UN'VE °! T Y OF 
 ILLINOIS LIBRARY 
 AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN 
 BOOKSTACKS 
 
AN 
 
 ORATION: 
 
 Before the 
 
 TRUSTEES AND STUDENTS 
 
 OF 
 
 
 
 stiff 
 
 V >K . V Ny 
 
 NORTH FIELD, MINN. 
 
 June 27, 1871, 
 
 By LYMAN WHITING, D.D. 
 
 [Published by the Trustees.] 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 PRINTED AT THE "BOSTON DAILY NEWS” STEAM JOB PRINTING OFFICE. 
 No. 4 Province Court. 
 
 1871. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2017 with funding from 
 
 University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Alternates 
 
 https://archive.org/details/orationbeforetruOOwhit 
 
ilD 'A 
 b)S? 
 
 
 Oration. 
 
 Eig Jdr/vuc , — “ Away to Athens, let ns go,” — 
 sang the Thracian maidens. The schools are there, 
 the scholars, the histories, orations, and poems are 
 there. Thither let us go ! 
 
 The echo of that refrain is on the lips of all the 
 generations where letters are known. Young men 
 and maidens perpetuate through all time the grand 
 old choral, To the schools away ! The seats of 
 learning, of art, of letters and wisdom, win us. 
 
 Among the noblest human aspirations are these. 
 Next to the holy longings for service with Christ in 
 his redemption work, the love of letters and ardor in 
 pursuit of them, most worthily inspires young hearts; 
 and indeed they are so often found together and 
 helpful’ to each other, that a common nature can be 
 almost claimed for them. 
 
 Jerusalem and Athens are twinned cities in the 
 noblest young life of the world. How soon after 
 Christianity got a place in Northern Europe, e. g. 
 cloisters and rude seclusions for study surprised 
 the barbaric peoples by their numbers and swarming 
 
4 
 
 eager scholars. Germany, and what is now Central 
 Europe, had very notable establishments. The story 
 of England’s Oxford and Cambridge is too well 
 known to need re-telling ; the numbers counted by 
 thousands in their ancient prime. Many of the 
 maedieval schools were alike populous with students. 
 
 The American College, — let it be our theme 
 
 for this hour, — -is unique. It began where the Old 
 
 World college system ended; at least in some sense 
 
 so, for the pre-eminent American aim has been 
 
 men, i. e. individual educated personality, — a man, 
 
 whose distinction was the actual education the college 
 
 © 
 
 had helped him acquire; while the European plan 
 began with a cloister, foundations, colleges, a city 
 of colleges, — the means to what our primary aim 
 was a result. Men first : foundations, halls, princely 
 funds came after. 
 
 This very naturally came from the methods first 
 put in use by our fathers. The people felt their 
 want of education, and moved in this way. The 
 General Court of Massachusetts Bay, 1637, appointed 
 “ a most respectable committee of twelve of the prin- 
 cipal magistrates and ministers of the colony to take 
 order for a college at Newtown. ” * The assembled 
 people in General Court did it ; and all they could 
 have expected, at first, was to get instructors and 
 gather the youth of the colony who desired educa- 
 tion into some provided place. Not to build a 
 cloister, get opulent foundations was the task 
 
 *“A place very pleasant and accomodate .” — Ancient Record. 
 
5 
 
 assigned; but get together men to teach, and youth 
 to be taught, was the initial New World proceedure 
 for a college. Almost the earliest notice of any 
 building, of the first American college, is of one 
 scanty and poor, and soon after described as “ ruin- 
 ous, and almost irreparable.” 
 
 In the same line of experience the “ Log College,” 
 of New Jersey, now Princeton College, is thus told 
 of in 1739 : “ The place we study in is a log hut 
 or house about twenty feet long and as wide. 
 Six or seven have already gone out.” So late as 
 1774 all Dr. Wheelock could say for what is now 
 Dartmouth College was : “ The pine trees on a few 
 acres have been cut down. * * * * 
 
 Without nails or glass we built a log cabin eighteen 
 feet square ; a house for my family of one story, 
 and another of two stories, eighty feet long, for 
 the scholars.” 
 
 In this way began the American college devel- 
 opment. Men first, material furnishments after. 
 The results of the work, the country, all the world, 
 can testify. 
 
 As we gather, in this first meeting, after an 
 assured existence for this infant college, just from 
 the christening, — scarcely knowing its new name, 
 far less its destiny, — what better can we choose for 
 our theme than as above indicated, — The American 
 College ? And for the hour let us set in order 
 some of the uses , the benefits , and conditions of this 
 college system. 
 
6 
 
 You, the guardians and protectors of this parvus 
 lulus , this last born into the great household, and 
 a very lineal descendant, as may be shown, of the 
 first seminaries planted in the New World, — need 
 diligently to enquire how to nurse and bring up 
 this one in the nurture and admonition of the essen- 
 tial uses, purposes, and conditions to which it has 
 been born. We name 
 
 I. The Choice Apprenticeship) of Boyhood to a 
 Worthy Manhood . 
 
 The American College, well ordered, is unmatched 
 for this service to young life. The indentures ex- 
 change jDlaces with the mother’s apron string, and 
 with gentle skill guide him along the part of life 
 the ancients noted, by u unequal steps,” and they 
 might have added uncertain, because untried steps. 
 All the being is put to a quite equable training in 
 a college. The boy-palm finds itself fashioning to 
 the hilt of life’s great weapons offered to him there; 
 the play-forces pass by degrees into offices of work, 
 and the latent aspirations body themselves into domi- 
 nant purposes and manly forms of life-long character. 
 
