The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031304888 "Qnipereit^ of iH^rfeansas Bulletin Vol. III. -t- SEPTEMBER, 1909 No. 3 Fayetteville, Arkansas Published by the University of Arkansas. Issued quarterly. Entered as second-class mail niatter under Act of Congress, July i6, 1894. E.V. ADDRESSES ON THE ONE HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LIVES OF GREAT MEN. Delivered in the Chapel, University of Arkansas, February 12, 1909. Introductory Remarks by Professor A. H. Purdue. Man may be regarded from two standpoints — that of the material and that of the spiritual. Whether from the one or the other depends on whether he is seen through the eyes of the scientist or those of the metaphysician. Through the eyes of the scientist, he is seen as a product — the product of a plan that has been working through the ages. For all evidence goes to show that after our planet came into existeiice as such, millions of years passed before it could support even the lowest forms of life. And after these appeared, many other millions elapsed before man was reached by Nature in working out her "increasing purpose." So viewed as Jhe culminating product of ages of unceasing effort by the forces of creation, man is truly great. Viewed from the standpoint of metaphysics, man is pre-eminently the greatest of God's creatures. He is great in his conceptions and great in his executions. Ranked with other living beings, his mind is almost as the infinite compared with the finite. But no matter how great the race may be considered, there always have been individuals who tower above their fellows as the mountain peaks above their lowly neighbors. And such persons always have justly, sooner or later, received the homage and grati- tude of the race. Sooner or later a man's contemporaries may show an appreciation of him, but if he is truly great full recognition of his worth follows far in his wake; for it usually takes the masses a long time to reach the point in the journey of progress attained by the leaders of men. It has been said that the value of a life should be measured by what one is, what he does, and the forces he sets in motion. Using this as a standard the year 1809 ushered into the world an unusually large number of lives that were destined to become great. For these men set the world a moving while they lived and gave it such an impetus that the forces still are vigorously manifesting them- selves. It is a remarkable coincidence that two of (:hese men, Darwin and Lincoln, were born on the same day, February 12th, of which this day is the one hundredth anniversary. NOTE, — The time allowed for each of the following addresses wi^s fifteen minutes. We are but performing a duty to the present and doing deserw^d ' homage to the past in devoting one short evening to the great lives that began one hundred years ago. Their contemporaries owed these men much, we are their debtors, and future generations never will be free from obligations to them. It is entirely fitting that we should recognize the influence of these lives upon our race, express our gratitude that they were given to the world, and gather the m- spiration that may come from taking even a brief retrospect of the things these men stood for and the value they have been to man- kind. Especially do we hope that the students here present will gather inspiration from these lives and leave the hall with the determina- tion to do the best that is in them for the world. We are wont to think that the vital questions of mankind all have been solved, the great places in history already filled. Not so. Our purpose as a race is not yet realized, our destiny not attained. The past pre- sented no greater problems than come to the present and will come to the future. And, while the world needed great and strong men in the past the present still needs them, and the future always will have use for them. CHARLES DARWIN. Professor Ernest Walker. The centenary pf the birth of Darwin is being observed by Great Universities and Scientific bodies throughout both the old world and the new. We are accustomed to celebrations in honor of great soldiers — "battle scarred heroes" who have performed deeds of valor or rendered service to the nation and humanity. Such men from the earliest days to the present have been seized by the multitude, crowned with the laurel wreath, and lifted upon their shoulders as they marched through the streets to the blare of trum- pets, and perhaps the booming of cannon. The glistening marble or lifelike statue marks their final resting place that men may not forget. May the world never cease gratefully to remember those who in the service of their fellow men have faced appalling odds and "knew not, recked not danger." Too often, however, the ap- plause of the world has been merely a form of "hero worship," based not upon a calm estimate of the great one's service to the world, "but a bursting emotional enthusiasm called forth in part by a cer- tain theatric effect in the occasion, and the deed. The early days of the world were days of warfare. Great service consisted in deeds of valor. The only great men of a people were the warriors. The honoring of such became in a measure a habit, and so inbred, that men who have benefited the world in fully as great a degree, or even greaterj although in a noiseless way, have often been passed by almost unnoticed and without appreciation, until years after they have passed to their eternal reward. Often have they trod the wine press alone. "And I looked and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold." Who is greatest among you? The world's standard of judging has changed. Today it answers as would the lowly Nazerene: "He who is servant of all." There is a wonderful significance in that answer. For perhaps the first time in history the world with one accord has risen to do homage to her Davids of the intellect — intellectual greatness — and service. For years men have prattled parrot-like "the pen is mightier than the sword." Today as the public contemplates the service to humanity oi men like Darwin reverently and out of the fullness of its heart wells up the convic- tion "the pen is mightier than the sword." Just fifty years ago appeared Darwin's book entitled "The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection." The book marks an epoch in the progress of learning and the world's history. Few knew it at the time. The book created a storm of condemnation which lasted for years. The author and his ideas were ridiculed, abused, misrepresented, and cursed by the world at large. Did the world crucify its Savior; did it put to death its Socrates; did it imprison its Galileo; did it allow its Columbus to suffer? Figura- tively Darwin suffered all these forms of condemnation. But "truth crushed to earth shall rise again." It is the one thing unconquerable-eternal. Today the name of Darwin is inscribed upon the very pinnacle of fame. His theory of the " Descent of Man" is by no rneans univer- sally accepted at. the present time by either scientists or laymen; but that regarding the origin of the forms of plant and animal life is accepted, with or without some modification, by practically every learned biologist throughout the world. His book is one among the greatest ever written — a monument of painstaking investiga- tion, industry, intellectual greatness and a masterpiece of scientific argument. Judged by his influence upon the thought of the world the author is regarded by many eminent scholars as the most tower- ing intellectual personality of the Nineteenth Century.' Prior to Darwin the halls of biological science were but dimly lighted. There were meiny chambers where darkness reigned. His contribution to science was like an electric light in every hall and recess of biology. It had a vivifying effect directly and indi- rectly upon practically every department of science and various other branches of learning. To appreciate- adequately the truths discovered by Darwin, requires an intimate and wide knowledge of plant and animal life. I shall here not enter upon any discussion of the doctrine of evolu- tion. The time at my disposal will not permit. Almost libraries have been written upon the subject. I