towards the West, and settled in the wilderness of
Wisconsin. Its shades could not hide his great executive talent,
and the first railroad that pointed towards his new home claimed
him for its own. For twelve years he has been one of the great
railroad spirits of the West; and with the aid of other great
minds, in unison with his own, he has raised his company to the
exalted position of owning more miles of road than any other
company in the United States. In the midst of his toils and his
triumphs he has not forgotten where the foundation was laid, but
he has, with a noble generosity, contributed one-half the cost of
this building. Fitting then, is it, we think, above all things, that
our offering should be named " PERRY H. SMITH LIBRARY HALL."
Within these walls are to be gathered those treasures of learning
in which shall be garnered the thoughts, the actions, and the discoveries of the past, the present and the future. Here, as to the
Mecca of its hopes, will the thoughtful mind, panting for knowledge, bend its way; and in these silent alcoves feast upon the lore
here treasured. Those who love their Alma Mater will look upon
her lamp of learning as new trimmed, shedding a broader and a
brighter light along the way to knowledge. May the smiles of an
approving Providence beam upon us with His divine blessing,
which alone can consecrate our works to the advancement of His
glory and the elevation of His creatures.
At the conclusion of the foregoing Address, Judge DENIO, of
Utica, made the following Response in behalf of the Trustees of
the College.




38                  Hamiltoin  College.
RESPONSE,
BY HON. HIRAM DENIO, LL. D.
It has become my duty, as the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the College, to make a brief answer to the eloquent and
interesting address which has just been made.
I am instructed by the Board of Trustees to tender to you, sir,
in their behalf, and through you to those gentlemen, the Alumni
of the College, residing in the Western part of the Union, whose
generous donations have enabled us to erect this beautiful edifice,
their grateful acknowledgements for your enlightened liberality;
and I feel warranted in adding that all the friends of the College
here and elsewhere, and in a scarcely inferior degree, all persons
interested in the cause of sound learning and the liberal arts,
everywhere, to whom the transactions of this day shall become
known, will rejoice with us, that you have found it in your hearts
to consecrate a portion of your well-earned wealth to so noble an
object.
We, to-day, dedicate this building to the uses of the Library of
Hamilton College; and, in accordance with the suggestion which
has been made, which comments itself to our own sense of justice
and propriety, we bestow upon it the name of the "PERRY H.
SMITH LIBRARY HALL."  We set this building apart for a depository of the intellectual wealth contained in the printed volumes,
which, from various sources, but principally from private liberality,
have become the property of the College. To these treasures,
which, though limited as to extent, are to us of inestimable value,
we expect to add, as time and opportunity may serve, other contributions of the best thoughts of the living and the dead, so that
in all future time the youth of the country who may resort here
for education, and their instructors, may find the best means of
thorough cultivation furnished for their use.
We have taken such measures as the highest skill has suggested
to preserve this valuable deposit against the casualty of fire. We
trust it will remain, long after the generous donors of this structure, and we who now administer their bounty shall be no more,
an unfailing fountain of wisdom and knowledge to enrich and ennoble the minds of future generations of men.




Perry H. Smithl Library Hall.                39
The system of public Libraries is coeval with the dawn of civilization. But those early collections, existing in manuscript, as
they necessarily did prior to the invention of printing, only a very
few persons-could avail themselves of their advantages; and when
accident or barbarism had scattered or destroyed them, as often
happened, they were lost forever to the world. But now no Calif
Omar can frustrate the purposes of your gift. We can not, it is
true, claim that our books contain the only record of the thoughts
which they embody. But we can make a higher boast-that by
their means we are put in communication with the learned, the
wise and the good throughout the civilized world. They constitute us free citizens of the vast republic of letters. Henceforth
no dark ages like the medieval period can supervene. The destruction of one or more collections of books substracts very little from
the aggregate of human knowledge. Should the British Museum
and the Bodleian Library be burned to-day, there would be no danger that the English people would return to barbarism. It was
quite otherwise before the era of printed books. When the manuscript of an ancient author was mislaid or lost, the knowledge
which it contained vanished. Portions of the Institutes of Justinian and of the Pandects and other writings, containing the civil
law of Rome, now the basis of the jurisprudence of continental
Europe, to which Judge CATON has so appropriately referred, disappeared for centuries and were for a time lost to the memory of
men, until at the dawn of the revival of letters, they were found
in an obscure depository in an ancient town. It is as certain as
anything in the future can be, that barbarism and ignorance can
never again encroach upon the domain of civilization. Our faith
in thisrests principally upon the existence of books and libraries.
Nothing less than a general conflagration, or a second deluge, can
destroy the records of learning and knowledge which the printing
press and the papermaker have diffused over the world. It can
never happen that a wanderer from some remote region can, in a
distant future, come to look down from College Hill upon this now
delightful valley and smiling village and fields, then grown over
with thorns and briars and dotted with the rude wigwams of a savage race. It is as impossible, (to use the figure of a brilliant
writer) as that some travelers from New Zealand should ever, in
the midst of a vast solitude, be found sketching the ruins of St.
Paul's from a broken arch of London bridge.  Our exemption
from all apprehensions of this kind is due to the fact of printed
books and libraries.




40                  HaTnilto.n College.
The Board of Trustees has determined to devote an apartment
in this building to memorials of the youths who, at the call of the
national authorities, left these peaceful shades to mingle in the
rude din of arms, and laid down their lives for their country in the
civil war. We propose to perpetuate the memory of their gallant
deeds and heroic sacrifices to the latest period that such monuments may endure. Memorials, also, in marble and upon canvass,
of the prominent friends and benefactors of the College will find
a place on the walls and in the alcoves of this Library. We would
thus testify to after ages our grateful sense of their munificence,
and hand them down to prosterity as the friends of learning and
humanity.
The gentleman who has preceded me, has alluded, in a prominent manner, and with great propriety, to the testamentary gift of
that eminent lawyer and estimable man, WILLIAMC CURTIS NOYES;
my life-long friend, who left the scenes of his labors and troubles,
as it seems to our limited vision, all too soon.  His valuable
library of law books bequeathed to the College, will fill a large
space on our shelves. In addition to the usual routine of books
found in the library of the most learned and studious of the profession, in which his catalogue is unusually complete, it contains
many curious volumes of rare beauty and value. These manifested the refined tastes and cultivated mind of the accomplished
donor. We shall prize the possession of them for his sake as well
as for their instrinsic worth.
We now take leave of our friends, who in their distant homes
have so kindly remembered their Alma Mater. They will bear
with them to those homes, the warmest thanks of every member
of.the Board of Trustees; and their earnest wishes that their
future years may be as prosperous and happy as this good deed of
theirs has been beneficent and useful to the Institution which in
some sense fitted them for the race of life.
Judge DENIO'S Address was fitly succeeded by the following
Poem, by the Rev. CHARLES D. HELMER, of Chicago.




Perry H. Smith Library Hall.                41
POEM,
BY REV. CHARLES D. HELMER.
S OdrfJiAIY           GO -i?A D.
Over the centuries, misty and brown
With the distance, like mountains afar,
Antiquity, throned as a star
The summits above, bends searchingly down
On our days her deep, wondering eyes,
That speak of a secret surprise.
The mystery is, that she hears,
Through her dust-covered ears,
A voice from these modernest years,If not very loud, yet not very faint,
But very much like a solemn complaint.
Somebody is sorry or sad,
For something undoubtedly bad
In these ominous times;
And whether it man is, or woman,
The Octave can tell-it is human,
And more is not needed for rhymes.
"Oh! for Something to Read!
An intellect hungry, and well-nigh sick
Of an appetite quite unappeased;
A brain, that is ready and quick
To swallow it, with a starving mind's greed;
Anything, anything, only be pleased
To furnish me Something to Read! "
A dearth! a famine! dreadfullest drouth!
No literature left-the streams
Of authors dried down to the stones,
The fountains of books quite run out;
Libraries wasted and worn to the bones,
Skeleton book-cases ringing with screams




42                  Hamilton  College.
Of their shelves, that are empty and starving,
And, in their despair, almost gnawing the carving,
That had, in the builder's intent,
Only the aim of ornament.
"Give me Something to Read! "
Says Miss Nancy De Vowrer,
" Something, you know, that is nice,
Mr. Bookseller, but nothing to make
A young lady's poor headache;
For the girls are agreed,
That headaches, of any device,
Induced by a book that is deep
In its meanings, are always a shame
To a woman-far better let sleep
From the dream-land of Dullness o'er-power her,
Than come to endure a Blue Stocking's fame."
Now, Miss Nancy had given a look,
For two long weary hours,
By the clocks on the towers,
At every genus and species of book
On the shelves and the tables:
She had read all the names,
And the titles printed in gold,
On the backs of the covers,Tomes of history, volumes of fables,
Books with an April Fool in their labels,
Chronicles outside misleading to games,
Author's editions, that never had sold,
Stories of pirates, and stories of lovers,
Ponderous works on Theology,
Written when people had leisure
To read something more than Tribune or Times,
Some copies of modern Geology,
French novels, and soul-harrowing dramas,
Essays on Taste, Art, Manners and Pleasure,
Lives of the Martyrs, Saints, and Grand Lamas,
With meek, goodish Sunday school tales;
Lives of the Presidents, records of crimes,
Catalogues and lists of "Trade Sales,"




Perry H. Smith, Library Hall.             43
Some Lectures, Orations and Sermons,
And Ossa-on-Pelion rhymes;
The culture of Greeks, and the lore of the Germans,
Legends of Red Men, Minister's wooings,
Transactions, or minutes and doings,
Of everything under the moon;
Travels in Africa, romances of Passion,
Translations from Arabic, Celtic, and Rune,
Books on Behavior, and Essays on Fashion.
And yet, not a book to be found!
Nothing to read! some were too dry;
Several ancient, and thus out of date;
Multitudes stupid, and some too profound;
These make you laugh too much, those make you cry,
Some are too little, and others too great.
Thus disappointed, and heavy of heart,
And sighing over this famine of books,
Miss Nancy, with grief in her looks,
Disgusted and weary, turns to depart.
She had done so before,
In her hunger for reading;
But now her despair was exceeding,
As she swept toward the door,
Not a book in her hand,
Though with plenty of money, any book to command.
Old Homer looked down from the dust
In his niche, as anyone, blind,
And reduced to a bust,
Might be supposed to look down
On disappointment like Nancy's,
With a bronzed expression, as kind
As well could comport with a frown,
That either was Fancy's
Creation, or born of disgust.
Unlikest his nod, the Homeric eye
Has majesty in it and might;
And when its poetical light




44                 cHamilton  College.
Comes flashing down from the glittering sky
Of Genius, bestudded and bright
With Antiquity's starsYou might think it was Mars.
There is power in the rays
That fall from the sun, moon, or planet,
That flash from the blaze of lit oceans,
And shoot from the dome of mid-summer days;
But yet there is a power far greater than it,
That hides in the thought-lighted gaze
Of live eyes; and, that, without notions
Or whims, still the human soul sways.
The look of the world, the eyes of the race,
Attentively fixed on the face
Of one's fame, how they can make the cheek burn
And glow with a conscious delight,Or, possibly otherwise, make it turn
Pale, with apprehension's own white!
Suppose all the stars in the skies
Were truly the earth-searching eyes
Of angels, and that the all-seeing sun
Were the eyes of the Omnipotent One,
Looking down on mankind,
Every day, every hour,
Who would not rather the heavens were blind,
Than live under the rays
Of that all-penetrant gaze,
With its terrible power?'Twas Homer-or, rather, his bustThat, we were saying just
Now, sent such a wondering look
Right down on the lady herself,
Who had searched every shelf
In vain for some readable book.
For well the old Bard remembered the time,
When Libraries lay in Future,
When Literature yet had no bureau,
And books were as precious and rare,
As Genius and Koh-i-noors are




Perry H. Smith Library Hall.               45
In our day; back in that misty beginning
Of pen-worship, ere the spider-like spinning
Of volumes commenced from the bowels
Of brains, that made Solomon sigh,
While weary and sad he pensively penned,
Among other truthful avowals,
The fact that, there cometh no end
To the making of books-if they are many,
Though the authors themselves may die
Unburdened by fame, unharmed by a penny.
And remembering well that beginning
Of things, when he made his own verse;
And (what we should say is no worseWhether blind bard or not) did his own singing,
To people who never had read
A stanza or sentence, never had seen
A book, though with eyes in their head,
His anger grew flamy and keen,To hear of starvation where now
His bust, with its laurel-crowned brow,
Looked down along glittering aisles
Of gold-titled books in marvellous piles.
I do not think it was all the clerk's fancy;
And if it was not, then, surely Miss Nancy
Went out of that door,
As never before,
Pursued by an old Poet's gaze
Of astonishment-lit to a blaze.
She had struck the hard street
With her pattering feet,
Each moment forlorn and forlorner
Of heart, as she sighed for a book,
And wondered, if possibly yet, in some nook,
Or hid in some dusty, dim, corner,
The treasure might still not be found:
And now had resolved to turn round
And try it once more, when, lo! just as
She turned, who should flash on her eye
But her brother, the modern AugustusHe of the miraculous tieAnd member of the Toilet Adjusters.




