1 6334 "; .107 CORNELL UNIVERSITY UKARIES ITHACA. N.Y. 14853 JQHNUOtlN UBRARY iuc aate snows wnen mis volume was taken. To renew ttiis book copy the call No. and give to the librarian. I^i^- HOME USE RULES All books subject to recall All borrowers must regis- ter in the library to borrow books for home use. All books xnust be re-^ turned at end of college year for inspection and repairs. Limited books "nfust .bej" returjied within ■ the four week limit and not renewed. Students .must return all books before leaving town. Officers should arrange for the Return oT books ]y^ii.1;i,ed durihg'^ th,eir absenqp ^Qm towrf; ,' .J -- . I. ^ Volumes of peifiodicals and of pamphlets are held in the library as^.much^Us possible. ' For ^^e^^al pur- poses th^ are EiVen out for a limited time'.-*^ Borrowers'' sKefiaW not use their . library pSvileges^ fpp- th^'^^^pf <$^r pecsensv-' Books ^pf-^ ^egi^IfSvdlue and gift 'bt>oks, wherf'tlie giver wishes it, are not allowed to circulate. , Readers are asked to re- port all cases of books marked or mutilated. ^^ •- * Do not deface books by marks and wiitinc. Cornell University Library LD6334 .N87 Yale's relation to the development of th olin 3 1924 030 633 022 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/cu31924030633022 lfllLE'8 ReLIIIION 10 IHE DEVELOPIIlEil OF liE CoilRy. ADDRESS CYRUS NORTHROP, LL.D. President of the University of Minnesota YALE BICENTENNIAL CELEBRATION NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT OCTOBER 22, 1901 MINNBAPOLIS PKINTBD PRIVATELY 1901 6. ADDRESS Mr. President, Brethren of Yale, Ladies and Gentlemen: The subject assigned to me, "Yale in its Relation to the Development of the Country," is too large for ad- equate consideration in a brief address. I shall omit all allusion to the moral and industrial development and confine my remarks to a very brief consideration of Yale's relation to the political development of the country, and a somewhat more extended review of Yale's relation to the educational development. While Yale men have gone largely into politics and have done manly service in the ranks, and while many of them have attained to distinguished positions to which they have done honor and in which they have been in- fluential, it is not easy to say to what extent the political policy of our country has been influenced directly by Yale. The College had four graduates in the convention which framed our National Constitution, William Sam- uel Johnson, William Livingston, Jared Ingersoll, and Abraham Baldwin, all of them good and able men. It has today three members of the Supreme Court of the United States: David Josiah Brewer, Henry Billings Brown, both of the Class of 1856, and George Shiras of the Class of 1853. These men, all eminently worthy to 2 YALE IN ITS RELATION TO hold the high position which they occupy, have been called upon to decide questions of the greatest import- ance, and their decisions have probably affected the pol- icy of the country more positively and permanently than has any other distinctive Yale influence. The great work of pacifying the Philippine Islands and bringing them under beneficial civil government and, let us hope, preparing them for self-government under conditions most favorable to liberty, has very wisely been assigned to a distinguished graduate of Yale, Hon. Will- iam H. Taft of the Class of 1878. Judge Taft has done so well whatever he has undertaken to do, and has al- ready so far succeeded in bringing order out of chaos in the Philippines, as to inspire the utmost confidence in his ultimate complete success, and to awaken a consciousness in the nation that he may, at some time, be called to fill a higher position than he has yet attained. No graduate of Yale has ever been elected to the office of President of the United States; but Yalensians will not complain so long as the country can have for its president a patriot and scholar like Theodore Roosevelt. A very respectable number of Yale graduates have been Senators and Representatives in Congress. The Representatives are too numerous to mention. Of the Senators, it will be sufficient to name John Caldwell Cal- houn, of South Carolina ; Truman Smith, Roger S. Bald- win and Jabez W. Huntington of Connecticut; John Davis, Julius Rockwell and Henry L. Dawes of Massa- chusetts; John M. Clayton and Anthony Higgins of THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 3 Delaware; William M. Evarts and Chauncey M. Depew of New York; George E. Badger of North Carolina; Randall L. Gibson of Louisiana; William Morris Stew- art of Nevada, and Frederick T. Dubois of Idaho. All of these have exerted a positive influence on either the politics or the legislation of the country. Most of them have been men of commanding influence in the Senate, and I am glad to say in the language of another, "All of them have been honest and sincere, and in no instance have they betrayed the trust reposed in them." Yale has furnished the country with a number of dis- tinguished diplomats, of whom Eugene Schuyler of the class of 1859, though not the most prominent or dis- tinguished, was, I think, the most distinctly representa- tive. Edwards Pierrepont of the Class of 1837, and Wayne McVeigh and Andrew D. White, both of the Class of 1853, are among the most distinguished of Yale Representatives at Foreign Courts. But the real history of a country is not the record of its great men either in war or in peace. It is rather an account of the development and progress of the people; and especially so in this country, where the people's will can govern and ultimately does govern, and where the wisest leaders, before they speak, listen for the voice of the people. The hope of the country is not in the astute- ness and ability of its great men, but in the virtue, in- telligence and good sense of the great body of the people. An institution of learning whose influence, educational and ethical, has permeated the great mass of the people 4 YALE IN ITS RELATION TO in all parts of the country, affecting alike their ideas, their mode of thinking, their habits of life, their concep- tions