will only say in passing that the- principles of evolution are fundamental principles in biology and the various fields of agriculture. Of horticulture they. are the very foundation. The response to environment, variation, the law of use and disuse, heredity, selection, are at the beginning and end of all improvement in crops and domesticated animals, and will more and more be utilized in elevating the status of the human species as well. In education we acknowledge whether we know it or not the truths of evolution. Were there not a response to environment, were species immutable there would not be a student in any school; there would be no schools — indeed there would be nothing to school. Where would we be? Every man is ah evolu- tionist whether he knows it or not. Long before the days of Darwin men were evolutionists. Aris- '■ totle (384-322 B. C.) and Empedocles worked on the theory of 1 descent, and all along d6wn the years these principles were dis- ■ cussed from time to time by advanced scholars groping for the truth. Darwin's service and greatness consisted in bringing together all the known facts with a vast amount of observations made by him- self and the leading men of science into a consistent and logical relaticHiship in explanation of observed phenomena in the plant and animal world. He discovered the "law of natural selection" or as Spencer expresses it the "survival of the fittest." This was the magic wand — the "open sesame" to the previously locked chambers of natural science. In short Darwin put together an explanation that explaned a million things the world wanted to know;, but for which no one previously had been able to offer a wholly satisfactory explanation. But interesting as it would be to discuss more fully those great principles we must hurry on. I should like to say a word, however about a phase of evolution which is seldom discussed, and that is, the personality of Darwin. He was not only great in what he gave the world, but great in himself, and wholly unconsciously. Born to wealth he became great in spite of it and labored with a zeal and industry rarely equaled. He was a lifelong invalid, having inherited a weakness of the stomach that made him subject to severe illness upon protracted mental effort. That would have discouraged many men. It proved a burden, but in some respects an advantage since it forced him into a secluded quiet life congenial to high intellectual efforts. His patience was a remarkable characteristic. After beginning work upon his theories in 1837, accumulating all sorts of facts and observations, it was five years before he allowed himself to speculate upon the subject. It was seven years before he allowed himself to outline any conclusions. From that day on he pursued steadily the same object and not till after twenty-two years of incessant toil and research did he venture to give to the world his views in the form of a book. His diligence in searching for truth, his care in stating it, his courage in announcing conclusions which he must have known would bring down upon his head the censure and ridicule of the world all make him the master investigator that he was — the. Baconian ideal. I once loaned a copy of Darwin's Origin of Species to a young German naturalist. After several months he returned it. I sup- posed he had finished reading it but noticed by the appearance of the leaves that he had read only a few score pages. Why! you did not read all the book, I said. Did you find it uninteresting? "OhJ said he, "I enjoyed it, but could not read it through." Why? I asked. "Oh!" said he, "there is so much on every page.'' The young man was right. The array of facts gathered from all sources and portions of the world bearing upon the discussions is simply appalling. Darwin always stood ready to acknowledge his indebtedness to others whose learning he made use of. He never left readers to infer credit was due to him when it belonged to another. He acknowledged his indebtedness to his friend, the great geologist Sir Charles Lyell, for the broad suggestion which he carried out in his work. The work of Malthus on "Population," shortly after Darwin had begun his labors gave him the idea embodied in the term "Struggle for Existence." Sir Charles Lyell, more than any other man, he regarded as his master and teacher. His self abnegation was a remarkable characteristic. No greater example was ever known. Shortly before he had completed -his work, Alfred Russel Wallace, who had been working along the same lines and who had arrived at the same conclusions embodied. .' them in a paper which he forwarded to Darwin to present to Sir Charles Lyell, who in turn sent the paper to the Linnean Society. It was published in the Journal of the Society. Darwin was ready to withdraw from the field in favor of Wallace, and probably would have done so but for the influence of Sir Charles Lyell and Dr. Joseph Hooker, who had (as early as 1844) known of Darwin's views. As it was, the chief, honor has fallen to Darwin, partly owing to the fact that Wallace was as great in magnanimity as' Darwin himself. After Darwin's work was published, one Patrick Matthew pre- sented the same conclusions as those of Darwin extracted from a work on "Naval Timber and Arboriculture." Concerning this Darwin wrote: "I freely acknowledge that Mr. Matthew has anticipated by many years the explanation which I have offered of the origin of species under the name of natural selection. I think that no one will feel surprised that neither I, nor apparently any other naturalist had heard of Mr. Matthew's views, considering how briefly they are given and that they appear in the appendix to a work on "Naval Timber and Arboriculture." There was not the slightest shadow of anything like conceit in his nature, indeed, he was modesty itself. The humblest person could appeal to him for information or suggestions and he would take the greatest pains to answer the appeal. A young and green lyceum lecturer, who confessed he had never read Darwin's book applied for a statement of Darwin's views and theories. He re- ceived a letter patiently giving the sought for information. Like Shakespeare, Darwin seemed wholly unconscious of his own great- ness. He seemed to care nothing for fame for fame's sake. His only interest was in the advancement of knowledge and truth. Darwin's writings I am hardly competent to discuss as literature but they impress me, when the subject being discussed permits, as having much of the exquisite charm of Washington Irving. It is acknowledged that in its line nothing more charming in style has ever been penned than his book "A Naturalist's Voyage." It has been the model for many similar books written by others. He was the author of some thirteen separate volumes.. "The Prince of Observers and Experimenters',' he was also a clear and persuasive writer. He possessed a wondrous breath of intellect. His writings, as one author remarks, are characterized by "a fine balance of statement and a scholarly reserve" which have made them the standard of their kind. Into whatever field he entered his work was epoch making. Great among the great, there was a child-like simplicity about the man, and a tenderness of feeling whiph made him most lovable personally. He was steadfast in his friendship, never forgot a kindness shown him, and was always appreciative of the merits of others. I close these few remarks with the following splendid tribute to the fine personality of Darwin from an editorial in the February number of the "Review of Reviews:" "There are few public men of the prominence of Darwin whose letters reveal such gentleness of character,. such consideration for others, such an indifference to fame for fame's sake as do those written by the distinguished savant whose centennial the Old World and the New will so soon unite in celebrating." WILLIAM EWART GLADSTONE. Professor Charles Hillman Brough. It is peculiarly appropriate that in connection with the cen- tennial anniversary of the birth of America's Great Commoner, Abraham Lincoln, there should be celebrated the centennial anni- versary of the Great Commoner of the Anglo-Saxon people, Eng- land's Grand Old Man, William Ewart Gladstone. While it is true that the perspective