s 
 
 LIB 
 
 OF THE 
 
 i 
 
 ir^ The Building of the University 
 
 A N 
 
 • 
 11 
 
 #* -#^^^i!l^ ^WM 
 
 
 ^■^y- 
 
 Delivered at Oakland, Nov. 7th, 1872. 
 
 By DANIEL C. GILMAN, 
 
 President of the University of California. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 John* H. Carmany & Co., Book and Job Printers, 
 
 Overland Monthly Presses, 409 Washington Street. 
 
 1872. 
 
The Building of the University. 
 
 A N 
 
 ' i 
 
 V. ^v 
 
 Delivered at Oakland, Nov. jth, 1872. 
 
 By DANIEL C. OILMAN, 
 
 President of the University of California. 
 
 SAN FRANCISCO: 
 
 John H . Carmany & Co., Book and Job P r i n ters, 
 
 Overland Monthly Presses, 409 Washington Street. 
 l872. 
 
The writer of the following address deems it but just to the 
 California reader to say that it was written under many inter- 
 ruptions, in the ten days which elapsed between his arrival in the 
 State and the day of the inauguration; and that this must ex- 
 plain the merely general references to some topics of special local 
 importance, which on better acquaintance he will be ready to 
 discuss. 
 
Inaugural Address. 
 
 Grateful for the kindness with which I have been met, 
 and full of hope for the future which opens before us, I en- 
 ter upon this trust, imploring for the University of Califor- 
 nia th$ generous support of all good men within the com- 
 monwealth, and seeking the divine blessing upon our united 
 efforts for the diffusion of knowledge, the promotion of 
 science, and the furtherance of the welfare of our fellow- 
 men. 
 
 It is an academic usage, in our land at least, that on 
 occasions like this the incoming officer should express his 
 views upon the Higher Education; and the usage can not 
 well be disregarded when one who is almost a stranger first 
 enters a community of experienced teachers and aspiring 
 scholars like that which is here assembled. My theme will 
 therefore be the Building of the University. 
 
 THE EPOCH IN WHICH WE ARE BUILDING. 
 
 During the last few years great changes have been made 
 in the higher educational systems of this and other lands. 
 New institutions have been built; old institutions have been 
 rebuilt. Better halls, more varied programmes, larger staffs 
 of teachers, wiser methods of instruction, closer adaptation 
 to the wants of society, are among the improvements ren- 
 dered actual by advancing scholarship and increasing funds. 
 
 Since the University of California was organized by the 
 State, several leading colleges have witnessed ceremonies 
 like these in which we are now engaged, and so there have 
 been ample and fresh discussions of some of the questions 
 which most interest us. At Cambridge, Xew Haven, and 
 
4 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 Princeton, those historic seats of learning where traditions 
 and usages both help and fetter — at Ithaca, Ann Arbor, 
 Minneapolis, and St. Louis, in newer, freer, and hardier cir- 
 cumstances — and likewise in other places, which are neither 
 old nor new, here the voice of Experience, and there the 
 voice of Hope, has been heard in the eulogy of learning and 
 culture, and in earnest plea for progress and support. 
 
 Whoever reviews these various utterances, and compares 
 them with those of five-and-twenty years ago, will see that 
 the line of discussion has been changed, that great advances 
 have been made, and that great results are not far off. If 
 then he turns to the venerable shrines at Oxford and Cam- 
 bridge, before which every scholar loves to bow, and traces 
 their progress since the Parliamentary Commissions began 
 their inquiries, he will find reasons for surprise and con- 
 gratulation that the doors have been opened to modern 
 science as a teacher, and to non- conformists as pupils. If 
 his eye looks toward the continent, he may see scholastic 
 Germany — the United States of the Old World — now en- 
 gaged in the foundation of a new university at Strasburg, 
 as the greatest boon which can be given by a triumphant 
 nation to a recovered province ; a university which, in its 
 comprehensive faculties, its liberal structure, its probable 
 power, approaches the University of Berlin, and may well 
 serve as an example to those in California who desire com- 
 pleteness, and who want it quickly. 
 
 Side by side with the university foundations, sometimes 
 a part of them, oftener apart from them, the modern schools 
 of science and technology are springing up, as at Zurich, 
 Aachen, Carlsruhe and Vienna; at many places in the new- 
 born kingdom of Italy; and, under the beneficent action of 
 the Congressional grant, or under the generous gifts of Shef- 
 field, Cornel], Stevens, and their peers, in every State of the 
 American Union. 
 
 Everywhere among enlightened people, universities in 
 their most comprehensive scope are in this year of grace 
 receiving impulses which are as creditable to the spirit of 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 5 
 
 the age as they are hopeful for the ages yet to come. Our 
 State and National Governments see that questions of the 
 higher education must be met in the public councils, and 
 in many places are vying with one another to devise wise 
 schemes of educational development; the builder's ham- 
 mer is heard in many seats of learning — at Harvard, at 
 Yale, at Amherst, at Princeton, at Ithaca, at Philadelphia 
 — constructing the walls which shall furnish homes to suc- 
 cessive generations of pupils; collections of books, maps, 
 and charts, and works of art, museums of geology and nat- 
 ural history and archaeology, laboratories for chemical, 
 physical, botanical, and zoological researches, are multiply- 
 ing with a marvelous rapidity; lenses are made for the 
 microscope and the telescope surpassing any which the 
 physicist and astronomer have hitherto possessed; prizes 
 and scholarships have been endowed, and fellowships some- 
 times providing for continued residence at the college, and 
 sometimes for residence in foreign Universities;* to the tra- 
 ditional schools of law, medicine, and theology have been 
 added schools of philology, of history, of the fine arts, of 
 chemistry, engineering, agriculture, and mines — devices 
 and arrangements to allure vouns; men to higher attain- 
 ments, and to aid them in their onward steps. Underlying 
 all this, supporting all this, indispensable to all this, have 
 been the prolific gifts of men of wealth, far-sighted and gen- 
 erous benefactors, whose names a grateful posterity will 
 cherish forever as the true nobility of the republic, the 
 lords and gentlemen of the American State. Such is the 
 hopeful aspect of university education elsewhere. 
 
