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ADDRESSES 
 
 AT THE 
 
 INAUGURATION OF 
 
 PROFESSOR NOAH PORTER, D.D. LL.D., 
 
 AS 
 
 PRESIDENT OF YALE COLLEGE, 
 
 Wednesday, October ii, 1871. 
 
 NEW YORK: 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER AND COMPANY. 
 
 1871. 
 
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
 
 STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY 
 
 H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 
 
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 cS 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 A T a meeting of the President and Fellows of Yale College in 
 
 Jr\ New Haven, July n, 187 1, Rev. Noah Porter, D.D., 
 
 LL.D., Clark Professor of Moral Philosophy and Metaphysics, was 
 
 2> elected to the office of President of the College, made vacant by 
 
 ^£ the resignation of President Woolsey. 
 
 Wednesday, October 11, was set apart for the Inauguration. A 
 severe storm of rain deterred many persons from attending, but not- 
 withstanding this the number of citizens and strangers, graduates 
 and students, who were present filled the church to overflowing. 
 
 The students of the various departments met in their respective 
 halls, and proceeded under the direction of their instructors to the 
 front of the College buildings. The invited guests, including offi- 
 cers of other colleges, the present and former public authorities of 
 the State and the City, the members of the clerical, legal, and med- 
 ical profession of the vicinity, and the benefactors of the institution, 
 assembled in the College Library, where they were joined by the 
 President, the President elect, and the other members of the Cor- 
 poration. 
 
 At eleven o'clock, the procession moved under the direction of 
 Mr. Edward Heaton, and assistant marshals selected from among 
 the students, to the Center Church, going by Chapel Street and 
 Temple Street in the following order : — 
 
 Music. 
 
 Students of the University, by Departments. 
 
 The Sheriff of the County. 
 
 The President and President Elect. 
 
 The Corporation. 
 
 Officers of this and other Colleges. 
 
 The Civil Authorities. 
 
 Guests personally invited. 
 
 Graduates, in order of seniority. 
 
 577972 
 
4 INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 When the right of the procession reached the church, the left was 
 still on the College grounds. It was estimated that about noo per- 
 sons were in the line. 
 
 The galleries of the church were filled with ladies. The lower 
 part of the house was reserved for the procession. The stage was 
 occupied by officers of this and other colleges. 
 
 President Woolsey presided until the delivery of his address, 
 when he formally resigned the office, and gave up to his successor 
 the presidential chair, having already handed him the Charter and 
 Seal of the College. 
 
 The exercises in the church were in accordance with the following 
 programme. The music was given by an academic choir under the 
 direction of Dr. Stoeckel. 
 
 PROGRAMME. 
 
 I. Chorus : " Gloria in Excelsis Deo." 
 
 II. Prayer by Rev. Dr. Bacon. 
 
 III. The Induction of the President-Elect, 
 
 WITH ADDRESS BY REV. PRESIDENT WOOLSEY. 
 
 IV. Congratulatory Address in Latin, 
 
 BY PROFESSOR THOMAS A. THACHER. 
 
 V. Congratulatory Address in English, 
 
 BY HENRY MARTIN SANDERS, 
 Of the Senior Class in the Academical Department. 
 
 VI. Chorus : " Domine, salvum fac Praesidem Nostrum." 
 VII. Inaugural Address by President Porter. 
 
 VIII. Doxology. 
 
 IX. Benediction. 
 
 At the close of these exercises, about two o'clock, the officers and 
 graduates of the College, with their invited guests, repaired to the 
 library, and thence to the Graduates' Hall, where a lunch had been 
 provided. 
 
 The Dining Hall had been appropriately decorated in honor of 
 the day. Over a dais, opposite the entrance, were hung the portraits 
 of the four predecessors of Dr. Porter : Stiles, Dwight, Day, and 
 Woolsey, surrounding that of the President himself. Upon the 
 
INTRODUCTION. 5 
 
 platform sat the oldest living graduate of the College, Mr. Timothy 
 Bishop, of New Haven, of the Class of 1796, who had been for three 
 years a student under President Stiles, graduated under Dr. 
 Dwight, and had been the neighbor and friend of their three suc- 
 cessors. 
 
 In other parts of the hall were hung a selection of the portraits 
 belonging to the College, together with a few which had been loaned 
 for this occasion. Among the number, were the portraits of John 
 Davenport, the Oxford graduate and first minister of New Haven, 
 James Pierpont, one of the founders in 1700, Gurdon Salston- 
 stall, Governor of Connecticut in 17 17, Elihu Yale, from whom 
 the Yalensian name proceeds, Bishop Berkeley, the liberal Prelate, 
 one of the earliest of the long line of benefactors, Joseph E. Shef- 
 field, and Augustus R. Street, founders of new departments of 
 the College, George Peabody, Henry Farnam, Joseph Battell, 
 Philip Marett, Sheldon Clark, founder of the Chair of Meta- 
 physics, Jonathan Edwards, Joseph Buckminster, Eli Whitney, 
 James Hillhouse, and other well-known graduates. 
 
 After an hour of social intercourse, President Porter called upon 
 the assembly to be seated, and invited Professor Dwight to the 
 chair. 
 
 The following song, written for the occasion, was then sung by a 
 college quartette, the audience joining in the chorus. 
 
 SONG. 
 "YALE, BROTHERS, YALE." 
 
 BY F. M. FINCH, ESQ., OF ITHACA, N. Y. (CLASS OF 1849.) 
 
 Air — " Canadian Boat Song." 
 
 One comes ; — one goes. All hail ! — Adieu ! 
 
 If darkens the evening, the morn shines new. 
 
 Soon as one star glides down the night 
 
 Upriseth another with lamp as bright. 
 
 Chorus — Yale ! brothers, Yale ! — rose-red or pale, 
 
 The Light never fades from the skies of Yale ! 
 
 One comes ! — As comes the August morn 
 That ripens and flosses the waiting corn, 
 
6 INTR OD UCTION. 
 
 So may his summer of heart and brain 
 
 Fast ripen the seed into golden grain ! 
 
 Chorus — Yale ! brothers, Yale ! — rose-red or pale, 
 
 The Light never fades from the skies of Yale ! 
 
 One goes ! — God bless him ! — Toil and Time 
 He gave through the years with a faith sublime : 
 He takes from these familiar realms 
 More thanks than the leaves of the sorrowing elms. 
 Chorus — Yale ! brothers, Yale ! — rose-red or pale, 
 
 The Light never fades from the skies of Yale ! 
 
 Who comes, — who goes, — in sun, — in shade, — 
 
 On guard in her resolute lines arrayed, — 
 
 Let all be armed when Battle booms, 
 
 And garland our Mother with Victor-blooms. 
 
 Chorus — Yale ! brothers, Yale ! — in calm or gale, 
 
 Thy banner be over us, — dear old Yale ! 
 
 Short speeches were then made by Professor Dwight, President 
 Woolsey, and President Porter, who referred to several new dona- 
 tions to the College (including a building for the Scientific School, 
 from Mr. Joseph E. Sheffield). He also mentioned that the Corpo- 
 ration had appointed a committee of nine, including three of their 
 own number, and six other graduates, to mature the arrangements by 
 which the graduates of the College are henceforward to elect a part 
 of the members of the Corporation. The guests of the College were 
 then called upon. In the absence of Governor Jewell (who had 
 been unavoidably detained by an engagement in a distant part of 
 the country), the State of Connecticut was represented by Hon. 
 W. A. Buckingham, United States Senator. Rev. Dr. McCosh, 
 President of the College of New Jersey, responded in behalf of other 
 colleges. Mr. Mori, the Minister of the Japanese government, resi- 
 dent in Washington, paid a grateful tribute to the good will of the 
 Americans, and expressed his pleasure in meeting the author of a 
 work on International Law which is widely known among the gov- 
 ernment officers in Japan. The Committee of the Woolsey Fund, 
 through the chairman of the Executive Committee, Hon. M. B. 
 Field, of the Class of 1841, then made a statement of what they 
 have done since their appointment. The graduates of the College 
 were next called out, and speeches were made by William Walter 
 Phelps, Esq., of New York, of the Class of i860, and Rev. Daniel 
 
INTRODUCTION. 7 
 
 Butler of Boston, of the Class of 1835, —both of whom, in cordial 
 terms, expressed their gratification with the prospects of Old Yale 
 and their readiness to contribute to her welfare. The lateness of 
 the hour prevented further speeches, and the festivities were closed 
 by singing the following familiar verses : — 
 
 "GATHER YE SMILES." 
 
 VERSES FROM THE SONG WRITTEN FOR THE COMMENCEMENT OF 185O, BY 
 
 F. M. FINCH. 
 
 Air — " Sparkling and Bright" 
 
 Gather ye smiles from the ocean isles, 
 
 Warm hearts from river and fountain, 
 A playful chime from the palm-tree clime, 
 
 From the land of rock and mountain ; 
 And roll the song in waves along, 
 
 For the hours are bright before us, 
 And grand and hale are the elms of Yale, 
 
 Like fathers bending o'er us. 
 
 Summon our band from the prairie land, 
 
 From the granite hills dark frowning, 
 From the lakelet blue, and the black bayou, 
 
 From the snows our pine peaks crowning; 
 And pour the song in joy along, 
 
 For the hours are bright before us, 
 And grand and hale are the towers of Yale, 
 
 Like giants watching o'er us. 
 
 Clasp ye the hand 'neath the arches grand, 
 
 That with garlands span our greeting, 
 With a silent prayer that an hour as fair, 
 
 May smile on each after meeting; 
 And long may the song, the joyous song, 
 
 Roll on in the hours before us, 
 And grand and hale may the elms of Yale, 
 
 For many a year bend o'er us. 
 
 In the course of the proceedings reference was made by the 
 Chairman to the appalling fire at Chicago, and the President was 
 requested to communicate to the Mayor of Chicago, an expression 
 
8 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 of the sympathy of the Yale Graduates and an assurance of their 
 readiness to contribute for the relief of the suffering. 
 
 In the evening the College buildings were illuminated, and the 
 students with torches, went in procession to the houses of President 
 Porter and President Woolsey, serenading them with College 
 songs. 
 
ADDRESS OF INDUCTION 
 
 PRESIDENT WOOLSEY. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 I AM happy that I can give thanks to God for his blessing 
 upon this College, and upon the administration of its affairs, 
 during the last quarter of a century. Never were its pros- 
 pects and hopes brighter than at this present moment. And 
 I rejoice that I can commit the office, which I now formally 
 resign, into the hands of one who is perfectly well acquainted 
 with the affairs of the College, who has been tested by an 
 official connection with it of twenty-five years, who has hon- 
 ored it by his writings, who commands, as I believe, the re- 
 spect and confidence of all, — of the public, the trustees, the 
 graduates, and the faculties. 
 
 To you, Sir, according to a formality of ancient date, I com- 
 mit this charter and this seal ; a charter which in its simplicity 
 and liberality has long provided an enlightened and efficient 
 government over the institution, and which, as I hope and 
 believe, by the recent change in one of its provisions, will 
 more effectually pledge the forty-five hundred living graduates 
 to active measures for its prosperity ; and a seal, which, has 
 been affixed with rare moderation to questionable degrees, and 
 which, I augur, will be the certificate of true scholarship, as 
 well as of high scientific and literary reputation, hereafter. 
 
 In laying down my office I do not intend to set forth or to 
 defend the principles upon which I, together with my col- 
 leagues, have endeavored to exercise the power committed to 
 us by the Corporation in instructing and governing the Col- 
 lege. I cannot, however, forbear to mention three points in 
 which the faculties have been greatly favored, — so greatly, 
 indeed, that if they have been unsuccessful, the fault must be 
 laid not at the door of the Corporation, but somewhere else 
 One of these is the confidence which the Corporation has reposed 
 
12 ADDRESS. 
 
 in them. The Board, in whose hands the ultimate and highest 
 decision rests, have ever felt that their interference, without 
 the request of the officers of instruction, in the study and order 
 of the institution, would be uncalled for and unwise ; that in- 
 dependent, unsolicited action on their part would amount to a 
 censure of the faculties, and would lead to discord and confu- 
 sion. With scarcely an exception, no law has been passed, no 
 officer appointed, unless after full consultation and exchange 
 of views between the boards of control and of instruction. 
 And hence, if there are defects in our system, the faculties 
 are, as they ought to be, mainly responsible ; if an inefficient 
 or unfaithful officer comes into a chair of instruction, the fac- 
 ulties, who know him best, and not the Corporation, are to 
 bear whatever censure is justly due. I hope that this may 
 always continue. I would not indeed have the Corporation a 
 mere organ to carry into effect the will of their subordinate 
 officers ; I would have them think and judge for themselves, 
 have their ears open to all complaints against the system of 
 teaching or of governing, and see that the instructions are 
 faithfully and successfully given ; but to interfere, " nisi dig- 
 nus vindice nodus," would be in the highest degree unwise ; 
 it would be to reduce the faculties to the condition of mere 
 agents, and to drive away the best officers from the institu- 
 tion. 
 
 And growing out of this wise liberty conceded to the offi- 
 cers, there is another favorable point in the position of the 
 college officers, — that, while the general tradition of what a 
 college ought to be is tolerably fixed, changes have constantly 
 taken place with the enlargement of the corps of instructors, 
 with the raising of the standard of scholarship, and with the 
 demand for a higher education in the country. The best 
 thing about the changes is that they have been made in all 
 quietness, without flourish of trumpets, each at its time, and 
 not all at once, dictated by the desire of scientific and literary 
 improvement, and not by that of adding to the eclat of the 
 institution. Thus, in the academic department, the Senior 
 year is worth vastly more to the student than it was twenty- 
 five years ago ; the methods of instruction have been greatly 
 
ADDRESS. 1 3 
 
 improved ; several of the modern languages have been intro- 
 duced ; the system of examinations is on a wholly new basis ; 
 the students are classified according to their attainments ; and 
 optional studies are allowed without at all overthrowing the old 
 curriculum. So also in the Scientific School, the requisitions for 
 entrance have been made more severe at the risk of deterring 
 many candidates, and the means of instruction have been in- 
 creased by the self-denial and zeal of the professors, until the 
 School, in its sphere, takes the highest rank in the judgment 
 of the whole country. And to mention but one other mark 
 of progress, the recent enlargement of the course for graduates 
 in philology and science, brought about by the professors 
 themselves, is a most hopeful indication of the future useful- 
 ness and influence of the university. So may it ever be ; may 
 the spirit of true science, ever ready to diffuse itself, and act- 
 ing on a well conceived plan, be more and m ore the spirit of 
 Yale College, emanating from the teaching faculties and en- 
 couraged by the Corporation. 
 