46                  Hamilton  College.
With a significant toss of her head,
Indignant and sad, "Oh brother," she said,
"The age is ungallant and mean,
Nothing like it ever was seen,
Chivalry's dead, no lady can find
A volume to read with comfort of mind;
Indeed there are books enough
But full of such learn'd stuff,
That to read them would make me stone blind."
Now, Augustus had knowledge,
For he was a man-a masculine brain;
At least, if not masculine, male,
And he had been to college.
You know, to be caught in a rain
Refreshes us sometimes, when brooks
And fountains no longer avail
To quench our thirst with legitimate drink.
So, minds may be caught in a shower of brooks
At college, absorbing a little,
Of course, though they neither study nor think,
Nor care for instruction a tittle.
Well, Augustus had been in that rain
For four years-and got mentally damp;
A very considerable gain
For one not wholly a scamp.
Nor does it deserve to be doubted,
That, under such showers,
If he had any powers,
The bulbs of his intellect sprouted.
Augustus had finished his studies
Entirely before he came out of the halls
Of learning, and he turned from those walls
Completely accoutred
For life's future calls,
Assured, as many a young blood is,
That, Professored and Tutored,
Diplomad, and lawfully graded,
His mind with wisdom was fully pervaded.




Perry H. Smith Library Hall.               47
No wonder his sister should look
To him for a readable book;
For must he not know
Everything pretty and witty and rare,
From Publisher's Row,
Or from Printing House Square?
"There is old Isaac Walton's'Own Angler,'
But you are a woman, you know,"
Said Augustus, " A Dead Shot " by Mangler;
But ladies abhor lead and powder,
And never would fish-but for Chowder.
And there is a book by De Foe,
But too stupid to ever get through;
Some stories by Dickens-only so so,
And Thackeray wrote a volume or two,
I believe, that might possibly do,
Were it not, that the plot
Excites one too much, when the weather is hot.
"Everyone knows Sir Walter Scott,
Who wrote, very cleverly,
Some novels called Waverly,
But nobody reads Ivanhoe now;
Those stories are all out of date,
Too long for our times, anyhow,
And length in a book is what I most hate.
"There's Pioneer Life by Christopher Carson,
But too backwoods and rough;
And, something, too, from some country Parson,
If anyone cares for such stuff.
Of course there are histories, poems, and such
Compressed and solid productions,
That sensible people never will touch,
So long as anything else can be read;
I would as soon think of racking my head
With Logic, Greek Grammar, or Fluxions.
"You certainly do not want Travels;
For what is the profit of knowing
What other men see, or say that they see,




48                 cHaimilton College.
In Ashango-land, or any land else,
Among Hottentots, Chinese, or Celts?
Whatever they are is nothing to me;
But there is some sense in one's going
To witness the feats of the Ravels.
"Bacon and Ruskin, Hugh Miller, and Buckle,"
(Augustus went on with a chuckle)
" Spinoza and Shakespeare, Plato and Milton,
Agassiz and Humboldt, Spencer and Mill,
With hosts of others who only have built on
Their betters, and multitudes still,
Who deluge the world with their science
And learning, sufficient to fill
All sensible minds with disgust of their books,
Would turn life into stone with Gorgonean looks,
Were it not, that we bid them defiance,
By persistent refusing
To read anything, not short-and amusing."
But all books are not mummies
Enveloped in dust,
In spite of Augustus' disgust;
Nor are Libraries nothing but Pyramids.
But of this whole matter the sum isThere must be live eyes in the eyelids;
For glass might be painted quite eye-blue,
But never can let the bright sky through;
Talk to a blind man of mountains,
Or to a toper of fountains,
And, nine times in ten, he will stoutly deny you.
It is said, that the tomb of a Saint
Being opened long after,
When all dusty, and grass-fringed, and browned
By time's universal and durable paint,
Within the enclosure were found
Neither ashes nor bonesBut all over the stones
Were fragrant and beautiful roses,
That turned tears into laughter




Perry H. Smiith  Libray Hall.                49
Of joyous surprise; and so, it may be,
That old books are not tombs,
But shut chambers of blooms,
And that the dust-covered volume encloses
A garden of beauties immortal,
If one will but enter the portal,
Having a spirit with eyes that can see.
But our thoughts would be futile indeed,
If we ever expected to find
Those people, anywhere, inclining to read
The pages of old Aristotle,
Who care less for the mind
Than they do for the cork of a bottle;
Who vote Plato a bore,
Flinging sneers at his lore,
Which they, to be sure, have studied no more
Than Aztecs or Apes have, but who effect
That deep and difficult knowledge,
Acquired in Bacchus's College,
Of all the various species of drink,Can tell famous brands at a wink,
But would sooner die than reflect,
And count it a vulgar attainment, to think.
And some who are feminine,
(That means a woman
In this case-a genuine
Daughter of mothersNo counterfeit true man,)
Though not like their brothers,
Who patronize cellars and corks,
But standing so high in the civilized spheres,
Refined and so polished by culturing years,
As never to dine-without forks,
Affect to despise all earnest-souled people
Who come, at their birth,
Down to God's real earth,
And enter on life as a real affair,
With something to do, more than wheel in the air,
Like giddy-brained figures perched on a steeple.
D




50                  cHamilton  College.
Well, specially, what can a woman do?
For is it not masculine,
To strive for honor and win
The difficult prizes of life?
The feminine nature-does not it eschew
All manner of contest and strife?
There is Rosa Bonheur,
To be sure, who certainly fair is,
And queen of the artists in ParisWith garlands of glory upon her;
And ladies unnumbered
Besides, who lecture and write,
Make books, and make statues,
With vigor proclaiming their right
To do what they can,-if they chooseAnd certainly be less encumbered
With prejudice, laws, and that mote
Of old wrong that forbids them the vote.
But Nancy is clearly not Rosa,
In character, motives, or views,
Any more than Beau Brummell's Spinoza —
Or any two else that you choose.
And, so, it becomes rather hard,
For ladies like her, or men like her brother,
To find proser or bard,
That can please either one or the other;
Nor would it be worthy of blame,
Perhaps, to say even the same
Of either their father or mother.
The God of this world is, no doubt,
The same that we sometimes call MammonThe patron and sovereign of goldReligiously served by many who scold
Their fellows for doing the same, and scout
The idea, that his god-ship's service
Is anything better than gammon,
And say what his zealots deserve is
The fate of King Midas: but while this god,
With sceptre of gold, and tyrannical rod,




Perry H. Smith Library Hall.                 51
Rules the race-even those who affect
To despise him-still you everywhere see
How money-bags covet the higher respect
Of learning, and plainly agree,
That books are, at least, a prime luxury,
If not quite essential; as no one can be
Truly genteel, with the upper-rank classes,
Who does not possess more books than the masses.
Accordingly, and to be in the modeA willful imperious needThe family mansion, high-built,
That serves as a winter abode,
Must have a fine library-not to read
You perceive, but bound with morocco and gilt
In elegant rose-wood book-cases,
Constructed expressly, in antique styles,
And fitted exact to their places,
To render imposing the glittering piles
Of volumes, that money can buy
In thousands, or acres, in tons, or in miles,
No matter how long, or how high,
Or how heavy, the only condition
That limits the purchase at all isThe upholsterer must get the edition
In Turkey Morocco, gilt-edged, and fine
As any that ever was seen to shine
At Harper's, or Fields', or Macaulay's.
A maker, like Him who in glory hath made
All things that are, since Creation began,
Subordinate maker of things is man;
A builder, on whom the Omniscient hath laid
His hands, with Divine inspiration,
Ordaining him, thus, with genius and skill,
And sending him forth to creationA worker, to plan and construct, at his will.
A builder has man been, since Abel
The righteous, was brutally slain,
And skill took its line of descent from Cain;




52                  lHamilton  College.
Has built him tall towers, though thwarted at Babel,
Built cities and monuments,
Prisons for crime and fanes for devotion,
Mansions for pleasure, and walls for defence,
And vessels to traverse the oceanStructures of beauty, and structures immense;
But nothing so truly sublime
Hath ever been builded in time,
As Libraries-those cities of Letters,
Or unsmitten Babels of genius and lore,
The temples of wisdom, or arches
Of learning's great triumphs, where marches
Forever the Captain of Thinkers before
His grand army of readers, who wave
Their bright banners, and fight for the slave
Of error and ignorance, smiting his fetters
With blows, like the blows of the hammer of Thor.
No wonder, then, that money should covet
The splendor and honor of witSo loftily lifted above it:
And, so, the De Vowrers saw fit,
Like thousands of others, to gild
The fine gold of mere wealth with the lustre
Of letters; and being unskilled,
As judges of authors, what could be juster
Than seek, for the purpose, some one quite equal
To all emergencies bibliothecal?
The edict goes forth-the order is law:
"Buy me the volumes, and fear not to draw
On my banker for any amount,
Expense is a thing of little account;
The inside of books I care nothing about,
They never were meant to be readAt least, not to bother my headBut, mark you, they must be splendid without.
" In general, perhaps, I might say,
Just to make it not seem all display,
There should be a little regard




Perry H. Smith Library Hall.                 53
To the chance, that a scholarly guest
May happen along-so get me the best
Looking ancients, critic, or bard;But anything else-by the yard.
"There should be a row, too, of Britain's great poets,
To give it a look of true culture and taste;
A shelf of philosophy, science, and art,With holiday binding, imposingly placed;
For always, in matter like this, you know, its
Important to play well your own part
In Fashion's great game; and Custom demands,
Say, nine full yards and a quarter of fiction,
And eleven square feet of clear history,
Besides a few volumes from foreign lands;
Though German's a lingual mystery,
And French an imported diction,
No library would ever be thought complete
Without, at least, a dozen good feet
Of both of these popular tongues,
To strengthen by exercise Fashion's weak lungs."
A show, a pomp, a gilded parade
Of letters and learning, is easily madeWith gold in one's hand;
The books may be piled from carpet to ceiling
In costliest covers, yet ever revealing
The fact, that the volumes, in livery, stand
Memorial piles of prodigal pains,
To buy, at a price, the glory of brains.
Meanwhile, the mental starvation
Continues, this wide-wasting famine
Of books for unthinking people to readApparant to all who examine.
But pitiless authors give it no heed,
While publishers merciless smile at the need,
And, through all the world, with mighty conflation,
That looks like collusion,
The makers of books, of various names,
Are blowing, together, the high-mounting flames




A54                 Hamiltoon  College.
Of thought-smelting; the intellectual ores,
In white-heated fusion,
Commingle and sparkle and glow,
Till ready as water to flow,
And a stream of editions steadily pours,
In rivers of paper and leather,
Far down to those gilt-lettered shores
Of oceanic libraries, in whose dead waves
The books and their authors, together,
At last, are permitted to sleep-in their graves.
After the reading of this Poem, Dr. ASAHEL NORTON BROCKWAY,
of Harlem, of the Class of 1857, presented to the College a venerable arm-chair, many years older than the College, and which once
belonged to the Rev. SAMUEL KIRKLAND. Rev. Dr. FISHER, of
Utica, was authorized by a gentleman* in the audience to announce
that, on the completion of the Library, he would present to the
College a chair which used to stand by the side of the one just
presented, and which was often occupied by Mrs. KIRKLAND.
After some other miscellaneous exercises, the Benediction was
pronounced by the Rev. Dr. CONDIT, of Oswego, and the audience
dispersed.
*Rev. A. D. GRIDLEY, of Clinton.