 Away from the care and dependence of the child- 
 home, he begins to fashion a sort of home for himself. 
 He cuts his own wood, brings water, cares for his 
 room, and so begins a miniature householding, — 
 the grand prime function of the domestic and the 
 civil state. He is an independent householder, in the 
 
7 
 
 mimic city, a college hall. If he learns how to 
 behave himself there, while an apprentice, we may 
 hope he will be good for something when manhood’s 
 conditions arrive. 
 
 Here, too, is schooling in the fundamental rights 
 of society: how much to take, how much to yield, — 
 the reciprocal rights and duties of a common occu- 
 pancy and common pursuits ; and so the growing 
 manhood is schooled in the primary elements of civil, 
 republican government, laws, and estate. 
 
 There is social culture , also, coming from stated 
 returns to the child-home, so often as to preserve true 
 the affections a noble nature always carries in itself 
 for parentage and home, and not so often as to prevent 
 the building up of a personal manhood, tit in its time 
 to begin and maintain for itself a home. The soli- 
 tude of the dormitory and the society of the home- 
 family blend in such proportions as to educate to 
 a true manhood. The culture of truth in character , 
 also, which comes from co-work with equals, puts an 
 essential quality into young manhood. Among the 
 leniences and commiserations of home, ceaseless temp- 
 tation in opportunity for minor, if not major, non- 
 trutliful acts and shapings of character will occur. 
 The college methods displace this leasing under home 
 indulgence by a gentle judiciary, which no manly 
 student will disown. Each recitation is a species 
 of testimony on a common witness stand, as to how 
 the preceding hours have been spent, as to the real 
 fidelity and honest use of the time for study. No 
 
8 
 
 whining or wheedling prospers there. Pretences and 
 shams are tossed into the pile where they belong, as 
 positive personal faults ; and if he produces enough 
 of them to sink him, down he goes, — as he ought to. 
 Where else is found such a schooling for a true, 
 genuine manhood, having the needful self-reliance and 
 the jnst deference to and confidence in others ; the 
 character, free from hair-brained obstinancy on the 
 one hand, and from imbecile credulity, yielding a 
 besotten party servility and befooled lackeyism, on 
 the other ? 
 
 Ancient Greece, the world allows, produced the 
 noblest manhood, or man-completeness, yet known. 
 In muscle, brain, and taste, their models are conceded 
 standards. But a college recitation-room shows in 
 miniature the grand contest-games of the Greeks by 
 which, so largely, they built up such manhood. The 
 modern gymnasium does better for bone, muscle, and 
 blood, than the ancient discus and cestus ; and in 
 the higher cultures of mind and skill in thought 
 how the old ayCopegifQoi are restored in the daily racings 
 through classic etymologies and syntaxes, and by 
 wrestlings with the sturdy, subtle, and towering pro- 
 blems of mathematics, of geometry, calculations, and 
 applications. What wrestlings upon many a college 
 black-board, and, alas, what floorings, too ! What 
 strokes of the cestus over Reid, Hamilton, and the 
 masters of intellectual philosophy ! And if fractures 
 of the os frontis are rare, it may be owing more to 
 
9 
 
 the softness of the substance than to the gentleness 
 of the combats. 
 
 So through all the young manly ardors and striv- 
 ings of the college career a high style of manhood 
 is cultured. He goes through a choice apprentice- 
 ship to it, in the physical, mental, social, and religious 
 condition and tutelage the system provides. 
 
 II. A Symmetrical and Progressive Character is 
 
 Shaped by the Established, and Wisely -Adjusted 
 
 Order of Studies . 
 
 A perfect scheme of studies, each one in its 
 natural order and faultless adjustment, would be 
 simply a counterpart of the Divine method in the 
 creation of all knowledge, or of those things from 
 whence all knowledge is derived ; and of the mind 
 of man in its adaptation to comprehend and acquire 
 that knowledge. We make no claim that such a 
 scheme has been actually drawn, or that it will ever 
 be; but we may safely claim that some approxima- 
 tion has been made to it, — that the wisdom and 
 experience of the wisest and most educated of all 
 the ages have not been without great success in 
 this work. The average college curriculum is not 
 drawn for popular favor, or by any mere conven- 
 tionalism or arbitrary choice. It is rather pro- 
 foundly philosophical, mating with the growth and 
 unfolding of young mind, — passing from step to 
 step in the walks of learning in much the order, 
 
10 
 
 as to matter of knowledge and use of the powers, 
 that the Creator’s scheme of “ man and the universe ” 
 indicates. The effect upon the character, of a 
 symmetrical and adjusted course of study, is naturally 
 to produce a corresponding formation, and so on 
 educates man in harmony with the world he inhabits 
 and with the Creator who made it. The college 
 has no compeer in this wisdom of plan. Intellec- 
 tual philosophy, e. g. would meet neither the taste 
 nor the best capacity of a Freshmen class, but the 
 average Senior class come to it like trained athletes. 
 Their prior study has made them men enough to 
 know the worth of the study, and to understand the 
 doctrines composing it. So with the higher belles- 
 letters and sciences, which wisely are retained, as 
 much for the ripened taste as for the maturer ability 
 of the later periods of the course. This well-devised, 
 just order of study, — admitting of great variation 
 from conditions of society and the means possessed, 
 to fill up the order with ample instruction, and with 
 the material helps requisite, — forms character in more 
 or less correspondence with itself. In contrast to 
 the free university, in which unschooled, versatile 
 novices make choices which the wisest and best 
 educated find it a match to settle, what thoughtful 
 mind will not decide for the college mode ? The 
 public education of the North-West will surely be 
 depreciated in both amount and character, when 
 fragmentary selections and desultory attendance take 
 the place of adjusted system and periodic coursesi 
 
11 
 
 The whole educated character will run down under 
 such a mode. 
 