of the years is indispensable to the truest delineation of character and that the world frequently does not know its greatest men, even during his lifetirhe it was universally conceded that Gladstone was in the forefront of the majestic procession of the world's truest manhood and that his name was a heritage to all nations and all generations. Upon one occasion John Bright, one of his stoutest political opponents, speaking to a fond mother whose little son had never seen Glad- stone, said, "Take him to see the greatest Englishman he is ever likely to look upon." Our hero was well born. His father. Sir John Gladstone, be- longed to the middle "class, and was a successful grain dealer in Liverpool. To this substantial, thrifty middle class, a witty French writer has paid this significant tribute, "Society is very much like beer — froth at the top, dregs at the bottom, and the substantial part in between." From this class, of a diligent and religious father and an affectionate and devoutly pious mother, Gladstone was born December 29, 1809. Unequal, indeed, is the conflict of that boy who does not have behind him a mother's prayers and a father's confidences. He was well trained. Entering Eton at twelve years of age, he passed finally to Oxford, where he was graduated at twenty-two, having distinguished hirnself in mathematics, the languages,- and oratory, and at his graduation receiving the doiible first honor, an achievement very rarely won. His entrfie into public life took place the next year, 1832, when he was elected to the House of Commons from Newark through the support of the Duke of Newcastle, whose son was Gladstone's warm personal friend at the University. In 1834, by the invitation of Sir Robert Peel, he was given a place in the cabinet, where, from the beginning, he exhibited extraordinary capacity for statesmanship. He was well married. At thirty years of age he wooed and won beautiful Catherine Glynne, of noble Welsh descent, who, through all the eventful years of the great man's career, was a loving and' " constant companion. Gallantly did her eloquent husband say of / 10 her in a public address, "No words of mine will suffice to express the debt I owe to her." A beautiful illustration of her wifely devotion appears, when on one occasion in getting out of a carriage, Glad- stone accidently closed the doors on his wife's fingers; but she con- cealed her severe pain 'lest her suffering might disturb him in the great speech he was about to deliver. Their married life continued unbroken for nearly fifty-nine years, and eight .children — four 'sons and four daughters — blessed their happy home. When the power of this towering intellectual Herfeules is being estimated, the influence of his bright family circle, remote from London discord and West- minster burdens and antagonisms, must be granted a conspicuous place. In this Utopian retreat, now restoring his physical vigor by the heroic exercise of the woodman; and, again, hidden among his fifteen thousand volumes, where, as an omnivorous reader and voluminous writer, he indulged his penchant for literature; and at other times, as the priest of the 'fireside, sitting with wife and children, regaled by the fragrant incense of fondest devotion arising from each heart; in such a blissful Eden this mighty son of Manoah gathered giant strength for the sweeping triumphs of his public life. He was well equipped for statesmanship and for forensic debate. He possessed strong convictions and dauntless courage. No Roman gladiator ever stood more unflinchingly before his foes. His helmet was made of the steel of Justice; his spear was studded with the immortal truths of the inalienable rights of man in both church and state; his sword unsheathed the unbroken confidence of a devoted constituency. Again and again did he bravely and unselfishly throw fame, fortune and future into the wide chasm of the forum. But each time, as the breach closed, faltering friends and vitupera- tive enemies rallied again to his side, qnly to become once more estranged as this modern Moses led this modern Israel nearer to the Canaan of a perfect government. There was no stronger evidence of the superlative courage of this brave man than his ability to change his public attitude as his convictions on great questions were modified. Four decades ago one historian blankly remarked, "Mr. Gladstone is a problem; no one knows what he will do next."' Indeed, more than once Glad- stone was taunted with being an opportunist; but for each one who has studied his career carefully these changes were not without a law of their own in Gladstone's intellecttial development. They represent a steady, gradual and consistent progress. Gladstone's honesty and candor disarms the criticism that these alterations were to subserve the wily schemes of an intriguing demagogue. He says of himself: "I went to Oxford a "Tory, and carne out a Tory. I did not learn there how to set due value on the imperishable and 11 inestimable principles of human liberty." When the mighty truth broke full-orbed upon his understanding, he fearlessly declared him- self an enthusiastic Liberal and in sympathy with the great issues of the separation of church and state,, home rule for Ireland, the abolition of slavery, the enfranchisement of the working classes,,: and the abolition of the House of Lords. His deep convictions made him an orator. His inimitable voice, his mellifluous diction, his invulnerable logic, his bubbling humor and his oratorical impulse were all valuable accessories, but they were only the graceful setting for a brave and brilliant cham- pionship of what he conceived to be right. If eloquence is thought incarcerating the soul, of the orator, if eloquence pure and electri- fying may be expected when some noble soul endeavors to persuade the idolatrous masses to leave tlje bestial worship of debasing images, and follow him by safe paths to trembling Sinais, then Gladsto'nfe' was a modern Moses who talked with God and prevailed with men. Unlike some statesmen and orators, Gladstone was energetic and possessed a rare taste for minutiae and skill in the manipulation - of details. He did with his might what his hands found to do. In 1860, when installed as Lord Rector of Edinburgh University, he said to the students, "Believe me when I tell you that the thrift of time will repay you in after life with a usury of profit beyond your most sanguine dreams, and that the waste of it will make yotii; dwindle alike in intellectual and moral stature, beneath your darkest reckonings." Besides carrying upon his shoulder an Atlean load ^of official responsibility, he found time by retiring late and rising early to write great books like "Studies in Homer," "The Church and State," and "The Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture," surpassing many professional literatteurs in the productions of his trenchant pen. No man in England since John Wesley was so versatile and so voluminous aa Mr. Gladstone. He possessed a lofty sense of justice, of truth and righteousness. Combined with honor and manliness, he was a splendid tactician and an invincible debator. His characteristic tenacity, when believing in the justice of his claim, appears in that familiar incident when he presented to the Queen -an official document; when she refused to affix her name to it he said: "Your Majesty, you must sign." Victoria indignantly replied, "Mr. Gladstone, da you know who I am? I am the Queen of England." "Yes, your Majesty,";,, replied the Prernier, "but do you know who I am? I am the peo,pS of England, and you must sign thisdocument." And she signed itS With prophetic vision Gladstone "lived above the fog in .public .' duty and in private thinking." He once said, "You cannot fighti| against the future," and most of his great movements astonished i England because they seemed premature. The Prince Consort is said to have urged the young men of England to find out the pur- . pose of God in the age in which they lived, and then fit themselves quickly and enthusiastically into the plans of the omnipotent. Our hero evidently placed his mind in God's greater mind, for he seemed to be inspired as he prepared his nation for the inevitable march of ideas; Like