THE LIBRARY OF THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF 
 
 NORTH CAROLINA 
 
 THE COLLECTION OF 
 NORTH CAROLINIANA 
 
 C378 
 
 UK3 
 1895 
 
UNIVERSITY OF N.C. AT CHAPEL HILL 
 
 00039136693 
 
 This book must' not 
 be foken from the 
 Library building. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2010 with funding from 
 
 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/newuniversityoraOOelle 
 
Tfit NEW UNIVERSITY, 
 
 AN ORATIOE^ 
 VERED BY ADOLPHUS HILL ELLER, 
 
 AT THE 
 
 LJNDREDTH ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT 
 
 OF THE 
 
 rVERSlTT OF NORTH CAROLINA, 
 JxjLin.& fitlr:i, 1895. 
 
the: new university. 
 
 
 For a hundred years on this gracious day our State 
 has o-athered here its learning*, its beauty and its 
 chivalry; here a University was christened at the 
 constitutional altar, and here dedicated by the public 
 voice; here the Arts have come on the pilgrimag-e of 
 their hope, and here laid down the trophies of their 
 triumphs; Music has celebrated it in patriotic song"; 
 Eloquence has thrown over it the enchanted spell; 
 Society has lig-hted its features with happiness and 
 love; Architecture has clothed it in stately raiment; 
 and over all Relig^ion has raised its consecrated hands; 
 and for a hundred 3^ears the blessing's of heaven have 
 borne witness to the pleasure of Him whose name 
 enlig'htens the world. 
 
 Hitherto the men, whose eloquence has lifted them 
 to this loft}^ place and g-jven them the ear of the State, 
 have had recourse to the history, the traditions, the 
 fond and tender memories of a past, g-lorious, but 
 forever g'one. It was an inspiration that g'ave us to- 
 day the heir-apparent to "The exhaustless splendors 
 of those g"lorious days, " the most g-ifted son of our 
 Alma Mater, an acknowledged master in the domain 
 of Olympic thoug-ht, whose lips have been touched 
 with the honey of H3'bla, to fashion into the best ex- 
 pression the best thought of the University of the 
 aJ past, to make this last act in our century-drama a 
 ^. thrilling- climax to a lofty theme, and from the furnace 
 of his heart, send the warm and g-lowing current of 
 his-thougfht throbbine throus'h the world.* 
 
 *& 
 
 * Hon. Alfred Moore Waddell who had just delivered the oration 
 upon "The Old University". 
 
My stature forbids that I should touch those hig-h 
 and holy thing's; my subject impels me forward, not 
 backward. I shall enter upon no encomium of the 
 New University — it needs none. It needs friends, not 
 flatterers — work, not words. To-day we forg-e the 
 g"lowing" link that binds century to centur}^ With a 
 spirit, willing" alike to acknowledg^e blessing's won by 
 our ancestors and to win blessing's for posterity, with 
 reverent hands and consecrated hearts we have met 
 to place upon those foundations which our fathers 
 laid, stone on stone, thus securing" for ourselves that 
 immortality which awaits the builders of this temple. 
 "They wroug"ht mightily to shape vag"ue hopes into 
 gfreat events". Fresh from King^'s Mountain and 
 Guilford and Yorktown, with the mig"ht3^ passion of 
 liberty throbbing" in their hero-hearts, here in the 
 solitude and shadow of a primeval forest they set the 
 beacon of learning". It g"rew brighter and higher like 
 the rising" sun, till the silence and sadness, the dread 
 and darkness of nig"ht hovered about it, — but it was 
 not night. From the storm-swept sky it flashed forth 
 at length and the shadows fled and still flee toward 
 the west. 
 
 It was a new birth symbolized«by baptism in martyr- 
 blood. And with it was born a new civilization. The 
 mig"hty fabric of feudal society which valor and policy 
 had founded on our rich and ample plains made here 
 its last stand ag"ainst the all-conquering" new-world 
 idea of universal liberty, universal education, and uni- 
 versal opportunity. It went down before the armies 
 of the North, whose numbers and whose martial energ"}^ 
 were irresistible. 
 