 The popular substitute seems to me to be radically 
 fault} r . It must impair the whole structure of 
 educated manhood. To join the well-ordered college 
 is to invest submissions of personal choice in its 
 methods and purposes, and to follow its plans in* the 
 general line of study there fixed. There is a sacri- 
 fice in -it of purpose, of time, of will, and of working- 
 power upon the altar of learning, at the outset. 
 And who does not know how sacrifice ennobles, 
 purifies, and vitalizes ? Institutions which submit 
 themselves to their pupils, whose terms practically 
 are, we are mere bundles of miscellaneous pam- 
 phlets upon the languages, sciences, and literature, 
 set up in quite stately cases, which our students can 
 pull out and read, for a degree ! are not after the 
 pattern showed to our fathers. In our scantily- 
 stocked colleges, strong, graceful, finished educated 
 character cannot be thus produced. A system, not 
 of imperious rigidity, but flexile enough to meet the 
 few actual diversities of talent and taste, and fitly 
 framed together, with time for work, having begin- 
 ning, stages, and an end, — is indispensable. The 
 Scriptures admirably set forth the idea thus, “ The 
 whole body fitly joined together and compacted 
 by that which every joint supplieth according to 
 the effectual working in the measure of every part, 
 making increase of the body unto the edifying of 
 itself.” So let us fashion our college frame-work. 
 
12 
 
 III. The Molding Influences of the College Period 
 upon the Growth then going on — is another Valua- 
 ble Benefit. 
 
 The most growing period of a man’s life-time, as 
 a rule, is the college-life period. In college or in 
 any condition, this peculiarity appertains to it, — rapid 
 growth. The body and mind alike are at the stage 
 of fullest growth-power ; but when are superadded 
 the tropical fervors of congregated youth, moving 
 in common impulse to the same tasks, seclusion 
 from all diverting interests, the stimuli of duty, of 
 hope, of love to study, and of wholesome rivalries, 
 all pressing with unhindered current upon the entire 
 society of students, very rapid must be the growth. 
 Helped on likewise, as it is, by the assiduous culture 
 and training by skilled instructors, who quicken 
 the slow, help the halting, keep the laborious 
 ones upon the line of success, and so infuse the 
 entire company with the double incitements of real 
 progress and of the motives for study at all. Rapid 
 growth is certain under these conditions. What 
 shaping shall that growth have, is a grave ques- 
 tion. Is the strong impulse of college-life likely to 
 find, in connection with its producing causes, a right 
 molding ? How else under the American system 
 can it be ? The choicest men selected to gather, 
 inspire, and mold the pupils, — Christian men quite 
 generally, — men whose personal experience has been 
 along the same courses of life, their own children 
 
13 
 
 often among the classes, so that every motive com- 
 bines in the assurance of utmost endeavor and fidelity 
 to give care to fashion aright the character so 
 rapidly enlarging under their hands. This part of 
 the work is less the filling of a cabinet, — splitting 
 geodes, chipping quartz, limestone, and granite, 
 sorting specimens, and on sizeable forms pasting 
 Latin labels ; than it is compounding solutions of 
 salts, alkalies, and acids according to subtile laws 
 under which they will crystalize into marvellous 
 cubes and polyhedrons, with wondrous tints and 
 delicacy of angle and joinings. 
 
 Or, this co-working can be likened to the match- 
 less colorings and exquisite enchantments of tint 
 which Titian’s pencil wrought, — did it by touches 
 of the pigment fed , so to say, to the canvas, through 
 patient months of toil. It w^as a co-working with 
 the sunbeam and the shadows of night, — they im- 
 perceptibly depositing in the picture hues blending 
 with those the pencil gave. The pictures in part 
 were painted , in part they grew . The kisses of sun- 
 beam and of darkness wrought with the tireless 
 pencil. The glorious growth was of both together. 
 
 So between the beginning and the ending of his 
 course the college student is canvas on the easel 
 upon which the colors, one by one, are laid and 
 blended, and taught by the master’s skill to ripen 
 into one another and wed their hues with the sun- 
 beam and the shade as they visit it, until a picture 
 is formed which instructs and enriches the world. 
 
14 
 
 Or, by the other illustration, he is a species of 
 chemical solution of salts, alkalies, and acids, — on 
 which account, it may be, we sometimes observe a 
 great fuming, sputtering, and racing up and down 
 in the retort, — but if genuine substances are there, 
 and they are well treated, the subtle affinities will 
 pick out the true crystal stock and frame the par- 
 ticles into talents for taste in letters, for fine 
 linguistic art, for robust logic, or grand scientific 
 power; and at intervals look for a “ son of Hermes” 
 with an eloquence which can fulmine over a conti- 
 nent, or for a bard whose song will entrance the 
 ages. But the college, in its steady, skillful molding, 
 is the laboratory, the studio, in which the grand 
 organic processes attain their best and most lasting 
 shapings. 
 