 There is a third particular to which I wish to call attention, 
 in which we are, as I think, greatly favored : it is that the 
 President, by tradition and in conformity with a right view 
 prevailing here, takes an active part in the instruction. This 
 of course is not peculiar to us, but the tendency in so large a 
 seat of learning, is to throw so many affairs into his hands 
 that he can engage in no other duty. If the choice were be- 
 tween a President who did his official business chiefly by a 
 secretary, and one who could give no time to teaching on ac- 
 count of his other occupations, we should not, I think, long 
 hesitate, even if we feared that the occupation of his time in 
 instruction would prevent him from doing some things which 
 would be beneficial to the College. I have always felt that 
 the details of my office were my duty and my burden, but 
 the teaching of willing students and the pursuit of some sci- 
 ence with them, my duty and my joy ; so that if the office 
 were to run along in the rut of details and official acts and 
 consultations only, I, for one, would not think it worth taking. 
 The President of a college ought in some department of study 
 to impress himself on his students as a man of learning and 
 
1 4 ADDRESS. 
 
 of thought ; he ought to be near to them in the influences 
 of the lecture-room, and to be one of themselves ; his charac- 
 ter ought to be so within the reach of their eyes that they can 
 confide in him and respect him, if he is worthy of having such 
 sentiments entertained towards him. Instead of which a mere 
 manager of affairs has no appreciable influence on thought 
 or character ; and it would be well if, feeling the inferiority of 
 his position, he does not make himself of importance in ques- 
 tionable ways of interference. 
 
 I trust, then, that amid all the changes which will come, 
 these advantages, for such they seem to me to be, will be re- 
 tained in the institution. 
 
 And there is another thing which I hope will always be 
 present here, with the consideration of which I will close this 
 brief address. I hope that, as long as the College lasts, it will 
 be the abode of religion, of teachers who believe in Christ and 
 lead a religious life, and of scholars who feel that a noble char- 
 acter is something infinitely more precious than learning. 
 
 If indeed it were necessary for the promotion of religion in 
 colleges that their spirit should be sectarian, or even that of a 
 denomination, above all, if it should be proselyting, I should 
 say that a great difficulty lay in the way of a truly good educa- 
 tion ; and the question then would be : Ought colleges as they 
 are now conceived of, to exist at all ? For we take into our 
 hands many young minds at an age and a point of culture and 
 discipline when they are not able to be independent guides for 
 themselves. If they came to the halls of science, already 
 mature and prepared to begin their life-study, established in 
 whatever it concerned them to know, except that one science 
 or profession which was to be the lasting occupation of their 
 powers, then there would be some reason for leaving them 
 wholly to themselves in other respects, and for not offering to 
 them that amount of guidance which is consistent with train- 
 ing in manly thought. For they would be abte to estimate 
 their responsibilities ; they would have the discipline and the 
 instruments for ascertaining what is true ; they would feel the 
 weight of a speedy entrance into the great world of men. But 
 as things are, in the immaturity of the reason of the actual 
 
ADDRESS. 15 
 
 student, we are called to teach all science almost from its 
 foundations, and among them the sciences of metaphysics and 
 morals ; why teach these and stop at the steps of the higher 
 temple dedicated to God ? Is it come to this that the study 
 of religion is to be divorced from all education ; that, as well 
 in the college as in the public school, nothing but what is sec- 
 ular, nothing that reaches outside of this material world shall 
 be taught ? But I am glad to be able to say that this is going 
 too far for sincere philanthropists of various shades of thought. 
 I am happy to quote Mr. Huxley's opinion, that " some form 
 of religion and morality is essential to true education," and his 
 acknowledgment of what religious influence has done in this 
 good work. 1 Doubtless in this age of denials it is easier to 
 rub out past beliefs from the minds of the thoughtless and the 
 worldly than to make them fast and deep ; so that in one sense 
 the doubter, even the atheist, has the advantage, after all the 
 moral and religious training through which the young have 
 passed. But most men who reject Christianity would emphat- 
 ically say, " let us have all the influences from religion in favor 
 of a life of truth, purity, honor, and benevolence, which it can 
 exert, and as it cannot be taught without being believed, let 
 college men be sincere Christian believers and livers, until the 
 world, if it ever will, gives up Christ and the Gospel. Until 
 then," — they will add, — " let all the moral forces at its com- 
 mand be bent on the establishment of a higher morality than 
 this country in its politics, or its commerce, or even in its so- 
 cial life now presents," for the welfare, the existence, the hope 
 of the land depend on a higher tone of life, on impressing the 
 young with a spirit like Christ's, who abhorred evil and loved 
 right with all the energy of his nature. 
 
 May I not say, then, that the question of a religious educa- 
 tion is answered for us in the affirmative by the judgments of 
 those who have no fixed belief in the supernatural origin of 
 religion. Can those, then, who do believe that it is from 
 heaven, hesitate about advancing farther still, or be afraid to 
 say that not only the benevolent, purifying tendencies of 
 Christianity, but its truths and authority also require that they 
 
 1 See London Quarterly Review for July, 1871. 
 
1 6 ADDRESS. 
 
 should, in all fit ways, imbue their pupils with the common faith. 
 Parents, that is, the great majority of them, expect this, and 
 rather blame the colleges for the neglect of a religious training 
 than for going too far in that direction. If there were an in- 
 stitution which took the other course, which said by its meas- 
 ures, not only that it was entirely indifferent to the claims of 
 Christianity, but admitted all advocates of all theories opposed 
 to it to inculcate their views on the minds of collegians, such 
 an attitude could be interpreted only as a covert form of hos- 
 tility, nor could an earnest believer in Christianity be willing 
 to expose his son to an atmosphere, as he regarded it, so stag- 
 nant and pestilential. 
 
 While thus, on the one hand, in the education of all who are 
 in the earlier stages of culture, indifference or neglect of the 
 highest, the celestial truth, really amounts to undervaluing it, 
 or to denying it, there is no practical difficulty, on the other 
 hand, arising from the fact that colleges are to some degree 
 under the control of denominations. Here, first, I may be 
 allowed to state what I myself have observed, that in a long 
 acquaintance with officers of colleges controlled by various 
 religious sects, I have discovered no spirit of proselytism and 
 no important disagreements in regard to the meaning and 
 essence of our common Christianity. They may cling, and 
 possibly with fondness, to their own modes of church govern- 
 ment, to the distinctive points of doctrine which come down 
 to them from their fathers, but they do not differ as to the 
 realities of sin and forgiveness, nor as to the qualities essential 
 to a perfect life. In fact, the training of educated Christian 
 men now, brought as they are under the influences of Church 
 history, of an improved exegesis, and of a growing sense of 
 the common brotherhood of Christians, brings them to nearly 
 the same views, — to " the unity of the faith and of the knowl- 
 edge of the Son of God." For instance, when that noble man, 
 Dr. Wayland, was alive, one who was not a Baptist might have 
 been sure that he would be the guide of young minds into a 
 pure and lofty Christianity. 
 
 But some will present another difficulty, — the attitude 
 which religion must take towards some of the doctrines of 
 
ADDRESS. 1 7 
 
 modern science, — for science has its dogmas, some of them 
 half proved, new-fangled, which it is as much the fashion to 
 admit on insufficient evidence, as it is for some schools of 
 philosophers to deny even the possibility of revelation. I can 
 only say in regard to such imagined difficulties that, when the 
 scientific doctrine is not yet received but is knocking for ad- 
 mission at the door of truth, it cannot have fixed relations to 
 established truth ; that the sciences built on observation of 
 nature and those built on the primary convictions of man and 
 on historical evidence cannot be really hostile ; and that the 
 Christian mind must be a narrow one or a skeptical one which 
 stands in dread of every new discovery, or every new theory, 
 proceeding from scientific men. As for the rest, we must rely 
 on those devout men in our scientific chairs who are ever 
 ready to avow their faith in Christ, to encounter those theories 
 of rash scientists which are more to be feared for the spirit 
 they show than for the facts alleged in their behalf. I rejoice 
 that in this Christian college there are many such scientific 
 men who prove all things and hold fast that which is good, 
 who are alive to all the new suggestions and teachings of 
 science, and yet stand firm in their adherence to religious 
 truth. 
 
 But a farther question may be asked — which is, — granting 
 that religion ought to have its home in colleges, how shall it 
 go forth in its influences from the instructor to the pupil ? 
 What place shall it occupy in the curriculum ? How far shall 
 it be left to the voluntary endeavor of earnest men to do good 
 to those whom they can reach by any proper and useful influ- 
 ence ? Shall it leaven all teachings only, or shall it have its 
 distinct place among the subjects of instruction ? Questions 
 of moment surely, but which I shall not attempt at this time 
 to answer. Nor, indeed, is it absolutely necessary to provide 
 an answer. For as in all instruction, from the humblest be- 
 ginnings in the nursery to its completion, when the finished 
 and refined man is pushed out into life to instruct others, very 
 much must be tentative and experimental, so must it be in 
 this matter of religious teaching. Nor is the same method 
 equally within the power of all. Teaching has its subjective 
 
1 8 ADDRESS. 
 
 side, and he who knows his own measure well will ever be fit- 
 ting himself, on his own plans and not on another's, to his 
 work as an instructor. The spirit is the great thing. He 
 who feels himself called to be a teacher, who has the spirit of 
 service to God and man in this sphere, has the foundation on 
 which all healthy experiments may be built. He by his trials, 
 — even when they fail, — will ever be qualifying himself for 
 something better, in the way of imparting knowledge and 
 establishing principles, than he has as yet attained to. And 
 especially he will be anxious not to leave untried all right 
 experiments to promote an honorable and truly Christian 
 character in the institution where his lot is cast. 
 
 And now I close this my last official act with the prayer to 
 God that this may ever be a Christian College in the highest 
 and best sense. May its graduates go forth to bless the world 
 as men of principle, and as they advance in life may they ever 
 retain a just and fond affection for their Alma Mater ; may its 
 guardians, under the amendments of the charter, have that 
 unity and devotion to the interests of the departments which 
 will be a sure pledge of successful councils. May its faculties 
 keep in the van of their sciences, teach with a loving spirit, 
 and feel that life is more and higher than learning. May its 
 students be manly, truthful, honorable, able by their strength 
 of principle to resist the debasing influences that are abroad 
 in the land, — may they, in short, be true Christian gentle- 
 men. 
 
ADDRESSES OF CONGRATULATION; 
 
 IN LATIN BY 
 
 PROFESSOR THOMAS A. THACHER, LL. D. 
 
 AND IN ENGLISH BY 
 
 HENRY MARTIN SANDERS. 
 
ORATIO. 
 
 AUGURATO auspicatoque ut fiant solemnia quae a nobis 
 hodie repetuntur, mihi primum praescriptum est, ut La- 
 tinis verbis tibi omnium nomine collegarum meorum saluta- 
 tiones gratulationesque faciam. Neque tibi, precor, in mentem 
 veniat putare, nos consuetudinis causa, ea tantummodo dicere 
 quae postulet tempus. Longe enim alius est nobis animus. 
 Etenim quae senatores illi academici, publico munere fungen- 
 tes, cunctis suffragiis fecerunt, ea nunc palam probare volumus, 
 et, quantum in nobis situm est, omnino redintegrare. Te qui- 
 dem certe, qui per tot annos collega es noster valde amatus, 
 cui fere omnia ad res academicas feliciter administrandas per- 
 tinentia diu bene nota fuerunt, te, inquam, a senatu academico 
 ante hos tres menses designatum, nobis more solito praefici 
 magnopere cupivimus. Atque nunc tandem huic academiae, 
 huic universitati dico, rite praefectum, praesidem nostrum reve- 
 rendum libentissime salutamus, atque ex animo salvere jube- 
 mus. 
 
 Neque omittamus gratulari tibi, quum propter splendorem 
 eximium dignitatis, quam Socii, collegae, alumni, juvenes quos 
 adesse vides, omnes tibi conferri vehementer gaudent, turn 
 propter idoneas beneficia in alios conferendi opportunitates, 
 turn etiam propter uberrimam laborum copiam, qui te manent 
 et forsitan aliquantulum terreant. 
 
 Facile enim credimus labores infinitos tibi hodie ante oculos 
 obversari et haud mediocrem injicere metum, ne quae alii annis 
 praeteritis omnium commodo praestiterint, ea tibi difficultates, 
 contentiones, pericula sint habitura. Neque mirum. Crescunt 
 enim in singulos annos non solum juvenes qui hie doctrina se 
 excolunt, sed multo magis doctrinae ipsae scientiaeque, et nume- 
 rus eorum qui his quasi provinciis literarum non sine cura gravi 
 
22 ORATIO. 
 
 sunt praeficiendi et postea singulari prudentia dirigendi. Ne- 
 gotiis igitur maxime operosis, sed tamen honestissimis et viro 
 doctissimo dignis, semper necesse erit te praeesse. 
 
 Sed in his molestiis et sollicitudinibus illud tibi sit leva- 
 mento, quod collegae tui omnes semper tibi opem et auxilium 
 afferre volent. Nostrum erit profecto onus tibi impositum qui- 
 bus rebus poterimus allevare. 
 
 Quod quum, his omnibus audientibus, nos facturos esse ex 
 animi sententia nunc promittimus, precamur simul, ut Deus 
 ipse supremus tibi semper benigne faveat, et per te tuosque 
 labores diuturnos in academiam nostram omnia bona conferat. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 MOST HONORED SIR : The students of Yale College 
 hail with joyful hearts the dawning of this day. It be- 
 speaks to us the continuance of an administration singularly 
 happy, and, in addition, presages even greater things, if possi- 
 ble, for our much loved institution. To your predecessor, sir, 
 we would render the tribute of grateful hearts. For the extent 
 of his varied attainments, the weight of his personal character, 
 and the influence of his exemplary life, we have no terms ade- 
 quate to express our respect. 
 
 But in your accession to this honored position, we feel that 
 the scepter has not passed from the tribe of Judah, that our 
 Israel has not fallen into the hands of a stranger. With our 
 institution your name has become identified, — in that with its 
 objects you have had the deepest sympathy, and with its ad- 
 vancement you have been most intimately associated. It has, 
 therefore, in calling you to its head, but bestowed the small 
 reward of a life-service devoted to its cause. With the hearti- 
 est appreciation, then, of your self-sacrifice in behalf of others, 
 as well as with the highest esteem of your preeminent qualifi- 
 cations, we congratulate ourselves upon your inauguration. In 
 you we recognize a Christian gentleman ; in you we find a 
 superior educator ; in you we feel we have a kind and sympa- 
 thetic friend. But we would not indulge ourselves in well- 
 merited but unnecessary eulogy, nor yet would we have you 
 judge of the sincerity of our salutation by the expression of it 
 merely, but pledge as a far greater proof our cordial sympathy 
 and earnest cooperation. We look with pride upon the history 
 of our institution ; we contemplate with pleasure its present 
 prosperity ; and we venture to predict, as we have every reason 
 
24 ADDRESS. 
 
 to expect, a career under your administration at once success- 
 ful and illustrious. 
 