 By the arbitrament of war our constitution' was 
 shattered and shaped anew. Most of the old was 
 rejected; but the mandate of 1776 which created this 
 
University came forward, "Clearer, broader, bolder 
 than before". Seven times has it g-one back to the 
 people who g-ave it through the white heat of party 
 passion and seven times unharmed as the Hebrew 
 children, it has stood forth in shining- characters upon 
 the enchanted parchment of our Constitution; and 
 there it now stands, and there it will forever stand, 
 as a "Hinderance and a rebuke" to him who would 
 thwart the will of the toiling-, ruling; myriads of the 
 State. 
 
 During- that dim, desperate decade, from '65 to '75, 
 like a mother stricken and stripped of her first born, 
 these shadow-haunted halls stood here in mute appeal 
 to heaven, waiting- through those sad and desolate 
 years and listening- — for the footsteps of the dead. 
 Spartan-like they came at length upon their shields, 
 borne hither by their loving- comrades to live forever 
 in marble and in the memory of men. 
 
 Doubtful yet undismayed a few men with the pittance 
 of the impoverished, entered upon and persisted in a 
 movement, in the face of ancient prejudice, political 
 indifference and sectarian hinderance to rebuild this 
 University in the hearts of the people. History was 
 not wanting in examples of similar foresight and for- 
 titude. Prussia entered the 19th century with the 
 fell fo: t of Napoleon on her flag. Out of the wreck- 
 age of her ruined redoubts she builded her Universi- 
 ties, and the same century has seen her troops at 
 Sedan, her scholars at every university that encircles 
 the globe, herself the leader of Kurope, the intellect- 
 ual center of the world, — dazzling all eyes with the 
 fresh bloom of her scholarship and culture. 
 
 The first care of the ancient state was to educate 
 the ruling class. To that class to-day belongs every- 
 one who bears the imag-e of his Maker and wears the 
 
majesty of freedom. Twin-born with universal suf- 
 frag-e is universal education. The eighteenth century 
 conceived, the nineteenth century brought forth and 
 the twentieth century must rear to manhood this child 
 of the new world, or bury the hopes of free institutions 
 in the virg-in soil which g^ave them birth. 
 
 To conserve and to consecrate the truest traditions 
 and yet to break away from narrow channels and time 
 worn paths of the past; to teach a State to think for 
 itself, and feed its own mind and heart with the latest 
 and g"randest results of science; to cancel all liens of 
 party, sect and class; to disabuse the idea that higher 
 education is a luxury for an imaginary higher class; 
 and to offer a clear title to equal opportunity to the 
 "Ivowly born and gentle bred," to the sons of the 
 mechanic and the millionaire; to bring the University 
 in touch with the people, make it popular and poten- 
 tial; and through normal instruction, lectures, travels, 
 tears and prayers; and by dedicating- the best talent 
 to the intellectual awakening- of the people; take its 
 place at the head of public education; send forth an 
 army of teachers, print and publish and scatter thick 
 as snow flakes in a winter storm the results of this 
 work, — until the lanterns of heaven grow dim, and the 
 east grows gray and we behold the "Upg-lowing- day 
 from the bosom of the nig-ht:" — this problem worked 
 out into life and law is an achievement transcendently 
 greater than that which our gfray fathers compassed 
 at the g-enesis of this state. We know what masters 
 wrought this task — Phillips, Hooper, Mangum, Graves 
 — "Named softly as the household names of those 
 whom God has taken". And what has Kemp P. 
 Battle been to Chapel Hill! More than any other 
 man. With the triple lever of his g^reat head and 
 heart and hand he has uplifted and pushed forward 
 
this state. Time only can compass and consecrate the 
 fulness of his martyr-zeal and patriot-valor. 
 