 The intimacies of college-life, the contact with 
 superior endowments and scholarship, the examples 
 of matured and ripened excellence * found in eminent 
 professors and presidents, — what ennobling, upbuild- 
 ing, and inspiring influences American young men 
 have found in these! Recall such names as Dunster, 
 Wadsworth, Quincy, and Everett, of Harvard ; Stiles, 
 Dwight, and Woolsey, of Yale ; Edwards, Davies, 
 and Witherspooh, of Princeton ; and may we not 
 hope that future time shall find in like eminence the 
 name of the first and youthful President of this 
 young college, — the first of unmixed Congregational 
 blood in all the North-West ? 
 
“Parvam Trojam, simulataque magnis 
 Pergama, et arentein Xantki cognomine rivum.” 
 
15 
 
 u Parvam Trojam simulatuque magnis, 
 
 Pergama, et arentem Xanthi cognomine rivum.” 
 
 No wonder the choral shout of young men and 
 maidens, in all the ages since resounding Thrace, has 
 been, — Let us away to Athens; to the place of 
 scholars and of model masters ! 
 
 IY. We reserve until now the Claim of the American 
 
 College , in its peculiar adaptation for the Work 
 
 of the Holy Spirit in the Conversion of Men . 
 
 “From the family to the school ; from the school 
 to the church ; from the church to Heaven,” ran 
 the ancient Lutheran formula. Between the family 
 and the church, the school, as in the natural order 
 of Christian life, was set. Except in the family and 
 in the church, nowhere can be found so effective 
 spiritual influences as in the school ; the college 
 uniting in a sense, both family and church, and so 
 often showing an intensity of spiritual power found 
 in neither alone. The adaptations of the college for 
 such results are notable. They are isolation from 
 the world in part, — the service of study precluding 
 amusements, dissipating gaieties, trade, speculation, 
 and the ordinary diversions of active life. Entrance 
 to college is a species of sacrifice, — a giving up of 
 common, natural pursuits and hopes ; the place is 
 a species of temple set apart, hallowed at least to 
 the seclusions of study. The intimacies of student- 
 
16 
 
 life, at table, in chapel, class-room, in recreation, and 
 in rest, which intimacy yields a common sympathy 
 capable of great unity and intensity; then the gentler 
 affections, sensitive from parting with home and 
 friends, and aglow with newly-formed school-friend- 
 ships ; and, added to these, the direct care and 
 counsels of devoted teachers ; the pious messages 
 from parents and friends, sent by the love, quick- 
 ening in separation to anxiety unfelt in daily 
 intimacy ; — all these sources of spiritual impulse in 
 the seclusion and protected life of college, prepare 
 the way in eminent completeness for the Divine 
 Spirit to reach the heart. 
 
 The records of college revivals fill many pages 
 of our choicest Christian literature. Dartmouth, 
 Amherst, Yale, Middlebury, and Williams, in Yew 
 England ; Wabash, Beloit, Iowa, and Oberlin, in 
 the interior, have royal records of the Divine Visi- 
 tations, in which young men in great numbers 
 entered into consecrations, which became paths 
 growing brighter and brighter unto their perfect day. 
 
 In a single class of ninety members in Yale 
 College fifty became Christians in one revival. More 
 than two hundred converts were counted in a period 
 of a little more than half a century in Dartmouth 
 College; and of them were our earliest missionaries, 
 many eminent ministers, presidents, and professors 
 in theological schools and colleges, and chief men in 
 the State. In the first thirty years of Amherst 
 College nearly three hundred conversions occurred, 
 
17 
 
 and no class has yet left the college without passing 
 through a season of special divine influence in some 
 one of its four years’ residence there. In Iowa 
 College, for several successive years, such seasons 
 have enriched its history, — while Oberlin has doubt- 
 less enjoyed more continuously such experiences, 
 and seen a larger number of youth first confessing 
 Christ as a Savior than any equal community in this 
 country. 
 
 The schools and colleges where both sexes are 
 received show still more fully the efficiency of the 
 causes named, for promoting these spiritual results. 
 
 But the record need not here be extended. It 
 is known and read by all who have interest in the 
 Christian colleges of the country. Such colleges are 
 a very precious hope to the Church of Christ, 
 because so frequently and powerfully visited by the 
 Holy Ghost. 
 
 V. The Local Benefits diffused from a College , — 
 should not he omitted in a Plea for them before 
 W astern Society . 
 
 The college, as a feature in the civil and social 
 landscape of this portion of the country, is an 
 eminent attraction. Few are the inhabitants of any 
 derivation who would not choose to live in a town 
 that has got a college, rather than in one that voted 
 against having one. Up to higher levels are lifted 
 the conversation, the reading, and the common range 
 
18 
 
 of thought and character for a score of miles around 
 a college; just as they are degraded by a huge 
 brewery ! The intelligence, the neighborhood influ- 
 ence, the example, and the intercourse of professors 
 and students are springs of personal cultivation, of 
 public character, and of material profit. Land sells 
 better, wheat and corn grow better in fields over 
 which a college bell sends its matin and its vesper 
 melodies. 
 
