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Connecticut Valley Congregational Club.
Commemorative addresses ... Nov, 29, 1887.

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YALE
UNIVERSITY LIBRARY

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COMMEMORATIVE ADDRESSES,

DELIVERED BEFOKB THE

Connecticut Valley Congregational Club,

IJT THE SECOKD CONGREGATIOKAL CHURCH,
GREENFIELD, MASS.,

NOVEMBER 29, 1887,

SPRINGFIELD, MASS. PUBLISHED BT THE CLUB.

CVx.35.Ga^-(,

Clakk w, Bryan & Co,, Printers,
Springfield, Mass.

.' *

Gov. Washburn in Pubhc Life.

AN ADDRESS BY THE

HON. OEORQE E. HOAR,

UNITED STATES SENATOR.

ADDRESS.

IN meeting a body like this, I am reminded of the scene in Bunyan's
great allegory, "where the Interpreter took Christian by the hand, and
led him to a place "where there "was a tire burning against a wall, and
one standing by it al"ways, casting much water upon, it to quench it.
Yet did the fire burn brighter and hotter. Then he led him about to
the back side of the "wall, "where he saw a man with a vessel of oil in
his hand, of the which he did also cast into the fire.
Upon our altar fire of Christian liberty what stream of evil is con
stantly poured ! What torrent of party strife and hate of section and
of race! "What selfish ambition and greed! What debased appetite!
What ignorance and darkness! What anarchy and disorder and unbelief !
And yet the sacred flame burnetii purer and hotter from age to age. It
is because the Christian spirit of the country, in unnumbered streams of
education and charity, pours its holy oil into the fire, whereby, as Bun-
yan saith, " Notwithstanding what the devil can do, the souls of the
people prove gracious still."
Certainly, among the powerful forces at your command are lives like
that of William B. Washburn. He is one of the best recent examples
of a character whose external manifestations change somewhat with
changing manners and fashions, but the substance of whose quality
abides, and, I believe, will abide, through many succeeding generations.
That character is the New England Puritan. It is a character very im
perfectly understood, except by those who partake somewhat of its spirit,
and nowhere, so far as I know, adequately described by any historian.
It is as far from the religious enthusiast of Macaulay as from the hypo
critical bufEoou of Hudibras. Carlyle knew something of its strength,
though he was totally incapable of comprehending its best qualities. The
men who are its best types vary as the generations vary. To define it
correctly we must find a definition which will include Mark Hopkins, as
well as John Winthrop and Samuel Adams. *
To comprehend the New England Puritan, you must understand not
only his religious belief, but his theory of the state, his intellectual
quality, his tastes, his affections, and the temper and characteristics
which he inherited from the great race from which he sprang. Change

6 William Barrett Washburn.
any one of these, and he would have filled a very different place in his
tory. The creed alone did not make the Puritan.
The sublimest thing in the universe, except its Creator, is a human
will governing itself in obedience to a law higher than its own desire.
The sublimest manifestation of that self-control is when a self-governing
state regulates its conduct by the moral law. Eeligious faith is the first
and most essential elemeniiof Puritanism. But the Puritan differs from
most other men in whom the religious principle is found existing in equal
strength, in seeking to make the law of God the rule of life for states as
well as for men. As had always been the fashion of the law-abiding
Saxon race fi-om which he sprang, he governed his conduct in public and
in private by general rules. Will what seems convenient to me to do on
the present occasion answer as a precedent for conduct in all like cases?
If not, however convenient, or however seemingly harmless the thing he
is tempted to do, it is not done.
His theology demanded the constant exercise of the reasoning power
in preacher and hearer. The severe logic by which the associates and
disciples of Edwards sought to bring to the mind of their hearers some far-
off conception of the sublime arithmetic of Heaven, to reconcile
Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,
Fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, .
and to solve the problems of religious liberty and duty, trained
his understanding for the kindred question of the true limit which
separates authority and liberty in the state- In this way he became
fitted, more than any other man .who ever lived, for the framing of
constitutions and the great permanent statutes which, like constitutions,
regulate the things which lie at the foundation of all human society.
He was the best builder of states, and the best material of which states
are builded, that the world ever knew. Whatever his detractors may say
of him, he has ever had an open mind, admitting the lessons the neW
generations had to bring forth in church and state. He has always re
garded the admonition of the revered teacher of the Pilgrims, John
Robinson of Leyden, "If God should reveal any thing by any other in
strument of his, to be ready to receive it; for he was very confident that
the Lord had more truth and light yet to break forth out of his holv
word." The men who held the Pilgrim faith inherited also from the
race from which they sprang the qualities of good sense, tenacity of pur
pose, personal independence, courage, aptness for command, and that
sublime discontent, better than the contentment of despotism, which can
never see any thing going wrong on the face of the earth that it does not