 Now comes the turn of this new ''Empire State." Cali- 
 fornia, queen of the Pacific, is to speak from her golden 
 throne, and decree the future of her University. California, 
 the land of wonders, riches, and delights; whose hills teem 
 with ore; whose valleys are decked with purple and gold, 
 the luscious vine and life-giving corn; whose climate revives 
 
 * Like the Kirklaud scholarship, at Cambridge, just given by the historian 
 Bancroft. 
 
O INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 the invalid and upholds the strong ; whose harbors are the 
 long- sought doorways to the Indies; whose central city is 
 cosmopolite like Constantinople of old; whose pioneers 
 were bold, strong, and generous ; whose institutions were 
 molded by far- sighted men, bringing hither the best ideas 
 of many different societies as the foundation of a modern 
 Christian State ; whose citizens are renowned for enterprise, 
 patriotism, and vigor; whose future no seer can foretell: — 
 California, thus endowed by Nature, and thus organized 
 by man, is to build a University. What shall it be? 
 Time alone can tell, but forethought and faith may be 
 factors in the problem. 
 
 WHAT IS TO BE BUILT? 
 
 Two things are settled by the charter of this institution, 
 and are embodied in the very name it bears. 
 
 First, it is a "University,' 5 and not a high -school, nor a 
 college, nor an academy of sciences, nor an industrial-school, 
 which we are charged to build. Some of these features 
 may, indeed, be included in or developed with the Univer- 
 sity; but the University means more than any or all of 
 them. The University is the most comprehensive term 
 which can be employed to indicate a foundation for the 
 promotion and diffusion of knowledge — a group of agencies 
 organized to advance the arts and sciences of every sort, 
 and to train young men as scholars for all the intellectual 
 callings of life. Universities differ widely in their internal 
 structure. The older institutions are mostly complex, in- 
 cluding a great variety of faculties, colleges, chairs, halls, 
 scholarships, and collections, more or less closely bound 
 together as one establishment, endowed with investments, 
 privileges, and immunities, and regarded as indispensable 
 both to the moral and material progress of the community? 
 or, in other words, as essential both to Church and State. 
 In this country, the name is often misapplied to a simple 
 college, probably with that faith which is "the substance of 
 things, hoped for, and the evidence of things not seen.'' 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRES>. 7 
 
 We must beware lest we, too, have the name without the 
 reality. Around the nucleus of the traditional college which 
 has been well maintained since the earliest days of this 
 State, we must build the schools of advanced and Liberal 
 culture in all the great departments of learning, just as fast 
 as may be possible, and we must at least begin to recognize 
 the various sciences by chairs which may each be the 
 nucleus of a school or department. 
 
 Second, the charter and the name declare that this is the 
 " University of California. " It is not the University of Ber- 
 lin nor of New Haven which we are to copy ; it is not the 
 University of Oakland nor of San Francisco which we are to 
 create; but it is the University of this State. It must be 
 adapted to this people, to their public and private schools, 
 to their peculiar geographical position, to the requirements 
 of their new society and their undeveloped resources. It is 
 not the foundation of an ecclesiastical body nor of private 
 individuals. It is "of the people and for the people" — not 
 in any low or unworthy sense, but in the highest and noblest 
 relations to their intellectual and moral well-being. 
 
 Bearing, then, in mind that this is to be a University, and 
 that it is to be the University of California, our next inquiry 
 is this, "What have we to build upon?" 
 
 WHAT IS THERE TO BUILD UPOX ? 
 
 You may be supposed to know much better than I what 
 reply to make to this inquiry; but some of the features 
 which have arrested the eye of a new-comer may be of 
 interest. 
 
 I observe that you have a good charter, not perfect — 
 and Avhat instrument is perfect — but carefully drawn, on the 
 basis of good models, with strict reference to this com- 
 munity, and with a perception of the needs of this age. It 
 opens the door of superior education to all, without price. 
 This charter is administered by an earnest Board of Regents, 
 who mean that the University shall he a success, and who 
 will not be disheartened by such perplexities and difficulties 
 
8 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 as beset all new and great undertakings. You have inher- 
 ited from the College of California a good name, good 
 books, good collections, and good -will. Honor to those 
 who founded it, and honor to those who enlarged it! 
 Those pioneers, who in the earliest days of this State estab- 
 lished a college, were worthy children of the pioneers of the 
 Atlantic, who founded a college at Cambridge when the 
 country was still a wilderness. Here the task was no less 
 difficult than there. The lack of funds, the lack of an or- 
 ganized society, the pressure of material wants — in short, 
 the struggle for life — was so great, that the w r onder is the 
 college lived at all. It was the harbinger of good not yet 
 fully realized or appreciated, perhaps not fully foreseen or 
 designed; but be sure that a hundred years hence, when 
 the centennial of the University is celebrated, as it surely 
 will be, grateful homage will be rendered to the foresight, 
 the vigilance, and the self-denial of those who founded and 
 cherished the College of California. 
 
 "The hand that rounded Peter's dome, 
 And groined the aisles of Christian Eome, 
 Wrought in a sad sincerity ; 
 Himself from God he could not free. 
 He builded better than he knew : 
 The conscious stone to beauty grew." 
 
 You have inherited, also, a good site at Berkeley. When 
 I first stood at Berkele^y, and looked at the mountains and 
 the bay, the town and the distant glimpses of the open sea, 
 I recalled an hour under the elms at New Haven, more than 
 two years ago, when I listened to the story of how this spot 
 was chosen, of the rides and walks which were directed by 
 an observing eye over the hills and into the valleys of this 
 charming region, with a prophetic anticipation of the com- 
 ing day when the college germ, alreadj 7 planted, would 
 require a site worthy of its growth. The services of that 
 enthusiastic scholar, whom California would gladly have 
 kept, if Connecticut would have spared him, are honorably 
 recorded in your early college annals, and are not forgotten 
 
[NAUGURAL ADDRESS. 9 
 
 by those who labored with him; but I can not forbear to 
 repeat at this time the name of one of those to whose en- 
 couragement my presence here is due: the name of Horace 
 Bushnell, of Hartford. 
 