III.
INAUGURATION OF THE LIBRARY HALL.
Owing to various unforeseen hindrances, the Library Hall was
not completed and ready for occupancy until the summer of 1872.
This having at length been effected, the several libraries pertaining
to the College were removed from the Chapel to their new quarters, and the portraits and other works of art belonging to the
Institution were transferred to the Memorial Hall. It was thought
expedient to commemorate the completion of this important work
by public exercises in the new edifice. The 25th of June was
chosen for this purpose. The weather being rainy interfered somewhat with the pleasure of the occasion, yet a large number of the
friends of the College were present, filling the entire auditorium
of the building. The interior beauty and fitness of the building
were greatly admired; especially the memorial window, representing in stained glass the seal of the College, with its mottos,
Lurx ET VERITAS and yvw9t geavrOv.
Rev. Dr. BROWN presided. After an overture by DODWORTH'S
New York Orchestra, prayer was offered by the Rev. WILLIAM
DELoss LOVE, D. D., of East Saginaw, Michigan.
President Brown's introductory remarks were substantially as
follows:
ADDRESS,
BY REV. SAMUEL GILMAN BROWN, D. D.
It is natural that we should regret the copious and incessant rain
which prevents many of our friends from being present with us
this afternoon. But when we remember the wants of the thirsty
earth, the fertility and wealth which descend with these showers, I
am  sure that our small inconvenience and disappointment will




56                  Hamilton  College.
seem  to us of very little consequence.  Let us rather regard
these showers as symbols of the material and moral prosperity
which we hope may yet descend upon the College.
We have met upon an occasion of real interest to all lovers of
this Institution.  The great temple of Jupiter Olympius at Athens,
begun by Peisistratus, and finished nearly seven hundred years
later by Hadrian, was called by an ancient writer " a great struggle with time."  There have been some who have thought that our
smaller structure should in this respect come within the same category. We have, indeed, had some struggle with time and some
disappointments. The real commencement of the building, as you
will learn more particularly from Judge WILLIAMS, was delayed
for many months after the laying of the corner-stone six years ago,
and the work has not gone forward since without interruptions and
hindrances, more trying to those who have had the building especially in their charge, than it could be to others who, free from
responsibility, merely looked on and wondered why the work did
not proceed faster. At last, however, we are able to congratulate
ourselves on the work as substantially done, and to hand it over
for the uses for which it was designed. The workmen have left it;
the books have been removed from the old library rooms and
placed upon its shelves; the pictures and some relics of earlier
days have been hung in the Memorial Hall, and we meet without
formality or ceremony to express to each other our gratifications at
this result. For this beautiful building we are indebted to the
liberality of our Alumni at the West, and most largely to one of
them whose name it bears. Long may it stand a fitting monument of their munificence.
It is not easy to exaggerate the importance to a college of a
good library, especially to a college situated like ours, removed
somewhat from the great centers of commerce and wealth, and
obliged to depend for almost everything upon its own resources.
The library must be the center of its intellectual life. It must furnish the material on which the mind can act, by which the mind
may be stimulated, and enabled to elaborate thought, and make
advances in knowledge and wisdom. We greatly need a liberal
and decisive enlargement of the means and appliances for these
great ends; history to give us the record of the ages,-science to
inform the mind, and literature to stimulate and inspire. Connected with the College are many students in the early stages of
intellectual culture and discipline. We wish them, in the still




Perry H. Smith Library Hall.                 57
retreat of these rooms, to learn humility, observing the monuments
of knowledge and thought here accumulated, to learn the necessity
of diligent and persistent toil, as the invariable price paid for eminence in the world of intellect,-to learn charity and magnanimity,
-so as to come to higher dignity of action, to greater beauty of life.
Hither let the students, the scholars, the investigators, of this
whole region, of whatever age or pursuit, come freely, to gratify
their curiosity, to enlarge their knowledge, to satisfy their wants.
I hope that the library may become a means of culture not only to
the Students and Faculty of the College, but to all of every profession or of no profession, to whom its treasures may be of service. A
library is made to be used, and I hardly know what stimulus can
be more healthful to a young and enthusiastic scholar in any department of science or of art, than to give him free access to good
books. Our law library, one of the best, I suppose, ever collected
in this country by a single individual, and among the most complete and valuable possessed by any Institution, is the gift of an
eminent lawyer, a native of this county, whose name can never be
mentioned here but with reference, and who was determined that
this treasure which he spent his life in gathering, should not be
dissipated at his death, but should remain in form and substance
as he left it, under the guardianship of the College, for the instruction and profit of students of the law in this region where he was
born.
Our general library is not without considerable value, a value
which, I confess, seems much enhanced by its removal to this hall.
But yet it has been selected without much order or system, is
made up of parts and fragments, and has not grown to be a complete whole. What we need is systematic enlargement, growth
according to a plan, so that it may be systematical, and in some
sense complete.
To carry out these purposes and fulfill these not extravagant
hopes, we must depend on the bounty of liberal men. Our present
means for increasing the library are small, yet it is something that
the beginning of a fund has been made by the generous donation
of $5,000 by an Alumnus of the College recently deceased, the
Hon. PETER B. PORTER, of Niagara Falls. I look for the time
when this valuable gift shall be greatly enlarged by others. I
look for the time when these shelves, ample as they now seem,
shall be too narrow for the treasures which shall here accumulate,
for I can not but believe that the College is destined under the




58                  Hamilton  College.
favor of God to greater prosperity in the future than in the past,
and that its children and friends will not suffer it to want anything
essential to its permanent and ample success.
But I am unconsciously trespassing upon the time allotted to
others. We are expecting an historical statement of the building
of this Library Hall, from Judge WILLIAMS; the reminiscences of
Dr. GOERTNER whose labors were so efficient in securing the
means for its erection, and words of encouragement from many of
our friends who are present with us to-day.
Hon. O. S. WILLIAMS being called upon, stated that it gave him
much pleasure to mention an incident which seemed a good omen
for the present occasion. He had in his hand a volume which he
had that morning received from California; it was a rare and
curious book in its origin and history, being none other than the
Book of Common Prayer, with the Gospel of St. Mark, and
selections from other portions of Scripture, and several hymns, in
the Mohawk and English languages, and translated from  the
English by the noted Mohawk chief, Capt. Joseph Brant, (Theyandanegea.)
It comes from an upright and distinguished jurist and an accomplished scholar, Judge JOHN W. DWINELLE, of San Francisco, an
Alumnus of the College, of the Class of 1834, who has never forgotten his " Alma Mater;" and this is not the first time that the
College has had occasion to thank him for gifts of rare and curious
and valuable books. He found this volume in a book-stall, in
London, much worn and defaced, had it restored and elegantly
re-bound, and to-day it comes from his western home, the first gift
to the Library in its new location.
After this announcement came the following
ADDRESS,
BY HoN. O. S. WILLIAMS, LL. D.
Mr. President and Alumni and Friends of Hamilton College:
This afternoon has been set apart for the dedication of the
PERRY H. SMITH LIBRARY HALL; it is not an occasion for long
speeches and set orations; but rather for friendly greetings and
cordial congratulations, that a point so auspicious has been reached
in our college history. Far be it from me to detain you with any
extended remarks, but it has been deemed fitting and desirable that




Perry II. Smith Librcary Hall..59
some statistics should be presented, even if merely for the purpose
of preservation in a collected form. What I shall say, therefore,
will be mainly confined to names and dates, localities and amounts,
forming, so to speak, a skeleton history of the Library, leaving it
for hearts not less filial, and voices more eloquent than mine to
clothe it with flesh and blood, and animate it with light and life.
Hamilton Oneida Academy had a small library, and this, with
its other property, was passed over to Hamilton College at its incorporation. The charter of the College was granted May 26,
1812, and was signed by DANIEL D. TOMPKINS, then Governor of
the State and Chancellor of the University.
The Trustees of the College were not unmindful of the library,
for at a meeting of the Board held November 24, 1812, they appropriated $100 for its increase, and appointed a committee authorized to make purchases, appoint a librarian and provide regulations
for the use of the library.
Before the charter was granted, the library was kept in a room
in the third story of the academy, the wooden building then standing between South College and the Chapel, removed many years
since, but yet remembered by some present. After the charter it
remained in the same location until the Chapel was built in 1827.
Soon after the completion of the Chapel, the library was removed
into a room prepared for its reception in the south-west corner of
the third story of that building.
The Board, at a meeting held August 20, 1824, directed that a
catalogue of the library be prepared and printed, and in January,
1826, the first catalogue was published; and a copy of this pamphlet now lies before me. The library then contained about sixteen hundred volumes, and it was gradually increased by purchases,
and donations by individuals, and the general and State governments; but the addition of valuable and useful books was very
slow, the College for want of funds, not being able to make many
purchases.
In November, 1860, the libraries of the Union and Phoenix
Societies, each containing about 3,000 volumes, were placed in
charge of the College for safe keeping; and since that time they
have been kept and used as a part of the College library, though
the rights of the societies are fully recognized and maintained.
In 1865, a few liberal friends of the College in New York purchased the valuable library of Dr. EDWARD ROBINSON, containing
about 1,200 volumes, and donated it to the College.