William Barrett Washburn. 7
consider it the especial business of each man to set it right, and never can
flnd a human conditiou so perfect that it is not striving to make it better.
Men who confound lavish self-indulgence with generosity have
strangely imputed a niggardly and parsimonious temper to the New
England Puritan. Never was a greater error. On the contrary, from
the foundation of Harvard college until to-day, when the yearly reports of
our religious bodies record the unparalleled generosity with which they are
pouring out their gifts for purposes of education and charity and foreign
aud domestic missions, he has been, I believe, the most conspicuous in
stance in history of the unselfish devotion of private means to public ends.
Iu addition to all this, the Puritan has always been a man of the
strongest capacity for the loftiest and purest affection. He loved liberty,
religious and civil. He loved home, and friends, and family, and coun
try, with a love never surpassed. He did not, in those days when he was
called to encounter exile and torture and death, before which he never
quailed or flinched, love pleasure, or luxury or mirth. Undoubtedly in
this respect the temper of his descendants, under the influence of free
dom and prosperity and happiness has undergone a change. He never
was a despiser of the things of this world. He believed in a future life,
where Just men were to enjoy immortality with those they had loved
here. But he also believed in the coming of God's kingdom here. He
had a firm faith that the state he had builded was to continue and grow,
a community of men living together in the practice of virtue, in the
worship of God, in the pursuit of truth. It has been said of each of
two great Puritan leaders : " Hope shone like a fiery pillar in him,
when it had gone out in all others. His mind is firmly fixed on the
future ; his face is radiant with the sunrise he intently watches."
The modest and simple nature of our friend would have been some
what startled if he had known that we should compare him to the great
and heroic character we have described. Yet such men as he, and such
a time as that in which it was his fortune to live, are the natural fruit
of the lives and teaching of our fathers. That would be a most imper
fect and one-sided character which should shine only in storm and per
secution and adversity, and had no blossoms of grace in green pastures
and by still waters. Mr. Washburn's lot in early youth was cast amid
conditions where his clear good sense, energy and perseverance, needed
but the addition of strict and inflexible integrity to insure success. That
integrity seems to have been native to him. We can best sum him up
by our English word sterling. His metal was pure and without alloy,
through and through. The people of the commonwealth tried it, and
assayed it, and stamped upon it their hall-mark.

8 WiLLi.vM Barrett Washburn.
Mr. Washburn was graduated at Yale college in 1844. It is said that
it was his desire to become a clergyman. But the misfortune in business
of a relative made it his duty to undertake the management of an import
ant manufacturing concern. He conducted this so successfully and ably,
and made in his youth so strong an" impression of wisdom and probity,
that he was elected to the Senate of Massachusetts in 1850, only six
years after leaving college, and to the House of Representatives in 1854.
He was also at various times in his life called to many important public
trusts, among them that of bank director and president, trustee of Yale
and Smith and the Agricultural colleges, of the Mt. Hermon school, of
the Sophia Smith bequest, the presidency of this club, and of the Ameri
can Missionary Association. The people of Franklin county and of the
whole Connecticut valley came to know him throughly. He was
one of the very pillars of the state. His wise counsel, his open
hand, his true and kind heart, were at the command of every righteous
cause. It was therefore inevitable that in the great trial day of 1863,
the people of this district should turn to him to represent its love of
liberty and its steadfast loyalty in the Congress of the United States.
He was chosen unanimously. I think that men who look with dislike on
popular government, and who think nations are saved by their remnants,
may profitably be invited to consider what sort of men it is who are
elected unanimously, or with substantial unaminity, by a free people to
places of great responsibility and power in their times of trial. Washing
ton in 1788 and '93, Sumner in 1857, Mr. Webster. I think, in his first
election from Boston, Mr. Washburn in 1863, are among our few ex
amples. Never was the wisdom of a constituency more fully vindicated.
Mr. Washburn brought to the service of this people a purity of heart, a
perfect integrity, an austerity of virtue, which not so much rendered
him superior to all temptation, as made it impossible to conceive that
any of the objects of personal desire which lead public men astray, could
ever, to him, even be a temptation.
He was a man of most simple and unpretending manners. Until you
knew him well, and had learned the full strength of his understanding,
you might have thought that his was one of those cases where virtue
stands in the place of talent. But this would have been a mistake.
There were few stronger or clearer intellects in our public service. His
mind moved rapidly, by a very simple and direct path, to a sound and
correct result in the most difficult and complicated cases. He was soon
called to the chairmanship of the Committee on Claims, then with two
or three exceptions the most important position in the House. The gov
ernment was compelled to make large and complicated contracts, involv-