Wycklyffe and Luther, Calvin and Wesley, those who ridiculed him as a fanatic were afterwards willing to adore him as a seer. ' If the measure of greatness be the ability to discount the future, to make the stone which the builders have re- jected the cornerstone of the temple, then Gladstone is a worthy comrade of Lincoln in statesmanship, of Darwin in science, of Tenny- son in literature. "Great in the arduous greatness of things done,'' the stately eulogy of Conkling upon Grant, may with equal propriety be pro- nounced upon Gladstone. His life was dedicated to the betterment of the social, political and moral conditions of his fellow man. As a nineteenth century crusader he was a courteous and knightly exponent of the principles of human liberty — "a knight without fear and without reproach," as self sacrificing and as enthusiastic as Peter the Hermit, as courageous as Richard Cour de Lion, and as eloquent ^s Pope Urban at the Council of Clearmont. Soon after his entrance into the Commons he joined fervently with Sir Robert Peel in the repeal of the cruel corn laws by which a heartless monopoly was starving the common people. From that time until his resignation at eighty-five years of age he made not only England, but the world indebted to him by espousing philanthropic enter- prises and championing wholesottie legislation. In July, 1869, after a bitter struggle in the House of Lords, he secured the passage of the act disestablishing the Irish Protestant church, thus sounding a keynote of religious toleration ^nd initiating a movement which will eventually mean the absolute separation of church and state in the United Kingdom. In 1860 he magnanimously joined forces with his great rival Disraeli in his effort to abolish the rotten borough system of England and was instrumental in the passage of the second great reform bill, which extended the suffrage from 365,000 voters to over 6,000,000. In 1870 he relieved some of the burdens of the Irish tenantry: by championing a bill which provided for free sale, fair rents and fixity of tenure. In 1876 he aroused his country by a remarkable series of philippics against Turkish horrors in Bulgaria and throughout the Russo-Turkish war eloquently de- nounced the pro-Ottoman policy of Disraeli. During his four ministries he submitted budgets which were marvels of accuracy and financial insight, removing the burdens of taxation from the toiling ' 13 masses. He secured the enfranchisement of the artisan and the peasant, and thus emancipated the white slaves of Britain from a slavery as nefarious as peonage. He abolished the possibility of, purchasing military promotions, relegating that ancient absurdity to the limbo of long-deserved oblivion. He opened the great uni- versities to students of every creed, and made the common school^' available to the poorest families. For seven' years, from 1886 to 1893, he valiantly battled against almost hopeless odds for. the righteous cause of Home Rule for Ireland, securing the passage of the bill in the Commons, only to have it thrown out by the aristocratic House of Lords. Battling for unpopular issues even to the loss of a Premiership, Gladstone placed himself on record as caring little for power, all for conviction. He sought his throne not among the ruling poten- tates, but in the hearts of men. The only weakness of his states- craft was his weakness for. the rights of suffering humanity, as is seen in his generous, treatment of the Boers after the disastrous battle of Majuba Hill and in his sympathy for the Armenians in their heroic struggles against the Turks. While Salisbury, in the famous Berlin Conference, pointed to the Balkan mountains and said, referring to the aggressions of Russia, "England draws the line here," Gladstone's sense of justice discouraged imperialism and territorial aggrandizement, breathing the protest, '■'A Roman lust profanes our sacred, holy things We trample justice in the dust. We have the rabies of the kings; The scarlet rage of gun and sword, Have mercy on thy people. Lord, We have forgot, we have forgot." As the capstone of the noble edifice of a life well spent, Gladstone was a defender pf the faith. In all the mutations and caprices of English history, in all the storms fierce and destructive, which have crashed and roared, he stood upon the eternal Rock of Ages. To all marines on the storm-tossed sea of doubt his majestic life was"as. the shining light that shineth more and more unto the coming of the perfect day." A short while before his death he said; "The older I grow, the more confirmed I am in my faith and religion. I have' been in public life fifty-eight years, and for forty-seven years in th^ cabinet of the British Government, and during those forty-seven years I have been associated with sixty of the master minds of the country, and all but five of the sixty were Christians." Gladstone' fervently believed not only that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, but that he represented the correlation of all social questions in that He came into the world to give life more abundantly. Thei? 14 great Commoner's life attuned itself to the sweet strains of Richard Watson Gilder. "If Jesus Christ is a man— And only a man — I say That of all mankind I cleave to him, And to him I cleave alway. If Jesus Christ is a God — And the only God — I swear I will follow Him through heaven and hell, The earth, the sea, and the air." Thus, as a Mont Blanc in the picturesque uplands of lofty human character, Gladstone was made great by the doctrines he espoused; and he made those truths more attractive by the adofn- ment of his life and logic. Small wonder is it that choice spirits ministered to the old leader, as he sat in the lengthening shadows of a life well spent. Genius, manliness, eloquence, history, poesy and truth discoursed to him the music of a life "which bore the marks of many years well spent, with virtue, truth well tried and wise experience." Reaching the ripe old age of eighty-nine, on May 19, 1898, he wrapped the drapery of his couch about him and lay down to pleasant dreams, fulfilling the familiar lines of one- of America's greatest poets : "For age is opportunity no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away, The sky is filled with stars invisible by day. 15 OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES, THE DOCTOR-WRITER, Miss Jobelle Holcombe, Dean of Women. Oliver Wendell Holmes seems to have found unusual faseina- = tion in his birthday. Late in life he discovered a pile of almanaes belonging to his father. He says, ' 'I took up that for the year 1809; opposite a certain dafej. August 29th, was an asterisk and a nqte below saying 'son born.' My father thus recorded my advent." Holmes had the page photographed and always looked upon the memorandum, with odd pathos. "I remember that week well," the doctor wrote, "for something happened to me once ,at that time; namely I was born." He himself fully appreciated the glory of the brilliant group of men who owe their birth to 1809. In a letter to Tennyson dated February 2, 1890, he writes with deep humility, "I am interested in you for one reason which very few others can assign. I had the honor of following you into atmospheric existence at an interval of only twenty-three days. I am proud of my birth year and humbled when I think of. who were and who are my coevals. s * * * * I said f feel proud to be even accidently associated with such a group. But' I said that I feel humble; perhaps I ought to feel nothing at all about it as the world at large is not very deeply interested in the fact of ray finding myself introduced into life in such a goodly company." Born in Cambridge, like any other boy of that town, Holmgs.,- attended the preparatory schools, and academies and entered Harvard, from which he graduated with the "famous class of '29," the most distinguished group of Bachelors of Art in Harvard hist, perhaps more nearly than to most of his craft. This overflowing zest of his nature had as its natural com- panions sympathetic wit and humor, pathos and good-natured fun, which made Holmes one of the most popular talkers and speaker.s of his age. So we find his best poetry written in celebration of companionship and good