 The farmer, the merchant, the mechanic, too, all 
 share in the distribution of the jingling shillings 
 students are sure to put in motion. Yale College 
 makes in the city of 'New Haven an annual circula- 
 tion of $300,000 ! Plutus therefore must be a friend 
 to a college in our town ! Pardon the presumption 
 of naming such a plea before Christian men. 
 
 We cannot overlook the better benefits from the 
 educated families it attracts; the orderly, thriving, 
 intelligent population who will be guided in their 
 choices for a home by such an institution, and so 
 the greater security to property, to life, and to all 
 we count precious in life. The common, and all 
 public schools also, find a resource from whence to 
 look for superior teachers, — a standard and stimulus 
 to higher, better education in the students desiring 
 to relieve their scanty purses by teaching in these 
 schools portions of their time. The churches and 
 destitute districts round about, also find helpful 
 voices and witnesses in generous young teachers 
 for Sabbath schools, — afar from churches, — and in 
 
19 
 
 religious meetings in the neighborhoods which no 
 minister can supply. The yearly festivals, bringing 
 the learned, the eloquent, and the gifted, to your 
 acquaintance ; the graduation-days ; the new aspirants 
 to places in the college, — how all these enrich a 
 municipality, and stir, far away, the old refrain, — Let 
 us haste to Athens ! Wisely honor the possession, 
 you dwelling here now so welcome. It will make 
 this city a miniature Athens, toward which the noblest 
 youth of the Commonwealth shall turn their hopeful 
 aspirations, and lead a train of benefits along its 
 path which will adorn and enrich every household 
 and individual dwelling here. 
 
 We are assembled, gentlemen and friends, not far 
 from the geographical centre of this continent. The 
 schools and all the treasures for learning are upon 
 one side of us. A realm of unmeasured possibilities 
 on the other. We come here to look into a cradle 
 in which, we think, lies an infant of priceless promise. 
 It is an American College, just come to a specific 
 name and place in the great college family. We 
 look to see it make this Minnesota town a Christian 
 Athens, drawing the young men and maidens, by the 
 inspiration of letters and science, from all the wide 
 region around us. How wide this State is one of 
 your ministers has told us. “ Her territory is capa- 
 ble of division into as many as sixty-four several 
 parts, each of which should be as large as the State 
 of Rhode Island. She outmeasures Massachusetts 
 
20 
 
 eleven times, and she might twice absorb Louisiana 
 or Cuba. Her area exceeds that of England and 
 Scotland together ; and it is more than twice that 
 of Holland, Greece, and Belgium combined.”* From 
 the same very replete discourse we learn of 460,000 
 inhabitants ; and that during the ten years of her 
 greatest progress Minnesota has grown three-and-a- 
 half times as fast as the most rapidly-growing State 
 in the Union in the ten years of its most rapid 
 growth. 
 
 Its natural resources are beyond estimate ; the cli- 
 mate, beauty of scenery, fertility, forests, quarries, 
 mines, “ water-power, vast, immense, and perhaps un- 
 paralleled in the universality of its distribution, unless 
 by '.New England.” In the midst of such a State, of 
 such vastness in all measurements, (except its means 
 for culture,) you plant this college. It is almost on 
 the border of a new world ; truly on the frontier of 
 the half of a continent yet to be filled w T ith men. 
 Your story of experience is not a common one. It 
 had a remarkable prototype, long time ago. In some 
 essential particulars your beginnings are repetitions 
 of elder members in the national family of colleges. 
 Let me relate : 
 
 Close by the water’s edge on the slope of land 
 from Bunker’s Hill, and on the western side, stands a 
 granite obelisk ; a single shaft, fifteen feet high, four 
 feet at the base and half as large at the summit. It 
 
 * A Thanksgiving Discourse, preached in Nortlifield, Minn., by Myron A. 
 Munson, M. A., November 24, 1870. 
 
21 
 
 was hewn by special permission from the quarry of 
 “ The Bunker Hill Monument Association,” and so is 
 kindred stone to that majestic Word of Liberty which 
 rises a few furlongs distant from the one we describe. 
 On it a name is carved in “ high relief,” said to be 
 the first experiment of that work on granite in this 
 country. It is upon the face of the shaft looking 
 over the ocean to the old England from whence lie 
 came. Harvard is the name. A marble tablet 
 below the name relates “ On the 26th of September, 
 A. D. 1828, this stone was erected by the Graduates 
 of the University of Cambridge, in honor of its 
 Founder, who died in Charlestown on the twenty- 
 sixth of September, A. D. 1638.” On the opposite 
 side, toward Cambridge, and exchanging glimpses 
 with the spires of the University which his timely 
 gifts created, is a Latin inscription : “ In piam et 
 perpetuam memoriam Joliannis Harvardii,” etc., in 
 touching, grateful remembrance of his great deed , the 
 planting, one hundred and ninety years before, of the 
 little germ, in the unknown wilderness, — the first 
 I^ew World college : a Congregational College. 
 
 From the parcel of ground holding that stone 
 could have been seen when erected, I think, the roof 
 of a plain old mansion, in which sometime dwelt the 
 famed orator, proposing, Tis said, this grateful memo- 
 rial, and whose eloquent tribute to the revered bene- 
 factor, at its placing, enshrine it and its subject in 
 American literature, — Edward Everett ; and in which, 
 after his removal to high civil stations, and then 
 
22 
 
 to the Presidency of the University, lived for a 
 series of years, a prosperous, benevolent, Christian 
 merchant, whose name most of you have learned, — 
 William Carleto^. 
 