 Again, sir, we welcome you ; we welcome you for the sake 
 of a thorough and accurate scholarship ; we welcome you as 
 the champion of a broad and liberal culture ; we welcome you 
 in the hope of our future usefulness ; we welcome you in the 
 love of our dear, old, Alma Mater, assured that when the Great 
 Teacher shall make his awards, a fitting recompense will be 
 given to one who has done so much for the elevation of his 
 fellow-men. 
 
INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 BY 
 
 PRESIDENT PORTER. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 I NEED make no apology for selecting as my theme 
 the Higher Education of the country. An occasion like 
 the present would, under any circumstances, require me to 
 speak of this subject in some of its aspects. It cannot be 
 avoided at the present time, when the entire theory of Higher 
 Education is so generally and so actively discussed. Never, 
 perhaps, did this subject occupy the thoughts of so many per- 
 sons and occupy them so earnestly. It certainly never ex- 
 cited more active controversy, or provoked more various or 
 confident criticism, or was subjected to a greater variety of 
 experiments than with us in these passing years. The re- 
 mark is not infrequently made that college and university 
 education are not merely agitated by reforms ; they are rather 
 convulsed by a revolution, — so unsettled are the minds of 
 many who control public opinion, so sharp is the criticism of 
 real or imagined defects in the old methods and studies, and 
 so determined is the demand for sweeping and fundamental 
 changes. 
 
 This excitement and agitation are full of encouragement to 
 the friends of solid learning and genuine culture. They show 
 beyond question that the institutions for higher education are 
 a great power in this country and are in no sense losing their 
 hold on public attention ; else they would not be discussed 
 with such earnestness, nor would the discussions awaken so 
 wide-spread an interest. The jealous interest on the part of 
 every graduate that his own college should not be behind the 
 foremost, indicates that the point concerning which all are so 
 sensitive is of no slight importance. Were the colleges and 
 universities dying out, or were their influence becoming rela- 
 tively less considerable, they would not engross so much of 
 
28 ADDRESS. 
 
 the public attention ; were the higher education esteemed of 
 less value, it could not awaken so warm and passionate an in- 
 terest. From this excitement we augur the best results. We 
 have no fear of popular agitation of these questions. It is 
 true we are in some respects a rash and hasty people, not 
 steadied, apparently, by over-much reverence for the tradi- 
 tions of the past, and at times imposed on by specious argu- 
 ments and fair promises. We are open, even in education, to 
 the arts of the demagogue and the charlatan. On the other 
 hand, we are quick to suspect quackery and keen in judging 
 of results. The best system, if fairly tested by its advocates 
 and loyally trusted by its friends, is sure to vindicate itself by 
 its fruits ; and these fruits are sooner matured and more 
 clearly made manifest in this than in any other country. We 
 are indeed mercurially susceptible to ideas both true and false ; 
 but for this very reason the true have an advantage over the 
 false, — if the two are fairly and bravely represented. The 
 breeze of public interest and public criticism, which is now 
 blowing so freshly through the halls of ancient learning, can 
 only bring health and vigor. It may sweep away somewhat 
 of the dust of routine and the cobwebs of tradition. It may 
 waken instructors to quickened energies, to wider and warmer 
 sympathies, to a more productive invention and an intenser 
 enthusiasm. It may sober and elevate their pupils to a man- 
 lier and livelier sense of their responsibilities to the com- 
 monwealth of man ; while it deepens their convictions of 
 the value of painful tasks and enforced duties, of thorough 
 workmanship and generous culture. It were a craven spirit 
 in the intelligent believer in liberal education that should falter 
 in its allegiance to well-grounded convictions because these 
 are sharply assailed. It were traitorous to abandon positions, 
 the defense of which may be of untold consequence to future 
 generations, because of the confident assertions or the plausi- 
 ble arguments of the innovator and the sciolist. Whatever is 
 good in the old systems, will not only endure the scrutiny of 
 argument and bide the test of experiment, but, as we believe, 
 will justify itself to the best judgment of the men who form 
 public opinion. As we have faith in the future of this country 
 
ADDRESS. 29 
 
 we confidently expect that its higher education will be shaped 
 by the sound sense and the considerate wisdom of those who 
 are competent to decide questions of this kind. 
 
 In entering upon the discussion of our theme, we observe, 
 First: the Higher Education should be conversant with the 
 Past. This is one of its special distinctions and imperative 
 obligations. It does not describe its sole or its whole duty, 
 but a class of duties which are prominent and character- 
 istic. It is sometimes made a ground of reproach against this 
 education and the men devoted to it, that they are so greatly 
 occupied with the past ; as if the one function to which above 
 all others they are set apart were not to master its gathered 
 acquisitions and its instructive wisdom. An education which 
 despises the past is necessarily limited and narrow. It is 
 judged and condemned already by the ignorance and effront- 
 ery of its pretensions. Institutions and teachers of culture 
 that profess to concern themselves little with what has been 
 thought and done in other generations are convicted of incom- 
 petency by their own announcements. 
 
 The Past with which this education should concern itself 
 includes, first of all, those positive and permanent acquisitions 
 which man has produced in previous generations and trans- 
 mitted to the present, — i. e. y whatever man has learned to be 
 true of the universe of matter and of spirit, and whatever he 
 has invented or created in appliances for his comfort, in ma- 
 chinery for his labors and locomotion, and in products of art 
 for his wonder and delight. To this we should add as no less 
 important all those principles, traditional and recorded, con- 
 cerning man's duty and destiny, embracing ethics and theol- 
 ogy ; concerning his political and social relations, constitut- 
 ing legal and political science ; concerning the courtesies and, 
 amenities of life, comprehending what we call civilization. 
 Here belong those works of literature which the world has not 
 been willing to let die. All these are the products of the past, 
 its gathered accumulations which, whatever be their nature 
 and however they are preserved and transmitted, nothing but 
 barbarism or anarchy could forget or destroy. To preserve 
 
30 ADDRESS. 
 
 some of these products the lower and more diffused culture is 
 sufficient. Others can be preserved and transmitted only by 
 selected guardians, — who receive them into careful hands, 
 teach others to understand and value and improve them, and 
 thus transmit them with added wealth and beauty to the gen- 
 eration that follows. 
 
 But besides these products of the activities of the Past there 
 are also the records of these activities themselves. It is with 
 these preeminently that the higher education should concern 
 itself. Foremost we name history proper, as it opens for us 
 its pictured and admonitory pages — the history of deeds and 
 of men, with the events that stir the imagination, and inspire to 
 imitation, with its inciting and warning examples of character, 
 and the incidents that illustrate and enforce those truths which 
 men are continually disposed to forget. Next the history of 
 thought and speculation — so sadly and so often the history of 
 confusion and of error — the history of philosophy of every sort, 
 physical, political, ethical, theological, and metaphysical. Con- 
 nected with this, and most important, is the history of speech, 
 or the study of language, which in its structure and changes is 
 of itself so instructive a reflex of human thought and emotion 
 and so important a record of human civilization. This study 
 of what man has been and attempted in the past is fully as im- 
 portant for education as is the mastery of what man has learned 
 and proved. To assert as many do, and to imply as more would 
 hastily infer, that the past can teach us nothing, except the pos- 
 itive truths and products which survive it, is to overlook the 
 most important functions of education and of knowledge — its 
 offices in stimulating thought and awakening activity, its ca- 
 pacity to enlarge the mind by comparative judgments and to 
 enrich it with permanent principles. 
 
 Without arguing the point that the best and highest educa- 
 tion comes from an acquaintance with the past, we contend 
 that the institutions of higher education should be seats of 
 learning, in the special sense of the phrase. They must be 
 such in order that the education may be the highest and best. 
 It is obvious that what a man teaches he must first have 
 learned, and it is equally clear that the more he knows and 
 
ADDRESS. 31 
 
 the more he has thought, other things being equal, the better 
 fitted he is to instruct others. As long as the teachers of the 
 higher seminaries are only a step in advance of any of their 
 pupils, they can neither inspire confidence nor teach with 
 authority. The successful teacher also inspires to culture by 
 being himself an eminent example of wide and varied knowl- 
 edge, and by showing that his resources of reading and 
 thought are adequate to every exigency. The mellowing and 
 refining results of converse with the past must be seen in his 
 wise thoughtfulness, his exact knowledge, his cautious posi- 
 tiveness, and his candid spirit. While we concede that our 
 universities and colleges are not primarily designed to be 
 academies for learned acquisition and research, yet they must 
 be made such in fact, in order that they may be schools of the 
 highest culture. To the highest efficiency of their instructors, 
 sufficient leisure is required from the duties of teaching to 
 enable them to make constant acquisitions, and an income 
 that will give them no excuse for withdrawing their energies 
 from the twofold activity of acquiring and imparting. While 
 we do not desire that the professorships in our colleges and 
 universities should be chairs of learned leisure, we insist that 
 high education cannot be attained unless our seminaries of 
 instruction and culture shall also be seats of eminent and 
 wakeful learning. 
 
 That our colleges should be seats of learning is also as essential 
 for the general culture of the country as it is for the special ends 
 of education. The attention of not a few thoughtful men among 
 us has been directed to the danger that in the rush after 
 material wealth, the madness for political supremacy, and the 
 glare of superficial accomplishments, the higher learning and 
 more consummate culture should either fail to be attained, or 
 fail to be honored among us, or that these should be so far 
 the exclusive possessions of the few as to have little practical 
 influence over the men who control our affairs, — as the edi- 
 tors, the men of the professions, the leading merchants, and 
 manufacturers, — and even over the educators of the country. 
 Indeed, it has become a doctrine with not a few that there is a 
 natural antagonism between culture and practical success, that 
 
32 ADDRESS. 
 
 exact learning and refined tastes are incompatible with emi- 
 nence in the conduct of affairs. The doctrine has been con- 
 verted into the heresy, that in a republic which in theory is 
 controlled by principles and insight, special reliance on either 
 is a disqualification for public trusts. More marvelous still in 
 a community which rests on popular education, the doctrine is 
 studiously propagated that the higher learning is antagonistic 
 to the lower. 
 
 We have no time to show that no ignorance can be more 
 stupid and no heresy more malignant and destructive. The 
 lessons of history — both the earlier and the more recent — 
 are distinct and vivid that in a republic like ours, wealthy, 
 proud, and self-confident, there can be neither permanence 
 nor dignity if the best knowledge and the highest culture of 
 the world do not influence its population and its institutions. 
 It becomes a serious question, then, how the learning and 
 culture of the country can be more successfully provided for 
 and made generally accessible. Something may be done by 
 organizing learned societies for historical, geographical, politi- 
 cal, and sociological research, by special and public libraries, 
 by institutes for learned lectures, by museums of archaeology, 
 natural history, and art, by laboratories and observatories, and 
 by detached schools of technology and physics. Many such 
 institutions and societies have already been founded. Not a 
 few have been largely endowed at the suggestion of individual 
 caprice or local pride. They are all admirable in their way 
 and useful in their sphere, but they neither supersede nor in 
 any considerable degree supplement the universities and col- 
 leges. They rather lean upon these for support, and refer to 
 them as authorities. They must be devoted chiefly to the 
 accumulation of appliances for the special or the occasional 
 student, rather than to the organized and persistent pursuit of 
 science and learning. If now and then an ample foundation, 
 abundant leisure, and a well-appointed establishment invite to 
 special researches, there is wanting the sense of responsibility 
 and of social excitement which are essential to the highest 
 success. Learning and culture rarely thrive so well as when 
 prosecuted by a society of men who can stimulate and aid 
 
ADDRESS. 33 
 
 one another by their diverse aptitudes and tastes and acquisi- 
 tions. 
 
 Assuming that our colleges are preeminently fitted to be the 
 seats of learning in such a country as ours, the question is most 
 important what more can be done to make them more eminent 
 and influential in this regard. It is safe to say in reply that 
 it is not desirable to attach to them chairs or foundations de- 
 voted exclusively to research with no obligations to instruc- 
 tion. The experience of the English universities has shown 
 that life endowments with limited or uncertain duties of in- 
 struction, have not accomplished so much for the higher learn- 
 ing of the country as they would have done had the incumbents 
 been held to constant and active service in teaching. The duty 
 of communicating need not interfere with activity in learning. 
 It rather imparts a present and pressing interest to research. 
 It gives clearness and method and fixedness to what is learned. 
 Even if the line of study is higher than the line of instruction, 
 the habits which are inspired in the class-room are favorable 
 to solid and sober acquisition. To communicate with the liv- 
 ing voice and in the presence of those waiting to learn, awak- 
 ens a life and interest in the teacher which the preparation of 
 the written essay or learned paper can never inspire. On the 
 other hand, the duties of teaching need not interfere with the 
 time and interest which study requires. How can the demands 
 of the two be adjusted ? Let the college be so well endowed 
 as to allow its younger teachers sufficient time for study while 
 it imposes on them special duties of discipline and instruction. 
 As age advances, and the attainments are more conspicuous, 
 let the duties of instruction be lightened. If graduate classes 
 are formed and university work is undertaken, let this work b 
 assigned to the older and / lore eminent. Let special and ad- 
 vanced students never be' set aside by the pre-occupations of 
 elementary teaching, — bat let the accomplished professor 
 never cease to instruct so long as health and life permit. 
 The example is not infrequent in the German universities of 
 veterans in Philology like Bockh, in History like Ranke, in 
 Physics like Karl Ritter, in Theology like Nitszch and Twes- 
 ten, in Philosophy like Brandis, in Law like Mittermaier, ap- 
 3 
 
 % 
 
34 ADDRESS. 
 
 pearing in the lecture-room and going from the lecture-room 
 to the study to prosecute the researches which have made 
 them authorities in the world of learning and lights to man- 
 kind. These examples, and the successful working of the Ger- 
 man theory, teach a twofold lesson : that the university is the 
 fittest place for undergraduates to further the higher learning 
 of the country, and that in the university the man of research 
 should continue to be active as an instructor. The plan which 
 has been developed in Yale College of attaching university 
 schools or classes to the undergraduate curriculum, and of 
 encouraging college professors to enter upon higher teaching, 
 is eminently fitted to make them learned men, and at the same 
 time efficient and successful instructors. It will also contribute 
 to the learning and culture of the country by arousing the de- 
 sire for research and culture among the students. 
 