cheer. He never failed to respond to the occasion whether it be a New England dinner, the dedication of a cemetery, a class reunion, a marriage or a funeral, a meeting of a medical society or what not. To ah invitation for such an occasion he once replied: "Will I come? That is pleasant! I beg to inquire. If the gun that I carry has ever missed fire? And which was the muster roll — mention but one — That missed your old comrade who carries the gun?" And just here lies his secret of success. He always carried his gun and kept his pOwder dry. By actual count forty-seven per cent of his poems are occasional verse and of this number there are forty printed poems celebrating the "famous class of 29." In all these occasional and society- verses we feel that Holmes enjoyed what he is saying as much as those to whom he is saying it. He tells of a personal experience in which he watched his servant read one of his funny poems. The i laughter of the servant increased from line to line until at "The fourth, he broke into a roar; The fifth, his waistband split; The sixth, he burst five buttons off and tumbled in a fit." The author says for "Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye, I watched that wretched man,, And since, I never dare to write- As funny as I can." Throughout the collection we find the good-natured wit of fellowship and a youthful buoyancy that never grows old. On his fiftieth birthday Holmes writes in At a Meeting of Friends, "Now here I stand at fifty, my jury gathered round; Sprinkled with dust of silver, but not yet silver crowned. Ready to meet your verdict, waiting to hear it told ; Guilty of fifty summers: Speak! Is the verdict old?. 18 No! Say that his hearing fails him; say that his sight grows dim; Say that he's getting wrinkled and weak in back and limb, Losing his wits and temper, but pleading to make amends, The youth of his fifty summers he finds in his twenty friends." In his humorous narratives every line sparkles and crackles with the humanity of wit. Whoever would appreciate Holmes to the fullest must read the Wonderful One Hoss Shay. In the build- ing of the wonderful shay / " the Deacon swore (as deacons do With an 'I dew vum' or an 'I tell yeou') ' He would build one shay to beat the taoun, 'N' the Keounty 'n' all the Kentry raoun. It should be so built that it coiild'n break daoun. 'Fur,' said the Deacon, 'Tis mighty plain Thut the weakes place must stan the strain; 'N the way to fix it uz I maintain, is only just T ' make that place uz strong uz the rest." After days of service the old shay wore out and as Holmes says: ' ' You see, of course, if you're not a dunce. How it went to pieces all at once — All at once and nothing first — Just as bubbles do when they burst.'' There may be more truth than poetry in this poem which the doctor calls a logical story. Those who know how rebellious Unitarian Holmes was against the dogmas of the Puritan deacon may read between the lines, "End of the wonderful one hoss shay. Logic is logic. That's all I say." Frequently we find humor mixed with satire of the amiable sort. In speaking of a maiden aunt, "the one sad, ungathered rose on his ancesfral tree'' the poet says: ''My aunt! my poor deluded aunt! Her hair is almost gray; Why will she train that winter curl In such a spring-like way? How can she lay her glasses down. And say she reads as well When through a double convex lens She just makes out to spell?" Puritan New England had not yet learned that humor is as much a constituent of life as gravity and gloom. It was left for Holmes to teach the grave Puritan that pathos and humor produce in combination a wholesome effect. What a delightful sensation one feels when reading the Last Leaf! 19 "I kaow it is a sin For me to sit and grin At him here; But the old three-cornered hat, And the breeches and all that Are so queer! And if I should live to be The last leaf upon the tree In the spring, Let them smile as I do now, At the old forsaken bough Where I cling." It was the predominant genial, zealous temper developed to a fullness in later life that made Holmes famous as the Autocrat of the Breakfast' Table. While the plan of 'the Autocrat series is not wholly original, the local drollery and the proverbial humor of the author give the series a value that can be appreciated only by those who read at lieast the Autocrat oi the Breakfast Table. I have intimated that Holmes' genial temper led him to look upon poetry as a diversion rather than as a high endeavor. He of his own choice touches lightly on the surface. Yet at times he dives to the lyric depths of our greatest poets. We cannot deny to the Chambered Nautilus the high seriousness and the univer- sality of true poetry. "Build thee more stately mansions, O my .soul, As the swift seasons roll ! Leave thy low vaulted past! Let each new temple nobler than the last. Shut thee from heaven with a dome more vast. Till thou at length art free, Leaving thine outgrown shell by life's unresting sea." These instances are too rare, however, to give Holmes an assured place except on the outskirts of the poetic reajm. He is indis- pensable there for men cannot always be at the highest tension of lofty inspiration and "A page of Hood may do a fellow good After a scolding from Carlyle or ^uskin.!' 20 ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Professor John H. Reynolds. Today President Roosevelt laid tlie cornerstone of a mennorial erected in honor of Abraham Lincoln at Lincoln Farm in Kentucky. This memorial is in the form of a building and is to contain the log cabin in which Lincoln was born. The farm has been secured and the memorial is to be erected by a voluntary offering on the part of' the people of the whole nation. Ambassador Bryce and Honorable William J. Bryan are delivering memorial addresses tonight at Springfield, 111. In New York City over ofle thousand halls were engaged for today and tonight in which memorial exercises are being held. Similar celebrations are taking place in Chicago, Boston and all other cities of the North. But this recog- nition of the merits of Lincoln is not confined to the North. At Little Rock tonight Gov. Donaghey and Gen. B. W. Greene, the latter a Confederate soldier and officer, are eulogizing the name of Lincoln. The same thing is' taking place in every southern city. The governor of every state in the Union appointed a centennial committee to see that this day is properly honored throughout the nation. All the children of the public schools of the country have joined today in doing honor to the name of this great patriot. At least fourteen states have made it a legal holiday. The fact is, the whole nation, regardless of section or political opinion, is this day uniting in honoring the great emancipator. It is not uncommon to celebrate the centennial of some great event like the purchase of Louisiana; but never has the centennial of any man been so widely 'celebrated. While there are many men now living who knew iVIr. Lincoln, yet history has already assigned him to a place of immortality. Why is it that Lincoln has taken such a conspicuous place? Because he was many men in one. The qualities in him with which the world is most familiar were his big heart, his broad sympathies, his love for mankind, his charity, his unfailing humor and his rugged honesty. Perhaps nothing so well illustrates his broad humani- tarianism as a letter written to iVIrs. Bixby given below: "Washington, November 21, '64. "To Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Mass. "Dear Madam: "I have been shown in the files of the war department a state- ment of the adjutant general of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle. I feel how weak and ' fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelm- ing, but I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save. I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. ' ' Yours very sincerely and respectfully, "A. Lincoln." But Lincoln had more than a heart; he had a great mind highly trained and polished. His heart powers and his unfailing humor have so possessed the public mind that we have largely overlooked the fact that his mind ranks with the few great intellects of his century. The world is perhaps more heart