 But the New University, was not, is not accomplish- 
 ed. It is more than the life of one man or of two. 
 New epochs call for new efforts, and the opening- day 
 bring"s fresh energ-ies. The University has but awaken- 
 ed the people, — now to the task of their enlig-htenment. 
 To fashion existing methods, to meet existing- needs; 
 teach that g^reater than politics and pleasure are pur- 
 pose and power; gfive thougfht its ideas, morals their 
 ideals, life its character; receive the flower of youth, 
 g"ive back the rich fruitag-e of manhood; make man mas- 
 ter of himself, servant to humanity; show wealth its 
 opportunity to do gfood; g'ive student life its true rela- 
 tion and responsibility to the world; teach the broad- 
 est culture and expect the grandest results. 
 
 The University idea is broader than sect, section, or 
 party motive, — it is as broad as life and embraces all 
 nature. Such is the spirit of the New University, 
 which the energ-y and enthusiasm of our. new president 
 has quickened into animation and to ardor. In this 
 thrill of modern learning", this migfhty torrent of swell- 
 ing- thoug-ht, he has had the presence and the boldness 
 to breast its, wave. By embodying- the spirit of the 
 New South, by re-org-anization, by expansion, by ath- 
 letics, by societies, by co-operation, by endowment, by 
 appeals to the people, by every leg-itimate means of 
 culture and growth, and by selection of the fittest of 
 all methods, and adaptation to the wants of North Car- 
 olina, he has in this the fourth year of his administra- 
 tion, distanced the high record of the past and made 
 this, what it never was before, a University of the peo- 
 ple, by the people and for the people. The New Uni- 
 versity creates and is itself created by the uprising tide 
 of our prosperity. Already it holds a commanding 
 
place in the south-east of our republic. Let the mu- 
 nificence of the public, let private philanthropy unfet- 
 ter the holy ambition of our enlig-htened leader and he 
 shall not lay down his task till we have here the Har- 
 vard of the South. 
 
 The real University has manv types— rit has but one 
 spirit. It was kindled in the twelfth century at St. 
 Genevieve, where Abelard tauo-ht that "Authority is 
 derived from reason." Men started up and enquired; 
 and thrilled by the throb of liberated thought, follow- 
 ed him in banishment to the wilderness, and there 
 about his stubble-built oratory founded a republic of 
 liberty and letters. The past rose up and instructed 
 men with the tong-ues of Cicero and Homer. The mas- 
 ter-minds which had enlig"htened one ag"e broke the 
 darkness of another; fervent hearts called for an open 
 Bible, and in the mirror of revelation and reason man 
 beheld in his own imag-e the likeness of his God, The 
 ideal was found. To clothe man with liberty and 
 learning' and to crown him with religion has from that 
 day till our own given to the University its aim and its 
 importance. 
 
 The old world school admitted the citizen to this 
 high estate; the new world school admits all, not de- 
 g-rading the citizen but ennobling the man, — a principle 
 which has expanded day by day and century by cen- 
 tury since Columbus from his frail caravel looked out 
 upon a continent fruitful of all thing's, save only of 
 tyranny and oppression. 
 
 The stern Puritan, the faithful Covenanter, the 
 peace-loving- Friend following- the career of William 
 Penn, the earnest simple souls who shared with Rog-er 
 Williams faith in absolute soul-freedom, and they who 
 gazed at John Wesley "As men gaze at a star," rush- 
 ed to these shores, and each built its University upon 
 
the foundation of its creed. They little knew, and 
 without a prophet's foresigfht could not have known, 
 that 2^ free state could found and foster a system of ed- 
 ucation upon the surest support, the widest wisdom, 
 and the truest toleration. But the years were full of 
 wisdom suited to the times. 
 
 Of the thirteen original states but six entered the 
 Union with the University mandate in their constitu- 
 tions. North Carolina, abreast with Pennsylvania, led 
 the way. Since 1790 every State has followed in their 
 wake. Here ag-ain in 1825 is found the first statute 
 establishing- state supervision, and asserting- state 
 control over elementary education. "Noble beg-inning-s 
 in the rig-ht direction!" A precedent alrfeady passed 
 into fundamental law and followed by the unbroken 
 line of forty-iive American States, as they sweep across 
 this spreading- republic, planting- universal education 
 in the fresh fields of freedom under the clear sky of 
 peace, where in God's appointed time must come to ful- 
 ness and to ripeness the best civilization of this earth. 
 