William Barrett Washburn. 9
ing many millions, to seize property and person for the necessities
of the war, and to destroy the property of friend and foe alike in the
movement of its armies and navies, and the defence of its territory.
Congress was beset by claims to the amount of hundreds and hundreds
of millions, where sometimes fraud seemed to exhaust its resources,
where, in the confiict of testimony, it was almost impossible to determine
the fact, and where the facts when determined often presented the most
novel and difficult questions of public law and public policy. Mr. Wash
burn's dealing with these cases was the very sublimity of common sense.
He very soon acquired the confidence of the House so completely that
his judgment became its law in matters within the jurisdiction of his
committee. I became acquainted with him, an acquaintance which soon
ripened into cordial friendship, when I entered the House in the spring
of 1869. In the fall of 1871, when the republican party was seeking
a new candidate for governor, on the withdrawal of Gov. Claflin, I
recorded my estimate of Mr. Washburn in a letter to the chairman of
the republican committee of my own city, which I may be pardoned for
reading here: —
I am, and have been from the first, in favor of Mr. "Washburn as the republican
candidate for governor. I think him the best fitted man I know for the oiBce.
He is a thorough business man, with capacity for public speaking sufBcient to
appear with great credit on all the occasions where it is required, experienced in
public ailairs, and with a faculty for seeing and dealing with the thing exactly as
it Is, without any regard to the person who is interested in it, which hardly any
public man that I know possesses in an equal degree. No portion of the republi
can pa,rty cherishes any hostility toward him which would prevent their extending
to him a just and generous confidence and support. He cherishes no hostility to
anybody which would swerve him from absolute justice toward every citizen.
While I do not see why my opinion should be an object of especial interest to
other people, in a matter where all the republicans of the commonwealth have such
ample means of forming an intelligent judgment for themselves, I have certainly
no objection to making it known, if you think it desirable.
Beneath his plain courtesy was a firmness which Cato never surpassed.
Upon a question of morality, or freedom or righteousness there was
never a drop of compromise in his blood. He could not be otherwise
than the constant foe of slavery, and the constant friend of everything
which went to emancipate a^d elevate the slave. It was his good fortune
to record his vote in favor of all the three great amendments to the con
stitution, and to be the supporter, friend and trusted counsellor of
Abraham Lincoln.
I would not, on an occasion like this, stir the embers of strifes yet
recent. But I must not omit, in this sketch of the public life of Mr.
Washburn, the great debt which all, to whom the good fame of the com-

10 WiLLiAJi Barrett Washburn.
monwealth is dear, owe him for the service, which, by pure force of per
sonal character, he rendered her in 1871. The war had left the Ameri
can people encumbered with an enormous debt, whose grievous burden
pressed upon nation, state, county, town and private citizen alike. The
vast speculations which war and inflated currencies had stimulated had
brought on the embarrassments which ended in the great financial crash
of 1873. In some of the northwestern states it was said a large majority
of the farms were mortgaged to near their full value, for debts con
tracted when the paper dollar was not worth half its nominal value in
gold. Under these circumstances the great temptation came to the Ameri
can people to throw off the vast weight of this debt by the spurious and
delusive contrivance of fiat money. This delusion, universal at the
South, spread through the northwest with a rapidity and intensity before
which many of the firmest and wisest of our statesmen bowed for a time.
The ablest advocate of this doctrine in the country came forward as a can
didate for the nomination for the office of governor of Massachusetts in
the party to which Mr. Washburn belonged. Many things commended him
to popular favor. He was understood to have great influence with the ap
pointing power at Washington, and to be in a position to reward able and
ambitious men who should engage in his service. He had enlisted among
the earliest in the war. He had wit, and eloquence, and vast capacity
for labor. With very few exceptions, he was the most conspicuous and im
pressive personality in the country. He possessed a marvellous English
style, belonging to the same class as that of Swift and William Cobbett,
without grace or ornament, but which conveyed his meaning clear and
exact as it was conceived in his own brain to the understanding of the
simplest and the most illiterate of his auditors. As he passed up and
down the commonwealth advocating his own cause, before the vast
crowds who gathered about him, filling his antagonists with dismay, and
the apprehension that the voice of Massachusetts might be given for
financial dishonor and the perpetuation of the spoils system, he brought
to mind the chieftain in the old Arab war-song : —
Terrible he rode alone.
With his Yemen sword for aid ;
Ornament it carried none,
Save the notches on the blade.
The convention of the republican party seemed about to assemble,
distracted in counsel and divided among several candidates, each with a
small following. The eyes of the public turned toward Mr. Washburn.
Attractive as were the qualities of his antagonist, his were more attrac-