60                     Hamilton  College.
Meanwhile the increase of the library, though slow, called for
more space, and the room was first enlarged by extending it eastward, and again by extending it northward, so that it occupied
about three-fourths of the third story of the Chapel.
The demand was very earnest for an increase of the library; the
wants of the faculty and students, and the progress of learning
and science, loudly called for it, but the means were wanting, and
often the solicitation for funds was met by the reply " What would
you do with more books, if you had them?  You have no suitable
place to put a library."
In December, 1864, WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES, of New York, died
very suddenly, and his will, proved soon after, disclosed the fact
that he had bequeathed his law library in these words:
"My law  library I give to Hamilton College, at Clinton, in
Oneida Connty, that it may always be kept together, for the use
of law students in that Institution."
In June, 1865, this library was removed from  New York to the
College, and soon after was put up in a room temporarily fitted up
for its reception in the remaining unoccupied part of the third
story of the chapel.  It numbered over five thousand volumes, and
was one of the choicest and most valuable law libraries in the
country, and had been collected by Mr. NoyEs himself, with great
care and taste and judgment, at an expense of from fifty to seventyfive thousand dollars.
A gift so unexpected and so munificent, and from a gentleman
so distinguished in his profession, and so greatly honored and beloved in this county, as well as throughout the State, imposed
great obligation upon the Board of Trustees to provide for its safe.keeping and its future use, and at the next annual meeting, held
July 19, 1865, on motion of Judge DENIO, the following resolution was adopted:
Resolved, That the gift of this library, and its acceptance by the College, impose
upon the Board the indispensable obligation of procuring to be erected, at the earliest practicable period, a suitable edifice, in which it, together with the books constituting the College library, may be safely kept for convenient reference and use;
and that immediate measures be taken to realize the pecuniary means for accomplishing this important object.
This was the beginning of the movement for the erection of this
library hall, and without going too much into detail, it may be
stated that committees were appointed, plans procured and approved and a site selected, but meanwhile the necessary funds




Perry H. Snith Library Hall.                   61
were not forthcoming. Then the Western Alumni took up the
matter, with much zeal and earnestness, and soon $25,000 and upwards was subscribed.  The corner-stone of the building was laid
by Mr. SMITH at commencement, July 18, 1866, with appropriate
ceremonies, Col. EDWIN L. BUTTRICK, of Milwaukee, making an
address, and Gov. SEYMOUR speaking in behalf of the College; and
at commencement, July 15, 1868, the PERRY H. SMITH LIBRARY
HALL was presented by the Western Alumni to the College, Judge
CATON, of Illinois, delivering the address; and Judge DENIO responding for the Board of Trustees.
After this, the work lingered for a time, but it soon received a
new impulse, and during the past year it has been completed.
Professors HUNTINGTON and CHESTER have removed and put up
the libraries, and Mr. GRIDLEY has arranged the portraits and
other works of art in the Memorial Hall. And thus, Mr. President and Alumni and friends, our work stands before you.
The whole cost of the building and furniture complete will be
about $50,000, of which more than one-half has already been subscribed and paid by the Western Alumni and friends of the College. It furnishes room for about 60,000 volumes, but our present
collections, all told, hardly reach one-third of that number.
And here I can not forbear expressing the delight I should feel
in running over the titles of many of the works in the Miscellaneous library, and showing, what treasures of learning even this
one small collection contains, and in going through the Union and
Phoenix libraries with some former members of those societies,
whom I see here to-day, and recalling many a familiar book which
our own money purchased, and our own hands inscribed.
What pleasure it would be to go through the NOYES library
with my legal friends, and behold its completeness, its collections
of reports, United States, the State of New York, and every State
in the Union from  Maine to Oregon, British reports, English,
Scotch and Irish, and the colonies fiom Newfoundland to India, its
digests, its statutes, its weekly and monthly and quarterly law
journals, and its miscellaneous treatises; its rare and curious and
valuable books; its Roman law and the codes of Justinian and
Theodosius, the judicial records of the kingdom of Cyprus and
Jerusalem during the sovereignty of the Crusaders, the Domesday
book of William  the Conquerer, the laws of Manu, the most
ancient, and the reports of the Hawaian kingdom, the most modern of civilizations.




62                   Hamilton  Colleqe.
It would delight me to speak of the liberality of our friends,
and to mention names which the College will ever hold in grateful
remembrance, but the promise made when I commenced, forbids,
and these pleasant themes I leave in the hands of others who know
them well, and will, I trust,' gratify us by their rehearsal.
Rev. Dr. GOERTNER being called upon, spoke as follows:
ADDR)ESS,
BY REV. N. W. GOERTNER, D. D.
Mr. CHAIRMAN: It is always pleasant to reach the goal after a
long race. It is gratifying to witness the consummation of a cherished purpose. I confess to a large share of pleasure and enjoyment to-day, standing as I do in this presence, in this substantial,
elegant hall, finished and partially occupied, and now being inaugurated and dedicated to the high use for which it was designed.
I would much rather have taken a place in the audience and listened to others. But such has been my connection with it from its
first inception that it is hardly possible for any one to take the
place assigned me in this service. Judge WILLIAMS has graphically and well described the progressive steps, the gradual increase
of the library connected with Hamilton College. Its advance was
slow, but it indicated life, and where there is life there is progress,
however slow it may be. Hamilton College had the principle of
life implanted in it when it was founded by the hand of piety and
consecrated to the cause of religion and learning.  It will not die;
it must grow. Its growth was slow, because the nourishment it
required was so sparingly supplied; for long years it struggled
with poverty, but it was gradually sending its roots deeper into
the soil, and year by year extending its branches, scattering the
leaves of each annual growth about its roots until the invigorating process began to be felt and fresh energy and vigor to be
manifest. Nothing has occurred in connection with this Institution that has given it such an impulse onward and upward as the
work we have met to celebrate to-day-the erection of this Hall by
the Alumni of the College. It is rich and enriching, beautiful in
itself, but more beautiful in the prospect it opens. Already I see
these alcoves filled with books, the generous contribution of loyal
sons to their honored mother-and yonder " Memorial Hall " be



Perry H. Smith Library Hall.                  63
come an art gallery filled with the finest specimens, of art, the testimony of filial affection to Alma Mater.
But, sir, I remember that the speeches to-day are to be many,
and short, and that I am expected to answer the question, "How
came this building here?"  I can answer the question truly in a
single sentence. The good providence of God placed it here. I,
sir, believe in providence, and the old maxim is true, " They that
look for providences will find them." To me, one of the most remarkable links in the chain of providences that erected this Hall, is
my own connection with it. How came I here? How was I made
willing to leave my pleasant home and endeared associates in Philadelphia, and become identified with the interests of Hamilton
College? God did it. And though it has often been a matter of
wonder to my friends, I rejoice and am glad that He did it. I am
happy to recognize and acknowledge the leadings of His hand.
Well, sir, the year after I came here, the winter of 1860 and 1861,
after having secured the endowment of the Presidency of the College, by the generous contribution of Messrs. BENJAMIN S. WALCOTT and WILLIAM D. WALCOTT, of New York Mills, and a partial
endowment of the Professorship of Rhetoric in Utica, and having
visited many of the more important localities in the central and
western part of the State, I went to the city of New York, hoping to
find in that center of wealth and influence many generous responses
to our appeal for help to place this Institution financially in the
position it ought to occupy. I was greatly disappointed. I obtained a few generous subscriptions, and my success ended; I could
make no impression; I have been more successful there since, but
I was compelled to yield at that time, and did so with all the
grace I could command. But my failure then, proved an important link in the chain of Providence that erected this Hall.
My observation and experience taught me that comparatively
few of the men in the city with whom I came in contact in my
effort, knew, or cared anything about Hamilton College. Their
sympathies were with the older and better endowed colleges of New
England and New Jersey. Hamilton College was not far enough
from home to awaken the feeling of benevolence. For the first time
in my experience I had a practical demonstration of the effective influence of early association u-on the judgment and reason of most
men, proving that whilst the tide of emigration ran westward, the
tide of feeling, the sympathies of the heart, the affections returned,
running eastward to the home of childhood, the scenes of youthful




64                   Hamnilton  College.
experience, the institutions where they and their fathers were
taught; and the names of which were household words.
It requires more than an ordinary effort to overcome this strong
(if you please) instinct of human nature, and I confess that I do
not like to be the instrument of plucking it out of a single heart,
or to diminish in many respects its healthful elevating influence.
I remembered that the Hon. WILLIAM  CURTIS NOYES was a
native of central New York and an honorary Alumnus of Hamilton College. I sought an interview with him. He was a willing
and interested listener to the story of my experience in the city.
It was a new idea to him that New Yorkers could sympathize more
strongly with New England colleges than those in our own State.
I gave him statistics showing how large a portion of the young
men in this State were in New England colleges, and how large an
amount was annually expended by our citizens in other States, for
the education of our sons, enough amply to endow in a brief period
all the existing colleges in the State. He said emphatically, " The
Empire State ought not to be a pensioner upon New England, or
upon any other State, for the education of her sons, nor was it wise
to empoverish our own, in order to enrich the Institutions of other
States."  We discussed the whole subject of the wants, the aims
and plans of Hamilton College. He said, its location, its early
history, and indeed all that he knew about it, interested him, and
ought to interest every man who claimed a birthright in the State
of New York.
He asked me if I had ever looked at his library. I had not.
He led me first around the lower gallery, directing my attention to sets of books and some special works; then to the second
and the third gallery, when we returned to his table, the same
table now standing in yonder librarian's room. Before he sat down,
he said, " GOERTNER, I have nothing now to give Hamilton College, for I hold all that I have, sacred for the country. The Union
must be preserved in its integrity; but I promise you here to-night,
[with a wave of his hand around the room] that, living or dying,
I will remember Hamilton College."  I pleasantly, made a memorandum of his declaration and read it to him. He said it was right.
I knew  he had in his heart made the gift of his library to
us that night.  His will is dated January, 1862, in which he
gives his splendid library to Hamilton College, Clinton, to be
kept forever for the benefit and use of that Institution.  His
death occurred in December, 1864. The possession of that library




Perry H. Smith Library  I1all.                    65
made a place in which it should be kept, a necessity.  On the 1st
of May, 1865, a special meeting of the faculty was held in the
senior class room, when the following resolution was adopted:
Resolved, That it is due to the generosity of the late WILLIAAM CURTIS NOyES, in
bequeathing to Hamilton College his law library, which is said to have cost not less
than $60,000, that an immediate effort be made to raise $25,000, for the erection of
a suitable library building on the College grounds; and that Dr. GOERTNER, Professor NORTH. and Professor UPSON be requested to prepare an appeal to the Alumni of
the College in behalf of this object.
A  circular was prepared and signed by the committee, dated
June 5, 1866, and widely circulated.  A  subscription, too, was
started, and an appeal made to the trustees.  The movement
was only partially successful, but I was still prosecuting it, when
about the first of April, 1866, I was called to visit my daughter,
Mrs. Goodwin, residing in Chicago.  Her husband, being an Alumnus of the College, invited some of the Alumni resident in the
city to meet me at his home in the evening, when, of course, the
chief topic of conversation was Hamilton College, the progress we
were making, what had been done and what we hoped to do.
That the gift of the Noyes library made a suitable building a necessity, all admitted.  Many pleasant incidents of College experience
were related, and College anecdotes rehearsed, until a thorough filial
feeling for Alma Mater was rekindled, when PERRY II. SMITH, remarked that he had a friend to whom he had long sustained an
intimate business relation, and such was the true friendship and
affection for him, and he believed it was reciprocated, that he
would like to commemorate it, by associating their names forever
in his Alma Mater, by endowing a professorship, or in some
other way, when it was at once suggested that the erecting
of the library hall would be just the thing which he desired.
The suggestion was  discussed  and  awakened  much  interest.
Before we separated  that evening it was resolved to  call a
meeting of the graduates of Hamilton College, in Chicago, at the
Sherman House, on the evening of April the 9th, 1866.   That
meeting was held, and so much of interest and enthusiasm  was
awakened that an adjourned meeting was called for April 18, and
a circular issued to all the Alumni in the North-west, inviting them
to be present.  At the appointed time, a most enthusiastic meeting
occurred, at which Mr. SAIITH proposed that he would pay one-half
of the cost of a library hall on the grounds of Hamilton College, if
the other Alumni and friends of the College in the West would
E