 Among those tilings which are required to make a uni- 
 versity, an ancient writer places, first, "a good and pleasant 
 site, where there is a wholesome and temperate constitution 
 of the air; composed with waters, springs or wells, woods 
 and pleasant fields; which, being obtained, those commodi- 
 ties are enough to invite students to stay and abide there.'' 
 All this, and much more, is included in your site. You 
 have a good system of popular instruction, of which the 
 University is to be the crown; j t ou dwell in a community 
 largely composed of educated men, and are under a State 
 Government which, like a generous parent, has made to the 
 University a generous commencement gift. 
 
 Besides, we must not fail to note that a vast amount of 
 scientific and literary work, of a very high order, has been 
 performed in California — good, not only in itself* but as the 
 seed-corn of future harvests. The work of the United States 
 Coast Survey on the Pacific, for example, in its careful 
 study of the hydrography, its accurate delineations of the 
 harbors, its investigation of the tides and currents, its solu- 
 tion of astronomical and geodetic problems, has gained 
 renown for California science, not in our own country only, 
 but in Europe, and has helped prepare the way for a complete 
 triangulation of the national territory. Kindred services 
 have been rendered by the engineers of the Army. There 
 is the Geological Survey of the State, which surpasses in 
 thoroughness and completeness any like undertaking in the 
 country, and is the delight and pride of all men of science 
 who take an interest in the accurate and careful investiga- 
 tion of the natural characteristics of the land, either for its 
 own sake, or regarded as a basis for social and political 
 growth. Crowing out of this work, though beyond the 
 limits of the State, and under the national authority, are the 
 surveys of the Fortieth Parallel, by a party of civilian 
 
10 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 attached to the corps of army engineers. Binding all the 
 men of science together as a brotherhood of scholars, is the 
 Academy of Sciences, whose publications and collections 
 are already of great value. A young society which has 
 done so well will be an important supporter of the young 
 University. 
 
 Moreover, the literature of this coast possesses, like the 
 fruits here growing, a richness and flavor of its own, so that 
 some have even said that California alone of all parts of the 
 land has made quite new and original contributions to Amer- 
 ican letters. The humor, the wit, and the poetry of the 
 Sierras are fresh as the breezes of the hill-tops, and as spicy 
 as the groves of pine. Oratory has here spoken with a 
 patriotic voice, the echoes of which are still floating in the 
 air. To foster your literature, there is a journal whose 
 fame has gone over land and over seas as well, the encour- 
 ager, the suggester, and the producer of much that is choice 
 and enduring. 
 
 AVhen such science and such literature flourish, the day 
 of the University has certainly dawned. 
 
 WHO ARE TO BE THE BUILDERS. 
 
 Can we now, like master -w x orkmen, distribute the parts 
 of the building among all the orders of the craft, so that the 
 various toilers will recognize their tasks? Let us, at any 
 rate, make the attempt. 
 
 It is on the Faculty more than on any other body that the 
 building of a university depends. They give their lives to 
 the work. It is not the site, nor the apparatus, nor the 
 halls, nor the library, nor the Board of Regents, which draws 
 the scholars — it is a body of living teachers, skilled in their 
 specialties, eminent in their calling, loving to teach. Such 
 a body of teachers will make a university anywhere. 
 Agassiz, wherever he goes, is surrounded by a company of 
 disciples ; Whitney would have his class in language at 
 Berlin or Benares. Such men will draw not pupils only, 
 but the books and the collections they require, as naturally 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 11 
 
 as oi' old Orpheus drew the rocks and beasts. The ge- 
 nius loci, the spirit of the place, will be the spirit of the 
 Faculty. If truth and culture are their aim, truth and 
 culture will flourish in the college where they toil. If 
 sordid motives or unworthy jealousies spring up among 
 them, the trust they bear will be in peril. A university 
 requires more than anything else a large and vigorous staff, 
 so that the various sciences and languages may have their 
 devotees, young men of different tastes and characters may 
 tind lit guides, and the idiosjmcrasies of one school or chair 
 may be modified and counterbalanced by the qualities of 
 another. It is now difficult, both in Europe and this coun- 
 try, to secure enough teachers of eminence, for other call- 
 ings are better paid and are held in equal honor; let then 
 no opportunity be lost to enlist strong men of attainment 
 or of promise. 
 
 The Regents or Trustees of a college have the great re- 
 sponsibility of appointing the body of teachers and of pro- 
 viding the funds. They are the power behind the throne, 
 unseen in the daily work of the college, but never for a 
 moment unfelt. Upon their wise choice of instructors, their 
 careful guardianship of moneys, their construction of build- 
 ings, their development of new departments and schools, 
 their mode of presenting the University to the public, will 
 depend the confidence and liberality of the community. On 
 them the shafts of criticism may be often inconsiderately 
 hurled, but in the long run they will add the gratitude of 
 the State to their own consciousness of fidelity and self- 
 sacrifice in behalf of learning and the country. 
 
 The State authorities, executive and legislative, have also 
 a great part to perform in the support of this University, not 
 by over-much legislation, nor by hasty action in respect to 
 its development, but by steady, munificent, and confiding 
 support. "Quick to help and slow to interfere" should be 
 their watchword. 
 
 Xone of the higher educational establishments in this 
 country have flourished without the support ot the minis- 
 
12 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 ters of religion. Their counsels, and those of the other 
 educated professions are continually sought by parents and 
 young men; they are interested in all that promotes intel- 
 ligence and truth ; they have been from the earliest colonial 
 days the founders, guardians, and teachers of our best insti- 
 tutions. I trust this University will always merit their sup- 
 port, for if worthy it will surely win it. 
 
 The Press is another social power on whose help we must 
 count. It can quicken or retard the establishment of a com- 
 plete university by its favoring or censorious attitude. Its 
 criticism the University should not fear; its cordial support 
 the University should desire. Powerful everywhere, the 
 Press in a free country is a force which all must appreciate; 
 let us hope that its assistance will here be generously ac- 
 corded in the advocacy of the higher education, and in 
 guiding the opinions of those who read. 
 