WiniAM Barrett Washburn. 11
tive still. The majority of the convention easily united upon him, and
the state kept its ancient pathway of honor and safety.
He was a model chief magistrate. After two years of admirable
service he was elected a third time and then called to a brief term in
the Senate of the United States, with which his official life ended. He
passed the remainder of his days as the first citizen of the community
where he dwelt, in the management of his own business, and in unpaid
service to the cause of temperance, of religion and good order.
You would not speak of Mr. Washburn's mind as especially brilliant,
or acute or logical, yet it would be hard to find an occasion in a life
passed amid great and stirring events and important public responsi
bilities where he was called upon for speech or action, where he did not
say or do precisely the wisest and fittest thing which could have been
said or done under the circumstances. If the people among whom his
life was spent should desire to send down from this to a later age the pic
ture of a true representative of the noblest growth their soil supjolies, their
best sample and product after two hundred years of freedom, I think
they would not seek among brilliant examples of wit, or eloquence, or
genius, but would still choose, before any, this Puritan of the 19th century,
this sound, sober, wise, prudent, steadfast, just, generous, modest, spot
less. Christian gentleman: —
Statesman, yet friend to truth, of soul sincere,
In action faithful, and in honor clear, —
pillar of the state without ambition, pillar of the church without
bigotry, who blended the faith of the old days with the sweeter manners
of the new.

THB

Opportunity of the Christian Layman.

AN ADDRESS BY THE

REV. L. CLARK SEELYE, D. D.,

PRESIDENT OF SMITH COLLEGE.

ADDRESS.

SINCE the death of William Barrett Washburn, there have been many
impressive tributes to his worth. His funeral was attended by the
highest officials of the state, the trustees and teachers of schools and
colleges, the delegates of home and foreign missionary enterprises,
the directors and employes of important business corporations and numer
ous sincere mourners from nearly all social ranks. Resolutions, expressing
a profound sense of bereavement and a high appreciation of his character,
have been passed by the governor and his council, and by various ecclesi
astical, educational, charitable, and commercial bodies, in which he was an
influential officer. Prompted by the same sentiments, we, his neighbors
and associates, gather again to add another testimony to his inestimable
services. It is peculiarly fitting that this Congregational club should
commemorate the life and work of its first president and its most distin
guished member; for his life represents the best fruit of our Congrega
tional polity, and is one of the strongest incentives to cultivate the stock
out of which he grew.
I suppose the committee in charge of these exercises have assigned
the speakers distinct topics, in order to express more forcibly the wide
scope of our friend's infiuence, and at the same time directly minister to
the purpose for which this club was formed. They have asked me to
speak upon the " Opportunity of the Christian Layman in respect to Edu
cation, as illustrated in the life of Governor Washburn." I am happy
that the illustration itself is so clear and forcible a presentation of the
subject, that there is little need of more than a simple recital of pertinent
facts in his biography.
One can but be reminded by the phraseology of the theme of the great
educational changes which have made it possible for such lives to be, since
the term layman became a part of our vocabulary. When that word origi
nated, schools were almost exclusively clerical. Priests were generally the
teachers, and candidatesfor the priesthood the pupils. Even as late as the
settlement of our own country, the chief thought in founding a college was.
to prevent an illiterate ministry; and after that idea was outgrown, a
liberal education was for a long time considered useful only to candidates
for the professions popularly called learned. Happily, we have passed be
yond that period. Learning is no longer the monopoly of a class. The