366                     fcIfamilton  College.
raise the other half. The challenge was promptly accepted, and a
resolution unanimously adopted that, in consideration of the large
and munificent subscription of Mr. SMITII, the hall to be erected
should be called the PERRY H. SMiITi LIBRARY AND MEM3IORIAL
HALL.  To fulfill this pledge on the part of the scattered Alumni
of the West involved no little labor, a large amount of correspondence, much journeying, many personal calls, and  some unpleasant disappointments.  But God has happily so constituted us,
that when the result of toil is success, we quickly forget all that
was unpleasant or painful, and remember only the agreeable and
pleasant.
I could detain you long, much longer than would be proper, by
rehearsing the many pleasant incidents and expressions of interest
in the College from loyal sons of Almza 3later.  But there was one
experience which gave me peculiar pleasure, to whlich you will pardon me for alluding. It was the discovery of warm personal friendships which spring up and grow among congenial business men,
preventing prosperity from  corroding the heart, and the better
impulses of our nature from losing their sway.  A beautiful illus
tration of the existence of this feeling of profound respect is furnished by the following brief note addressed to me, accompanying
a subscription:
CHICAGO, July 15, 1866.
Rev. Dr. GORTNER. Dear Sir:-In asking you to accept our small donations for the "PERRY H. SMITH LIBRARY HALL," it is due to you that we
should state the reasons that have controlled us. Neither of us graduated at
Hamilton College, nor are we for any reason more especially interested in
that than in many other similar institutions of the country.
But we have been associated socially and in business with Hon. PERRY H.
SMITH, for many years. Our appreciation of him has grown with each year's
knowledge of him, until the adequate expression of our regard becomes
difficult, without exceeding the forms of speech men usually employ for
that purpose. We choose to continue our association with him in the construction of the noble edifice that will bear his name; and authorize you to
-draw upon Mr. DUNLAP for one thousand dollars, and upon Mr. HOWE for two
Ahundred and fifty dollars, upon terms of original subscription for that
purpose.
We are happy that it is to be devoted to a purpose so laudable; but are
happiest that it will connect us, however slightly with him, who permits us
on this, as on other occasions, to subscribe ourselves Mis friend, while we are
always, dear sir,           Very truly yours,
GEO. S. DUNLAP,
JAS. H. HOWE.




Perr.y H. &Sith Liblrary Hall.               67
And now, sir, not to detain you longer, What is the appeal
which this exhibition and these services make to all the living
Alumni and friends of the College?  We all see that, although
this beautiful building already contains so much of value, there is
yet much vacant room. Is there not a voice coming to us from
those empty shelves, asking to be occupied, that these alcoves be
filled with books until every shelf is crowded? Then will students
be benefited and the Professors enabled to keep themselves, not
only abreast of the age, in all scholarly attainments, in their
several departments, but push on in advance, throwing new light
upon old paths, and revealing undiscovered sources of knowledge.
Let the memorial hall soon be filled with the very best products of
the most skilled in art. Thus shall we prove ourselves worthy sons
of Alma Mater, worthy associates of those who have honored
themselves, while honoring the Institution that gave them intellectual birth. May God speed the good work.
President BRowN next announced the absence of Hlon. W. J.
BACON, of Utica, who had been invited to speak in behalf of the
Trustees, and called upon Rev. HENRY KENDALL, D. D., a newly
elected member of the Board.
RESPONSE,
BY REV. HENRY KENDALL, D. D.
lar. President: This seems to be my first duty as a Trustee of
Hamilton College. I beg leave to give notice, here and now, that
if the position has not more congenial duties for me to perform, I
shall take occasion to resign at an early day. And yet I should
regard myself as wanting in sensibility, if I could not find some
words to express my appreciation of this beautiful structure and
the generosity of those who have furnished the means to build it.
I am gratified that one, whose years since he graduated from
this College have been spent in that great and busy city of
Chicago, has not forgotten his Alma Mater, but, by his generosity
has linked his name with its history for all time to come. I am
grateful to all the other Western Alumni, who, whether they are
named or not, have contributed to the endowment of this Library
Building.
For, while colleges live by the sympathies, prayers and benefactions of their friends, and we are disposed to give due honor to
liberal-minded benefactors, we must not forget the humbler work



68                     cthaminlton  Collenge.
ers and well-wishers; nor overlook the fact that some whose names
never appear as benefactors have been most efficient helpers, by
inspiring others to make large contributions to endow these institutions, or to furnish students to fill them.
A few weeks ago I attended services similar to these at the
inauguration of a similar building connected with Auburn Theological Seminary. The wife of one of the generous donors was
named as having encouraged and aided her husband in the work.
And I was reminded that on one occasion during the war, when
one of our great enterprises was suffering for want of funds, I
dropped this gentleman a note, and begged for an interview of
fifteen minutes, to lay the case before him.
In reply, I received an invitation, which I was glad to accept, to
spend the next Sabbath with him. Accordingly he called for me,
at my office, on Saturday P. I., and took me to his beautiful home
on the Hudson.  I found his house full of guests. But before we
slept that night, he took me aside to confer with me about the
object for which I had sought the interview. I noticed also that
his wife was quietly sitting in the room. As we discussed the subject, her husband warmed with enthusiasm  and began to make
generous proposals, to every one of which she quietly responded,
"Yes."  The more liberal and large-hearted the proposals, the
more emphatically she responded, " Yes," and it occurred to me that
perhaps she had begun her career with this man by saying " Yes; "
and that she had never taken it back! and that this had done
much towards making him the good and useful man he is!
God bless all such generous men, and increase their number
greatly: God bless all such wives and increcse -their number. Not
that any man should have more than one wife at a time; but let
these young gentlemen take the hint, for I see about us an abundance of the material from which such wives are made!
A few years ago I was traveling in the new settlements of Minnesota, in the interest of Home Missions. My wife was with me
and two clergymen. At the particular hour I speak of, we were
in search of a certain man who was interested in having a church
planted in his neighborhood.  We were directed by an obscure
way, through a forest, in which we were compelled to ford a stream,
and by which, at length, we were led to a saw-mill that stood on
its banks. Inquiring for the gentleman we were in search of, we
were directed to a log cabin standing on a bluff, a few rods away.
leaching the place, I was introduced to the man and his wife.




Perry H  SmSnith Lt)cbrary Hall.               69
Soon after, he said: " Mr. KENDALL, did you graduate at Hamilton
College?"  I said, "I did."  "Did you teach in the Clinton
Academy a few weeks in the winter of your Senior year?"  I
said, " I did."  He then replied,' I was from Clinton, and was one
of your pupils."  Turning to his wife he said, "M y wife was also
from  Clinton, her maiden name was E, and she had two
brothers in College, whom you must have known."  I replied that
I knew them well, and then said, " My wife also was from Clinton,"
and when I gave her maiden name this man's wife burst into tears.
Throwing her arms around her, she exclaimed, " Why, Mrs. Kendall, you were my dear teacher; I did not know you."
This couple had made their home in Minnesota, soon after their
marriage.  At length they found a family springing up around
them with no adequate facilities for their education. Their farm
yielded them but a precarious income. Crops were small or prices
low. Then, they exchanged the farm for a mill, hoping in a few
years to be able to return to this place, and give their children the
advantages of this Institution of Learning.  But in an untimely
hour the floods came, mill-dam and mill were in ruins, and all their
hopes were wrecked.  But fondly clinging to their cherished
dream, "'hoping against hope," they were struggling bravely to
retrieve their losses and educate their children. And here was a
woman whose early advantages had been of a superior order, and
whose scholarship according to the testimony of her former teachers, was sufficient to prepare her own sons for college, toiling with
her own hands, boarding the axemen and the teamsters that are
demanded by the rough hard work of such a place, living far from
neighbors and all congenial society, with her house so poorly furnished that I dare not attempt to describe it, still attempting to
realize, for her children, at length, what she herself had experienced in the bright days of her early life as she walked these
streets and enjoyed the privileges which this place offers to the
poorest of her children. To all such lovers of sound learning,
whether rich or poor, well-known or obscure, male or female, are
our public institutions indebted for their endowments and for their
students. To all such let us give due honor.
Mr. President, it is always an ungracious task to speak without
preparation, in the place of one previously charged with the task,
and especially to take the place of the gifted and eminent member* of the Board, from whom we expected to hear at this time.
* Hon. WILLIAM J. BACON, of Utica, N. Y.




70                    IHanmilton, Colege.
One of the previous speakers begged pardon for a digression.
His legal training and his logical mind brought him back to the
point from which he had departed.  If I were to beg pardon for a
digression, I fear I should be constrained to beg pardon for my
whole speech, and yet not be able to come back to the point.  For
I think it would be difficult for you to tell what was the point of
departure, or whither I should return. And lest I should ramble
still further in these discursive and miscellaneous remarks, I now
beg leave to take my seat.
Mr. ARTHUR S. HOYT, of the senior class, responded in behalf of
the students:  Four years ago we saw this hall dedicated, and
then we congratulated ourselves on the benefits that would accrue
to us from its speedy completion.  We now are about to leave
these scenes and it is our greatest joy that, although we have not
enjoyed this library, we are able to see its inauguration.  I hope,
also, that the day is not far distant when a gymnasium will be
given to the College, so that there students may be physically disciplined, as they will be mentally disciplined here in this hall.
Professor THEO. W. DWInGIT, of the Columbia College Law
School, and the class of'40, was next called upon.  He said:  A
few days ago I looked over the list of names of those who were to
address you to-day, and, not seeing mine among them, I felt at
ease.  But Doctor BRowN has told me that an &c., was added to
this list. I presume, then, that I speak under this &c. Years ago,,
I was the librarian of this College, and read almost all of the
books in the old library.  One important feature in a library is,
that it can never be stationary, and, hence, it must ever be renewed or it falls behind the age. A great library also demands
great catholicity.  Even a book favoring the wrong must be on its
shelves, so that we may see in what the book failed. Every department of a library should be kept up, and it must be mainly
for the professors so that what they learn in its books they may
teach to their pupils.  I bear willing testimony to the statement
that this law library is one of the most perfect.  It needs, how —
ever, a productive fund to keep it up, and our Alumni should bear
this fact in mind.
Dr. AVERY being called upon, excused himself by saying that
there were certain rules to be observed in every feast.  One of
these was to bring in the fish early. In this feast, therefore, it was
proper for him to retire, and let EELLS be brought in.