 On the men of wealth in this community I greatly rely. 
 It is true the State has been, and is likely to be, liberal in 
 its appropriations ; but a great University requires almost 
 unlimited means for its support. The library alone could 
 well employ in the purchase of books, and the payment of 
 salaries, the income of half a million of dollars. A school 
 of science would not be liberally endowed with a capital of 
 that amount. Funds to the extent of several thousand 
 dollars might be annually employed in scholarships and 
 prizes. Homes or halls will soon be needed in gome form 
 for the occupation of the students when the University goes 
 to Berkeley. Professorships representing studies which 
 are not taught to undergraduate students, but which should 
 be cherished in the University, must also be founded. I 
 trust the day will come when the spire which silently points 
 heavenward will mark our place of worship. But for all 
 these things we can not expect the public treasury to be 
 opened. Kelying upon that for the most essential things, 
 we must look to men of wealth to provide the richer and 
 more complete endowments which will place our University 
 by the side of her older sisters at the East. The rich Cali- 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRES8. 13 
 
 fbrnians, who have made this wilderness rejoice and blossom 
 like a rose, who have huill these banks and warehouses, 
 these railroads and steamships — the men who by their 
 enterprise have made a University desirable and possible, 
 and who now need it tor their children — must make it actual 
 by their munificence. In the race for the encouragement 
 of knowledge and the education of the young, the Occident 
 must not he distanced. 
 
 THE SPIRIT WITH WHICH WE ARE TO BUILD. 
 
 I need not say much of the spirit with which we are to 
 build. It is enough to remind you that the individual must 
 he quite subordinate to his work — each member of the 
 Faculty and of the I\e°'encv, to the University of which lie 
 is a member; that the present and the future are both to be 
 cared for; that a catholic liberality should be cherished 
 toward every branch of useful knowledge ; and that a high 
 ideal should be constantly in mind. The teachers should 
 show themselves friends to the scholars; the latter should 
 trust their instructors; the right hand of good- will should 
 always be held out toward the public ; and the effort should 
 be made to "bridge over the gulf between theory and prac- 
 tice," or, in other words, to promote at the same time 
 abstract science and useful knowledge. 
 
 THE OUTLINES OF THE FOUNDATION. 
 
 There are peculiarities in the structure which we propose 
 to build, arising partly from the newness of this State, and 
 partly from its geographical position ; largely also from the 
 wants which are felt in the development of its mines, 
 manufactures, agriculture, and commerce. In one view we 
 may say that the new education should here have full scope ; 
 in another, we may say that there is no distinction between 
 \ic\v and old education — there is only the wise adaptation 
 in each generation of the experience of the past to the 
 wants of the present. 
 
 In years long since gone by, the schools of the cloister 
 
14 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 taught Divinity chiefly, with the scholastic subtilties of 
 metaphysical discussion; when literature came in to the 
 universities, after the so-called "Revival of Letters/' in the 
 form of studies in Greek, the scope of education was ex- 
 tended to the Humanities, but the advocates of Divinity 
 studies were hostile to the change ; when research went out 
 into all departments of nature, the lovers of the Humanities 
 were ready in their turn to close the door on Science, even 
 as the door had before been closed on the study of Greek. 
 Such barriers are no longer defensible. Science and the 
 Humanities, nature and man, are now alike recognized as the 
 best interpreters of Divinity. Each of these topics deserves, 
 therefore, a few words. 
 
 This recognition of Divinity, Humanities and Science — 
 God, Man, and Nature — gives great comprehensiveness to 
 a modern university; indeed, there is nothing left which 
 could be included ! But practical difliculties are not avoided 
 by such general statements. Regarding each individual 
 scholar, regarding each programme of studies, the perplexity 
 arises, not what branches may be, but what branches must 
 be included in a certain course. The perplexity will never 
 be avoided, but the practical question will always be put in 
 some such forms as these: What is the relative importance 
 of different branches, and what studies most deserve encour- 
 agement? Shall literature and language, the traditional 
 classical course of our colleges, be made first in rank? or 
 shall the place it has held be given up to science in its 
 theoretical and practical aspects? Are the modern lan- 
 guages to be chosen rather than the ancient? Shall history 
 and political science, with the study of the Roman law and 
 the theory of the State be preferred ? or shall mathematics 
 be the dominant theme? Is the acquisition of knowledge, 
 or the acquisition of discipline, as it is called, the end of 
 instruction ? Shall general studies which may be presumed 
 to have an equal value in all the varied callings of life, or 
 special studies which have decided reference to a profes- 
 sional or technical career, be commended to the youthful 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 15 
 
 student? Shall lectures, or shall recitations, or shall liter- 
 ary and scientific research, be the method of education? 
 Shall universal freedom of choice and of work be permitted, 
 
 or shall collegiate restrictions and control he insisted on ? 
 These and a score of kindred questions are now under dis- 
 cussion in the various colleges of this country, and will long 
 require our most serious attention. 
 
 A part of the difficulty disappears when we distinguish 
 the requirements of young scholars, like those who have 
 just left the high school and the academy, from those of 
 advanced students, whose tastes, talents and wants are spe- 
 cialized. Give the former, prescription ; give the latter, 
 freedom; but let prescription vary with the varying pecu- 
 liarities of individuals — and let the freedom allowed, be the 
 freedom which is governed and protected by law. College 
 work for college boys implies daily guidance under pre- 
 scribed rules; professional work implies voluntary, self- 
 impelled enthusiasm in the acquisition of knowledge. 
 
 Another difficulty arises from the vast expansion of 
 science — so vast that it is impossible for any one, were he 
 gifted as Leibnitz, or long-lived as Humboldt, to master the 
 details of modern researches. The average scholar, having 
 neither the genius of the one, nor the life-assurance of the 
 other, must be content to fill a much more restricted field. 
 The versatile and facile American must learn to admit that 
 there is a difference between ability to do anything and 
 ability to do everything. Non omnes omnia possumus . 
 
 THE PLACE OF THE NATURAL SCIENCES IN THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 I take it for granted that in the State of California there 
 is no occasion to make a plea for the study of modern sciences. 
 The need of civil, mining, and mechanical engineers, of ex- 
 pert geologists and mineralogists, of devoted naturalists 
 and physicists, of chemists and metallurgists, of geologic-, 
 topographers, and map-makers, of agriculturists, mechan- 
 ics, manufacturers, and merchants, well trained for their 
 various callings, is now so obvious, that T need not advocate 
 
16 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 the importance of science in education. Its place is ac- 
 knowledged. The question is, how to secure the best sort 
 of instruction, the fittest sequence and relation of studies, 
 the most eminent teachers, the most complete laboratories, 
 and the best apparatus; and likewise how to encourage that 
 special proficiency which is indispensable to success in 
 modern scientific professions, with that literary culture 
 which makes a scholar and befits a gentleman. Health, 
 wealth, popular intelligence, and the spread of Christian 
 civilization, are so dependent upon the discoveries of sci- 
 ence, and the applications of these discoveries to a thousand 
 useful arts, that a young and still undeveloped State may 
 well afford to be liberal in the encouragement of this class 
 of studies. 
 