than mind, and for that reason probably, Lincoln's heart has been glorified at the expense of his brain. True he did not have a college education; but he had disciplined his mind to think accurately and profoundly. But few minds have equalled his in ability to grasp fundamentals, to seize vital points, and to state any question with precision and clearness. He brushed aside non-essentials and went straight to the heart of any issue. Argument was usually unnecessary after Lincoln had stated a case. It is passing strange that a frontiersman ill the midst of a busy and strenuous life without academic training, should become a master of the English tongue. His Gettysberg oration is an English classic and President Roosevelt ranks his second inaugural among . the few great speeches of history. Where can you find anything much more beautiful in English prose than these two extracts taken from his first and second inaugural addresses : ' ' I am loath to close. We are not enemies but friends. Though passion may have strained, it must hot break our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearth stone all over this : broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nation." {Closing paragraph of his first inaugural.) "Fondly do we hope — fervently do we pray — that this scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God will that it continue uiitil all the wealth piled by the bondsmen's two hundred and fifty years of .unrequited toil shall be sunk and till every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid with another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said, 'The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous althogether.' ' ' With malice towards none ; with charity for all ; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us sttive to finish the work to an end; to bind up the nation's wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his- widow, and for his 22 orphan — to-do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations." Lincoln's cabinet soon learned to revere his intellect; they were not long in giving cheerful recognition to his complete mastery in his political family. So great was his intellect that he is credited with having never made a political rhistake. His question pro- pounded to Douglas as to the constitutional right of a territory to exclude slavery, protested against by his friends as political suicide, was a piece of consummate political wisdom. Lincoln in a high degree had prescience, vision", foresight; he had prospective. Lincoln was a thorough nationalist and had caught the spirit of the day as had no other man. He saw with mathematical accuracy the moral issues involved in his senatorial contest with Douglas and foresaw the lines along which the campaign of 1860 would be fought out. His question to Douglas may have contributed to his defeat in 1858, but it prepared the way for his victory in 1860. Great battleg are first fought out and victories won within some great soul before external blows are delivered, so in this case. ' The battle of checking the advance of sla,very was first fought and won in the heart of Lincoln, and he drove to his mark with deathlike certainty. Another example of the great intellect of Lincoln is his choice of an issue upon which to fight the South and to rally the North. In 1861 the situation was indeed perilous and a false step would have ruined his cause and that of the nation. At his inaugural, the South already seceded, was militant and united; the North was divided, her array demoralized; European nations were in sympathy with the South ; Lincoln had been elected by a minority of the people and this minority was divided among themselves; border states were wavering and all about him was confusion. He chose the only ground possible on which he could have rallied the North, that of saving the Union. Then, too, Lincoln is charged with showing poor ability in selecting generals, but in this his critics fail to give proof. It must be remembered that the North had no military genius like a Napoleon or a Lee, for him to select. He discovered Grant, who by no means was a genius, about as soon as Grant discovered him- self. When he had once discovered him, Lincoln stood by him, as firm as adamant. No, the fact is, Lincoln's mind was as great as his heart. In conclusion let us remember that American history is great in great characters, that Lincoln is destined to take his place among ■ the few great men of all time, and that so long as we Americans appreciate and honor such characters our institutions are safe. 23 THE FOREIGN INFLUENCE OF POE. Associate Professor Garland Greever. Among the great men who were born in 1809, Edgar Allan Poe is unique because of his personal nature and the character of the service he rendered. In temperament he was proud, gloomy, wayward, and without strong power of will. In his professional relations he was a kind of Ishmael; his hand was raised against every man, and every man's hand was raised against him. In the affairs of life he was an "Unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one . burden bore^ Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore' Of 'Never — nevermore.' " He was looked upon by many as an uncanny being who wan- dered about muttering strange words o'r haunting lone graveyards at midnight. He was not a product of American conditions, and he did nothing to promote the great social, political and. moral movements of his day; in fact, he did not have in him the material out of \yhich reformers are made. His mind loved to dwell upon harrowing situations or to show fragile beauty beating out its life in isolation and sorrow. Few of ug can say that we ,love him. We admire his weird stories, we are captivated and enchanted by^ his sonorous verse, we are carried out of ourselves by the spell of his mystery and his morbid despair; but we feel that he lacks hum or and sympathy, that he has no vital convictions, that he is out of touch with his fellows. Too seldom does he give us a passage in which the emotion is as genuine and throbbing as it is in that exquisite stanza to his dead wife: "For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee, And the stars never rise, but I fgel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling — my darling — my life and ray bride. In the sepulchre there by the sea — In her tomb by the sounding sea." 24 Too seldom is he the spokesman for mankind, as he is in that pathetic wail for more perfect conditions: "If I could dwell Where Israfel Hath dwelt, and he where I, He might not sing so wildly well A mortal melody, , While a bolder note than this might swell From my lyre within the sky." But in estimating the merits of Poe we should ask ourselves the question, "What would our literature be without him?" The nations of Europe have chided us because we can boast no array of poets to match our soldiers and statesmen and leaders of industry. A year or two ago a distinguished Englishman, a friend of this country, asserted that a defect in our civilization is the fact that vre have no living poet; and it has been said by some one who mingled truth with his wit that throughout our history we have produced only a poet and a half — Poe and Walt Whitman. If we broaden our view so as to include all branches of literature, we shall hardly fare better. Matthew Arnold maintained that one test of a writer's chances of immortality is his influence upon foreign audiences. Among American writers Poe and Hawthorne, and these only, give sign of having won more than a transient recognition abroad. Of the two, Poe has made by far the deeper impression. It is scarce- ly affirming too much to say that to the majority of foreign nations there is no such thing as American literature; there is only a wizard named Poe who astonishes them, not only by what he did, but because he did it in this country. The Gerrrians, a people whose minds are searching and analytical, have for years accorded him honors which we Americans have been slow to extend. Among the French, of modern races the one most gifted with a proficient literary art, he is hailed as a genius and master. Indeed so eminent a critic as George Brandes has said that of the external