 The history of nations is marked by revolutions, 
 churches by reformations, subject alike to the same 
 divine law of chang-e and prog-ress. At the founding* 
 of this commonwealth the church yielded a ready as- 
 sent to state support and state control of hig-Jier edu- 
 cation. To the family and to itself belong-ed the rest. 
 Before the meridian of the first century had been reach- 
 ed the burden of lower education was laid upon the 
 strong- arm of the mother state and her rig-ht to the 
 hig-her disputed! 'Tis the whim of the child; no wise 
 parent will heed it. We are advancing- to a hig-her 
 view of the state and its functions and duties. Pub- 
 lic sentiment is steadily and sturdily settling down to 
 the conviction that the methods and measures of the 
 past have been outgrown, that the irregular, the tern- 
 
8 
 
 porary, the local must give way to the regular, the 
 permanent, the universal — that there should be, that 
 there musl be a unity, a sequence, an organized con- 
 nection between the lowest and the highest. And 
 when the sovereign people awake to full consciousness 
 that the highest and best in education is, in this way 
 and this way only, opened to them, they will have it 
 so. Upon this true historic basis they w^ill build, 
 where the aristocracy of scholars shall serve the de- 
 mocracy of workers, where independence of thought 
 and expression shall expand and tower beyond and 
 above the narrow confines of class and creed, where 
 the truest expression of the religion of the people shall 
 dwell and be heard, where faith and reason shall re- 
 flect along the pathway of our race the true light that 
 comes direct from the throne .of God. 
 
 The prog'ress of North Carolina towards this ideal 
 has been slow, but, thank God, it has been substantial 
 and true. If I may point you to an example with 
 which I am most familiar, to the cit^^i»Winston, which 
 of all our cities I know best and love best, you will 
 look upon a scene in which are blended the power of 
 progress and the poetry of pathos. The old Academy, 
 once vocal with the light laughter -of youth, now sur- 
 rendered to the manufacturer, and the boys' and girls' 
 play grounds given over to the printing house and the 
 church. But away to the north and the east and the 
 west, crowning each swelling hill-top, stand the state- 
 ly structures of her public graded schools, free to all — 
 freest to the humblest — stretching from the Kinder- 
 garten to the University a ladder of learning, and 
 leading a rising generation up its shining rounds to a 
 clearer view and a wider vision of man's dread destiny 
 and duty. 
 
 The awful waste of splendid human faculties de- 
 
mands that some such unity and system shall make its 
 way to the town, the hamlet and the county. External 
 change and progress cannot long- be held and hindered 
 by the aifections of successive generations for the old. 
 The law of our nature has decreed it — as well resist 
 the relentless, heedless pitiless winds which wrestle 
 with the weather-worn bark on the great deep with- 
 out. 
 
 Dare we leave to charity and to chance-what our Con- 
 stitution commands and the wisdom and the wants of 
 the age compel? "Is it right, is it expedient, is it pos- 
 sible," for the State to provide the highest as well as 
 the lowest in education? Napoleon Bonaparte designed 
 this system for France, Alexander Hamilton engrafted 
 it upon the constitution of New York, Thomas Jeffer- 
 son planted it securely in the commonwealth of Virgin- 
 ia, Prince Bismarck said, ' 'It is the one thing upon which 
 we can aiford to be lavish." The four greatest intel- 
 lects of two continents and two centuries, representing 
 the monarchal, the imperial, the republican, the dem- 
 ocratic schools of thought — higher authority must come 
 through revelation. 'Tis a time for the revolutionary 
 voice of Patrick Henry to dispel the doubts and fears, 
 put to shame the cowardice and move to action a people 
 great and brave. "They tell us that we are weak, 
 unable to cope with so formidable" a problem, "But 
 when shall we be stronger?" Will it be the next year 
 or the next century, will it be when this stronghold of 
 learning is deserted? Will it be when generations of 
 untutored men have worn the chains of ignorance from 
 the cradle to the grave? "Sir, we are not weak, if 
 we make the proper use of those means which the God 
 of Nature has placed into our power". Two millions 
 of people guided by the light of liberty and learning, 
 and sustained by the resources of such a State as that 
 