 This suggests the thought that there is no way which 
 promises better for the cause of learning than the endowment 
 of terminable scholarships and fellowships as prizes for special 
 attainments, and as incitements to future study. The truth 
 must be repeated often enough to attract attention and to 
 compel a hearing, that the most important reason why higher 
 attainments in learning and culture are not reached, or are 
 reached by so few, is that the incitements are so scanty and so 
 uncertain, especially at the time of life when a career of special 
 study can be entered upon with the greatest advantage. The 
 graduate from the college or university whose ardor for knowl- 
 edge is just beginning to glow, and whose capacity for inde- 
 pendent acquisition is newly developed, often desires nothing 
 so earnestly as to prosecute special studies for his personal im- 
 provement, or in view of the possible contingency of an aca- 
 demic life. From the gratification of this desire he is usually 
 turned aside by the want of money or the pressing claims of pro- 
 fessional study. A scholarship with its promise of support and 
 its place of honor, or with its openings to an attractive future, 
 would tempt such a person to prosecute special studies at his 
 college, rendering some service as an instructor or examiner. 
 The termination of the provision at the end of three or five 
 
ADDRESS. 35 
 
 years would prevent abuse or indolence, especially if the pros- 
 ecution of definite studies, under the direction of the college, 
 were added as a condition. The advantages of such founda- 
 tions are many, advantages which would be cheaply purchased 
 at an immensely heightened cost above any which can pos- 
 sibly be required for the amplest endowments. Our learned 
 class would be reinforced by men in the ardor of youth, with 
 the fresh energy of newly awakened power. The contributions 
 which they would make to every branch of science and letters 
 would soon be considerable. The teachers of the country in 
 the colleges and high schools would attain a higher general 
 and special culture, and a serious hindrance to the advance- 
 ment of both would be set aside. As things now are, the 
 newly appointed teacher or professor too often enters upon 
 his duties with insufficient preparation, and must spend his 
 first years of study in trying experiments upon his pupils. 
 The provision of foundations of this sort is of especial interest 
 to us in this college, from its relation to the classes and schools 
 for graduates which have been organized in the university. 
 The hope is cherished that the suggestion may not be without 
 important results. 
 
 It is equally obvious that an institution which aspires in 
 any sense to be a seat of learning must possess a well-fur- 
 nished and a well-endowed library. If a college is to be con- 
 versant with the Past, it can only find the Past in a collection 
 of books which record its achievements and in the men who 
 have read them. If the colleges of the country are to be the 
 places to which men of* learning are to be attracted as her 
 chosen seats, then they should possess the best libraries of the 
 country. If their professors are to be stimulated to research, 
 long lines of books should inspire their ardor or frown upon 
 their indolence and neglect every time they enter the stately 
 halls or well-furnished alcoves of the library. If their students 
 are to be impressed with the range of human achievement 
 and activity, they should be both humbled and elevated by the 
 silent but impressive lessons which their well-appointed libra- 
 ries cannot but teach. It is mortifying in this connection 
 
36 ADDRESS. 
 
 to be obliged to confess how insufficient are the present and 
 future resources of the library of Yale College. In some de- 
 partments it is rich, for which it owes its warmest thanks to 
 princely but modest benefactors ; in a few it is respectably 
 furnished ; in many more it is sadly deficient ; and in all for 
 the future it has but scanty resources, scarcely sufficient to 
 keep its books in repair and to supply its journals ; entirely 
 inadequate to provide for its other expenses. If the graduates 
 are in future to justify their past and present pride in their 
 Alma Mater, or to be gratified in their expectations concern- 
 ing its future, they will not fail to understand that a well-fur- 
 nished library to a prosperous college or a growing university 
 is a necessity of life. 
 
 If there be any friend of the College who desires to serve it 
 efficiently he can do it in no manner more honorable to him- 
 self and useful to the public than by endowing the library so 
 liberally as to make it a perpetual memorial of his name. 
 
 A school of higher learning, in addition to ample libraries, 
 should possess all the other appliances which represent the 
 past. Its museums and collections, which suggest to the 
 mind or speak to the eye of what man has been or done, 
 should be abundantly furnished. Especially should the achieve- 
 ments of modern science and art be brought within the ob- 
 servation of teachers and pupils. The sciences of nature and 
 the arts which relate to them should be fully illustrated by the 
 specimens and appliances which research and invention have 
 collected or constructed. The remains of polished centuries 
 and of the ages that are yet without a name or a date, should 
 speak to the imagination and instruct the reason by coins and 
 medals and monumental tablets, — by the implements of war 
 and husbandry, and the adornments of rude or polished luxury. 
 In an institution of higher learning, nothing that represents the 
 past would seem to be amiss, whether it reproduces its treas- 
 ures or its wastes ; whether it recites its activities that have 
 been rewarded by success or disappointed by loss, — its truths 
 or its errors, — its inventions that have succeeded or its fanta- 
 sies that have failed. 
 
ADDRESS. 37 
 
 From the relation of the higher education to the past, we 
 pass to its concern with the present, and observe that this edu- 
 cation should never be so devoted to the generations which 
 are gone as to forget the generation which is now thinking 
 and acting. The learning which it acquires it does not ac- 
 quire for the gratification of a few erudite students, or the 
 satisfaction of a few curious critics, but for the service of the 
 present age. While a college cannot teach except it also 
 learns from the past, it cannot teach unless it understands and 
 sympathizes with the generation which it attempts to instruct. 
 While it is true that certain truths and principles are the same 
 for all the generations, it is also true that every age has its 
 own methods of conceiving and applying them, its own diffi- 
 culties in accepting what is true and in refuting what is false, 
 its own forms of scientific inquiry, and its own forms of lit- 
 erary expression. This is eminently true of our country in 
 these our times. Its intellectual activity is unlike that of any 
 other country or of any other period. From the phases of 
 scientific and of popular activity with which the whole country 
 is moved from time to time, the higher institutions may not 
 estrange themselves, in their devotion to the routine of aca- 
 demic instruction or the prosecution of learned researches. It 
 is not impossible now and then that they should fall behind the 
 science and speculation, the philology and literature of their 
 own day, through their exclusive occupation with the thinking 
 and literature of past generations. They do well also to re- 
 member that though learned, they have no monopoly of learn- 
 ing ; though scientific, they do not necessarily lead or even 
 follow the science of their time ; though devoted to literary 
 criticism and research, there is a busy world of historians and 
 poets and essayists, whose energetic activity is moving for- 
 ward or backward, upward or downward, the thought, the 
 diction, and the principles of a progressive generation. The 
 private student and the amateur scientist and philologist have 
 sometimes leisure and resources which the college professor 
 cannot command. Now and then, from some quarter unlooked 
 for, there springs up a genius in speculation or literature, who 
 sets the learned world in a maze of wonder at his strength and 
 
38 ADDRESS. 
 
 his audacity. It is unfortunate for the prestige of the college 
 and the cause of learning, if the incumbent of any of its de- 
 partments falls behind the knowledge and the discussions of 
 the times. If the mathematician, the physicist, the philolo- 
 gist, the critic, the historian, or the metaphysician of the uni- 
 versity is not master of the acquisitions and the discussions 
 which have been reached in his own sphere, his college is 
 weakened and dishonored. It not only suffers in reputation, 
 but it must fail to prepare its pupils adequately for the field of 
 thought and activity into which they are to be ushered. Un- 
 less the teacher is alive to the thinking of the present he can- 
 not prepare his pupils fully to meet it, — to accept whatever in 
 it is true and good, and to reject whatever is erroneous and 
 evil. Moreover, if he is ignorant of the present, his pupils 
 cannot be, even while they sit under his teachings. They 
 come into his class-room fresh from the exuberant life of a 
 new generation. He may ignore or despise it. They do not. 
 They sympathize with its knowledge and its ignorance, they 
 share in its wisdom and its folly. If he understands and cares 
 for neither, he is so far unfitted to counsel and guide them. But 
 if they are made aware that he understands the great world 
 without the college as well as the little world within, they will 
 listen to his instructions with respect. These remarks have 
 special application to the later years of study and instruction, 
 when grammar should become philology, and analysis gives 
 way to literary criticism, and the literature of the past is com- 
 pared with the literature of the present, and the sciences of 
 matter and of spirit awaken to thought, and history and polit- 
 ical science throw light upon passing events and controversies. 
 Indeed, of all the later studies of the college and the advanced 
 studies that follow, it is indispensable that the teacher should 
 be a man who judges the present by the past, and makes the 
 present illustrate the past. President Woolsey has been none 
 the less efficient as an instructor, because he has brought his 
 reading and his thought to bear upon questions of social morals 
 and international complications. 
 
 There is special need at the present moment that the stu- 
 dent should sympathize with the present generation, because 
 
ADDRESS. 39 
 
 he is sometimes reproached with being out of sympathy with 
 it, and because the present so pressingly needs all the energy 
 and skill which culture and learning can apply to elevate and 
 correct it. If the professors of our higher institutions some- 
 times cease to sympathize with present movements, it is never 
 true of their pupils. For this very reason the necessity is so 
 much the more imperative that their teachers should also 
 understand these movements, — that they may prepare their 
 pupils to meet them ; if in the direction of the truth that they 
 should welcome them, if of error that they should know why 
 they withstand them. The standing reproach against university 
 life, that it tends to withdraw its pupils from the thought and 
 activities of their times, is, however, refuted by the history of 
 universities in every generation, — from the days when Luther 
 reflected in his own struggling heart the thoughts and feelings 
 which were moving the men of his time, down to the present 
 moment when the speculations of Mill and of Buckle have 
 penetrated into the common rooms of Oxford, and agitated the 
 colleges where Wesley and Whitefield, Pusey and Newman, 
 Arnold and Whately half anticipated and half created the rev- 
 olutions of popular thought and feeling with which their names 
 are connected. But while the university should wisely adapt 
 itself to the needs and changes of the present, it should never 
 humor its caprices nor conform itself to its unreasonable de- 
 mands. It should in some sense be the teacher of the public 
 as well as of its own pupils. It is in no sense the servant of 
 public opinion when public opinion is superficial or erroneous, 
 — but it is called to be its corrector and controller. Es- 
 pecially in matters of education should it neither pander to 
 popular prejudices nor take advantage of popular humors. If 
 there is any sanctuary where well-grounded convictions should 
 find refuge, and where these should be honored, it is in a place 
 devoted to the higher education ; especially if these convic- 
 tions concern the very function for which its members are 
 called to serve at its altar. We would not recall the times 
 when the most weighty questions in theology and law were 
 submitted to a council of university professors, but the days 
 will be degenerate indeed when university professors have 
 
40 ADDJRESS. 
 
 no convictions, or fail to assert them concerning the higher 
 education, whether they do or do not suit the humor of the 
 hour. 
 
 The higher education in mastering the past and sympathiz- 
 ing with the present, will wisely forecast and direct the future. 
 The men whom it trains are men of the future, and to a large 
 extent have the future of the country in their hands. Hence 
 the relations of this education to the future take up into them- 
 selves and control its relations to the present and the past. 
 The aims and duties of its directors are briefly comprehended 
 in the positions : as students, they should add to the science of 
 the past ; as teachers they should train to the highest intellectual 
 capacity and achievement as well to the noblest impulses and 
 perfection. 
 
 The duty of adding to the knowledge of one's time will 
 scarcely be questioned. It needs little illustration or enforce- 
 ment in an age of intellectual enterprise which sees little that 
 is true which is not new, and of moral hardihood which has 
 almost forgotten its reverence in the ardor of its hopes. The 
 time was when the learned classes and their institutions were 
 content to repeat traditional lore, — when logic, philology, and 
 theology were the exclusive spheres of intellectual activity and 
 the sole instruments of culture, and when these sciences were 
 taught and learned in a mechanical spirit. In those times 
 one age was very like another, and the education of one gen- 
 eration was the dull and traditionary transcript of that which 
 went before. To a certain extent this is still true of the Eng- 
 lish schools and colleges. But since the modern comparative 
 and critical spirit has breathed life into philology and history ; 
 since philosophy, ethics, and theology have been searched by 
 solvents of a potency never before dreamed of; since even 
 logic and revelation are challenged at every turn concerning 
 their right to be ; — since the new sciences of nature have 
 astonished the world by their achievements, and have become 
 romantic almost to insanity in their aspirations ; since litera- 
 ture itself fills the popular mind with the most daring promises 
 and the boldest denials, it is impossible that the best thought 
 and learning should not be occupied with the future. 
 
ADDRESS. 4 1 
 
 We hardly need assert that no teacher at the present day 
 deserves the name who is not prepared to revise his opinions, 
 and if need be to change them. The spirit of progress and of 
 growth animates all circles, and it should breathe a vigorous 
 and hopeful life into every university. The eye of every in- 
 structor should look hopefully and eagerly forward, to greet 
 every new discovery, to welcome every new truth, and to add 
 to past contributions by new experiments, invention, and 
 thought. In all these investigations by which the higher edu- 
 cation would add to scientific truth, whatever may be the sub- 
 ject matter which they concern, and whatever may be the con- 
 sequences to cherished faiths and opinions, its spirit should 
 be free. But the freest inquirer is the most remote from rash- 
 ness and conceit. The bravest confidence in truth is com- 
 monly measured by docility, candor, and reverence. 
 
 Leaving this point we pass to the duty of training to the 
 highest intellectual power and achievement. Two principles 
 must be regarded as unquestioned : The higher education 
 should aim at intellectual culture and training rather than at 
 the acquisition of knowledge, and it should respect remote rather 
 than immediate results. 
 
 The highest education should propose intellectual training as 
 its chief object. That education is conceived in the wisest 
 spirit and is in the best sense the most liberal which values 
 permanent intellectual power and culture above any accumu- 
 lation of facts, any knowledge of words or phrases, or any dex- 
 terity in action or in speech. No one will deny that training 
 is reached by acquiring knowledge, but knowledge in the best 
 sense is more than the accumulation of facts, whatever these 
 may be, whether words, events, paradigms, or dates. Facts 
 as such do not constitute knowledge, but only facts as held in 
 a method and as related to principles and laws. Facts as such 
 do not even enrich the mind, but only those facts which stim- 
 ulate the imagination, which elevate the feelings, which illus- 
 trate principles, and regulate the life. Moreover, in all the 
 stages of education many of the tasks are purely preparative 
 and disciplinary. The most earnest stickler for knowledge 
 made easy and self-propelling, must confess that in childhood 
 
42 ADDRESS. 
 
 alphabets and paradigms and derivations and syntactical rules 
 must be painfully learned before they can be understood and 
 applied. As we advance, nomenclatures and classifications 
 must be matured, and by and by mathematical distinctions 
 must be discerned and made familiar, at the cost sometimes 
 of reluctant attention ; skill and accuracy in working prob- 
 lems and reading French and German, even if we let alone 
 Latin and Greek, must be acquired before the mind is able or 
 is pleased to walk, or it may be to soar, along or above the 
 heights of analysis and speculation. The truth cannot be set 
 aside nor denied, that in the elementary stages of every branch 
 of knowledge, from the mastery of the alphabet upwards, in- 
 tellectual labor must be enforced largely for the sake of its re- 
 mote results, and these results often appear only as enhanced 
 skill or capacity. 
 