16 William Barrett Washburn.
idea that men are worth educating as men, irrespective of their vocation,
is becoming more and more prevalent, and has well nigh obliterated the
scholastic distinctions between laymen and clergymen. It requires now
no extended argument to show that education magnifies every man's
influence, and augments his success. There is a growing recognition of
the fact that intelligence is one of the most useful, as well as the most
valuable of human acquisitions, and that the field is practically unlimited
for its exercise. With the rapidly increasing facilities for accumulating
'wealth, it has become of prime importance that the vast power thus
acquired be wisely directed. Steam has multiplied a thousand fold our
productions. Men may now become enormously rich, not by spoliation,
but by honest industry. The trouble is to teach them how to rightly
use the wealth which they readily accumulate; how to adjust the delicate
and complicated relations between labor and capital, so that one man's
accumulations shall not impoverish, but enrich his fellows, and the
capitalist be considered not an oppressor, but a universal benefactor.
With the growth of civil liberty, the people have become sovereigns.
Political preferment is no longer a birth-right. To the highest offices
the humblest citizen is eligible. How to train men for citizenship ; how
to find and enact laws which shall protect individual rights and develop
to the utmost individual capacity; how to educate the men and women
of our land so that they may live up to their responsibilities and improve
their privileges; these are questions which demand intelligent states
men and liberal minded men of affairs.
In the church, also, laymen have acquired greater prominence than
in any previous age. Ecclesiastical affairs are no longer under the exclusive
control of the clergy. The laity have equal, if not more, power. There
is the greater need of men among them with broad views of God's truth,
who may be able without bigotry and intolerance to direct the religious
agencies entrusted to their care, so that the kingdom of Christ may every
where prevail. Religion has always been in greater danger from its
ignorant friends than from its intelligent foes, and its progress is hindered
by the incubus of those whose zeal is rarely according to their knowledge.
The church will not gain a complete triumph until its leading members
put on the whole armor of God, until in the unity of faith and knowledge
they come to the stature of the perfect man.
I could ask no better illustration of these changes to which I have
alluded, and the opportunities they offer the Christian layman, than is
presented in the life of him whom we to-day mourn and honor.
Governor Washburn is a conspicuous example of the value of intelli
gence and a cultivated mind to business men. I am not at all sure

William B.\rrett Washburn. 17
that he would have been as well educated, had he not in early life
cherished the notion of qualifying himself for one of the professions.
Very likely the old jirojudices concerning a liberal education might have
been sufficiently strong in his boyhood to have prevented him from going
to college, had it been foreseen that immediately after receiving an
academic degree he would become a manufacturer. None the less, he
shows how a man with average talents and in adverse circumstances may,
by faith, courage, and persistent industry, become liberally educated; and
how, in unprofessional life, his education inestimably enhances the value
of his services to society, the church, and the state.
Some men are born with talents so extraordinary as to win, without
apparent effort, popular admiration and homage. Such was not the lot
of the lad born in Winchendon, January 31, 1830. He gave evidence
of no greater ability in childhood than hundreds of other New England
boys. No one, so far as I am aware, ever considered him a prodigy ; no
one prophesied for him great things. Nothing in his circumstances fore
shadowed a brilliant career. The simple story of his youth is one of
continuous struggle with adversity. His father died when Barrett was
only three years old, leaving a widow and two sons, and no property for
their support. The mother and her boys returned to her father's house,
and within a few years, she married again. Barrett continued to live with
his grandfather, — Captain Phineas Whitney, a farmer of moderate
means — and by him the boy's early training was directed. He was
brought up in a Christian home, where there was strong belief in God,
and man's accountability. The children were carefully taught the essen
tials of Christian faith. These religious instructions made the deepest
impression upon the boy's mind, and more than any other forces governed
his entire life. From the faith of his fathers he never swerved. At an
early age he joined the Congregational church at Winchendon, and all
who have known him will bear witness to the uniform consistency and
strength of his Christian character. It was a home, also, where the
children were taught by precept and example, that work was an honor,
and idleness a disgrace. Only last June, on a visit to the old homestead.
Governor Washburn said with a smile : " Grandfather never thought work
hurt a boy, but lack of work a very bad thing." In the summer he
worked on the farm, in winter he was sent to the district school; and
district schools in those days did not go beyond reading, writing,
geography and arithmetic. As he grew older he endeavored to earn
a little money by hiring out from month to month to neighboring
farmers. In after life, looking over some of the meadows in Winch
endon, he remarked to a friend : "1 can still see there the stone

6

18 Willi.vm ]>arrett Washburn.
heaps that I picked up, when I worked as a boy for very little pay and
poor food."
If he did not at this period display unusual brilliancy, he at least gave
evidence of a strong ambition to make the best of himself and his sur
roundings. He determined to get a good education ; and as his relatives
were unable to furnish sufficient means for that purpose he eagerly
welcomed any honest employment which could aid him. He worked as
a farmer, as a clerk, and as a teacher, and at last succeeded in saving
money enough to pay his tuition a few months in Winchendon, West
minster, Groton, Jaffreyand Hancock academies. Through these he ob
tained a poor preparation for Yale college, which he entered in 1840.
His classmate and room mate writes^thus concerning his college life: —
" He was a good scholar, and I can give you no better idea of his rank
in the class than to say that every recitation of the four years was marked,
and that the commencement appointments were awarded according to
these marks. About one-half of our class, which numbered 104 at gradu
ation, had appointments  When I say that Washburn took a
dissertation, you will see that his rank in scholarship was in the first
quarter of the class.
"As a literary man I don't think he stood so high, for he came into
competition with men who stood low in the recitation room, but were
diligent readers and good writers. He read as much as he thought his
prescribed duties allowed. What he read I don't remember, but if he
has left memoranda I think these will reveal that his reading was mostly
of solid books. I don't believe he gave much time to poetry or novels,
but rather that history and science and essays like those of Macaulay,
Carlyle, Scott, etc., mostly engaged him. In other words, his stand as
a literary man in college was highly respectable.
" There were at Yale in our day, two great debating societies, — the
Linonian and the Brothers, which, to the shame of Yale and to the great
loss of its students, have been suffered to die. He belonged to the for
mer. As I was a member of the latter, I did not hear him debate, and
speak only from the common fame of the time, which assigned to him
high rank as a debater. He was as modest as a girl, but, when once
warmed, he was as bold as a lion and not a trace of diffidence remained.
And he was not only bold, but clear as well, and strong.
" He was an amiable man, and it is to his credit more than to mine,
that during the close relations of our college life, not one unpleasant
word ever passed between us, and, so far as I know, not even an un
friendly thought. He liked pleasantry, and took a sharp joke good-
naturedly, parrying it if he could, and, when he could not, he awaited