 Science, though yet you have built no shrine for her 
 worship, was the mother of California. It was her re- 
 searches, her summings-up of the experience of the world, 
 her studies of nature, which have made possible and fruit- 
 ful the work of practical men. Science stands ready to do 
 far more for the community than ever yet, if only you will 
 encourage her wholesome eificiency. Science is but accu- 
 rate knowledge, systematically arranged and philosophically 
 discussed. She surveys your harbors, marks the path of 
 the mountain railroad, discovers the relations of the strata 
 of the rocks, teaches the laws of climate, maps out the sier- 
 ras, reclaims the waste lands, suggests improvements in 
 agriculture, annihilates with the telegraph the vast area of 
 space which separates you from London and New York. 
 She interprets nature, and gathers up all which " the practi- 
 cal " workers have found out. Unfolding the plan of an 
 immutable Creator, she will yet be recognized as the hand- 
 maid of religion. 
 
 At an early day, I hope to have an opportunity of discus- 
 sing more fully the recent progress of scientific and tech- 
 nical instruction with reference to the wants of this State. 
 We shall find it worth while to note the experience 
 of the Lawrence and Sheffield Scientific Schools, of the 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 17 
 
 Rensselaer Institute, and the Massachusetts Institute of 
 Technology, of West Point and Annapolis, and of the vari- 
 ous Colleges of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts which 
 the Congressional grant lias created. We may learn in 
 
 some respects even more from the experience of France, 
 Switzerland, and Germany. 
 
 With all this experience before us, intelligent men will 
 be likely to admit that among the first wants of Cali- 
 fornia are distinct, complete, and well-organized schools of 
 science and technology, such as your organic laws contem- 
 plate, in which men of eminence shall have the means and 
 the leisure to make researches in all the departments of in- 
 vestigation; to whom young men shall resort for training in 
 those studies which are closely related to the development 
 of mine?, agriculture, manufactures, and means of trans- 
 portation ; and from whom the public at large, by the 
 press, by the lecture, by the informal consultation, may be 
 instructed in the characteristics of this remarkable country, 
 and the mode in which its resources can be made most ser- 
 viceable to mankind. My chief anxiety is, whether the 
 people of this coast are yet ready to pay for the luxury and 
 the advantage of such serviceable institutions. It will re- 
 quire a great many teachers, costly laboratories, large funds 
 — more, I fear, than the University, with all the claims 
 upon its treasury, is yet able to command. Perhaps some 
 individual, whose experience has taught him the value of 
 such knowledge, and who has an honorable ambition to 
 leave a name among the benefactors of the State, will for 
 this special purpose supplement the resources of the Uni- 
 versity with a generous private gift, like those which have 
 done so much for the culture of Eastern youth, and the 
 improvement of the Atlantic States, lie will be sure of a 
 monument more enduring than o-old. 
 
 THE PLACE OF HISTORY AND SOCIAL SCIENCE. 
 
 But while nature and its laws in all their various aspects 
 and applications are thus engrossing, Man and all his ex- 
 9 
 
18 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 perience and achievements are likewise of transcendent im- 
 portance. Above all matter is Man ; above both matter 
 and man, is the " Divinity that shapes our ends, rough 
 hew them as we will.'' So that the individual or the in- 
 stitution that regards only the natural forces of this globe, 
 without observing likewise the intellectual and spiritual 
 forces which are also at work, sees only half the world. 
 
 Give us more and not less science ; encourage the most 
 thorough and prolonged search for the truth which is to be 
 found in the rocks, the sea, the soil, the air, the sun, and 
 the stars; in light and heat, and magnetic forces; in plants 
 and animals, and in the human frame ; but let us also learn 
 the lessons which are embodied in language and literature, 
 in laws and institutions, in doctrines and opinions, in his- 
 torical progress and international relations. Let language, 
 history and literature, oratory, poetry and art, still form a 
 chief part of liberal culture, while mathematical, physical 
 and natural sciences are admitted to the rank from which 
 they have long been excluded. 
 
 In California, it seems to me, there are special reasons 
 for such a plea. This is still a young State ; it is the most 
 advanced and prosperous of a group of young States, the 
 power of which in this Union no one can exaggerate. The 
 young men who are to go out from this University are to be 
 the law-makers, the guides of public education, the men of 
 influence and capital, the administrative authorities, the 
 journalists, the orators, the formers of public opinion, not 
 only in California, but over this vast new area of the conti- 
 nent, where the State is still in infancy. Such young 
 men, even more than the educated in older republics, 
 should be, no matter what their daily occupations are, well 
 grounded in the principles of governmental and social 
 science. They should also be familiar with the usages of 
 the most civilized and enlightened communities, and with 
 the opinions of the most trustworthy of statesmen, jurists, 
 and philosophers. It is important, for their own culture 
 and for the public good, that they should have a clear no- 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 19 
 
 tion of what constitutes the State, in its best form. Whether 
 merchants, manufacturers, farmers, or miners, they are quite 
 as likely as lawyers, and much more likely than physicians 
 ami clergymen, to be called to the councils of legislation, 
 and to pronounce opinions there on difficult questions per- 
 taining to human society, law, finance, property, education, 
 crime, pauperism, and the policy of the national, State. 
 and local governments. 
 
 But California is not only the central of a group of young 
 States. It is the State through which distant nations are 
 becoming acquainted with American institutions. Its in- 
 fluence in the organization and regeneration of lands be- 
 yond the sea is unquestionably but just begun. 
 
 Therefore, I say that the study of history — not as dry 
 annals, but as the record of living forces and human ex- 
 perience — the study of political economy, of social science, 
 of civil liberty, and of public law, should be made attract- 
 ive by the voices of original and profound teachers, who 
 know how to gather up the wisdom of the old and apply 
 it to the requirements of the new generations. 
 