 Studies for discipline, so obtrusive in the lower education, 
 cannot be avoided in the higher. The methods and appli- 
 ances of teaching have not yet been so far perfected, nor have 
 the minds of our pupils been so far quickened or elevated by 
 preliminary training, as to enable us to dispense with many 
 studies which are especially disciplinary, and in a degree un- 
 attractive. The elements of every science, even of the sciences 
 of nature, the grammar of every new language, bring with them 
 drudgery and work, which excite no high intellectual, emo- 
 tional, or practical interest. It is urged that inasmuch as all 
 study and acquisition must be disciplinary, it can matter little 
 what studies are pursued, whether the modern or the ancient 
 languages, whether the mathematics or natural history, whether 
 physics and philosophy or experimental research ; and there-, 
 fore each student should select what he fancies, or believes he 
 can use. We cannot accept the doctrine that all studies are 
 equally disciplinary in their influence and effect, or that a selec- 
 tion of the most quickening and useful cannot be made by teach- 
 ers better than by pupils. In such selection regard should be 
 had to the time allowed for higher culture, as well as to the ap- 
 titudes and tastes and future employments of the student. 
 
 In accordance with these views, we have opened two schools 
 for undergraduate students, the one of which is prevailingly 
 
ADDRESS. 43 
 
 scientific and looks more to modern and active life* and the 
 other is especially classical, historical, and speculative. Both 
 are provided with a fixed curriculum, and the spirit of both is 
 disciplinary. In both there is some freedom of election, in the 
 scientific school there being a -wider and freer range, and some 
 provision for occasional students. But both are conceived and 
 conducted after substantially the same theory, that severe and 
 enforced attention and patient labor open the way to intellec- 
 tual power and thorough acquisition. Over the gateway of 
 neither is written, " Turn in hither, O ye simple ones, who 
 believe in a short and easy road to mental power." Each 
 of these schools has its attractions and excitements. The one 
 is nearer to the obtrusive and solid world of matter and ex- 
 periment, and its scientific studies look almost immediately to 
 application, either in one's profession, which is two or three 
 years nearer than to the other course, or by tests and practice 
 that can be constantly resorted to. Its literature and culture 
 are almost exclusively modern, though efficiently and learnedly 
 enforced. The academic course has its satisfactions — though 
 some are long deferred — in the widened acquaintance and 
 sympathy with ancient as well as modern life, in the invigorat- 
 ing yet refining subtleties of classical studies and philology, 
 in the awakening power of thought and expression, in the kind- 
 ling and growing appreciation of literature, in the inspiring 
 converse with history, and in the study of the laws, the duties, 
 and the destinies of the human spirit. 
 
 We confess that a long course of disciplinary study, sternly 
 enforced and with much of routine and drudgery, with a feeble 
 apprehension or positive doubt of its usefulness, and a slowly 
 awakened sense of intellectual advantage, is often wearisome 
 to the student, and not always grateful to the teacher. For 
 this reason it is greatly desired that every curriculum, espe- 
 cially the classical or humanistic, should be administered with 
 an intellectual spirit so overmastering as to be irresistible by 
 the most inert and torpid ; that the study of language and of 
 literature as it proceeds should be constantly more and more 
 quickening to thought ; that as the pupil wakens into habits 
 of inquiry and glows with curiosity, every lesson shall more 
 
44 ADDKESS. 
 
 than meet his wants, and kindle new ardor for the next. The 
 great mass even of our best students can never become strongly- 
 interested in the minutiae of grammar or the niceties of phi- 
 lology ; but there are few who cannot be kindled to the appre- 
 ciation of the classical writings, as literature. The discipline 
 of grammar should not be dispensed with, but discipline ceases 
 to be useful when it has exhausted its power to interest. We 
 trust the time is not far distant when a better and more uniform 
 preparation in the classics, and the mastery of the elements of 
 French and German before entering college, shall make more 
 feasible the more intellectual and aesthetic study of the ancient 
 and modern languages and literature ; when a manlier faith in 
 the work of the college shall pervade the college and the com- 
 munity, and a spirit of self-culture and self-improvement shall 
 enforce study without the friction or the complaint of marks 
 and conditions. But even then — in that millennium which the 
 prophets of the new dispensation declare to have already come 
 in the schools which they have reared — the external law and 
 examination will not cease to be required ; rather, will they be 
 hailed and responded to as the best auxiliaries and incentives 
 to the law written on the heart. 
 
 To relieve the college system of the difficulties adverted to, 
 the plan of elective studies has been proposed — not of elective 
 courses or schools, of which we have spoken and which the 
 college provides, — but the choice of studies from time to time, 
 to be directed by the real or fancied aptitudes or preferences 
 of the pupil, and the possible relation of these studies to his 
 future profession or career. We grant for this plan a tempo- 
 ra y satisfaction to the more earnest students and the more 
 ardent enthusiasm which attends the continued prosecution of 
 a favorite study. But we cannot overlook the very serious evils 
 to which it is exposed. The majority of undergraduate stu- 
 dents have neither the maturity nor the data which qualify 
 them to judge of the relative value of studies or their bear- 
 ing on their future employments. The few who have a definite 
 career, or pronounced tastes, may be misled by their feelings to 
 judge in the direction which is most injurious because for the 
 present it is more pleasing. The plan involves the certain evil 
 
ADDRESS. 45 
 
 of breaking into the common life of the class and the college 
 as well as of unprofitable expenditure and insuperable com- 
 plexity. 
 
 A still more serious objection to a wide range of elective 
 studies in the college is found in its tendency to limit the cycle 
 of the studies acknowledged to be liberal, and to contract the 
 period of university education. We urge in this connection 
 that the higher education of this country ought in its forecast 
 of the future, to contemplate a longer rather than a shorter period 
 of time for its completion. Its guardians should see that no 
 projects for shortening this period should be introduced under 
 the plausible pretext of greater liberality in respect to the 
 methods or the matter of study and instruction. It would be 
 most unfortunate should the impression prevail that the high- 
 est general or liberal education this country should aspire after 
 or furnish, must be given in the so-called college as distin- 
 guished from the graduate school, and no arrangements should 
 be made for the completion of any of these liberal studies, after 
 taking the first degree — most unfortunate, indeed, if the rush 
 and pressure of practical life should crowd itself behind that 
 degree, and high culture in the college should be estimated by 
 extraordinary proficiency in one or two specialities of science, 
 letters, or philosophy, — after which comes the practice and ap- 
 plication of what has been learned. The more urgent is this 
 noisy tumult of life without, and the stronger its pressure 
 against the doors of the college, the greater need is there that 
 certain studies which have little relation to this life should be 
 attended to, and the less occasion that those should be antici- 
 pated which will absorb all the energies of life. We prefer the 
 theory of liberal culture which assumes that an increasing 
 rather than a diminishing number of our choicest youth of 
 leisure will continue their literary and scientific studies, and 
 thus be able to dignify and adorn their life by habits of 
 systematic research and of earnest literary activity — that 
 some who are devoted to business will acquire the strength to 
 withstand the absorbing cares and the insatiable greed of 
 money getting ; that here and there a professional man may 
 be saved from the narrowness which the exclusive claims of 
 
46 ADDRESS. 
 
 his calling must engender if science, and literature, and history 
 are not actively attended to. What this country demands is a 
 larger number of educated men who are elevated and refined 
 by a culture which is truly liberal ; men whose convictions are 
 founded in manifold reading and comprehensive thought ; men 
 with the insight which comes only from a larger converse with 
 history, a profound meditation on the problems of life and spec- 
 ulation, and a catholic taste in literature. The more such men 
 mingle in the concerns of life, the more do they soften our 
 controversies and dignify our discussions, refine upon our vul- 
 garities and introduce amenities into our social life. They are 
 needed in our politics and literature, at the bar and in the 
 pulpit, in our newspapers and journals. We have plenty of 
 cheap glitter, of tawdry bedizenment and showy accomplish- 
 ments ; plenty of sensational declamation, coarse argument, 
 and facile rhetoric ; much moral earnestness which needs 
 tolerance and knowledge, and religious fervor which runs into 
 dogmatism and rant. We need a higher and more consum- 
 mate culture, in some of the men at least whom we educate for 
 the work of life, and for this reason the arrangements for uni- 
 versity education should contemplate a prolonged period of 
 study. 
 
 Instead, then, of providing university studies for undergrad- 
 uate students, we desire to make our undergraduate departments 
 preparatory for university classes and schools. These under- 
 graduate departments are two : the old classical college, — the 
 Yale College which is known as the germ of all its offshoots, — 
 and the Sheffield School with its modern and scientific cur- 
 riculum of three years. Both these are feeders to the Univer- 
 sity proper. This consists of the professional schools for 
 Theology, Law, and Medicine, and what answers to the de- 
 partment of Philosophy in a German university, making the 
 analogy of the two almost complete. The Philosophical Depart- 
 ment, so far as organized, includes the classes and courses of 
 study for graduate students in the Scientific School (as the 
 Schools of Engineering and Chemistry), a school of Philology 
 fully organized, a school of Mathematics and Physics, and a par- 
 tially organized school in which History and English literature, 
 
ADDRESS. 47 
 
 and Politics are taught, which it is hoped may be organized as 
 a School of the Moral and Political Sciences. To these should 
 be added, as not least significant, the School of the Fine Arts. 
 This is our scheme of an organized university. It presup- 
 poses undergraduate instruction and discipline, and super- 
 adds additional study and reading in regular classes, under 
 able instructors. It is no more than just to say that these 
 arrangements have been responded to by the attendance of as 
 many students as our most sanguine hopes could have contem- 
 plated. This scheme of classes looking towards a university 
 degree, is capable of indefinite expansion according to the 
 demands of science and letters, the resources of the uni- 
 versity in money and men, and the appliances of books and 
 collections. It invites to the founding of university professor- 
 ships, of which more than one is fully endowed and most ably 
 filled, the incumbents of which may not only lend honor to 
 the institution in their appropriate spheres, but may give valu- 
 able instruction and incitements to undergraduate pupils. 
 
 Thus far we have considered culture and discipline in their 
 relations to the intellect. But the intellect is not the whole of 
 man, nor do his intellectual powers or acquisitions alone de- 
 termine his value to himself and the community — much less 
 that which is higher than his value, his worth. This is meas- 
 ured by his character, as indicated by his aspirations and his 
 motives. We cannot if we would avoid the ethical and relig- 
 ious aspects of the higher education. 
 
 To form the character is a legitimate end of education of 
 every kind, and the higher its rank the more important is it 
 that its moral and religious results should be the best con- 
 ceivable. A college or university, a majority of whose pupils 
 should deny duty and God in theory, or dishonor both by 
 characters that were atheistic and vicious — whose private 
 lives should be profligate and selfish, and whose public moral- 
 ity should be venal and false, — would do more to corrupt the 
 country, not only its morality but its intellectual tone, than a 
 formidable array of pulpits and newspapers could withstand. 
 Could the vile creatures among us who now affront the day by 
 
48 ADDRESS, 
 
 the factitious glare of wealth and office, by any possibility as- 
 sume the charms which high education and refined culture 
 might impart, they would become in very deed the scourges 
 of God to the community. If an institution of learning, with 
 pupils trained to such characters, could continue to exist with- 
 out perishing from its own rottenness, it would be a fountain 
 of corruption and death in the social structure. Should athe- 
 ism be taught in it as a scientific theory, and a materialistic 
 psychology logically compel to the denial of conscience ; should 
 all domestic ties be unloosed by a scientific demonstration, 
 and social obligations be dissolved at the word of some demi- 
 god of genius, the devastation would be none the less real and 
 none the less appalling because it was accomplished by the 
 necessities of science or ordered by the dicta of philosophy. 
 The wail of the sufferers would be none the less heart-rending, 
 because the requiem of the world's aspirations and hopes was 
 inspired and chanted by some genius in whom poetry and 
 music were said to be incarnate. The present aspects of so- 
 ciety at home and abroad, in the small and the large, are com- 
 pelling thoughtful men to ask, whether the practical relaxation 
 of the bonds of duty, especially among men of culture and 
 education, is not the result of a more or less distinctly ac- 
 knowledged theoretical skepticism. And yet under this prac- 
 tical pressure it is still questioned by not a few doctrinaires in 
 education, whether any direct and positive instruction or influ- 
 ence in ethics or religion is compatible with the independence 
 of the student and the catholicity of science. It is, of course, 
 conceded, that the rules and influences of public morality and 
 Christian civilization should be practically recognized and en- 
 forced, but it is contended that neither ethical nor Christian 
 truth should be set forth in the forms of science, or made the 
 matter of academical instruction. These it is urged should be 
 left to the family and the church, and with the operation of 
 either the college or the university should not concern itself. 
 We hold the opposite opinion. In giving our reasons for it 
 we premise that we have special reference to students in the 
 college as distinguished from students in the university, stu- 
 dents in a condition of pupilage and living in a closely-knit 
 
ADDRESS. 49 
 
 society. How far our principles apply to university schools 
 and classes can be readily inferred. For convenience we sep- 
 arate ethical from religious truth. 
 
 That ethical truths and ethical relations are appropriate sub- 
 jects for scientific investigation cannot be questioned. They 
 are assumed in politics and law. They cannot be excluded 
 from the sciences of natural right and social obligation. They 
 are constantly obtruding themselves in those discussions which 
 fill so large a space, — and so many of which conduct to action, 
 — in our modern thinking. The questions of reform and of 
 progress with which political economy and sociology are con- 
 cerned, all involve ethical principles either true or false. We 
 contend that every man who assumes to think and decide for 
 himself should have well-grounded convictions upon these sub- 
 jects, which he can state and defend with scientific clearness. 
 Duty is the one art which every man has occasion to practice, 
 and he that by culture is trained to have reasons for his beliefs 
 and acts, must use his intellect to guide him here. But the 
 scientific and literary devotee is exposed to the danger of over- 
 looking these truths as truths of science in the more obtrusive 
 and absorbing claims of his favorite studies. Receiving them 
 as taught by common sense and enforced by conscience, and 
 therefore bestowing upon them little intellectual activity, he 
 finds and requires no place for them in his scheme of rational 
 knowledge. Exciting little of that curiosity which the novel- 
 ties of science and letters arouse, they elicit few earnest ques- 
 tionings, and consequently no positive and well-grounded re- 
 sponses. Such a man may retain his practical faith, but he 
 gives it no intellectual respect because it excites little intellec- 
 tual activity. Perhaps he surrenders it without question, at 
 the sudden call of some scientific theory, or under the potent 
 charm of some favorite author. Scientific theories of matter 
 and life all have ethical consequences and an ethical signifi- 
 cance. The laws of the physical universe either witness to 
 duty and immortality or they fail to suggest either, according 
 to our interpretation of them. History, literature, and criti- 
 cism necessarily involve ethical principles and relations. Our 
 philosophy of history, our estimates of literature, our canons 
 4 
 
50 ADDRESS. 
 
 of criticism, our choices of favorite authors, involve ethical 
 faiths and sympathies, and these must react with subtle and 
 irresistible energy upon the intellectual habits and the intel- 
 lectual tone. Any education must be defective and narrow 
 which does not concern itself with ethical principles and their 
 relations to science, to literature, and life. 
 