William Barrett Wartthurn. 19
his time to return it in full, with interest. He was an honest man in
every fibre of his being. In college days he was far from rich, but ho was
liberal, and always anxious to contribute his full share to the ordinary
expenses of his position. And farther, he was not only honest, but he
was sincerely and intelligently a religious man."
A friend from Winchendon also writes: "It was when in college,
as I suppose, that he taught a school in our village, which is well
remembered by many of our older people as a very famous school. I
cannot think that he owed his success as a teacher to a high grade
of scholarship, so much as to the personal influence which he exerted
over his pupils, exciting their ambition, and in some way bring
ing out all the good there was in them. I well remember one of his
pupils, who afterward graduated at Yale college, and was himself a famous
teacher, (although he died young a few years after graduation,) when he
first commenced attending Mr. Washburn's school, was considered the worst
boy in town, and troubled Mr. Washburn very much. He had a confer
ence with him. I do not know as it was ever known to any one but them
selves what passed, but from that day there was a change in that young
man, and he has been considered the most gifted and talented young
man that Winchendon ever produced. Mr. Washburn obtained the
means for his education, I should say, by money which he saved when a
boy working out by the month, by a little which his grandfather on his
father's side left him, by teaching, by selling wooden-ware for his uncle
in New Haven and New York when in college, and by some small loans
from relatives aud friends, which he afterward repaid."
These accounts show, that whatever may have been his scholarship,
the best qualities of manhood were developed during his college days.
His faith and courage increased by the difficulties which he surmounted.
When he graduated at twenty-four he had more than the learning which
a college curriculum denotes. He had already triumphed over great
obstacles, aud was well fitted to succeed in severer tests.
At first he seems to have questioned whether he should enter the law
or the ministry, and he had many qualities which admirably fitted him
for either profession. A relative who had helped him in obtaining an
education requested also his aid in business, and the young college gradu
ate was for a time sorely perplexed as to what course he ought to take.
An aged aunt, who probably knows more of his early struggles than any
other living person, writes : " There was a clergyman, a warm friend of
his, in whose judgment he had great confidence, and he laid his case be
fore him. After consideration, his friend said to him, ' I think a truly
Christian business man may accomplish as much as a minister of the

20 William Barrett Washburn.
gospel.'" This advice coincided with his own convictions, and he de
termined at once to assist his relative and become a business man. Into
this new career he entered with characteristic energy and devotion. He
proved very speedily that education helps a man make pails and chairs,
as well as briefs and sermons. His intelligence, sound judgment and
clear perceptions gave him superior advantages over his associates in trade,
and within five years from his graduation he became manager of an im
portant branch of manufacture ; a position which he retained until his
death. Its continued and increasing prosperity bears witness to the
sagacity and skill with which it was conducted.
As a business man he early displayed those qualities which insure suc
cess. Industrious, sagacious, frugal, he succeeded where other men
failed. He determined that what he furnished men should be worth
what it cost. No fraud was tolerated ; there was no overreaching of
customers or employees. He won the confidence of all with whom he
dealt. Men began to seek his aid in their o"wn concerns. United with
a scrupulous integrity, they discerned a foresight and sagacity, which made
him a trusted counselor in financial matters. In his hands the poor felt
their earnings safe. With him as president, stockholders and depositors
felt that bank funds would not be employed dishonestly, or jeoparded
in speculation. The public confidence in his financial ability and in
tegrity may be seen in his re-election for many years as director of the
Eranklin savings institution, aud as president of the First national bank
of Greenfield. More and more the power of his broad generous sympathy was felt
by all with whom he came in contact. The village of South Orange,
where he first made his home, lacked churches and schools. His
father-in-law was remonstrated with for allowing his daughter to marry
a man who would consent to live in so destitute a place. Colonel Sweet-
ser shrewdly replied, " I look not at the place but at him." He justified
the judgment. The wealth of his generous nature would have enriched
a desert. Mainly through his agency, a church was speedily organized
and good teachers procured. The entire character of the community was
transformed through his well directed efforts for the public good.
He labored no less zealously for the welfare of the town of Greenfield,
where the last 30 years of his life were mostly spent. He was ever a
hearty advocate and substantial friend of all public improvements.
To him the town is indebted for its commodious library building, and
from him came the liberal endowment which is perpetually to supply it
with books. The church edifice in -which we are gathered owes much of
his good taste and generous contributions; and the church organization