Perry H. Smith JLibracry HIal.               7l
Rev. JAMES EELLS, D.D., of Cleveland, 0., and the class of' 1844,
responded as follows:
RESPONSE,
BY REV. JAMJES EELLS, D. D.
1Mr. Presicent: Although I am  flattered by the manner in
which I am  called out by gentlemen here, I feel that I have
really no right to take any part in these exercises. For years my
home has been in the West; and I may properly be reckoned
among the Western Alumni, yet I have not been situated so that I
could either contribute myself, or induce others to contribute, any
sum that would be appreciable in the erection of this beautiful
hall. For this reason I am embarrassed even by the kindness of
those who desire to hear from me at its inauguration.  Still as a
son of Hamilton, and one always interested in the indications of
her prosperity, I should be worthy of blame did I refuse to express my pleasure and pride at this new proof of her advance, and
the added facilities here furnished for her usefulness and success in
time to come. There are times when I wish I was rich-when I
almost envy those who have money.  Not when I look upon the
elegant mansions, and splendid equipage, and brilliant appointments, they are able to enjoy. Not when I admire the beautiful
works of art and taste, with which they are permitted to surround
themselves. I am happy to know that they can possess all these,
and have ability to appreciate them. I can even enjoy these with
them, having in some sense an advantage, because they are not
mine; as I lately remarked to the owner of one of the magnificent residences in the city where I have my home, when walking
through his grounds and taking in all their charms, that I could
gain as much as he from the beauty he had erected, while it cost
me no money, and I could be called on for no taxes.  But there
are times, when I think I understand somewhat the worth of
money, as I realize what it can do for the abiding and far-reaching interests of man; as I see that it can rear churches, endow
colleges, establish institutions of charity, found libraries, achieve
any of those grand objects, whose influence shall continue as a
blessing long after we are gone, then I feel how noble a privilege it is to have money, and I fancy that if it were mine I would
oblige it to erect some such monuments to prove that I had not
lived in vain. It is cause for gratitude to God that Sons of Ham



72                    Hcmilton  College.
ilton have the ability and heart -to rear in such a place, and for
such a purpose, a structure like this.  The shades of those whose
works are to be in these alcoves, themselves long since dead, the
living authors, whose books are their children, the students of
years past, the present students, and those yet to come upon these
classic heights, all who value progress and the means of culture
and acquirement by which it may be assured, will be thankful for
the liberality that has such an expression. Nor am I sorry that this
building is so beautiful, as well as wisely adopted to the use to
which it is to be devoted.  I rejoice that the days when education
had no attractions, the days represented by the slab seats in the
district schools, the plainest desks and benches in the academies,
and the most forbidding architecture and equipment in our colleges; the days of which the schoolmaster wais a fit type, who
assuming that the only object of education is in the shortest way
to fill the head, and despairing of such a result in the case of one
of his pupils by ordinary process, having shaved and greased his
cranium, wrote the lesson on a card and undertook to rub it in; I
rejoice that those days are past. Every where in our lowest schools
and in our universities, in the buildings, the books, the apparatus,
the surroundings, there is cultivation of the taste, and effort to
please and cheer and stimulate those who study.  In this sense,
we have learned that there is a " royal road to learning," as compared with the hard old road which some of us were obliged to
travel, and it is fit that we congratulate our sons that they may
walk in it. The beauty of this library will be an educating influence, ever accompanying the facts and truths and sentiments that
shall be learned here; a kind of inspiration shall here be felt,
which is no less expanding and valuable than the direct results of
the mere study to which it will prompt, and which it will transfigure.  Education will be conducted on a still higher plane, and
with far more blessed and refining effect, when beauty and taste
shall have a still more prominent part in at least the attendants
upon vigorous mental discipline and acquisition.
Mr. President, the inclination of most of us, when we come
back to these once familiar scenes, is to recall the past; nor is this
without pleasure and profit. But to-day, and in this new structure,
we are summoned especially to contemplate the future; everything
around us here is prophetic of the future; these are preparations
for that generation so little behind us that we can almost hear the
thunder of their tread along the highways, which I believe it is




Pe2rry H. Smithl Library Hlttl.                73
the grandest part of our duty to cast up for them.  Oh! sir, as I
advance in years I seem to dwell more on what is to be, on the
progress our sons will make, on the sublime achievements by
which they may transform the world! We can do much to furnish
them  for their work, through the facilities we bequeath to them.
Endowed institutions, choice libraries, opened thoroughfares, organized agencies-these shall be to them, like the completed railroad, with engines and cars all ready to their hand, as compared
with the toilsome ways, and horse carts, with which we make our
advance; thus their progress shall be ours as well, indeed, the progress of any generation shall thus be the accumulated progress of
those before them; each has a kind of inherited momentum, and
though in succession we enter into each other's labors, when the
final consummation shall come, we shall have a right to rejoice together. Whether therefore, we can do little or much, let us all do
what we can; if we can do much, let us be grateful; if we can do
but little, let us know that the great God can multiply this till it
may have much to do with the noble ends we seek. No place is
high or low in His esteem, for the reward shall be according to the
giver's motive. Amounts are not weighed against each other by
Him, for He regards the spirit that gives, and fidelity is His only
test of greatness and of worth. I was greatly interested to-day,
in looking over that old subscription paper hanging in the Memorial Hall, for the erection of the Hamilton Oneida Academy, out of
which this College grew. The highest sum  subscribed is ten
pounds, and there are others of one pound, four shillings, 1,000 feet
of boards, two days' work, two shillings and sixpence, 400 feet of
boards., Oh! how much more wisely  and grandly than they
knew, were those pioneers in education for this region building.
What harvests, of which they never dreamed, were to spring from
those acts of self-denial and devotion, so small in themselves as
almost to excite a smile! The smallest of them was needed, and
contributed as directly to the result as the largest.  Nay, I do not
forget this is a Christian College, and had its origin among' the
children of God, so that I am willing to believe, with thanks, that
many a contribution of earnest prayer and heartfelt interest from
those who could not give even days' works and shillings and
boards, was wrought into its foundations and slowly rising walls,
as real and worthy a part of the inheritance they gave us, as were
any of the thousands which have since been laid on the same altar.
So may we, each one in his measure, build on the magnificent




d4                   Hctailtoni,  College.
super-structure that is still incomplete. It was a privilege to toil
at its foundation, and to lay it broad and deep and firm, as did our
fathers.  But it is a greater privilege to build on the walls after
they have been reared so high, and be able to gain a wider view
from them the higher we cause them to rise.  Let no one deprive
himself of this privilege, whether he is able to give money, or interest, or prayers, or all these. His gifts may become the seed
from which shall grow the flowers and fruits that multitudes may
gather; and all combined with God's blessing, may render Hamilton College a power for good for ages, hailed by the Church as her
ally, and honored by mankind as one of the means for their elevation from the evils of ignorance and the ruins of sin.
Professor NORTII was then called upon to respond for the
Faculty.
RESPONSE,
BY PROF. EDWARD NORTH, L. H-. D.
The Faculty of the College are modest men. They make no
claim to much knowledge. But one thing they can boast of knowing thoroughly.  They do know the value of books. They know
the value of books most thoroughly, if BYRPoN is right in saying
that " Grief should be the instructor of the wise; sorrow is knowledge."  Our sorrow for the want of books has taught us the worth
of books. Our want of a good place for keeping books, and consulting them, has made us less anxious to gain them. To-day we
rejoice that we have at last a beautiful and safe home for a college
library.  We are thankful for all the valuable books that surround
us here. They have a new charm for us now that they are securely
lotlged and so easily accessible.
We are surprised at their number, now that they are brought
down from their hiding-place in the Chapel. Even the empty
shelves above us are not an unpleasant sight. They are prophetic
of coming books. We can see now what DANIEL WEBSTER meant
when he said " there is always loom on the upper shelves."  Those
empty upper shelves are as eloquent as if they were prize speakers,
speaking for books, or Oliver Twist's asking for more. Those
aching voids look so much like hungry and impatient children,
during the saying of a long grace, that we are sure they will not
be left to ache on forever.  We have faith that some day they will
all be filled, and happy will be the professor who lives to hear the
call for more shelves in the PE RY H. SMITi-I LIBRARY.




Perry H. Smith? Library Hall.                75
The facts presented to-day remind us how much power and
blessed contagion there is in a good example. Six centuries ago
the republic of Venice voted to give a handful of corn each day, at
2 o'clock P. M., to a pair of carrier pigeons that had done the State
some good service. During six centuries these sacred pigeons
have increased and multiplied until they now darken the air with
their numbers, when they assemble each afternoon for their daily
corn in St. Mark's Piazza. But it costs the State no more to feed a
thousand pigeons now than it cost to feed the original pair six centuries ago. For now the strangers in Venice with many women
and children, come together every afternoon, in St. Mark's Piazza,.
each with a handful of corn for feeding the sacred pigeons. So it
is with a college. Every example of generosity is contagious. A
good man like Dominie KIRKLAND gives a few acres of land for a
beginning. His example is followed by hundreds. As the centuries go on, and young men flock to the college, " as clouds and
as doves to their windows," new benefactors appear, for supplying
new wants, and the glory of grateful remembrance gathers about;
such names as MAYNARD, and CHILDS, and BENJAMIN, and NoYEs,.
and LITCHFIELD, and WALCOTT, and KINGSLEY, and PBRRY H.
SMITH. The good that such men do never can be buried with
their bones. It lives after them. It repeats itself in all varieties
of beneficence. It multiplies itself in endless inspirations of good.
I was glad to hear the name of DANIEL GOODWIN, Jr., of the
Class of 1852, in connection with Dr. GoERTNER's sketch of the
Chicago movement for the erection of this beautiful Hall. There
is no danger that the name of DANIEL GOODWIN, Jr., will be
repeated too often, or too gratefully, in our rejoicing to-day at the
completioil of a great and good enterprise, which received from
him, in its doubtful beginning, the aids of a filial generosity that
forgot private business and personal necessities, that cheerfully
contributed the expense and time of many journeys and numberless
letters, that inspired lukewarm, lagging Alumni with something of
his own enthusiasm, that rejoices with us to-day at his distant
post of professional duty. Hamilton College is rich in the sonship of such large-hearted Alumni as DANIEL GOODWIN, Jr., of
Chicago.
Col. EDWIN L. BUTTRICK, of Chicago, and the Class of 1842,
responded briefly in behalf of the Alumni of the West:
The trivial incidents of our childhood remain to us, notwithstanding the experiences of maturer years. The first books I ever




76                  IHtamilton  College.
read were those of Hamilton College. I recollect the first book I
ever read from its shelves. It was "Thaddeus of Warsaw."  Its
influence will never cease to be felt by me. It is a source of congratulation to the Western Alumni that they have prepared these
shelves. Will the Eastern Alumni fill them?
Rev. ALBERT ERDMAN, of Morristown, N. J., and the Class of
1858, hoped that the College would do what it has not yet done
effectually. He hoped it would presume more upon the generosity
of its Alumni. He hoped that every graduate would consider it
his bounden duty to do something, without delay, for the enlargement of the Library. Similar hopes were earnestly expressed by
Rev. ALFRED M. STOW, of Canandaigua, and the Class of 1849.
The exercises of the afternoon closed with music.