 “ Clarum et venerabile liomen 
 Gentibus ; et multum nostrse quod proderat urbi.” 
 
 “ Pcttri ,” we need to say, rather, in applying the 
 exquisite tribute to this, our benefactor, for the entire 
 North-West is enriched by his gift. 
 
 Rev. Mr. Harvard’s bequest was one half of his 
 whole estate ; all his books, two hundred and sixty 
 in number, — a rare library for one man at that day. 
 The money, said to have been .£729 17 s - 2 d , was, at 
 present values, a small sum. Yet it rescued an almost 
 dying college, which, like some descendents of it, had 
 for two or three years been drawing out a dying 
 life upon resolves, promises, and pittances, but which, 
 practically, had no effective life at all. His gift de- 
 termined existence for it : gave it a name. For two 
 hundred and thirty-five years it has lived, and now 
 numbers nearly one hundred names as professors, 
 instructors, and lecturers ; above five hundred under- 
 graduates, and nearly eleven thousand graduates. 
 The two hundred and three-score books have multi- 
 plied to 187,000 volumes ; and massive buildings in 
 profuse munificence crowd the spaces which environed 
 the primitive two-storied and twelve-gabled u Harvard 
 Hall.” So Congregational care for true learning 
 began two hundred and forty years ago, “ on the 
 
23 
 
 wild New England shore ; ” and so, a few months 
 ago, in the middle of the vast continent, fifteen hun- 
 dred miles from John Harvard’s grave, a fellow- 
 townsman of the founder and god-sire of the first 
 American college surprises the world by planting 
 (and gratitude already enshrines his name upon it,) 
 another sapling of the grand original stock, — a New 
 England college. 
 
 In noticable resemblance yet other incidents link 
 that ancient mother and this infant child. Mr. Dun- 
 ster, first President at Harvard, caused to be proposed 
 to each colonist to contribute one shilling each year 
 to maintain the college, and afterwards that “ every 
 family throughout the plantations, (which is able and 
 willing to give,) to contribute a fourth part of a 
 bushel of corn, or something equivalent thereto.” We 
 also know that to nourish the college one colonist 
 gave “ sheep,” another “ a piece of cotton cloth worth 
 9 s -;” “a pewter flaggon, 10 s ,” “a sugar spoon,” “a 
 silver-tipt jug,” “ 1 great salt, and 1 small trencher 
 salt,” came from others. The towns, also, statedly 
 contributed. Lynn, e.g. £1 ; Cambridge, £2 15 s 3 d - 2 fs ; 
 and even the Boston donation, noblest of all, is set 
 down in pounds, shillings, pence, and farthings. The 
 four colonies, — Massachusetts Bay, Hartford, New 
 Haven, and Plymouth, with their thirty-two towns, 
 lifted at the burden, and in eight years the sum of 
 all their gifts was only £269 18 s 8 cl : less than one 
 half of Mr. Harvard’s bequest. 
 
 Now may we not feel a surprise on learning that 
 
24 
 
 this college, to whom all those things were unknown, 
 began by asking and actually gathering a donation 
 from every Congregational Church in the State but 
 one, and from that one just now comes bundles of 
 young trees enough to embower all yon campus , and 
 may be, afford a remembrance of the prescription for 
 a “ fool’s back,” by a famed ancient educator. We, 
 too, have heard that in the scanted homes of the 
 Christian families of this State stands a little box to 
 hold a penny-a-week from the household for this 
 college ; and that some have given sheep, or cattle, 
 or land, a colt, books, timber, quarried stone, labor, 
 etc., to nurse this child of the wilderness ; and in the 
 midst of their “ poverty abounding unto riches of 
 liberality,’’ from under the shadow of Harvard’s mon- 
 ument, and from near the place where he preached, 
 and where he wrote his bequest, and died, — a hand 
 has just been stretched forth in pious care and re- 
 deeming munificence to rescue your foundations, and 
 to begin the royal erection of a durable school of 
 liberal education and culture upon them. 
 
 Friends and benefactors : looking from this joyful 
 day into the coming two hundred years, — mating 
 you in length of days to those now attained by your 
 prototypes, — dare you doubt that these noticable 
 analogies as to origin and infantile struggle shall 
 perpetuate themselves in better and higher parallels? 
 Who can predict otherwise of what the coming two- 
 and-a-half centuries will bring to pass upon this spot 
 where such beginnings were made, and upon which 
 
25 
 
 a second Charlestown benefactor, — with the largeness 
 of heart and faith in the care of the Church for true 
 learning, so ennobling our fathers, — has received and 
 established a struggling college consecrated “ to Christ 
 and his church,” and in doing it has endowed one more 
 human name with an immortal gratitude? Shall not 
 thousands, yea, by that time, will not tens of thousands 
 of our children and children’s children enrich this fam- 
 ily record with names shining among the consecrated 
 one's in Christ’s work for man? And from the millions 
 coming to dwell upon these fruitful plains, during 
 those years, shall not nobler choirs of young men 
 and of maidens, than made vocal the classic vales of 
 ancient Thrace, to be heard shouting Etg Jdrjvag , — Let 
 us away to our Athens! — the place of our scholars, 
 of learning,, of culture of mind, and of consecrated 
 eloquence, — our Carleton College. 
 