WiLLTAIM BaRRIOTT WaSIIBURN. 21
still more to his sympathetic interest in its growth and to his exemplary
Christian life. In manifold unostentatious ways he ministered to the
poor and the unfortunate around him, althougli they rarely knew the
source from which their need was supplied. Since coming here this
afternoon, I have learned that frequently, and in the most delicate man
ner, he met the deficiency in his pastor's salary by his own private con
tributions. Nor were his thoughts confined to the one community where he
lived, and the individual church to which he belonged. His liberal cul
ture led him to take an active interest in the broader life of the church
catholic, and the state. He gave habitually and generously to promote
Christanity at home and abroad. For several years he was president of
the American Missionary Association, and he was long a corporate member
of the American Board; his last conscious act was in its service. Every
movement to spread the gospel, to promote temperance, virtue and
knowledge, found in him ever an intelligent and generous advocate. He
never begrudged the time and service this philanthropic work demanded.
More money, perhaps, might have been made by devoting himself ex
clusively to manufactures; but to possess an immense fortune was not
the ambition of his life.
Chaffer was scarce his meat and drink,
Nor all his music — money chink.
His mind had been broadened so that it could never be satisfied with a
horizon bounded by factory walls. How can I best use my gifts to the
glory of God and the good of man? was the paramount question of
his life.
His honored successor in office has spoken of his political life and I will
not encroach upon his theme. I may be permitted, however, to add —
for it pertains to my topic — that his brilliant political career was the
natural outgrowth of the broad and generous culture which he had
received. It made him more eligible as a legislator and governor. It
secured more satisfactory service in the high offices which he was called
to fill.
The same qualities which led men to trust him in commercial,
ecclesiastical and civil affairs, led them to seek his aid in the manage
ment of educational interests. During his first term in Congress he was
elected as trustee of the Massachusetts Agricultural college, and he re
mained a trustee of that institution for 13 years. Brought up on a farm,
he was interested in providing a good education for farmers, and estab
lishing a station where experiments could be made which should be of
practical advantage to agriculture. He rendered efficient assistance in

22 William Barrett Washburn.
selecting the first faculty of that college, in the erection of its buildings,
and in determining its methods of instruction.
In 1873, while governor of Massachusetts he was elected a member of
Yale college corporation. As an alumnus of the college, he had ever a
peculiar pride in its prosperity, and devoted himself with conscientious
fidelity to the work of maintaining and increasing its power. The Rev.
Dr. Noah Porter, who was president of the college at that time, says of
him: "The late Governor Washburn was elected a member of the cor
poration of Yale college in 1873 and served till 1880, with a warm in
terest in the prosperity of the institution, and with entire satisfaction to
his associates in office and to the friends of the college. In the discharge
of his duties he exhibited the same characteristics which commanded the
respect and confidence of all who knew him, namely: good sense, modesty,
uprightness and fidelity. The college will always be honored by the
presence of his name on the roll of its fellows."
He also served Amherst college several years as one of its board of
overseers of the fund for indigent students, and rendered valuable aid
in its investments and appropriations.
During the last few years of his life, he was also a trustee of the
Mount Hermon school for boys. Owing to his impaired health, he could
give comparatively little attention to this new educational movement.
He was made,however, a member of its committee of investment, and aided
it financially by his advice and private gifts. The superintendent writes: ¦
" He acted with much caution, having a scrupulous care that investments
should be secure so far as human sagacity could make them so. He was
regarded as a judicious counselor whose sound judgment had great weight
whenever it was expressed concerning the management of the institution."
His longest, and in many respects his most important educational
service was in behalf of Smith college. He was one of the number
originally selected by Miss Sophia Smith, in her last will and testament, as
a trustee, and his appointment was confirmed by the charter granted to
the college in 1871. From that time until his death he continued an
active member of the corporation, assisting in the selection of its presi
dent and faculty, in the purchase of its site, in the erection of its
buildings, and aiding it by generous contributions. I can speak more
fully concerning his connection with this institution, for I had the privi
lege of being associated with him on the same board of trust. He had
an unwavering faith in woman's ability to acquire higher education, and
in the benefits which would thereby accrue to the race; and he entered
heartily into the movement to organize a college for women which should
provide, not only in name but in reality, an intellectual culture corres-