APPEND IX.
I. HoN. HIRAM DENIO, LL. D.
The death of Judge DENIO previous to the publication of his
address at the Presentation of the PERRY H. SMITH LIBRARY HALL,,
makes it fitting to record here an acknowledgment of his most
valuable and constant friendship for Hamilton College. During
thirty-six years of service as a member of the Board of Trustees,
he was rarely absent from any meeting, whether regular or special,
and freely gave of his time, his influence, his professional counsel
and his pecuniary aid, to promote the interests of the College.
His eminent character as a jurist and citizen is truthfully delineated in the following obituary prepared by Hon. ELLIS H. ROBERTS,
LL. D., for the Utica torning H]erald, of November 6, 1871:
Oneida county has produced few jurists who in broad views, in sound judgment, in legal learning, stand above HIRAM DENIO. With a cast of mind
eminently judicial, with studious habits that never wearied, with conversance with the principles as well as the letter of the law seldom surpassed,.
and with integrity never questioned, he deserves to rank with the magnates
of the bar of the county and the State, and as a Judge of the Court of
Appeals, his decisions are accepted as standards and as models. He was not
a man to startle observers by brilliance and eccentricity. His prudence, his
common sense, his thorough conscientiousness, were his marked characteristics. He was trained in the best school of the law, for he studied with
HENRY R. STORES, whom HENRY CLAY pronounced the most eloquent man
he ever listened to. Young DENIO learned early the need of thorough preparation of his cases, and this was always a rule with him. He was a student
throughout his life, and his culture was broad and varied, reaching beyond
his profession into the rich fields of literature and of history. Conspicuous
for his discretion and his integrity, he was burdened with trusts as executor
and trustee, and at his death was president of the Savings Bank of Utica.
As a citizen, he was above reproach. His religious connection had been for
years with Grace Church. In politics he was a democrat, but he was still
more a patriot. He gave all his sympathies to the republic during the war,
and voted for LINCOLN for President, and sustained the measures necessary
for the nation's life. His fame will rest upon the services which he rendered
as Judge of the Court of Appeals. His decision on the metropolitan police
law offended extreme democrats at the time, but it illustrated his independent and non-partisan character, and the party was compelled to recognize his
fairness and his integrity by a renomination. The ermine was honored by




'78                     Hamilton  College.
him. As he was without dogmatism, he could admit and correct errors. In
every sense he was a good judge, and in some respects his associates have
pronounced him among the best and foremost that ever sat upon the bench
of our highest tribunal.
Judge DENIO died at his residence on Broad street, Sunday, November 5,
1871, aged seventy-two years. He was born at Rome on the 21st of May,
1799. He was two years a student in the Academy at Fairfield, Herkimer
County, with ALBERT BARNES for his classmate. He came to the bar in the
light of some of the greatest names which have adorned our local history,
and he did no discredit to their tutelage. After commencing the study of the
law with Judge HATHAWAY at Rome, in 1816 he came to Whitesboro and entered the office of STORRS & WHITE where he remained until 1821. In that
year he became a partner of WHEELER BARNES, a lawyer in established
practice at Rome. October 30, 1825, he was appointed by the Court of General Sessions, District Attorney, to succeed SAMIUEL BEARDSLEY, and he
served worthily in that capacity for nine years. In the mean time, in July,
1826, he became a resident of Utica, and a partner with his life-long friend,
E. A. WVETMORE, Esq., in the law firm of WAETMORE & DENIO. May 7, 1834,
Mr. DENIO was appointed a circuit judge for the fifth circuit, and then began
the judicial career in which he won eminence, serving about four years.
About 1836, Judge DENIO formed a partnership with Hon. WARD HUNT, and
for some time the firm of DENIO & HUNT stood in the fore-front of the profession here. On the 23d of June, 1853, he was appointed to fill a vacancy on
the bench of the Court of Appeals, and twice afterwards elected to the same
position, closing his career in 1866. Other honorable positions he also held,
such as bank commissioner and clerk of the Supreme Court, and he was
from 1835 a useful and efficient trustee of Hamilton College.
Judge DENIO married in May, 1829, Miss ANN 11. PITIIN, of Farmington,
Conn., who survives him. Three children were born to them; one died an
infant; the eldest daughter died in Madeira where she had gone in search of
health; the third is the wife of Dr. L. A. TOURTELLOT of this city.
A paralytic stroke befell Judge DENIO on the 17th of October, 1868. He
partially recovered from the effects of it, but was never again fully himself.
For some time, he had been failing. For a fortnight his friends knew that
death was nigh. He has passed away, a high type of the Christian jurist, of
whose memory eulogy may speak without reservation. His life proves that
eminence involves no sacrifice of worth, that purity of personal character is
consonant with personal, professional and political success.




Perry  I. Smtith L aibrary flacl.                      79
II. WILLIAM CURTIS NOYES' LIBRARY.
[From Dr. Wynne's "Private'Libraries of New York."j
"This collection numbers nearly seven thousand volumes, of which about
five thousand are law books, and the residue miscellaneous. They have been
collected during a practice of over twenty-five years. It consists of all the
American Reports, with scarcely an exception down to the present time,
including those of Mr. Jefferson, containing Virginia General Court cases
from 1780 to 1740, and from  1768 to 1772; of all the English Reports in the
Courts of Law and Chancery, and in the exchequer, down to the beginning
of the year 1860, and all the Scotch decisions in the Judiciary, Session Courts,
and House of Lords, and the Irish Reports in law and equity; the Scotch, including Morrison's Dictionary of Decisions, in 23 vols.; all the Faculty Decisions, in 21 vols.; Stais & Erskine's Institutes; Brown's Synopsis of the
Decision of the Court of Session; and the Scottish jurist; the latter quite a
rare book in this country, bringing down the series to the year 1858. All the
old English reporters, in folio, will be found in it, from the Year Books, and
Rolle's, Brookes's, Fitzherbert's, Sheppard's, Viner's and Peterdorf's Abridgments, and the Natur'c, Brevium. In Elementary Law it contains all the
principal treatises in England and America, among which is the "Law
Library," in all the series, in upward of ninety volumes.
Among its rare volumes are all the Domesday Books, including the Exon
Domesday, the Bolden Book, &c.; Kelham's and Sir Henry Ellis's Domesday
Book; a complete copy of the Statutes at Large in England, down to the
close of the last session of Parliament, in 78 vols.; the Ancient Laws and
Institutes of England and WVales; the London Jurist, in 45 vols.; the Law
Journal, complete from  the commencement, in upward of 50 vols.; all the
Ancient and Modern State Trials, and all the Reports and standard works in
criminal, and in short, everything in the English common law, both civil and
criminal, and in equity, with the earlier treatises; the Mirror, Glanville,
Bracton, Fortescue, and Fleta. It contains a considerable collection of codes,
among which are the Chinese and Gentoo.  The Frederician Code, and
Strange's & Colebrooke's Hindoo Law; Borradaile's Reports of Civil Causes,
adjudicated in the Court of Sudur Udalut, in the Presidency of Bombay, 2
vols. folio; Perry's Oriental Cases, decided in the Supreme Court of Bombay.
In these cases, which appear to have been considered with great care, are to
be found decisions on Parsi marriages, Mahomedan succession, the celebrated
opium  cases, involving the law of wagers upon the market price of opium,
the liabilities of the East India Company, the Bombay land tenures, the law
of adoption, the Hindoo succession and devices to charity under the Hindoo
religion; also, Ordinances of Menu, according to the Gloss of Culluca, translated from the Sanscrit, by Sir William Jones, and McNaughten's Principles
of Hindoo and Mahomedan Law, embracing a chapter on Stridhan, or
woman's separate property, from which it appears that long before similar
enactments in Christian countries, the rights of married woman in regard to
property were carefully protected by the Hindoo law.




80                       IHamilton  Coollege.
There is also a copy of Beugnot's Assisses de Jerusalem, 2 vols. folio, Paris,
1841. This work, which is very learnedly annotated, contains an account of
the works on Jurisprudence written in the XIIIth century, and the laws of
the kingdom of Jerusalem and Cyprus, during their existence in the time of
the Crusades.
Among the legal curiosities is a perfect copy of Statham's Abridgment, the
first book of English law ever printed, which bears the imprint of R. Pynson, and printed at Ronen, France, in black letter, A. D. 1470. This work is
full of marginal annotations, by an old black-letter lawyer. A beautiful
copy of Le Grand Costzmier du Peays, Duche de Normandie, printed in 1539,
both of which are in a fine state of preservation. A copy of Hughes's Nomotamia, being a survey of the general titles of the common law, printed in
1657, and "done into English for the benefit of younger students."  The
Bracton appears to have been owned by Charles Carroll of Carrollton, and
contains his book-plate. There is a copy of Palmer's Reports, with the bookplate and autograph of Daniel O'Connell, the great Irish orator; also several
volumes from  Lord Lyndhurst's library.  Another is Dugdale's Origines
Judiciales, the edition of 1671, the most accurate now extant, as most of the
copies of the edition of 1666, the first were destroyed in the great fire in
London, the same year.  Spelman's Glossary, the edition of 1687, is also
found in it; the Great Oyer of poisoning, by Amos, containing the trial of
the Earl of Somerset for the poisoning of Sir Thomas Overbury, with admirably executed engravings of Sir Thomas Overbury and the Countees of
Somerset.
Among the curiosities of law, may be mentioned Jardine's Use of Torture
in the criminal law of England, in which it is shown that the practice was
discontinued during the protectorate of Cromwell, and was never afterward
revived; likewise Jardine's criminal trials, containing among others that of
Guy Foukes, in which it appears that Lord Coke, then Attorney-General, was
one of the commissioners who directed the torture of the prisoner. The
library has also Cowell's "Interpreter, or Booke containing the Signification
of Words: wherein is set forth the true meaning of such words and terms,
as are mentioned in the law-writers of this victorious and renowned kingdom,
requiring any exposition or interpretation."  1637. This work met with the
disapprobation of Coke, who thought he discovered dangerous doctrines under the titles "Subsidy," "Parliament," "King," "Prohibition," &c. The
author was also charged with villifying Littleton's Tenures-an unpardonable offence with Coke; who, instigated also by his hatred of the civilians,
had him thrown into prison, with a threat of being hanged and his work
suppressed by royal proclamation and publicly burned. This is the original
edition; that of 1638 was purged of the objectionable passages.
In Ecclesiastical Law are found all the reports and treatises in England,
down to the present year; Oughton's Ordo Judiciorum, edition of 1788; and
a fine copy of Gibson's Codex, a leading authority in all such matters, of the
edition of 1761; with Ayliffe's Parergon Juris Canonici Anglicini, the edition
of 1734-a beautiful copy.
In Civil and Admiralty Law, are two copies of the Corpus Juris Civilis, one
by the Elzevirs; the Cordex Theodosianus, of the editon of Gothofredi and




Pe1rry H.  Smith Library Hall.                        81
Ritter, in three large folio volumes, bound in vellum; Ayliffe's New Pandect
of Roman civil law.; Domat; Voet; Vinnius; Huberus; the life and works
of Sir Leoline Jenkins, and a fine copy of Pardessus, the best edition, in 6
vols. large quarto; Sir Thomas Ridley's view of the Civil and Ecclesiastical
Law, " whereby the practice of them is straitened, and may be relieved within
this land"-a book which was much admired by King James, and which revived the declining credit of those jurisdictions-edition of 1662; Dr.
Ferriere's History of Roman Law, a rare book, published in English in 1724;
Burke's Historical Essay on the Laws and Government of Rome, of which a
competent authority has said " that it is the best historical view of the Roman Constitution that has yet appeared from the hands of any English civilian or historian."  There is also a copy of Calvin's Lexicon, Geneva edition
of 1584. There is a tolerable collection of French law, including Dupin's
Droit Ecclesiastique; the Causes Cilebres; Elnerigon; Pothier; Aluzet;
Boulay Paty; Grun & Joliet; and Quenault; Merlin's Repertoire of Jurisprudence, in 19 vols.; the works of Chancellor D'Agesseau, in 16 vols.; and
the Concordance of Codes Civiles E' Transgres et la Code Napoleon, by St. Joseph. Paris, 1856, in 4 vols.; and the Coutumes de la Pre~vote and Vicoempte de
Paris, edition of 1777, with Denisart's Collections in Jurisprudence, 4 vols.
It also embraces a copy of the last and best edition of the Corpus Juris
CGanoici, by Ritcher, Leipsic edition of 1839, in which are found the decrees
of the famous Council of Trent; and Exton's icaratiae Diccelogie, or Sea
Jurisdiction of England.
It contains a complete set, in upward of seventy volumes, of the printed
statutes of the colony and State of New York, including the session laws
from the earliest period, commencing' with a copy of Bradford's, printed in
London, in 1719, which formerly belonged to Lord De la Warr, and seems to
have come from the plantation office in the colony.
There is hardly any law book which a lawyer in large practice may have
occasion to consult, that may not be found in this collection."