 That a high tone of practical ethics should be enforced by the 
 college discipline and the college life, will be universally al- 
 lowed. First of all, the discipline of the college should have 
 moral aims and a moral significance. Any regime which holds 
 to thorough and honest intellectual work, which is ready to 
 expose pretension and dissipate shams, trains indirectly but 
 effectively to honest dealing, to uprightness before God and 
 downrightness before man. To hold the student to minute 
 fidelity in little things is an enforcement of one of the most 
 significant maxims of the Gospel. A discipline that is indul- 
 gent and inconstant and fitful, that does not enforce its own 
 rules, nor respect its own aims, not only is unjust to the intel- 
 lectual training of its pupils, but insensibly lowers the tone of 
 their characters by failing to train them to self-control, to obe- 
 dience, to industry, and patient application. The quiet and 
 mechanical working of a good system of college discipline con- 
 tains within itself the most effective moral influences. In its 
 administration, however, the spirit should never be sacrificed 
 to the letter, nor its moral import be strangled by technical 
 preciseness. Whether it is applied to the scholarship or the 
 character, it should be felt to be kind and noble and elevating. 
 It should be strict without being over precise, impartial but not 
 ungenerous, exacting but not petty, rigid but not suspicious. 
 
 The most efficient of all moral influences in a college are 
 those which proceed from the personal characters of the in- 
 structors. In the close contact of academic life, it can never 
 be hidden from the student what are their aims and spirit, 
 what their principles and aspirations, what their views of that 
 which is due from man to man, and of what a man should pro- 
 pose to himself to become. These cannot be concealed from 
 the quick and discerning eyes of youth. A noble character 
 becomes light and inspiration, when dignified by eminent intel- 
 
ADDRESS. 51 
 
 lectual power and attainments. Dr. Thomas Arnold was more 
 to his pupils as a man than he was as an instructor. Indeed, 
 his teachings were able and efficient in part, because they 
 glowed with the faith and moral energy which burned in his 
 heart. Our honored and beloved President who for forty years 
 has done so much for the scholarship of Yale College, has 
 done most of all for it by the impression of his passionate de- 
 votion to truth, his indignant scorn of meanness, and his sim- 
 ple love of goodness. 
 
 The influence of the students over one another may not be 
 overlooked. The public sentiment which pervades the college 
 community is to many an enigma ; to others it is an offense. 
 To those who feel it and are formed by it, it is an earnest and 
 potent reality. In respect to many of the nobler elements and 
 manifestations of character it is high-toned and inexorable ; 
 in respect to many practices which spring from the inclina- 
 tions of youth and the supposed traditions of the college, it is 
 occasionally perverse and persistent. While we contend that 
 this atmosphere is in many respects a breezy tonic for good, 
 and can confidently compare it for moral healthfulness with 
 that of any other society to which a youth is likely to be intro- 
 duced, we cannot but desire that in some particulars it might 
 be made more rational and elevated ; that the traditionary 
 antagonism between teachers and pupils need not be pushed 
 to such silly extremes ; that class affinities need not be abused 
 to brutal indignities ; that society rivalries might never be 
 acrid or ungenerous. Above all do we desire that the old- 
 fashioned virtue of truth should be honored in the sturdy 
 English fashion, and that a lie might be stigmatized as essen- 
 tially mean to whomsoever it is uttered. We would not desire 
 that social ostracism should in any case be violently applied, 
 but if there is any offense which we would desire that students 
 should never tolerate, it is untruth. The graduates of recent 
 years can accomplish much in these regards. As they gather 
 around the old hearth-stone and joyfully rekindle the fires of 
 college enjoyments, let them see to it that the old soils and 
 stains are effaced even though it is urged in their defense that 
 they are time-honored. The public opinion of the community 
 
52 ADDRESS. 
 
 demands, more imperatively than it once did, that college 
 foibles, if excused as indiscretions, should at least not be 
 exalted into virtues. 
 
 The Religious and Christian character of our higher education 
 is intimately related to the ethical. If science and literature 
 involve ethical relations, they also involve those which are 
 religious. If the sentiments and obligations of the conscience 
 give dignity and interest to both, much more do those which 
 connect man with God and Immortality. The Christian his- 
 tory occupies the foremost place in modern progress and de- 
 velopment, and whether it is credible and true must be decided 
 by every man who concerns himself with history at all. The 
 Christian faith and sentiments and morals and civilization, 
 have so far penetrated and leavened the principles of modern 
 life that criticism must face the question whether the Christ 
 from whom these have proceeded be an impostor, a myth, a 
 romance ; or the central object of the world's faith and rever- 
 ence, the inspirer of its best and purest emotions, the founda- 
 tion of its immortal hopes. In respect to all these points, the 
 instructions and the influence of every institution of higher 
 learning must be Christian or anti-Christian, as the impres- 
 sion of the characters and teachings of its instructors is posi- 
 tive or negative. The more positive this impression is the 
 better will it be for the education which the institution gives. 
 The more Christian a college or university is, other things 
 being equal, the more perfect and harmonious will be its cul- 
 ture, the more philosophical and free its science, the more 
 exact and profound its erudition, the richer and more varied 
 its literature. We should be treacherous to our faith did we 
 not believe this and act accordingly. We rejoice that this is 
 still the judgment of so many who influence public opinion. 
 We desire more instead of less of Christianity in this univer- 
 sity. We do not mean that we would have religious take the 
 place of intellectual activity, for this would tend to dishonor 
 Christianity itself by an ignorant and narrow perversion of its 
 claims to supremacy. We do not desire that the sectarian or 
 denominational spirit should be intensified. With this the 
 liberalizing spirit of Christian culture has the least sympathy. 
 
ADDRESS. 53 
 
 The more truly Christian a university becomes, the less secta- 
 rian will be its spirit and influence. \But we desire that all 
 science should be more distinctly connected with that thought 
 and goodness which are everywhere manifested in the universe 
 of matter and of spirit ; that the scientific poverty of the athe- 
 istic materialism should be clearly proved to the understand- 
 ing as well as felt to be repellent to the heart ; that the starve- 
 ling character of the fatalistic theory of history may be deci- 
 sively set forth, and the ignoble tendencies of a godless and 
 frivolous literature may be amply illustrated. We desire that 
 the place and influence of Christ and Christianity in reform- 
 ing the domain of speculation and of action, of letters and of 
 life, should be distinctly, emphatically, and reverentially recog- 
 nized^ In all this we are not untrue to the catholicity and 
 authority of science, for we avow ourselves ready to reexamine 
 every question of faith in the light of the newest researches 
 and the freshest speculation, and, if need be, to modify our 
 belief by the issue. But we have no such distrust concerning 
 the results as to provide in any of our arrangements for the 
 necessity of gradually or suddenly abandoning a positive and 
 historical Christianity. As devoted to scientific thought we 
 claim to be as free as the most untrammeled. We would cast 
 off our Christianity as a filthy garment if we loved it better 
 than we love the truth. We have no favors for our faith to 
 ask of science, and no patronage to solicit from erudition. On 
 the other hand, we have no fears from either. As students in 
 literature we would cherish the most catholic tastes and sym- 
 pathies : nor need we fear to do so when from Lucretius to 
 Goethe there comes up the sad and unbroken testimony, that 
 the absence of faith and worship weakens and withers the 
 most gifted genius. In the light of our past history and what 
 are to be the pressing demands of this country, we assert the 
 opinion that Yale College must and will be forever maintained 
 as a Christian university. Would that it were provided with 
 a chapel that in the strength and beauty of its architecture 
 worthily represented the place which Christianity holds in the 
 esteem of its guardians and friends. 
 
 We hold that the earnest and Christian daily worship of a col- 
 
54 ADDXESS. 
 
 lege household elevates and invigorates the community, even 
 though to some extent it may be unconscious of this influence. 
 The varied discussion and enforcement of the themes of Chris- 
 tian truth and duty, when managed with simplicity and skill, 
 cannot but educate the mind to the widest and most stimulat- 
 ing thought, as well as refine it to the seriousness, tenderness, 
 and pathos which are the appropriate results of culture. No 
 man can doubt this who observes the special interest which 
 questions on these themes excite among educated men of the 
 noblest type of thought and feeling. No man who reads Ten- 
 nyson's " In Memoriam " with sympathy or appreciation can 
 say that Christian influences are inappropriate in education. 
 If praying and preaching are sometimes only forms, they sym- 
 bolize stirring and moving truths. To discourse against com- 
 pulsory attendance at worship for pupils who are required to 
 attend at the recitations, is all very well for those who choose 
 to amuse themselves with very transparent ineptitudes. 
 
 I may not overlook the essentially beneficent character of the 
 higher education. Its institutions cannot be provided on the 
 ordinary principles of exchange, nor can they be administered 
 after the law of supply and demand. They represent public 
 interests which the benevolent and far-seeing must provide 
 for or they will not be provided for at all. The young men 
 who will best appreciate their advantages, and who will apply 
 them most beneficently to public uses, are often those who 
 have no money with which to purchase the opportunity to 
 develop their powers for the benefit of the State and the 
 Church. The community suffers more than the individual 
 when a single worthy aspirant for high education is turned 
 back for the want of means to go forward. All our colleges 
 are beneficent not only in furnishing their education to the 
 wealthy at less than half its cost, but in furnishing it gratui- 
 tously to the most of those who are unable to buy it. Many of 
 them go further than this, and by means of scholarships and 
 foundations are able to distribute to the most worthy consider- 
 able sums in addition to the fees for instruction. A few are 
 made the almoners of private benefactors in the ways of secret 
 
ADDRESS. 55 
 
 though generous helpfulness to those who are known to be 
 needy and worthy according to the double claim of need and 
 worth. To know of cases of this kind which we are unable 
 to relieve, is one of the severest trials of the many which, as 
 instructors, we are called to endure. In this college we have 
 the opportunity of distributing wisely and well many thousands 
 a year more than we can readily command. Not a few of our 
 graduates who could easily help us by permanent benefactions 
 or annual payments, will not be ashamed in their princely wealth 
 to remember how grateful was such assistance to themselves 
 in the days of their struggling youth. Liberally to meet these 
 claims would strengthen the college, by securing to it a larger 
 number of its most valuable pupils, and by stimulating them 
 to more earnest scholarship, and would also furnish the com- 
 munity with the most important elements of its permanent 
 welfare. The private history of not a few of the most useful 
 and eminent men whom this college has educated, would reveal 
 some modest benefactor behind the scenes. 
 
 Again, the higher education of the country depends upon and 
 sympathizes with the lower. The colleges and universities 
 presuppose preparatory schools that fit men for their curricu- 
 lum. They ought not to be asked to perform the functions of 
 such schools nor be obliged to supply their deficiencies. One 
 of the largest States of the Union, which counts its population 
 by millions, has, according to the best educational reports, 
 fewer schools where the Greek can be taught which is required 
 for admission to college, than it has colleges and universities. 
 In consequence of this deficiency, the question has been raised 
 whether the elements of this language should not be reserved 
 for the colleges, and whether even in the classes of arts and 
 letters it would not be expedient to omit it altogether. In our 
 view it would be a sad token for the culture of the country if 
 the plastic and many-voiced Greek, with its Homeric pictures 
 and rhythm, its Platonic flexibility and subtleness, its Demos- 
 thenean compactness and energy, its scientific adaptations, 
 its resources for nomenclature, and its Christian associations, 
 were to be omitted or made optional in the classical college, 
 especially in times when the appliances for its more rapid ac- 
 
56 ADDRESS. 
 
 quisition and intelligent mastery are so abundant, and when 
 familiarity with Greek is acknowledged to be so essential to 
 the highest culture. But the fact alluded to is significant, as 
 it illustrates the close dependence of the higher upon the 
 lower schools. It is also true that the college is affected by 
 the general civilization of the community, the manners and 
 spirit of the people, and their practical estimates of intelli- 
 gence and morality. Upon all these the higher education re- 
 acts most powerfully, as it elevates the aims, enlarges the 
 conceptions, and refines and brightens the life of the people. 
 Especially is its influence direct and efficient upon teachers 
 of every grade. Many of these it trains not only for the clas- 
 sical seminaries, but for the numerous public schools of the 
 larger towns. The time is not very distant when courses of 
 study should be arranged and classes organized in connection 
 with this university, with the express object of giving special 
 instruction and training to teachers. It should never fail to 
 sympathize with every movement to advance the educational 
 interests of the whole community. 
 
 In the views expressed concerning the Higher Education, 
 you will have recognized an exposition of the theory which 
 directs the organization and administration of Yale College in 
 all its departments. You will see first of all that we have a 
 theory. We are not the blind followers of tradition or custom, 
 but have a definite system which we intelligently hold. It is 
 true this theory has in some sense taken form under the shap- 
 ing and progressive influence of the times, and has been made 
 for us rather than made by us. But it is none the less rational 
 and principled, because it has. been shaped by the endeavor to 
 meet these wants in the wisest manner. Theories of educa- 
 tion that are ideal or revolutionary, like similar theories of 
 government, read well but work badly. But while our theory 
 takes wisdom from the past, it watches the present and is 
 hopeful and enterprising for the future. We claim for it the 
 very great advantage of providing for the most liberal expansion 
 and an unlimited growth ; if indeed the demands of the times 
 for a more accomplished education shall be met by wakeful 
 enterprise on the part of its managers, and a loyal and liberal 
 support on the part of its friends. 
 
ADDRESS. 57 
 
 I have no time to speak in particular of the Academical 
 Department of the college, neither of its progress nor its de- 
 fects, neither of its strength nor its weakness. I will only, in 
 passing, notice the imperative necessity of a much larger 
 working force for the drill and training of the earlier years, to 
 insure that minute personal supervision and close personal 
 intercourse which might then be most profitably applied. 
 Were this want supplied, there would be opportunity for a 
 freer activity in the later years, on the part of students and 
 teachers, and consequently for the development of greater en- 
 thusiasm for the college work. We find abundant room for 
 the awakening of such enthusiasm in the reading of the clas- 
 sical authors, in the cultivation of English literature and his- 
 tory, in the investigation of Speculative questions, and in a 
 more philosophical, imaginative, and practical interest in the 
 Sciences of Nature. In all these directions there is call and 
 opportunity for the utmost activity and enterprise on the part 
 of teachers and pupils. 
 