 THE PLACE OF LANGUAGE. 
 
 In the study of humanity and history, language is the 
 master-key which unlocks all doors. Time is wasted in 
 questioning whether ancient or modern languages are most 
 important. In the University, both groups must be taught; 
 the more any individual has, the richer will be his life. 
 Certainly, the study of English, which every one of us em- 
 ploys as the instrument by which we think, and by which 
 we communicate our thoughts to others, should be careful- 
 ly promoted. In these days, when so much that is new and 
 important first appears in German and French, no system 
 of education can be called liberal, as it has well been said, 
 which does not include those tongues. Greek and Latin 
 are not only of value for the literature and history they em- 
 body, but for their important relations to more modern 
 tongues. On this coast, there are special linguistic require- 
 
20 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 merits. Spanish certainly should be taught in the Univer- 
 sity. It is a praiseworthy forethought on the part of one of 
 the Regents* which has led him to provide among us for 
 the study of Chinese and Japanese. His presence here can 
 not restrain me from now rendering a public tribute of 
 gratitude for this wise and timely munificence. Let us 
 hope that his generous purposes will, ere long, be realized. 
 To complete the instructions in Oriental tongues, at least 
 two other chairs will be needed — one to be for Hebrew and 
 the Semitic languages, which, perhaps, some other citizen 
 will be glad to establish ; and one for Sanskrit and the 
 comparative philology of Indo-European tongues — the group 
 to which the chief languages of Europe belong. The world 
 of letters would also rejoice, if, ere the last of the Indian 
 races disappears before the progress of civilization, en- 
 couragement could here be given to some scholar to gather 
 up and perpetuate the knowledge of their speech. In all 
 our linguistic study, we need to get beyond and above mere 
 grammatical drill, and to think of speech as one of the chief 
 endowments of human nature, and " of every language as a 
 concrete result of the working-out of that capacity, an insti- 
 tution of gradual historic growth, a part of the culture of 
 the race to which it belongs, and handed down by tradition 
 from teacher to learner, like every other part of culture ; 
 and hence, that the study of language is a historical science, 
 to be pursued by historical methods." f 
 
 In the teaching of both history and language, as well as 
 of science, the University may well be guided by "the 
 comparative method," which has yielded already such good 
 results. It is thus characterized by an able historian. " The 
 comparative method in philology and mythology — let me add, 
 in politics and history, and the whole range of human 
 thought — marks a stage in the progress of the human mind 
 at least as great and memorable as the revival of Greek and 
 Latin learning. It has put the language and the history of 
 
 * Hon. Edward Tompkins, 
 t Prof. W. D.Whitney. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 21 
 
 the so-called 'classical' world into their true position in 
 the general history of the world. By making them no 
 longer the objects of an exclusive idolatry, it lias made 
 them the objects of a worthier because a more reasonable 
 worship. It has broken down the middle wall of partition 
 between kindred races and kindred studies; it lias swept 
 away barriers which fenced off certain times and languages 
 as 'dead' and 'ancient;' it has taught us that there is 
 no such tiling as 'dead' and 'living' languages, or 'an- 
 cient' and 'modern' history; it has taught us that the 
 study of language is one study, that the study of history is 
 one study. As man is the same in all ages, the history of 
 man is one in all ages."* 
 
 THE PLACE OF RELIGION IN THE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 The recognition which should be given to religion in a 
 State University involves considerations which are not to 
 be encountered in colleges founded by church authorities 
 or by private corporations. The old English colleges, 
 whose traditions New England has gratefully accepted, 
 were the children of the church, and though their doors are 
 no longer shut to non-conformists, their ecclesiastical char- 
 acter is still decided. Harvard College, the mother of all 
 our higher institutions, still bears upon its escutcheon 
 " Christo et ecclesice," the motto of its founders. Yale Col- 
 lege went back to the Old Testament for a symbolic watch- 
 word, and bears upon its seal, the open oracles inscribed 
 with Hebrew characters. At Xassau Hall, we are told that 
 "in regard to religious truth, there will be no uncertain 
 sound.'' At Cornell University a generous gift has been 
 accepted for a chapel, with a. foundation, if I am rightly in- 
 formed, which will secure the services of eminent preacher.-. 
 and with a plan for daily religious worship. But none of 
 these institutions is a State University, though all of them 
 were fostered in their infancy by the kindly nourishment 
 of the public treasury. We are on the contrary the guafd- 
 
 * E. A. Freeman, in his recent Rede Lecture at Cambridge, England. 
 
22 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 ians and friends of a State University, established iri the 
 midst of a community more varied than almost any in the 
 land. Here are still seen the traces of the Spanish pioneers 
 who brought to these shores so long ago, with the symbol 
 of the cross, the emblematic keys of the Roman pontiff; 
 nearly all the various forms of Christian faith which the 
 Episcopal and non-Episcopal churches of the Reformation 
 have professed, find here their advocates; there are many 
 among us, likewise, w r ho look for a Messiah yet to come ; 
 and crowding into these harbors behold the children of Con- 
 fucius and the worshipers of the unknown gods. 
 
 The State, as a body-politic, protects the assemblies and 
 the worship of all these bodies ; it favors none. How shall 
 it be with the University and the public school, which per- 
 form the service of the State in the education of the young ? 
 Shall religious teaching be excluded from the University, 
 or shall it have a covert and an apologetic place — shall it be 
 an organized force, or a silent and all-pervading influence ? 
 Shall its spirit be narrow and sectarian, or shall it be 
 catholic and free ? The difficulty is not felt in California 
 alone. It is involved in the toleration of the modern Chris- 
 tian State toward all forms of religious belief, and in its gen- 
 erous provisions for the promotion of education. 
 