82                     Hamilton  College.
III. PORTRAITS IN MEMORIAL HALL.
1.  Rev. SAMUEL KIRKLAND.
Founder of Hamilton Oneida Academy.
Painted by Rockwell.
2.  Rev. HENRB  DAVIS, D. D.
Second President of Hamilton College.
Painted by Elliott.
3.  JOSIAH NOYES, M. D.
First Professor of Chemistry.
Painted by Baker.
4.  Rev. EDWARD ROBINSON, D. D., LL. D.
Class of 1816.
Professor in Union Theological Seminary.
Painted by Huntington.
5.  H1on. GERRIT SMITH, LL. D.
Class of 1816.
Trustee of Hamilton College.
6.  Rev. ALBERT BARNES.
Class of 1820.
Painted by Pratt.
7.  CHARLES AVERY, LL. D.
Class of 1820.
Third Professor of Chemistry.
Painted by Pratt.
8.  JOHN H. LATHROP, LL. D.
First Maynard Professor.
Painted by Pratt.
9.  MARCUS CATLIN.
Class of 1827.
Third Professor of Mathematics.
Painted by Hall.
10.  Rev. HENRY MANDEVILLE, D. D.
Second Professor of Rhetoric.
Painted by Brown.
11.  Rev. JOHN FINLEY SMITH.
Class of 1834.
Fourth Professor of Languages.
Painted by Pratt.




Perry H. Smith Library  RHall.                    83
12.  Hon. THEODORE W. DWIGHT, LL. D.
Class of 1840.
Second Maynard Professor.
Photographed by Gurney.
13. HENRY WALES.
Class of 1820.
Painted by Huntington.
14.  Adjutant WILLIAM KIRKLAND BACON.
Class of 1863.
Painted by Pease, after Huntington.
15.  CHANCELLOR JAMES KENT.
Painted by Spencer.
16. Hon. WILLIAM H. MAYNARD.
Trustee of Hamilton College.
Founder of Maynard Professorship.
Painted by Spencer.
17. Hon. S. NEWTON DEXTER.
Trustee of Hamilton College.
Painted by Huntington.
18.  SILAS BILLINGS.
Painted by F. R. Spencer.
19. BENJAMIN S. WALCOTT.
Founder of Walcott Professorship.
20. SILAS D. CHILDS.
Founder of Childs Professorship.
Painted by Carpenter.
21.  WILLIAM  CURTIS NOYES, LL. ).
Painted by Carpenter.
22. Hon. WASHINGTON IRVING.
Painted by Spencer.
23.  Bust of EDWIN C. LITCHFIELD, LL. D.
Class of 1832.
Founder of Litchfield Professorship.
Executed by Hiram Powers.




84                    cHamilton  College.
IV. LIST OF DONATIONS FOR 1872.
1. From the late SAMUEL F. PRATT, of Buffalo, a bequest of $30,000
for the Pratt Professorship.
2. From JOHN N. HUNGERFORD, Esq., of Corning, $10,000 for the
improvement of South College.
3. Fron  JAMES KNOX, LL. D., of Berlin, Prussia, $10,000 for the
department of Natural History.
4. From SAMUEL A. MUNSON, Esq., of Utica, $1,500 for improving
the Cemetery of Hamilton College.
5. From EDWIN C. LITCHFIELD, LL. D., of Brooklyn, $1,200 for an
addition to the Litchfield Observatory.
6. From  various donors, $1,000 for a monument to Rev. SAMUEL
KIRKLAND.
7. From  Hon. GERRIT SMITH, LL. D., of Peterboro, $800 for a
granite monument to President AZEL BACKUS.
8. From CHARLES C. KELLOGG, Esq., of Utica, $700 for the Kellogg
commencement prize fund.
9. From Rev. BENJAMIN WV. DWIGHT, LL. D., editor of The Interior,
of Chicago, his philological library, valued at $600.
10. From the heirs of the late EDWARD CURRAN, of Utica, an addition of $100 to the Curran medal fund, making it $600.
11. From Dr. DORRANCE K. MANDEVILLE, of Clinton, a portrait of
his father, the late Professor HENRY MANDEVILLE, D. D., by M. E. ).
BROWN.
12. From Hon. S. WELLS WILLIAMS, LL. D., a valuable collection of 
botanical specimens from China.
13. From the Patent Office at Washington, two hundred models illus;
trating mechanical inventions.
14. From Rev. MILTON WALDO, D. D., of Hudson, a collection of
American coins.
15. From Hon. WILLIAM J. BACON, LL. D., of Utica, a portrait of his
son, Adjutant WILLIAM K. BACON, by A. PEASE, after DANIEL HUNTINGTON, for the Memorial Hall.




Halcmilton  College.                       85
16. From Hon. JAMES M. FRANCIS, Dr. HENRY SCHLIEMANN, and Rev.
GEORGE CONSTANTINE, Athens, Greece; Dr. MARTYN PAINE, LL. D.,
New York; JOHN C. HASTINGS, Esq., Clinton; WILLIAM S. BARTLETT,
Esq., of Clinton; Hon. DANIEL D. PRATT, LL. D., of the United States
Senate; JAMES S. BAKER, Esq., of New York; Rev. EUROTAS P. HASTINGS, of Ceylon; Hon. JOHN W. DWINELLE, LL. D., of San Francisco;
Hon. ELLIS H. ROBERTS, LL. D., of Utica; Dr. S. MERRILL MILLER, of
Ogdensburgh; Dr. B. S. LYMAN, of Brooklyn; OLIVER L. BARBOUR,
LL. D., of Saratoga; and the Young Men's Association of Buffalo, valuable additions to the Library and Cabinet.




86                 Hamilton College.
V. OFFICERS OF HAMILTON COLLEGE.
TRUSTEES.
JOHN J. KNOX, ESQ., KNOXBORO.
SAMUEL B. WOOLWORTH, LL. D., ALBANY.
HON. HENRY A. FOSTER, LL. D., OSWEGO.
REV. SIMEON NORTH, D. D., LL. D., CLINTON.
HON. HORATIO SEYMOUR, LL. D., L. H. D., UTICA.
HON. OTHNIEL S. WILLIAMS, LL. D., CLINTON.
REV. SAMUEL H. GRIDLEY, D. D., WATERLOO.
HON. EDMUND A. WETMORE, UTICA.
REV. GEORGE S. BOARDMAN, D. D., CAZENOVIA.
REV. PHILEMON H. FOWLER, D. D., UTICA.
REV. WILLIAM C. WISNER, D. D., LOCKPORT.
HON. WILLIAM J. BACON, LL. D., UTICA.
WILLIAM D. WALCOTT, Esq., NEW YORK MILLS.
REV. A. DELOS GRIDLEY, CLINTON.
REV, SAMUEL G. BROWN, D. D., LL. D., CLINTON.
CHARLES C. KINGSLEY, ESQ., UTICA,
REV. L. MERRILL MILLER, D. D., OGDENSBURGII.
PUBLIUS V. ROGERS, Esq., UTICA.
S. STEWART ELLSWORTH, ESQ., PENN YAN.
REW. HENRY KENDALL, D. D., NEW YORK.
GILBERT MOLLISON, ESQ., OSWEGO.
JOHN N. HUNGERFORD, ESQ., CORNING.
HON. ELLIS H. ROBERTS, LL. D., UTICA.
REV. ANSON J. UPSON, D. D., ALBANY.
HON. OTHNIEL S. WILLIAMS, LL. D.,
SECRETARY AND TREASURER.
REV. N. W. OOERTNER, D, D.,
COMMISSIONER,




Hamilton College.                                  87
FACULTY.
REV. SAMUEL GILMAN BROWN, D. D., LL. D., PRESIDENT,
AND WALCOTT PROFESSOR OF TIIE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.
CHARLES AVERY, LL. D.,
PROFESSOR EMERITUS OF CHEMISTRY.
REV. NICHOLAS AWESTERMANN GOERTNER, D. D.,
COLLEGE PASTOR.
OREN ROOT, LL. D.,
PROFESSOR OF MATHEMATICS, MINERALOGY, AND GEOLOGY.
CHRISTIAN HENRY FREDERICK PETERS, PH. D.,
LITCHFIELD PROFESSOR OF ASTRONOMY, AND DIRECTOR OF THE LITCIFIELD OBSERVATORY.
ELLICOTT EVANS, LL. D.,
MAYNARD PROFESSOR OF LAW, HISTORY, CIVIL POLITY. AND POLITICAL ECONOMY.
EDWARD NORTH, L. H...,
EDWARD ROBINSON PROFESSOR OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.
REV. JOHN WILLIAM MEARS, D. D.,
ALBERT BARNES PROFESSOR OF INTELLECTUAL AND MORAL PHILOSOPIIY.
ALBERT HUNTINGTON CHESTER, A. M., E. M.,
CHILDS PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURAL CHEMISTRY.
REV. ABEL GROSVENOR HOPKINS, A. M.,
BENJAMIN-AND-BATES PROFESSOR OF TIlE LATIN LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE.
CHESTER HUNTINGTON, A. M.,
PROFESSOR OF NATURAL PIIILOSOPHY, AND LIBRARIAN.
HENRY ALLYN FRINK, A. B.,
ASSISTANT KINGSLEY PROFESSOR OF LOGIC, RHETORIC AND ELOCUTION.




88                       HIfamilton College.
" IT IS MY EARNEST WISH THAT THE INSTITUTION MAY GROW  AN-D
FLOURISH; THAT ITS ADVANTAGES MAY BE PERMANENT AND EXTENSIVE; AND THAT UNDER THE SMILES OF THE GOD  OF WISDOM, IT
MAY PROVE AN EMINENT MEANS OF DIFFUSING USEFUL KNOWLEDGE,
ENLARGING THE  BOUNDS OF  HUMAN  HAPPINESS, AND  AIDING THIE
REIGN OF VIRTUE AND THE KINGDOIM OF THE BLESSED REDEEMyER."
SAMUEL KIRKLAND.
VI. FORMS OF BEQUEST.
I. I give and bequeath to the'Trustees of I-:onilton College, at'Clinton, Oneida
Connty,.V. Y., the sum of Thirty Thousand Dollars for the endowmnent of a Professorship in said College, to be ca7ledl the         Professorship, on condition that
the principal shall never be used or diminished, but be securely invested, and the ncet
inco:ne and interesl sh7ll be dcvotel to the p:cymnit of the salcary of the incumbent of
said Pro fessorship.
II  I give and bequeath to the Trustees of Hamilton College, at Clinton, Oncida
County, N. Y., the seum of Fice Tho.usand Dollars, [or Ten Thousand Dollars,I for
the foundation of a Lectureship in said College, to be called the       Lectureship, on condition that the principal shall never be used or diminished, but be secure7y
invested, and the net interest and income thereof shall be devoted to the payment of the
salary of the incunbent of said Lectureship.
~II. I give and bequeath to the Trustees of Hamilton College, at Clinton, Oneida
County, N. Y., One Thousand Dollars, for the foundation of a Perpetual Scholarship
in said College, to be called the           Scholarship, on condition that the same
shall be securely invested, and the net interest used for the payment of the term bills of
the incumbent of said Soholarship.
IV. I give and bequeath to the Trustees of Hamilton College, at Clinton, Oneida
County, N. Y.,                  Dollars, on condition that the same shall be securely
invested as a part of the Library Fund of said College, and the net interest thereof
expended for the care and increase of its Library.
V. 1 give and bequeath to the Trustees of Hamilton College, at Clinton, Oneida
County, N. Y., the following List of Books, to be added to the Library of that Institution, for the use of its Officers and Students; or, the following Paintings for its
Memorial- Hall; or, the following Specimens for its Collections in Natural History.