forces that are moulding French literature the foremost are the works of Poe. Nor is this influence confined to his creative efforts. His criticism, and especially his statement of the principles upon which his poetry is based, has left a decided imprint upon the tenor and spirit of French song for the past half century. The secret of his vogue in other lands lies, I believe, in the fact that he was an artist, that he trained himself for his work and knew what he was about, that he had a standard to go by. He had the advantage over the rest of our writers that skill and method must have, in any department, over blindness ^nd chance. In the realm of fiction he was perhaps the first to realize the difference between the short story and the story that happens to be short. Whether 25 the tale be one of physical horror or supernatural experience or the unraveling of mystery (and Poe was adept in all three of these types), it makes an impression as a whole, it moves with that sure precision which comes from a definite purpose, it exhibits the poise ' and power of established mastery. The poems upon which he lavished his genius do not number more than a dozen, . but the reader of that dozen finds subtle and compelling charms and elfin cadences that linger and re-echo in the memory. In ver'se, as in prose, he gave tone and atmosphere and illusion, he knew the secrets of structure, he commanded the resources of technique,.' He was governed by the theory that poetry is "the rhythmical creation of beauty," that it has "no concern whatever with duty or with truth," and that a long poem does not and cannot exist. Within these limits he achieved an approximate perfection. When we say that he lacks virile substance and depends largely upon excellence of form, we concede that he can never be classed with such poets as Homer and D'antfe and Shakespeare. When we say that he is a consummate craftsman and that in his own province he can meet the three tests of being "adequate, felicitous and final," we place him among American writers on a plane entirely to himself. And so, all things considered, his weakness measured and his merits appraised, we do well to honor among others tonight the bard Whose harshest idea Will to melody run, who is the apostle of beauty and our only ambassador to the courts of world-song, and who wrote the best-known short poem, outside of Gray's Elegy, in the English language. 26 TENNYSON, THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Professor Edgar F. Shannon. When I began to consider what I could say of Tennyson in this symposium in which only fifteen minu'tes are allotted to rae, I was bewildered. And when I reflected upon all thatihas been written of his life, art and poetry, I became more bewildered. But as I studied the subject further this single thought became clearer to me, and it is this which I would leave with you this evening, that Tennyson is the representative of the ideals of the Nineteenth Century.' Every age has its problems and its ideals; and it is usually a poet who comes forth to give expressions to those ideals. The poet for some reason, is more keenly alive than other men to the movements of the life about him, and through the medium of his verse gives form to those conceptions as yet intangible toward which his age is striving. Of that brilliant age of Elizabeth, the finest flower is Shakespeare; of the lofty ideals of Puritanism, the highest embodiment is Milton; of the prosaic age of the Eighteenth Century, the truest representative is Pope; of the triumph of Romanticism at the close of the Eighteenth Century, the acknowl- edged leaders are Coleridge and Wordsworth; so of the splendid Victorian Age of England's greatness, the noblest expression is Tennyson. I would first call your attention to the dates in Tennyson's life, 1809rl892. From them you will note that in point of years he almost spans the century. And the very midyear, 1850, marks the most eventful one in Tennyson's life, for in this year he married Emily Sellwood, was appointed Poet Laureate by the Queen, and published his "In Memoriam." By birth and breeding Tennyson was English to the core, and knew all phases of English life from the lowest to the highest. He could write the "Northern Farmer" in such true Lincolnshire dia- lect as to delight the simple yeoman of that district, and at the same time he could charm so greatly with his Idylls of the King and the Royal Consort, Prince Albert, that the Prince sent his copy to Tennyson that he might inscribe his name in it as a mark of special favor. By reason of his high attainments, Tennyson was intimately associated with the noblest geniuses, of which in his age England could boast so many. To Wordsworth he was the promising young poet who was to be his successor; to Gladstone he was full of "free- 27 dom and kindness" in his conversation; to Dickens, who sent him a set of his novels, he was the man who enlisted his "whole heart and nature in admiration of the Truth and Beauty of his writin^^f?' ;;. to Thackeray, who loved to smoke innumerable pipes with him, he was "the wisest man. he knew;" to Carlyle he was that thing for which he so passionately longed, "a man," and one whom he could call "brother;"- to Speddiag, Edward Fitzgerald, Arthur Hallam, and others of the famous Apostle's Club at Cambridge, where were formed those am'bitious schemes of life and labor, he was their inobstrusive companion, but none the less their spiritual leader, as they called him their Jupiter, silent, calm, impenetrable. But a man's life may be ever so closely connected with his con- temporaries without his being the representative of his age. I . would, therefore, to develop my plan, have you consider' wi.th me a few minutes Tennyson's work, its extent, and its comprehensive- ness. Amid the varied and often apparently contradictory move- ments of the Nineteenth Century, students of political, social and literary activities have discovered three potent forces that distin- guish the age in which Tennyson lived. These three have been succinctly stated by Mr. Pancoast in his introduction to English literature, as follows: (1) The advance of democracy. (2) The general diffusion of knowledge and of literature. (3) The advance of science. During the Nineteenth Century England made great strides toward democracy. Formerly all political power had been in the hands of the privileged landowners, but during the Eighteenth Century a large and influential class of citizens engaged in commerce had grown up, and they now began to demand recognition. As a consequence of this, the first Reform Bill was passed in 1832. By its provisions suffrage was extended to the middle classes as repre- sentatives of the commercial and industrial progress of the country. In 1867 another Reform Bill was passed extending suffrage to, the working men who furnished the basis of England's industrialism; and in 1884 a third Reform Bill, extended the right of suffrage, till England has now reached a point where political scientists tell us her form of government is even more democratic than that of America. To all this progress toward democracy, Tennyson gives sympathetic expression. When the news came of the passage of the first Reform Bill in 1832, Tennyson and his brothers and sisters, rushed impulsively to the old church of which their father had been rector and furiously rang the old bell to peel out the glad tidings,, until the new rector came rushing in in' consternation at such unhallowed proceedings. It was this same year that Tennyson 28 published his second volume of poetry. He had previously pub- lished a slim volume in 1830, entitled "Poems Chiefly Lyrical," but his work in it was quite largely imitative. In 1842, Tennyson published two volumes of poetry. Among these poems waS Locksley Hall, which expresses his youthful hope of what the world will become under the influence of commerce and peace : "Till the war-drums throbbed no longer, and the battle flags were furled. In Parliment of men, the Federation of the world.' There the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe. And the kindly earth shall slumber, lapt in, universal law." His ideas of breaking down social distinction have been clearly and beautifully