[From the Boston Daily News.] 
 
 NORTHFIELD, MINN., CARLETON COLLEGE, ETC. 
 
 About two hundred miles from the southern line of Minnesota, and forty miles 
 west of the Mississippi, the north-west corner town of Rice county is Nortlifield. 
 It lies on either bank of the Cannon river, a spirited stream, with a channel here 
 in pure rock. A sloping bluff, on the east side, reaches an expanse of rich lands, 
 which looks as if the surface was once fluid, and after a gigantic storm the grand 
 cresting and curving swells had instantly stiffened and become the beauteous, 
 boundless emerald ocean before you. 
 
 To this place, some years ago, came a devoted man, Mr. Goodsell, with an im- 
 pulse, as if ’twere a life-task, “to plant a college.” A beginning was made, a 
 charter given, an unused new hotel bought, and preparatory college work begun. 
 It was the first pure-blooded Congregational College in the North-West. Each 
 church in the State gave something for its swaddling clothes. Mr. Goodsell died 
 two years ago. Some feared the college must die, too. But Puritan planting is 
 slow to die. The churches rallied, gave royally, chose Rev. James Strong, “one 
 of the seed royal,” for president, upon whom God soon set a seal of eminent fa- 
 vor in the almost miraculous deliverance from death, at Hartford, Ct., thereby 
 opening the hearts of more Christian people toward the great task to which he 
 had been called. A few months ago a princely gift of $50,000, — with no depre- 
 ciating conditions, — was sent to the trustees. It at once plucked the tender 
 nursling from dejected condition, assured its surviving, and gave it a name to be 
 embalmed in growing gratitude through all time to come. The donor, — William 
 Carleton, Esq., of Charlestown, Mass., a townsman of John Harvard, and repeat- 
 ing his discernment and timely generosity in a line of almost minute yet unde- 
 signed parallelisms, — at once assured the life and bestowed a name on the young 
 college. 
 
 New professors and means of instruction will await the students at the open- 
 ing of the new college year, September 7th. A fine stone edifice is daily grow- 
 ing toward completeness. We have seen few equal in beauty and sensible 
 fitness among college buildings. 
 
 Eastern people choosing a Western home may well keep in mind this choice 
 child of Puritanism, — Carleton College, at Nortlifield, Minnesota. 
 
 i i is: boston daily news 
 
 A RELIGIOUS DAILY, CONTAINS 
 
 ALL THE TELEGRAPHIC NEWS IN THE MORNING AND EVENING EDITIONS. 
 
 A Business Paper , a Commercial Paper, a Wide-Awalce Paper, a Family Paper, 
 
 Witli Tull Market Reports. 
 
 It will prove satisfactory if plain dealing, honest work, and untiring energy will do it. 
 
 It will do good to place a paper in your family which will not pander to corrupt tastes or 
 vicious habits. 
 
 It is cheap ! Cheaper than any paper of its size in the country. 
 
 Try it! Try it! It costs but little, and see if there cannot be an upright paper, which shall 
 at the same time be wide-awake and ably conducted. 
 
 Price Two Cents; $5.00 per year, in advance; to Clergymen, $4. 
 
 Five Copies to one address, $20. Specimen Copies Free. 
 
 RO§TONT NEWI COMPANY, 4 PBOVINCE COURT, BOSTON. 
 
THE 
 
 THE CHEAPEST PAPER IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Issued WEDNESDAY MORNINGS , by the Boston News Company. 
 
 ITS jP^TIsA. 
 
 Will be to furnish a high-toned, healthful journal, which shall be welcomed to the homes of New 
 England, without fear of corrupting young or old; one which will fearlessly and candidly discuss 
 the questions of the day, speaking always in the interest of progress, good order, and correct 
 life. It will also be our aim to present an epitome of the valuable literature of the day, so that 
 every reader of The Republic shall be furnished with reliable information regarding Literature* 
 Politics, and Reform. In a word, The Republic will be second to no paper of its class. 
 
 Terms, One Dollar a Year, in advance. 
 
 Try it, if only for six months; it will cost but little. Specimen Copies Free. Address, 
 
 BOSTON SEWS COMPASfY, 4 Province Court, Boston. 
 
 A NEW RELIGIOUS PAPER, ISSUED SATURDAY MORNINGS, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE BOSTON NEWS COMPANY. 
 
 Its character will be that of a religious journal in the interests of True Christianity in all its 
 denominations; speaking plainly yet kindly on the general questions of the day; giving the reli- 
 gious news from every quarter, but more especially in New England. Its editorial force will be 
 large and strong, and such as no single paper could command, but which a publishing company 
 like ours can employ. 
 
 THE PAMIIY DXPARTXEXI 
 
 Will receive special attention, so that it shall be eagerly welcomed by the household. Its reports 
 will be full and reliable. In a word, it will be our aim to make it the Best as well as the Cheapest 
 paper of its class. The price has been placed at 
 
 ONE DOLLAR -A. YEAR, 
 
 Making it necessary to rely largely upon the interest and love our friends have in a movement look- 
 ing to a cheap, yet Christian periodical literature. j8@=- Specimen Copies Free. Address, enclosing 
 One Dollar, 
 
 BOSTON NEWS CO., 4 Province Court, Boston 
 
[From the Boston Daily News.] 
 