 In meeting the difficulty, it may be well to bear in mind 
 that religion includes four different elements — Worship, 
 Doctrines, Precepts, and Spirit. A religious spirit no one 
 objects to; it is the spirit which looks " outward and not 
 inward, upward and not downward, forward and not back- 
 ward, and which lends a hand ;" it is the spirit which 
 " loves justice, shows mercy, and walks humbly before the 
 Lord;" it is the spirit of truth, of faith, of hope, and of 
 charity ; it is the spirit of " peace on earth, good will to 
 men." We may say, as we say of science, the more we 
 have of the genuine the better for mankind. Whatever 
 Precepts will tend to cherish this inward spirit and the out- 
 ward uprightness and unselfishness which proceed from it, 
 all ^ood men will endorse. When we begin to formulate 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. '23 
 
 Doctrines into creeds and symbols, then come controversy 
 and difference — the right wing against the left wing, the 
 conservative against the liberal, bo that an attempt to en- 
 force the doctrines of this or that ecclesiastical body will he 
 sure to come to grief. The University is no place for sec- 
 tarian controversy or denominational zeal. It is a school 
 of learning. But as a school of learning it must teach the 
 history of opinion and belief, it must teach the rise and 
 growth and decay of institutions, it must show how Christ- 
 ian civilization has overcome pagan practices and belief, 
 and has purified the home, the State, and the relations of 
 nations, modifying laws, usages, manners, and language, 
 establishing charities, reforming prisons, securing honesty, 
 virtue, and justice. All this should be taught by scholars, 
 and not by partisans. If the body of teachers and students, 
 imbued by this spirit of truth and charity, will daily as- 
 semble of their own accord to acknowledge their depend- 
 ence upon Divine wisdom, to chant the Psalms of David, 
 and to join in the prayer which the Master taught his dis- 
 ciples — who can doubt that such communion of Worship will 
 elevate the character of all who engage in it, and of the 
 institution to which they belong? So far as this I would 
 have our University go, forcing none to attend upon such 
 religious worship, drawing all to it by their own conscious- 
 ness of its value. 
 
 But many would go further than this. Many parents, 
 many religious teachers, many churches, desire and insist 
 that youth at the critical period of college life shall be 
 surrounded by positive, outspoken, and persuasive religious 
 influences. They are afraid of a State University, and 
 long for an ecclesiastical college. Hence come the many 
 attempts to promote the higher education, when one united 
 effort would hardly be adequate. But it seems to me that 
 the end in view might be secured by better methods. 
 Why may not any religious body or association, or private 
 individual, desirous of protecting the young men from 
 temptation, and encouraging them in the higher life, estab- 
 
24 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 lish, in connection with the University, a home, or hall, or 
 college, which should be controlled according to the found- 
 er's views, should be a privileged residence, should be en- 
 dowed perhaps with prizes and purses. I can imagine on 
 the slopes at Berkeley, a group of students' houses, bearing 
 honorable names, and made attractive by the convenience 
 of their arrangements, the good-fellowship within their 
 walls, the privileges of the foundation. I should hope they 
 would not be barracks, or dormitories — but homes, with 
 rooms of common assembly and private study. I should 
 hope the bath-room and the dining-hall would be included 
 in the structure; and if any would go so far as to have a 
 place of light amusement and recreation, I for one should 
 not object. Within such college halls, the love of learning 
 would reign, bad morals and ill-manners would be excluded, 
 and priceless associations would be cherished like those of 
 Harvard and Yale, Cambridge and Oxford. Here, under 
 right guidance, the best of moral and religious influences 
 might be promoted. What church, what association, or what 
 generous individual, will be the first to establish such a hall? 
 In these convictions, which are the result of anxious 
 thought and familiar conference with many of the most 
 liberal and the most conservative leaders of education 
 and opinion, I am strengthened by the utterances of 
 the President of Princeton College (the Rev. Dr. McCosh), 
 who has studied, in Great Britain and Ireland, a kindred 
 difficulty. He suggests in his inaugural the question, "how 
 is religion to be grafted on State colleges, open to all, what- 
 ever their religious profession;" and he answers it by the 
 clear declaration, confirmed by examples: "Let the State 
 provide the secular instruction, and the churches provide 
 the religious training in the homes in which the students 
 reside.' ' 
 
 THE EXAMPLE OF A GOOD BUILDER. ' 
 
 I hail it as a omen of good, both for religion and learning, 
 that the site of this University bears the name of Berkele} 7 , 
 the scholar and the divine. It is not yet a century and a 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 25 
 
 half since that romantic voyage which brought to Newport, 
 in Rhode Island, an English prelate, who would found a 
 college in the Bermudas — the Sandwich Islands of the 
 Atlantic — for the good of the American aborigines, lie 
 failed in seeing his enthusiastic purpose accomplished. He 
 could not do as he would; he therefore did as he could, 
 lie gave the Puritan College, in New Haven, a library and 
 his farm, and endowed in it prizes and scholarships which 
 still incite to the learning of Latin. There, his memory is 
 "ever kept green." His name is given to a School of 
 Divinity, in the neighboring city of Middletown. It is 
 honored in Dublin and Oxford, and in Edinburgh, where 
 his memoirs have just been written. His fame has crossed 
 the continent, which then seemed hardly more than a sea- 
 board of the Atlantic ; and now, at the very ends of the 
 earth, near the Golden Gate, the name of Berkeley is to be 
 a household word. Let us emulate his example. In the 
 catholic love of learning, if we can not do what we would, 
 let us do what w r e can. Let us labor and pray that his well- 
 kuown vision may be true : 
 
 " Westward the course of empire takes its way; 
 The four first acts already past, 
 A fifth shall close the drama with the day; 
 Time's noblest offspring is the last." 
 
 WHAT IS ALL THIS BUILDING FOR ? 
 