expressed in his "Aylmer's Field." Tennyson hoped in the development of democracy that a new era was dawn- ing for the race. Out of this hope came the larger vision and more spiritual conception of the time when in the struggle of "sense at war with soul," the soul would come off victor and the man would "move upward, working out the beast." This is the central idea of the Idylls of the King. In these poems Tennyson reaches certainly what Matthew Arnold calls the Grand Style in poetry; where a "noble nature poetically gifted treats with simplicity or dignity a. serious subject." To my mind the finest passage in the Idylls is the one where Guinevere laments after Arthur has gone: "Then listening till thcSse armed steps were gone. Rose the pale Queen, and in her anguish found The casement: 'Peradventure,' so she thought, 'If I might see his face, and not be seen.' And lo, he sat on horse back at the door ! ' And near him the sad nuns with each a light Stood, and he gave them charge about the Queen, To guard and foster her for evermore. And while he-spake to these his helm was lower'd. To which for crest the golden dragon clung Of Britain; so she did not see the face. Which then was as an angel's, but she saw, Wet with the mists and srnitten by the lights, The Dragon of the great Pendragonship Blaze, making all the night steam of fire. And even then he turn'd; and more and more The Moony vapor rolling round the King, Who seem'd the phantom of a Giant in it, Enwound him fold by fold, and made him gray And grayer, till himself became as rnist Before her, moving ghostlike to his doom. "Then she stretch'd out her arms and cried aloud 'Oh Arthur!' there her voice broke suddenly, TThen — as a stream that spouting from a cliff Falls in mid air, but gathering at the base Re-makes itself, and flashes down the vale — Went on in passionate utterance: 29 "Gone — my lord !^ Gone thro' my sin to slay and to be slain! And he forgave me, and I could not speak. Farewell? I should have answered has farewell. His mercy choked me. Gone, my lord the King, My own true lord! how dare I call him mine? The shadow of another cleaves to me, And makes me one pollution; he, the King, Call'd me polluted; shall I kill myself? What help in that? I cannot kill my sin, If soul be soul; nor can I kill my shame; No, nor by living can I live it down. The days will grow to weeks, the weeks to months. The months will add themselves and make the years, The years will roll into centuries, ' And mine will ever be a name of scorn. I must not dwell on that defeat of fame. Let the world be; that is but of the world What else? What hope? I think there was a hope, Except he mock'd me when he spake of hope; His hope he call'd it; but he never mocks. For mockery is the fume of little hearts. ■ And blessed be the King, who hath forgiven • My wickedness to him, and left me hope That in mine own heart I can live down sin And be his mate hereafter in the heavens Before high God. Ah great and gentle lord. Who wast, as is the conscience of a saint. Among his warring senses, to thy knights — To whom my false voluptuous pride, that took Full easily all impressions from below. Would not look up, or half despised the height To which"! would not or I could not climb — I thought I could not breathe in that fine air That pure severity of perfect light — I wanted warmth and color which I found In Lancelot — now I see thee what thou art, Thou art the highest and most human too. Not Lancelot, nor another. Is there none Will tell the King I love him tho' so late? Now — ere he goes to the great Battle? None : Myself must -tell him in that purer life. But now it were too daring. Ah my God. What might I not have made of thy fair world. Had I but loved thy highest creature here? It was my duty. to have loved the highest; It surely was my profit had I known; It would have/been my pleasure had I seen. We needs must love the highest when we see it. Not Lancelot, nor another.' " 30 But besides the development of democracy and the fond dreams in the poet's mind of a coming Golden Age, there was in this Nine- teenth Century a very extensive distribution of knowledge and of literature. Education, like political power, had formerly belonged to the privileged few, but in Tennyson's time the nation was moving toward education of the people at large. Magazines and news- papers multiplied and Tennyson could obtain a much more intelli- gent and appreciative audience than his predecessors had found. This gave his comprehensive genius a wider audience among the men of his time. The chief contribution, which Tennyson made to educational questions was his discussion of the problems of the higher education of women in "The Princess." This poem has been called the "herald melody" of the higher education of women and Sir William R. Hamilton, the great mathematician, said, ' ' It deeply presses on my reflection how much wiser a book is Tenny- son's Princess than my Quarternions." The Princess was pub- lished in 1847. Tennyson's plan set forth in the Princess actually took modified form in the establishment, in 1869, of Girton, Eng- land's great college for women. But besides its interest in things political and educational, the Nineteenth Century was gathering itself for a titanic struggle in the realm of religion. The advance of science has added many convenient contrivances to the needs of every day life, but stepping above and beyond all this, science has invaded the spiritual realm .in the theories of evolution by Darwin and Wallace in 1859. These theories tended at first to unsettle men's faith and make them feel under the light of the universal law of nature, like Lucretius, the Pagan philosopher of Rome, that man was a mere puppet and play- thing of inexorable and cruel nature. This question Tennyson meets again and again in his poetry. He refuses to submit to any such hopeless doctrine. Sometimes he follows it to its natural conclusions, as in his poem "Despair;" sometimes he seems eagerly watching the raging conflict; but in the end his spiritual vision is cleared and he is led -to a higher and nobler view. At one time he said, "It is hard to believe in God, but it is harder not to believe. I believe in God, not from what I see in nature, but from what I find in man." And after all, may not this be the key that unlocks the mystery? ' 'The Lord let the house of a brute to the soul of a man. And the man said, 'Am I your debtor?' And the Lord — 'Not yet, but make it as clean as you can, And then I will let you a better.'" His firm belief in the power of the spiritual over the material increased as he advanced in years and that beautiful swan song, .31 "Crossing the Bar," is the fitting expression of a calm, serenfe old age full of faith and trust. •HaHam Tennyson says in his memoirs of his father that those great Catholic painters of. the Italian Renaissance are ,'gi|e|it and eternal because they found that happy time to express what was at the same time ideal and real in the, minds of the pesplfe. * , The modern artist has hardly ever found similar objects of high irrtigmk-^ tion and intense popular feeling for his art to work uppn. ' If, wrote Mr. G. S. Venables to Tennyson in 1855, an artist could, only now find out where those objects are, he would be the artist of modern times. Venables went on to say that they were not to be sought in any transient fashions of thought, but in the "con- vergent tendencies. of many opinions" on religion, art and nature. In 1835 Venables and his contemporaries thought Tennyson with his commanding intellect and conspicuous moral courage ought to become the artistic exponent and unifier of these tendencies. As we now look back over Tennyson's completed work, We begin to realize that he has been the exponent and unifier of those i4s*V^" ments embracing the high imagination and intense popular feeling of the Nineteenth Century, namely, the advance of democracy,, the development of higher education, particularly for women, and the progress of science. And I haS^e no doubt that time will rank Tennyson as the consummate artist and representative of "the Nineteenth Century. 32 Cornell University Library arV17760 Addresses on the one hundredth anniversa 3 1924 031 304 888 olin.anx 'mM:Sk