 NORTHFIELD, MINN., CARLETON COLLEGE, ETC. 
 
 About two hundred miles from the southern line of Minnesota, and forty miles 
 west of the Mississippi, the north-west corner town of Rice county is Northfield. 
 It lies on either bank of the Cannon river, a spirited stream, with a channel here 
 in pure rock. A sloping bluff, on the east side, reaches an expanse of rich lands, 
 which looks as if the surface was once fluid, and after a gigantic storm the grand 
 cresting and curving swells had instantly stiffened and become the beauteous, 
 boundless emerald ocean before you. 
 
 To this place, some years ago, came a devoted man, Mr. Goodsell, with an im- 
 pulse, as if ’twere a life-task, “to plant a college.” A beginning was made, a 
 charter given, an unused new hotel bought, and preparatory college work begun. 
 It was the first pure-blooded Congregational College in the North-West. Each 
 church in the State gave something for its swaddling clothes. Mr. Goodsell died 
 two years ago. Some feared the college must die, too. But Puritan planting is 
 slow to die. The churches rallied, gave royally, chose Rev. James Strong, “one 
 of the seed royal,” for president, upon whom God soon set a seal of eminent fa- 
 vor in the almost miraculous deliverance from death, at Hartford, Ct., thereby 
 opening the hearts of more Christian people toward the great task to which he 
 had been called. A few months ago a princely gift of $50,000, — with no depre- 
 ciating conditions, — was sent to the trustees. It at once plucked the tender 
 nursling from dejected condition, assured its surviving, and gave it a name to be 
 embalmed in growing gratitude through all time to come. The donor, — William 
 Carleton, Esq., of Charlestown, Mass., a townsman of John Harvard, and repeat- 
 ing his discernment and timely generosity in a line of almost minute yet unde- 
 signed parallelisms, — at once assured the life and bestowed a name on tlie young 
 college. 
 
 New professors and means of instruction will await the students at the open- 
 ing of the new college year, September 7th. A fine stone edifice is daily grow- 
 ing toward completeness. We have seen few equal in beauty and sensible 
 fitness among college buildings. 
 
 Eastern people choosing a Western home may well keep in mind this choice 
 child of Puritanism, — Carleton College, at Northfield, Minnesota. 
 
 THE BOSTON DAILY NEWS 
 
 A RELIGIOUS DAILY, CONTAINS 
 
 ALL THE TELEGRAPHIC NEWS IN THE MORNING AND EVENING EDITIONS. 
 
 A Business Paper, a Commercial Paper, a Wide-Awake Paper, a Family Paper, 
 
 With full Market Reports. 
 
 It will prove satisfactory if plain dealing, honest work, and untiring energy will do it. 
 
 It will do good to place a paper in your family which will not pander to corrupt tastes or 
 vicious habits. 
 
 It is cheap ! Cheaper than any paper of its size in the country. 
 
 Try it! Try it! It costs but little, and see if there cannot be an upright paper, which shall 
 at the same time be wide-awake and ably conducted. 
 
 Price Two Cents; $5.00 per year, in advance; to Clergymen, $4. 
 
 Five Copies to one address, $20. Specimen Copies Free. 
 
 BOSTON NEWS COMPANY, 4 PBOVINCE COURT, BOSTON. 
 
THE REPUBLIC. 
 
 THE CHEAPEST PAPER IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 Issued WEDNESDA Y MORNINGS , by the Boston News Company. 
 
 ITS AI IME 
 
 Will be to furnish a high-toned, healthful journal, which shall be welcomed to the homes of New 
 England, without fear of corrupting young or old ; one which will fearlessly and candidly discuss 
 the questions of the day, speaking always in the interest of progress, good order, and correct 
 life. It will also be our aim to present an epitome of the valuable literature of the day, so that 
 every reader of The Republic shall be furnished with reliable information regarding Literatui'e, 
 Politics, and Reform. In a word, The Republic will be second to no paper of its class. 
 
 Terms, One Dollar a Year, in advance. 
 
 Try it, if only for six months; it will cost but little. 4®= Specimen Copies Free. Address, 
 
 BOSTON NEWS COMPANY, 4 Province Court, Boston. 
 
 A NEW RELIGIOUS PAPER, ISSUED SATURDAY MORNINGS, 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE BOSTON NEWS COMPANY. 
 
 Its character will be that of a religious journal in the interests of True Christianity in all its 
 denominations; speaking plainly yet kindly on the general questions of the day; giving the reli- 
 gious hews from every quarter, but more especially in New England. Its editorial force will be 
 large and strong, and such as no single paper could command, but which a publishing company 
 like ours can employ. 
 
 THE FAMILY DEPARTMENT 
 
 Will receive special attention, so that it shall be eagerly welcomed by the household. Its reports 
 will be full and reliable. In a word, it will be our aim to make it the Best as well as the Cheapest 
 paper of its class. The price has been placed at 
 
 ONE DOLLAR A TT E A , 
 
 Making it necessary to rely largely upon the interest and love our friends have in a movement look- 
 ing to a cheap, yet Christian periodical literature. 4®“ Specimen Copies Free. Address, enclosing 
 One Dollar, 
 
 BOSTON NEWS CO., 4 Provinca Court, Boston