10 
 
 which we possess, are equal to any task which destiny 
 and duty have set before them. Besides, sir, the State 
 is not to fig-ht this battle -alone. The spirit of that 
 lowly, lotty Teacher which sustained Paul at the 
 Ar<"opao-us, christianized the pag-an Greek and Roman, 
 and the barbarous Gaul and Teuton, has moulded 
 modern law and stimulated modern institutions. Chris- 
 tianity is the influence of Christ. Blackstone and 
 Webster, Kent and Storey have pronounced it a part 
 of our common law. It came not to destroy but to 
 save. It influences every function of g-overnment, it 
 usurps none. By scattering- the huddling- classes and 
 teaching- the brotherhood of man, capital has been 
 clothed with a sacred trust and philanthropy has come 
 into the world. Beautiful and sublime is philanthropy 
 in all of its forms, beautiful those benefactions, thoug-h 
 desig-ned to write our creed on other men's souls, 
 which have sown the soil with sectarian schools. But 
 more beautiful and more sublime is that form of phil- 
 anthrophy which gives like God gives the sun-shine. 
 No name is so certain to be spoken, no name so sweet 
 to the lips of fame, no name so independent of monu- 
 mental marble, as the name of him who by g-enerous 
 g-iving- has touched the great heart of mankind. It 
 was not ur.til Mark Antony, that masterful mover of 
 multitudes, had reached the last clause of Causer's 
 will, and above the din of the forum, shouted: 
 
 "To every Roman Citizen he Gives, 
 
 To every eeveral man seventy-five drachmas, 
 
 His private arbors and new planted orchards on this side Tiber," 
 
 it was not till he had struck this master chord of the 
 human breast that he roused the Roman rabble to 
 relentless revenge. When Alexander the Great died, 
 his faith !ul generals consumed two years in starting- 
 his funer'dl car laden with rich trapping-s of the orient 
 
11 
 
 and drawn by sixty steeds ot stainless white from the 
 Euphrates to the Nile. The solemn pa.ii"eant made its 
 way amid men with hearts as barren and eyes as dry 
 as the sand-drifted deserts over which it passed, — 
 evokin«' no cry save from the stariled slave wdio asked 
 for the name of his new master. When Gcorg-e Pea- 
 body died, the British Empire and the American 
 Republic sent the proudest battle ships and flag ships 
 of their great navies to bear his sarcophagus in triumph 
 across the sea — fit emblem of his x\potheosis, when his 
 great soul sailed away on an ocean of tears. His phil- 
 anthropy had astonished the world, and his death 
 touched to tenderness and to tears the great heart of 
 humanity, and the English speaking people stood un- 
 covered in awful veneration at his bier. By the phil- 
 anthropy of a few self-sacrificing men and women, poor 
 in purse but rich in human' sympathy and by the 
 munificence of the public, we have here the true foun- 
 dations of a higher learning. In spirit a University 
 always; but in arts and implements the centur3''s dawn 
 found it a school, the meridian marked it a college, the 
 setting sun casts its mantle of glowing light upon a 
 University, strong in its deep-rooted traditions and 
 affections, vital with new life, vigorous in its new 
 growth. It is the true type, it is the result of growth 
 under the latest and best husbandry. It is the Ameri- 
 can stock ingrafted with the German scion, giving the 
 depth of German thought the breadth of American 
 culture, and scattering its rich fruitage not beyond 
 the people but amongst the people; teaching the few, 
 enlightening the many ; smiting the rock and sending 
 from the mountain side to the plain level below a 
 fountain of knowledge pure and bright as sparkling 
 water. Its power is already felt under every school 
 house that "Nestles in our happy valleys and crowns 
 
12 
 
 our swelling- hills". 
 