 Busy though we be as the Builders of this University, 
 the hours of rest will follow on the hours of toil; doubt- 
 less, also, disappointment and embarrassment, those unwel- 
 come thieves, will haunt us with their presence. In these 
 hours of repose and doubt, we shall often ask ourselves, 
 What is all this building for, why do we spend our 
 money for that which is not bread, our labor for that 
 which satisfieth not, why all this eagerness tor bo<>k> 
 and teachers, for halls and funds, why all these anxious 
 thoughts about education, and culture, and University pro- 
 gress? You, sir, my honored predecessor, about to throw 
 
26 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 off the academic gown; you, my colleagues in the Faculty; 
 you, gentlemen of the Board of Regents, already know 
 that ours is no easy undertaking. With what philosophy 
 can we fit ourselves for a long and weary task ? Not 
 we alone are to ask this question. The State, before re- 
 newing its endowments, the national government before 
 repeating its grant, the men of wealth before founding new 
 professorships, and the fathers before sending us their boys, 
 will often ask, "What for?" Let us have our answer 
 ready. Let us trace the influences which have proceeded 
 from Athens, where Socrates and Plato taught — teachers 
 whose words still nurture our statesmen and theologians; 
 from Bologna and Paris, where students dwelt by thou- 
 sands; from Oxford and Cambridge, where so many of the 
 foremost leaders of Anglican literature, politics, and sci- 
 ence were fitted for their career; from the seats of learning 
 in Germany, now surpassing in number of teachers and stu- 
 dents the universities of every other State ; from the col- 
 leges of New England and the Atlantic sea-board ; — let us 
 study such examples, and saj T with courage and hope that the 
 University of California shall be a place where all the ex- 
 perience of past generations, so far as it is of record, and 
 all that is known of the laws of nature, shall be at command 
 for the benefit of this generation and those who come after 
 us; that here shall be heard the voice of the wisest think- 
 ers, and here shall be seen the examples of the most diligent 
 students in every department of science. Let us say, that 
 here high-minded youth, while they train their powers as 
 in a gymnasium, may also fit themselves with armor for 
 the battle of life, and may study examples of noble activity. 
 Let us see to it that here are brought together the books of 
 every nation, and those who can read them; the collec- 
 tions from all the kingdoms of nature, and those who can 
 interpret them ; the instruments of research and analysis, 
 and those who can employ them ; and let us be sure that 
 the larger the capital we thus invest, the greater will be 
 the dividend. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 27 
 
 What is the University for? It is to fit young men for 
 high and noble careers, satisfactory to themselves, and use- 
 ful to mankind ; it is to bring before the society of to-day, 
 the failures and the successes of societies in the past; it is 
 to discover and make known how the forces of nature may 
 be subservient to mankind ; it is to hand down to the gen- 
 erations which come after us, the torch of experience by 
 which we have been enlightened. 
 
 It is wisdom that the University promotes; wisdom, for 
 individuals and nations, for this life and the future ; a 
 power to distinguish the useless, the false, and the fragile, 
 from the good, the true, and the lasting. There was a wise 
 man of olden time who figured its value as well as any of 
 the writers of to-day, when he said: "Happy is the man 
 that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understand- 
 ing, for the merchandise of it is better than the merchan- 
 dise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold;" and 
 his estimate of post-graduate instruction deserves our as- 
 sent: •' Give instruction to a wise man, and he will get 
 wiser ; teach a just man, and he will increase in learning." 
 
 THE FUTURE BEFORE US. 
 
 A single word in conclusion. The possible relations of 
 this University to the new civilization of the Pacific Coast, 
 and to the enlightenment of Asiatic nations, give a special 
 interest to its work, for it is obvious that California is not 
 only granary, treasury, and mart for the American States 
 which are growing up on this long coast, but it is the 
 portal through which the Occident and Orient must ex- 
 change their products and their thoughts. China and Japan, 
 Australia and the Islands of the Sea, are the neighbors and 
 the customers of the Golden State. Shall they not also 
 look here for instruction in the arts and sciences, and for 
 an example of a well-organized and well-educated com- 
 munity? The endowment of a professorship, which shall 
 be devoted to the study of Chinese and Japanese, indicates 
 an early recognition of this intimate relationship. We can 
 
28 INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
 
 not be too quick to prepare for the possible future which 
 may open upon us. It is not yet determined in what way 
 the Chinese and Japanese indemnity funds shall be em- 
 ployed, but public discussion tends to their devotion to 
 the promotion of education, either in this country or in 
 the Orient, for the benefit of those from whom the funds 
 were received. Would it not be fit that in this vicinit}^ 
 near to, if not in connection with, this University, a high 
 seminary should be founded with these funds, having the 
 double purpose of enlightening Americans in respect to 
 the languages, literature, and history of the East, and of in- 
 structing the Chinese and Japanese in the modern lan- 
 guages and sciences of Europe and America? 
 
 A new epoch of history seems opening before us. The 
 early nations, with what has been called their fresh-water 
 civilization, flourished on the Nile and by the rivers of 
 Babylon; at a later day the Mediterranean became the 
 centre of successive empires — monarchs of a land-locked 
 sea. Modern civilization has bordered the Atlantic. Now, 
 face to face, with the great, peaceful ocean intervening, are 
 the oldest and the youngest forms of human society. 
 Steam already shortens the space, and the electro -magnet 
 will soon annihilate the time which separates eastern Asia 
 and western America. 
 
 Toward the good which may follow in commercial inter- 
 course, in mutual good-fellowship, and in the promotion of a 
 higher civilization, the University of California must stand 
 ready to do its part. 
 
 As I look forward to what is opening, beyond the mists 
 which rest upon the harbor, I feel like quoting, with a sin- 
 gle syllable of adaptation, the prophetic dream which a 
 gifted English scholar uttered in regard to his western out- 
 look.* Uttered in Europe, his words are still more fitly 
 spoken here: 
 
 " I am turning my eyes toward a hundred years to come, 
 and I dimly see the land I am gazing on become the road 
 
 John Henry Newman. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 20 
 
 of passage and union between two hemispheres, and the 
 centre of the world. I see its inhabitants rival Belgium in 
 populousness, France in vigor, and Spain in enthusiasm. 
 
 "The capital of that prosperous and hopeful land is situ- 
 ate in a beautiful bay and near a romantic region; and in it 
 I see a flourishing University, which, for a while, had to 
 struggle with fortune, but which, when its first founders 
 and servants were dead and gone, had successes far exceed- 
 ing their anxieties. Thither, as to a sacred soil, the home 
 of their fathers, and the fountain-head of their Christianity, 
 students are flocking from east, west, and south, from Amer- 
 ica, and Australia, and India, from Egypt and Asia Minor, 
 with the ease and rapidity of a locomotion not yet discov- 
 ered, and last, though not least, from England — all speak- 
 ing one tongue, all owning one faith, all eager for one true 
 wisdom; and thence, when their stay is over, going back 
 again to carry over all the earth 'peace to men of good- 
 will."' 
 
3 0112105611914