 Of each of the other departments I will say a word. I 
 speak first of the Sheffield Scientific School, which, as has been 
 explained, includes an undergraduate and a graduate section. 
 It deserves to be noticed here that this school had its first be- 
 ginnings with the administration of President Woolsey, and is 
 now a quarter of a century old. In this time it has attained a 
 complete organization, and stands acknowledged as equal to 
 any school in this, — I had almost said in any country. Yale 
 College has every reason to be congratulated that those sci- 
 ences of nature which, with kindred studies, now rightly ab- 
 sorb the enthusiasm of so many minds, are so ably repre- 
 sented, and so ardently prosecuted in this school. It has 
 reason to rejoice, also, that so much prominence is given in it 
 to linguistic studies, and that the theory and administration of 
 the school are conceived and executed in a thoroughly intel- 
 lectual spirit. The growth and prosperity of this school are 
 owing to the zeal and ability of its professors, which have been 
 untiring and indomitable, to the generous patrcoage of the 
 State of Connecticut, to the sympathy and interest of an in- 
 creasing number of friends and patrons, and, most of all, to 
 
58 ADDRESS. 
 
 the generous and repeated benefactions of the gentleman 
 whose name it bears, — a gentleman as distinguished for his 
 modesty as for his munificence. Few men give so generously 
 as he has done, few so wisely, few so perseveringly, and very 
 few with such satisfactory returns. Few men who have lived, 
 who have endowed a literary institution, have seen it quietly 
 but rapidly attain to such prosperity and renown. 
 
 In this connection we are reminded of another friend of 
 education and science, of whose large and varied liberality we 
 have had a share, in the Peabody Museum for the various 
 scientific and archaeological collections which we already pos- 
 sess or may acquire. That this museum will not be empty 
 when it is erected we are confident, as long as its active cura- 
 tor can lead his forces in the field, and gather spoils from the 
 plains and the earth, and his indefatigable associate, who is 
 as modest and candid as he is learned and sagacious, shall dis- 
 sect and classify, and what is better, soundly interpret the 
 varied kingdom of life. 
 
 We may not overlook another similar foundation for astro- 
 nomical observation and telluric researches, which has already 
 been provided, and is to be made productive, by our generous 
 fellow citizen in the Winchester Observatory. 
 
 The Law Department of this college suffers greatly, as is 
 well known, from its scanty endowments ; having no founda- 
 tion for a single professorship. It is provided with able and 
 faithful instructors, but they are occupied with the duties and 
 excitements of the most exacting of professions. The law 
 schools of this country were formerly individual enterprises. 
 They can be so no longer, when the chairs of so many are lib- 
 erally endowed with university funds. Such a school, to com- 
 pete with those already established, must receive the almost 
 exclusive attention of two or three gifted men, who even then 
 must sacrifice the prospect of large professional emoluments. 
 We naturally look to the members of the legal profession to 
 extend their fostering care to the nurseries of its strength and 
 honor. There was never, perhaps, a time when the importance 
 of this profession was more generally acknowledged, and when 
 its intimate relations to the stability of our political, commer- 
 
ADDRESS. 59 
 
 rial, and social life were more sensitively appreciated. The 
 Commonwealth which gave Yale College its charter, the Union 
 which once so signally interposed its judicial authority to de- 
 fend the independence of all similar charters, have abundant 
 occasion to feel their indebtedness to the legal profession. 
 We naturally look to the Commonwealth of Connecticut and 
 to the members of the legal profession, to provide for the best 
 education of its advocates and judges. May we not call on 
 both to see to it that in some way or other two or three chairs 
 of Legal Science shall be sufficiently endowed to attract able 
 and enthusiastic professors ? The State of Connecticut might 
 well feel some solicitude, lest having given to the world almost 
 the first two examples of successful schools of the Common 
 Law, its high preeminence should fade out of memory. 
 
 The college will not cease to deplore the want of these 
 endowments. The continued residence as law students of 
 many of its choicest graduates is of greater importance than 
 is usually conceded, for the example to the undergraduate 
 students of enthusiastic study which they furnish. The uni- 
 versity loses much when it loses a score or two of each grad- 
 uating class whom it might retain, just at the time when their 
 powers are matured, their promise is brilliant, and the ardor 
 of their youth is intensified by zeal for personal improvement 
 and professional success. 
 
 Not only might a prosperous law school give strength to 
 the university, but it might derive strength from it. The 
 sciences nearest akin to the Law, — Ethics, Politics, and So- 
 ciology, — demand and repay the most earnest and scientific 
 study. History, which lends her guiding light to all, is pre- 
 eminently the lawyer's especial recreation and monitor. Po- 
 litical economy furnishes principles for the commerce and the 
 legislation with which the lawyer has so much to do. Could a 
 School of Law avail itself of the wisdom and learning in all 
 these sciences of such a teacher on these subjects as the one 
 who has stood at the head of this university, and at the head 
 of so many of these sciences, it would have no slight advan- 
 tage. 
 
 The Medical School has an able Faculty, who have shown no 
 
60 ADDRESS, 
 
 little boldness and enterprise in initiating a course of instruc- 
 tion extending through the year, and in requiring frequent ex- 
 aminations from text-books. It is furnished with all the appli- 
 ances for successful instruction, except those which are insep- 
 arable from a large population. Were its chairs even partially 
 endowed, and its resources enlarged, it could command more 
 of the time and energy of its professors. As the city and its 
 vicinity increase in population, and its hospital and clinical 
 facilities are enlarged, the institution will gain in influence 
 and numbers. The city itself has a far more direct interest in 
 this school than its citizens recognize. Its sanitary condition, 
 its duties to the many suffering and helpless, both strangers 
 and citizens, who require medical aid, are powerful arguments 
 for a generous endowment and support of the Medical Col- 
 lege, the State Hospital, and a City Dispensary. The State 
 of Connecticut has an interest in the first if not in the second 
 of the three. 
 
 The Theological Seminary has its special relations to the 
 churches which look to it for their religious teachers and pas- 
 tors, and its general relations to the university. The first have 
 been liberally responded to, within a few years, as they have 
 been earnestly prosecuted by its enthusiastic professors. The 
 zeal of its professors and the liberality of its patrons have 
 made the institution so prosperous as to make necessary an 
 additional appeal for aid. The new building is already over- 
 filled, and the effort must be made at once to provide addi- 
 tional lodgings as well as to meet other pressing wants of the 
 school. The advantages that such a seminary derives from 
 the fostering care of a great literary institution might be ex- 
 tended to schools of other Christian denominations. As it is, 
 this school is open to students for the ministry from all quar- 
 ters, and makes little reference to their special doctrines or 
 ecclesiastical preferences. The seminary is most of all con- 
 cerned to expound and defend the Christian Truths that are 
 universally received by Evangelical Protestants. 
 
 A good theological seminary may contribute to the scientific 
 and literary prosperity of a university. It detains upon the 
 same ground and in the continued relations of academic life 
 
ADDRESS. 6 1 
 
 more or fewer of its graduates, and attracts those from other 
 colleges, — among them invariably some specially distin- 
 guished for scholarly acquisitions and literary tastes, as well as 
 for high moral and religious worth. Such men cannot but 
 quicken their juniors to higher intellectual and spiritual aims. 
 
 Nor is it to be overlooked that Theology itself may gain 
 somewhat from an intimate connection with a scientific and 
 learned society of educators. It may learn more fully that 
 with which it must sooner or later measure itself, namely, the 
 science and culture of the present phases of the world's think- 
 ing, what new truths Science will assert and defend, what 
 new principles and prejudices Literature may evolve. If the 
 new light is false and misleading, Theology will sooner awake 
 to its allurements and its dangers, and more sedulously arm 
 itself and the community against its influence. If the light is 
 pure and true, Theology may avail itself of its illumination to 
 correct its old prejudices and to modify its old defences. The- 
 ology, though resting on divine communications and trusting 
 to supernatural guidance, is yet more or less a human science. 
 As such, it is modified by the progressive thinking of the 
 world, and it can be none the worse to keep abreast of this 
 thinking, either to learn from or to control it. For this reason 
 it may be taught and learned more advantageously in the pres- 
 ence of a great University than in a separate school. 
 
 The School of Fine Arts owes its existence more than any 
 department of the University to the thought and liberality of 
 a single family — the family whose name it will forever bear. 
 Though it is yet in its infancy, it is manned with professors of 
 whom no school need be ashamed, and its building and appli- 
 ances for instruction are satisfactory. That it will be devel- 
 oped by a healthy growth, should not be doubted. That the 
 influence of its permanent collections and its annual exhibi- 
 tions will be elevating upon the whole academic body, and will 
 quietly educate its members to better views of every branch 
 of art, is most apparent. It already furnishes systematic in- 
 struction to the pupils of the Scientific School. It will awaken 
 the capacity and direct the beginnings of now and then a 
 gifted student, and lead him to his destined artist life. It will 
 
62 ADDRESS. 
 
 furnish lectures on the history and the principles of Art, which 
 will impart instruction and refreshment, not only to the mem- 
 bers of the University, but to the citizens of New Haven. 
 Its appliances and attractions may be indefinitely increased. 
 It needs an Historical Gallery, such as the Jarves Collection 
 might be made the nucleus of, if this could find a purchaser 
 who would make for it a permanent home where now it has a 
 temporary lodgment. Its galleries welcome any really good 
 pictures, as well as engravings, photographs, designs, and arti- 
 cles of virtu. In all contributions of this sort the citizens of 
 New Haven have a direct interest, for they have access to its 
 treasures at all times, and their youth of both sexes can avail 
 themselves of its instructions. The citizens of Boston and 
 New York are now taking active measures to provide each of 
 these cities with an Art Museum. New Haven may be said 
 to be provided already with an admirable building for such 
 uses. Is it too much to expect that with its rapid advances in 
 wealth, and in the taste of its citizens, it will regard this Mu- 
 seum so far its own as to enrich it with gifts ? 
 
 Here let me say that Yale College owes much to the citi- 
 zens of New Haven, and it would gratefully recognize its ob- 
 ligations. The names of its most liberal benefactors are fa- 
 miliar to all, of Salisbury, Street, Sheffield, Hillhouse, Far- 
 nam, Marett, Winchester, and others. They will always shine 
 conspicuously upon its annals. Yale College has been re- 
 garded with real if not always with acknowledged pride as an 
 honor to the city. Though its officers, from the nature of their 
 employments, must be more or less withdrawn from those re- 
 lations which connect men of business together, they are not 
 withdrawn in their sympathy from anything which concerns 
 the honor or the welfare of their fellow citizens. Whatever 
 service the college, as such, can render for their instruction 
 or enjoyment, it is ready always to perform. On the other 
 hand, whatever gifts are made to any of the departments of 
 Yale College, — which may not be improperly considered as 
 the University of the city, — are doubly grateful as the gifts 
 of neighbors and friends. If any jealousies may have hereto- 
 fore existed to abate from the natural pride which New Haven 
 
ADDRESS. 63 
 
 should take in its college, they have long ago begun to fade 
 away before the enlightened and liberal feeling of the times. 
 The college certainly desires to cherish a public-spirited and 
 liberal interest in the city and its inhabitants, and to receive 
 from it warm-hearted sympathy. 
 
 I cannot take leave of the venerated and beloved head of 
 the college without making public the testimony of which he 
 does not need to be assured, that as few men have known 
 him more intimately than myself in his private and public re- 
 lations, few honor him more sincerely as a man, or are knit 
 more closely to him as a friend. The inspirer of the best and 
 noblest aims of my dawning manhood, the friend of all my 
 active life, the official superior yet faithful and beloved asso- 
 ciate in all the public and private trials and joys of a quarter 
 of a century, he has now committed to my hands the trust 
 which he has discharged with unabating fidelity and with un- 
 exampled success. I rejoice that he is to remain by my side, 
 and in the university, to which he will contribute his wise 
 counsel, his large experience, and his cheering sympathy. 
 
 To the students of the college in all its departments, I may 
 say that were I not assured that the great majority of these 
 eight hundred men were animated with earnest purposes for 
 self-improvement, and that even the less earnest had warm 
 and generous hearts, I should not accept the office which 
 makes me so conspicuously their counsellor and friend. I 
 have already explained what are the intellectual and moral 
 relations of the higher education to which this institution is 
 devoted. All that I ask of you is that you shall expect me to 
 promote these aims, and shall give yourselves to their fulfill- 
 ment with the earnestness and perseverance which these aims 
 will justify. As it is my duty so it will be my pleasure to be 
 all and to do all for you as a community and as individuals 
 which I shall be able to accomplish. May we all, teachers 
 and pupils, reassure our faith in the best education, and pa- 
 tiently and earnestly accept the conditions of success. 
 
 The graduates of the college are distributed widely over the 
 country. They are not gathered in a single capital, but form 
 
64 ADDRESS. 
 
 honorable companies in most of the cities of the country, the 
 old and the new, and are scattered here and there, alone, and 
 in multitudes of separate homes. But wherever they are, 
 their fresh recollections center here, and their hearts respond 
 to the name of their Alma Mater as do those of the graduates 
 of no other college. They are very largely public-spirited and 
 enterprising men, often foremost in the communities in which 
 they live, which so press upon them the claims of local insti- 
 tutions of education, religion, and philanthropy as to leave 
 them little thought or money for the Yale which they fondly 
 persuade themselves must have many benefactors among the 
 thousands of its graduates. The gatherings of the graduates 
 here are so brief and hurried, and to many so infrequent from 
 remote residence, that there is little opportunity for an inti- 
 mate knowledge of the wants of the college or an active sym- 
 pathy with its interests. The impression has prevailed that 
 there was little desire on the part of its guardians and instruc- 
 tors to call forth such sympathies. No impression could be 
 more incorrect than this, but it has not been easy to set it 
 aside. By an unexpected and generous act of the State of 
 Connecticut it has become possible to invite the graduates by 
 a yearly election to be formally represented in our corpora- 
 tion, and at the next commencement six may be elected mem- 
 bers of this body. This change in the constitution of the 
 board of trust will at least bring the graduates into more inti- 
 mate relations with the institution, and give them the oppor- 
 tunity for an active cooperation in every movement for its 
 welfare. To us this change is welcome, and to me it is a 
 happy circumstance that it is already consummated, and that 
 the new era begins at this juncture. This is no time to ex- 
 plain at length the necessities of the college. To some of 
 them I have alluded in passing. The plans for its progress 
 and improvements are manifold. These could not now be un- 
 folded. But I venture to assure the graduates that no persons 
 are more sensitive to many of the defects in the working of 
 our system than are the members of the several Faculties, and 
 no persons would be more prompt to remove them were the 
 means at their command. The criticisms upon the college 
 
ADDRESS. 65 
 
 which now and then appear, we always interpret as showing 
 that you have been trained to free discussion and aspire after 
 the highest perfection. 
 