William BaupvEtt Washburn. 2:')
ponding with that of the best colleges for men. Although heavily burdened
with many public and private cares, he attended with great regularity
the meetings of the trustees, and at those meetings was ever one of the
most active and influential members. His business education led him to
scrutinize very closely the expenditures. Contracts for buildings, salaries,
household expenses. — all were critically examined by an eye trained to
detect waste or extravagance. He believed a college should be conducted
on business principles, and like other corporations should live within its
income. Debt he had a just and deep-seated aversion to. He had learned
through hard experience the value of economy. At the same time there w;is
nothing parsimonious about him. He gave generously and acted gener
ously toward others. He never advocated procuring inferior teachers
or inferior articles because they were cheap. " Get the best you can,"
was his maxim. The perspicuity, force and courtesy with which his opin
ions were stated, those associated with him will not soon forget. He
listened impartially and judicially to what others had to say, and then
stated his conclusions with a deference and gentleness which won the
respect, at least, of those who differed from him. He seemed always
more anxious that the right way than his own way should be taken. He
was preeminently a good counselor, — never rash, never easily thrown
from his balance, he could control himself in heated discussions, and
could see clearly when others were blinded by passion or prejudice. Few
men could be found so admirably qualified to administer great educational
trusts, and to few men have as many been committed with greater confi
dence and more satisfactory results. Aside from his direct contributions
to institutions, he was in the habit of aiding deserving students, and his
beneficiaries may be found in many pursuits.
Who, indeed, can trace or estimate the infiuence which this man has
exerted the past quarter of a century in respect to education ? True, that
influence has been so often merged in the general life of organizations
that men have been unconscious of its presence as a distinct and powerful
agent in their own activity; to him however, these schools have been largely
indebted for their material and intellectual growth. They possess ampler
funds, more numerous and commodious buildings, more competent facul
ties, better educational facilities of every sort, through his instrumentality.
There is not a student in these institutions who does not owe to him a
better preparation for life's work. Through hundreds of college graduates
the life of William Barrett Washburn powerfully affects a vast multitude.
He shares the victories aud successes of educated thought, and will for
centuries to come. Incorporated in these organizations he will continue
to enlighten aud elevate the world.

21 William Barrett Washburn.
And yet, it is not as merged in an institution that I should look
for his greatest influence. Himself was superior to any organiza
tion. As a specimen of what man could be and what man could
do, he was worth more than his generous gifts or his wise counsels.
It was what Governor Washburn was in himself ; it was his well
rounded, philanthropic, noble manhood that made him most influential
in politics, in business, in education, in religion. Wherever he moved,
whatever he engaged in, men felt, here is a genuine man — a man who
loves God and loves his neighbor also; who is ready to help every one in
trouble and to aid forward every good and charitable movement; who is
not disheartened in the midst of obstacles, nor spoiled by unusual pros
perity; whom we can trust without having our confidence betrayed, and
honor without feeling the distinction undeserved; a man, who practices
habitually in the home, in business, and in public life the highest virtues,
and exemplifies the best traits of mind and heart. Of all educating
forces such a life is the most potent. It calls forth our best capacities,
it gives inspiration and strength for the highest achievements.
The last work which Governor Washburn did on the evening before
his death was to correct the proof-sheets of an address which he made
last summer at the dedication of a mernorial school building in his native
town. The concluding words of that address in eulogy of another, may
appropriately close our eulogy of himself: —
" He has indeed fallen, but his spirit still lives and is performing
the great work originally assigned it. . . . He shall continue to
live in the character and influence of the thousand of boys and girls who
shall go forth better equipped and trained for their life work by reason
of his benefaction. He lives, too, in the grateful remembrance of many
to whom there were ever flowing from him streams of hidden beneficence,
gladdening their hearts and drying the tears in their eyes, whose story
never will be told till the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed.
"And when this beautiful building, dedicated to-day to such high
and noble purposes, shall moulder back to its mother dust again, aud when
the last generation that shall inhabit this beautiful village shall be clos
ing up its last accounts, even then his name shall ascend to heaven in the
prayers of thousands of noble men and women scattered all over the
country, in gratitude that they had been perniitted to reap the rich
fruits of his sacrifices and toils."

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