 Shall it endure? I appeal to the alumni, you who 
 adorn the executive chair, the senate hall, the desk, 
 the field, the forum, the market, the ermine and the 
 g'own, — passing- from triumph to triumph, b}^ force of 
 the intellectual prowess which draws its inspiration 
 from her breast and stamping- her irapremater upon 
 all that is lofty in thoug^ht, courag"eous in action, 
 sublime in devotion. 
 
 I appeal to the patriotic citizens, burdened by an 
 industrial domination and debased by an intellectual 
 domination of the North, who have paid your quota of 
 the five millions of dollars sent annually from the 
 South to help Northern schools perpetuate your sub- 
 jection to their thoug-ht, who pay for education a sum 
 if utilized and kept at home would g-ive us a University 
 and a system of schools equal to the best in New 
 Kng-land, superior to the best in the New South. 
 
 I appeal to North Carolina, and ask if this University 
 shall endure? You may disown your child, you ma}^ 
 strike her dov^^n, but when you do, you strike down the 
 one that has written your name the highest, — the one 
 that loves 3^ou best. 
 
 But this is no time for foreboding*. A political rev- 
 olution has just swept over our State. Three currents 
 of political thoug-ht divergfing" and seeking- opposite 
 poles till they touched the head and heart of the 
 people's schools, when one time at least they rushed 
 together in warm embrace. It is secure! Local jeal- 
 ousy and sectarian strife may hock at and deride it, 
 blind fanaticism and time-serving demagogary may 
 mock and menace its career, but the people will not be 
 deceived. Their eyes are turned with hope and their 
 ears with faith to George T. Winston whom the public 
 voice has hailed the most fit to lead forth the best 
 
13 
 
 thoug"ht of the nineteenth century to another and a 
 more forward ag^e. Trusting- to him to seize this op- 
 portunity of the ag'es, to take the forward step upon 
 the smooth highway of triumphant civilization over 
 which the New South — *'Catching" the gieam that died 
 on our father's swords" to light up the path-wa}^ of 
 their sons, nerved by necessity, pushed on by poverty, 
 bouyant with the inspiration of hope which none but the 
 young- and poor can feel, dow^ered by the discipline of 
 a Titanic strug-g-le, and fired by faith in the dynamic 
 energies of her nevv growth — shall press forward and 
 onward until the achievements of the past are eclipsed 
 by the miracles of the future and the darkness of war 
 and w^aste shall burst into the white splendors of per- 
 petual peace and power. 
 
 It is this new g-rowth, this truly American org-anism, 
 this ideal head and heart of the new life of the people, 
 this spirit of the New University, "That is worthy to 
 lead forth into expression this g-rand new life of the 
 western world whose pulsations are richer with possi- 
 bilities than those of ancient Greece and Rome". Their 
 fabled charioteer of the sun is not unlike the enlig-h- 
 tened man of our thrilling- day — enthroned on the car 
 of progress with the lines of science in his hands, 
 g-uiding- the rushing- winds as they carry him from 
 continent to continent, g^oading the tireless steam as it 
 plows the ocean and the land, and with the lig'htning' 
 lash dashing his commands around the world. 
 
 Standing- here betvv'een the two g^randest centuries 
 of all time, upon the cap stone of the Old University, 
 upon the portals of the New, the heirs of one g-reat 
 event, the witnesses of another, bivouaced by the shin- 
 ing path-way of our history to hear the century roll- 
 call of names though whose white lips memory breaths 
 an eloquent echo of virtue and valor, let us drink deep 
 
14 
 
 the inspiration of this great day. And for the liberty 
 we love, the learning- we honor, the relig^ion we hallow, 
 let us go forward till the ideals of our fathers' are 
 realized; till the prayers of the old and the hopes of 
 the young- are fulfilled; till all science, all art, all 
 truth — nurseling's of the fuller civilization — are nour- 
 ished at her breast; till the radius of her lig-ht is 
 pushed across the dim border land of finite matter and 
 infinite mind; till the jarg-on of nations, the raillery of 
 races, the war of creeds are stilled — and the pall of 
 ig-norance is lifted up, and lig-ht covers the land like a 
 mantle. 
 
K