 It gives me no little satisfaction in this grave moment of 
 my life to know that I am no stranger to any of the recent 
 graduates of the college. For twenty-five years I have been 
 associated with your and my loved and honored president in 
 the most pleasant relations to more than twenty-five hundred 
 of our pupils, very many of whom we remember as individuals 
 with great satisfaction, and all of whom, with very few excep- 
 tions, give the best evidence that whatever they may think of 
 the training of the college, this training has done very much 
 that is good for their culture and their principles. Of one 
 thing I believe you are all convinced ; that I have no such 
 desire for the prominence or the responsibilities of this new 
 office as would lead me to accept it were I not constrained by 
 the friendly judgment and the cordial feeling of very many of 
 that Fraternity of living men who constitute what we call 
 Yale College, and which is made up of its Fellows, its Offi- 
 cers, and its Graduates. It is an honor which I gratefully 
 acknowledge, to be called to a post which brings me into such 
 relations to this most honorable fraternity. It will be a great 
 privilege and blessing, if my life is spared, not to disappoint 
 any reasonable expectations which may be formed of the 
 future. On my colleagues I can entirely rely for aid and sym- 
 pathy and charitable judgments. If we may continue to rely 
 upon the loyalty and zeal of this large brotherhood, we do 
 not doubt that, with the blessing of the God in whom we trust 
 and the Christ in whom we hope, Yale College, as a college 
 and as a university, will continue to be eminently prosperous, 
 honored, and useful. 
 
SMPORTANT WORKS 
 
 BY 
 
 PEES. NOAH PORTER, D. D„ LL. D„ 
 
 President of Yale College. 
 
 THE HUMAN INTELLECT: 
 
 With an Introduction upon Psychology and 
 
 the Human Soul, i volume 8vo, nearly 700 
 
 pages. $5. 
 
 The typographical arrangement of the volume 
 — the more important principles of facts being in 
 larger print — adapts it for use as a text-book, 
 while its fullness of statement makes it invaluable 
 to all interested in Mental Science. 
 
 " It is by far the most complete treatise of the 
 kind in the English language, and is probably 
 the most interesting and intelligible in any lan- 
 guage." — N. Y. Evening Post. 
 
 " An able and learned work, creditable to the 
 author, to the institution with which he is con- 
 nected, and to the country of which he is a 
 citizen. " — Presbyterian Banner ( Pittsburg). 
 
 " Will be eagerly welcomed by the lovers of a 
 sound philosophy, and will not fail to be read by 
 many who will respect its clearness, self-consis- 
 tence, and logical acumen, even though they re- 
 luct from some of its conclusions." — Congrega- 
 tionalist. 
 
 WHA T BOOKS SHALL I READ ? 
 AND HOW SHALL I READ THEM? 
 
 One volume, crown 8vo. Price, $2. 
 
 " It is distinguished by all the rare acumen, 
 discriminating taste, and extensive literary knowl- 
 edge of the author. The chief departments of 
 literature are reviewed in detail, and a variety of 
 very suggestive and useful comments are made in 
 regard to the representative volumes under each 
 head." — New York Times. 
 
 " One of the ablest and most sensible and in- 
 structive volumes which a lover of books can 
 read." — New York Observer. 
 
 " The work cannot be too highly commended 
 to young men who wish to make the wisest and 
 most profitable employment of their time." — 
 Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 ELEMENTS OF INTELLECT- 
 UAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 A MANUAL FOR SCHOOLS AND COL- 
 LEGES. Abridged from " The Human In- 
 tellect." 1 volume, crown 8vo, nearly 600 
 pages, cloth. Price, $3. 
 
 President Porter's great work upon the human 
 intellect at once secured for him a foremost place 
 among living metaphysicians. The demand for 
 this work— even in its expensive form — as a 
 text-book, has induced the preparation of this 
 abridged and cheaper edition, which contains all 
 the matter of the larger work necessary for use 
 in the class-room. 
 
 "This abridgment is very well done, the state- 
 ments being terse and perspicuous. " — New York 
 World. 
 
 " Presents the leading facts of intellectual sci- 
 ence, from the author's point of view, with clear- 
 ness and vigor. " — New York Tribune. 
 
 The above books sent by mail to any address, 
 postpaid, upon receipt of the price, by the pub- 
 lishers, 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO. 
 
 654 Broadway, New York. 
 
 IMPORTANT WORKS 
 
 BY 
 
 THEODORE D. WOOLSET, D. B., LL. D., 
 
 Ex-President of Yale College. 
 
 INTERNATIONAL LAW. 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF" 
 INTERNATIONAL LAW. Designed as 
 an Aid in Teaching and in Historical Studies. 
 This edition revised and enlarged. Cloth, 
 $2.50. 
 
 " Though elementary in its character, it is still 
 thorough and comprehensive, and presents a com- 
 plete outline of that grand system of ethical juris- 
 prudence which holds, as it were, in one commu- 
 nity the nations of Christendom." — New York 
 Examiner. 
 
 " He has admirably succeeded. The want was 
 that of a compendium treatise, intended, not for 
 lawyers nor for those having the profession of law 
 in view, but for young men who are cultivating 
 themselves by the study of historical and politi- 
 cal science." — St. Louis Republican. 
 
 "The editor and politician will find it a con- 
 venient companion. Its appendix contains a most 
 useful list of the principal treaties since the Ref- 
 ormation." — New York Evening Post. 
 
 THE RELIGION OF THE PRES- 
 ENT AND FUTURE. 
 
 One volume, crown 8vo, cloth, $2.00. 
 
 The thousands of graduates of Yale College, 
 as well as the very large number who are only in 
 a general way familiar with the deserved reputa- 
 tion of President Woolsey, will welcome this vol- 
 ume, which is a selection from the discourses 
 which President Woolsey has delivered in Yale 
 College Chapel during the last twenty-five years. 
 For the direct application of truth, severe logical 
 simplicity, that eloquence which springs from un- 
 affected earnestness and single-hearted sincerity 
 of desire to convince the understanding, and per- 
 suade the hearts of those to whom they were ad- 
 dressed, these sermons are preeminent. 
 
 " They are the kind of sermons which live in 
 the thoughts and memories of men long after they 
 have been spoken. They are worthy of being 
 published, and then of being carefully read." — 
 Philadelphia Presbyterian. 
 
 ''The sermons are sound, able, and forcible in 
 their applications of the truth. The head and 
 the heart will alike be benefited by the perusal 
 of them. ' ' — Christian Intelligencer. 
 
 ESS A YS ON DIVORCE AND DI- 
 VORCE LEGISLATION. 
 
 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO THE 
 UNITED STATES. One volume, i2mo. 
 Price, $1.75. 
 
 The Essays here brought together originally 
 appeared in The New Englander, where they 
 attracted wide attention from the exactness and 
 thoroughness with which they discuss the legal 
 aspects of this great question, as well as from the 
 sound discrimination displayed in the examina- 
 tion of its social aspects. 
 
 These books for sale by all Booksellers, or 
 sent, post-paid, on receipt of the price, by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO. 
 
 654 Broadway, New York. 
 
THE BIBLE COMMENTARY 
 
 (POPULARLY KNOWN IN ENGLAND AS "THE SPEAKER'S COMMENTARY.") 
 
 A Plain Explanatory Exposition of the Holy 
 Scriptures for every Bible Reader. 
 
 To be published at regular intervals, in royal octavo volumes, at the uniform price of 
 $5. 00 per volume. 
 
 WITH OCCASIONAL ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 The BIBLE COMMENTARY, the publication of which has just been commenced, by 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., simultaneously with its appearance m England, had its 
 origin in the widely felt want of a plain explanatory Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, 
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 jected in 1863, the selection of the scholars to be employed upon it was entrusted to a Com- 
 mittee named by the Speaker of the British House of Commons and the Archbishop of York, 
 and through the agency of this Committee there has been concentrated upon this great 
 work a combination of force such as has not been enlisted in any similar undertaking, in 
 England, since the translation of King James's version of the Bible. Of the THIRTY-SIX 
 DIFFERENT DIVINES who are engaged upon the work, nearly all are widely known hi 
 this country as well as in England, for their valuable and extensive contributions to the 
 Literature of the Bible, and in this Commentary they condense then: varied learning and 
 their most matured judgments. 
 
 The great object of the BIBLE COMMENTARY is to put every general reader and stn 
 dent in full possession of whatever information may be necessary to enable him to understand 
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 to supply him with satisfactory answers to obj ections resting upon misrepresentations or 
 misinterpretations of the text. To secure this end most effectually, the Comment is chiefly 
 explanatory, presenting in a concise and readable form the results of learned investigations 
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 portant subjects are necessary, they are placed at the end of the chapter or volume. 
 
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 translations of passages proved to be incorrect in that version. 
 
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 THE BIBLE COMMENTARY 
 
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 THE PENTATEUCH. 
 
 The books of which are divided as follows, among the contributors named : 
 
 GENESIS i • R,t " • ReV- • E< HAEOLr> Beowne, Bishop of Ely, and 
 
 | author of Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles. 
 
 EXODUS Chap. I-XIX. The Editor. 
 
 LEVITICUS Rev. Samuel Clakk, M.A. 
 
 " " Chap. XX. to the End, and 
 
 NUMBERS AND DEUTER- J Rev. T. E. Espin, B.D., Warden of Queen's Col- 
 ONOM Y { lege, Birmingham. 
 
 Making one vol. royal 8vo, of nearly 1,000 pages, being the only complete Commentary 
 upon the Pentateuch, in one volume, in the English language. Price in cloth $5.00, lees 
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 address on application. Single copies sent post-paid, on receipt of price, by 
 
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IO 
 
 THE 
 
 ©Iplogkal an& f ffao|ilJ!f el Hirarg, 
 
 A Series of Text-Books, Original and Translated, for Colleges and 
 Theological Seminaries. 
 
 EDITED BY 
 
 HENRY B. SMITH, D. D., and PHILIP SCHAFF, D. D., 
 
 PROFESSORS IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK. 
 
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 especially of ministers and students in all denominations. 
 
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 or American scholars. The aim will be to furnish at least one condensed standard work on 
 each of the scientific divisions of Theology and Philosophy, giving the results of the best 
 critical investigations, excluding, however, such histories and commentaries as extend 
 through many volumes. 
 
 The Initial Volume of this Series is Now Ready, viz. : 
 
 A HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY, 
 
 FROM THALES TO THE PRESENT TIME. 
 By Dr. F. Ueberweg, late Professor of Philosophy in the University of Kbnigsberg. 
 
 Translated by George S. Morris, Professor of Modern Languages in the University 
 
 of Michigan. Edited, with additions, by Noah Porter, LL.D. President of 
 
 Yale College, with an Introduction by the Editors of the Library. 
 
 Price in cloth per vol., $3. 50. 
 
 Prof. Ueberweg's great work stands without a rival. The American translation has 
 
 been made with the author's sanction, and has the advantages of numerous additions from 
 
 his pen. 
 
 LANGE'S COMMENTARY. 
 
 ANOTHER OLD TESTAMENT VOLUME. 
 
 JOSHUA, Translated and Edited by Rev. Geo. Bliss, D.D., Lewisburg, Pa. 
 JUDGES and RUTH, by Rev. P. H. Steenstra, Cambridge. 
 
 The Volumes previously published are : 
 OLD TESTAMENT.— I. GENESIS. II. PROVERBS, SONG OF SOLO- 
 MON, ECCLESIASTES. III. JEREMIAH and LAMENTATION. 
 NEW TESTAMENT.— I. MATTHEW. II. MARK and LUKE. III. JOHN. 
 IV. ACTS. V. THE EPISTLE OF PAUL TO THE ROMANS. VI. COR- 
 INTHIANS. VII. THESSALONIANS, TIMOTHY, TITUS, PHILEMON, 
 and HEBREWS. VIII. GALATIANS, EPHESIANS, PHILIPPIANS, 
 COLOSSIANS. IX. THE EPISTLES GENERAL OF JAMES, PETER, 
 JOHN, and JUDE. 
 Each one vol. 8vo. Price per vol., in half calf, $7.50 ; in sheep, $6.50 ; in cloth, $5.00. 
 These works sent, post-paid, on receipt of the price, by 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER & CO., 654 Broadway, N. Y. 
 
EDINBURGH REVIEW. — « The BEST History of the Roman Republic." 
 LONDON TIMES. -"BY FAR THE BEST History of the Decline and PaH 
 of the Roman Commonwealth." 
 
 3XTO-W READY, VOLUME IV. 
 
 OF THE 
 
 jgtetotg of Momty 
 
 FROM THE EARLIEST TIME TO THE PERIOD OF ITS DECLINE. 
 
 By Dr. THEODOR MOMMSEJT. 
 
 Translated, with the author's sanction and additions, by the Rev. W. P. Dickson, Regius 
 Professor of Biblical Criticism in the University of Glasgow, late Classical Examiner in 
 the University of St. Andrews. With an Introduction by Dr. Leonhard Schmitz, and 
 a copious Index of the whole four volumes, prepared especially for this edition. 
 
 REPRINTED FROM THE REVISED LONDON EDITION 
 
 Four Volumes crown 8vo. Price per volume, $2.00. 
 
 Dr. Mommsen has long been known and appreciated through his i^searches 
 into the languages, laws, and institutions of Ancient Rome and Italy, as 
 the most thoroughly versed scholar now living in these departments of his- 
 torical investigation. To a wonderfully exact and exhaustive knowledge of 
 these subjects, he unites great powers of generalization, a vigorous, spirited, 
 and exceedingly graphic style and keen analytical powers, which give this 
 history a degree of interest and a permanent value possessed by no other 
 record of the decline and fall of the Roman Commonwealth. " Dr. 
 Mommsen's work," as Dr. Schmitz remarks in the introduction, " though 
 the production of a man of most profound and extensive learning and 
 knowledge of the world, is not as much designed for the professional 
 scholar as for intelligent readers of all classes who take an interest in the his- 
 tory of by-gone ages, and are inclined there to seek information that may 
 guide them safely through the perplexing mazes of modern history." 
 
 CRITICAL NOTICES. 
 
 " A. work of the very highest merit ; its learning is exact and profound ; its narrative full 
 of genius and skill ; its descriptions of men are admirably vivid. We wish to place on 
 record our opinion that Dr. Mommsen's is by far the best history of the Decline and FaD 
 of the Roman Commonwealth." — London Times. 
 
 *' Since the days of Niebuhr, no work on Roman History has appeared that combines so 
 much to attract, instruct, and charm the reader. Its style — a rare quality in a German au- 
 thor — is vigorous, spirited, and animated. Professor Mommsen's work can stand a com- 
 parison with the noblest productions of modern history." — Dr. Schmitz. 
 
 " This is the best history of the Roman Republic, taking the work on the whole — the 
 author's complete mastery of his subject, the variety of his gifts and acquirements, his 
 graphic power in the delineation of national and individual character, and the vivid interest 
 which he inspires in every portion of his book. He is without an equal in his own sphere." 
 — Edinburgh Review. 
 
 "' A book of deepest interest"— Dean Trench. 
 
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS-URBANA 
 
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