of public and private virtue, of patriotism and of religion, has impressed itself upon the character of the nation in a more permanent way and with more wide- reaching results than an institution whose chief glory is the development of a few party leaders. Probably the man of real genius never owes his success entirely to his college. The greatest men of the world have not got their inspiration from the college curriculum nor the college faculty. Some men have been great without being trained at college, and some have been great in spite of being trained at college. The glory which has been shed on some colleges because eminenit men have graduated there, is not to be despised ; but it is largely accidental. Miami University did not make Ben- jamin Harrison; nor did Dartmouth make Daniel Web- ster; nor did Bowdoin make Nathaniel Hawthorne; nor did Yale make John C. Calhoun. These men would have been men of note no matter where they might be grad- uated. The spirit of man in them was a candle of the Lord, and they could not but shine. Some of the economic teachings of Yale, like those of all the colleges, have been at variance with the pre- vailing policy of the country. On no important ques- tion of national policy has the influence of Yale been greater than on the financial question, which in one form or another has agitated the nation for many years and notably in the last two presidential elections. The sturdy THE DEVELOPMENT OP THE COUNTRY 5 fidelity to what the college regarded as sound priiticiples, contributed in no small degree to the national verdict up- on that question. The attitude of Yale College as regards public af- fairs has generailly been one of protest against impend- ing mistakes and dangers, rather than one of eflEective advocacy of a positive policy of its own. The college has criticised, regulated, warned, rather than originated and led. It has never been intensely partisan, but its attitude has been a good deal like that of the late Rev. Dr. Leonard Bacon. Dr. Bacon was a free trader, but he always voted the Whig or Republican ticket. He said he had been wanting for years to get a chance to vote the Democratic ticket, and so emphasize his views on the tariff; but the Democrats always did some foolish thing or other just before election that compelled him to vote against them. Yale has been a good deal like that. Voting one ticket while wanting to vote the other, be- cause its conservative critical attitude led it to empha- size party errors that the more enthusiastic partisan, in his confidence in the general excellence of party policy, would have overlooked. When the Kansas-Nebraska Bill was passed, Yale thundered against it in no doubtful manner ; and Taylor, Silliman, Woolsey, Thacher and others, fearlessly voiced her sentiments. The college was no less outspoken for freedom and union when both were endangered by the Great Rebellion. More than five hundred fifty of Yale's graduates, and two hundred of her students who were 6 YALE IN ITS RELATION TO not graduates, enlisted as soldiers in the war for the Union. The noble oration of Horace Bushnell at the Com- memorative Celebration, July 26th, 1865, extols in fitting terms the patriotism of these soldiers and voices Yale's gratitude to them for their unselfish devotion to country and to freedom. I can not even now, after the lapse of nearly forty years, recall the names of the men who died upon the battlefield, without an overpowering emotion which noth- ing but the events connected with the great struggle for Union and Liberty has the power to excite. Theodore Winthrop of the Class of 1848, James C. Rice of 1854, Edward F. Blake of 1858, Diodate C. Hannahs of 1859, Edward Carrington of 1859, Henry W. Camp of i860, and my own classmates of 1857, Butler, Button, Gris- wold. Porter, Roberts, and I might well add Drake and Croxton, it will be another Yale than this, and another country than ours, when you and the hundred other scholars of Yale who died for the Republic, and the six hundred who lived to see the end of the contest, are either forgotten or are not held in remembrance as the noblest of Yale's sons. I pass on now to consider Yale's relation to the edu- cational development of the country. Heredity of blood is much less complex than heredity of mind. Genealog- ical tables are sufficiently intricate, but they are simplicity itself in comparison with tables of the mind's ancestry showing the forces which have operated to produce and THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 7 invigorate it. No one can possibly estimate the results which come from the work of the successful teacher, in moulding the character and quickening the intellect of his students, because the influence of this work goes on, in future years, in widening circles that at last reach the limits of the country and even of the world. Without any doubt many of the men before me today owe some- thing for what they are to the teaching and inspiration of the first President Dwight, who put his own impress on Yale College, and in no small degree on other Colleges, and sent out into the world as students men who have made his influence a continuous power for more than a century. So too a modest, courteous, scholarly gentleman, a graduate of Yale College, teaches his classes for years in Williston Seminary, each year sending a score or more of well-prepared boys to the principal Colleges of New England. His life and influence are not such as the his- torian will take notice of — He has fought no battles. He has led no great parties to victory. He has outlined no grand policy for the country — Perhaps he has not even written a book. But the influence of Josiah Clark, of the class of 1833, did not cease when his life was ended here; and the Williston boys of his day will carry to their graves the memory of that manly and inspiring teacher; and if aaiy of them have done good work in life they will not hesitate to attribute it in no small degree, to his teach- ing and the inspiration of his life. 8 YALE IN ITS RELATION TO Two very eminent Yale men who have had much to do with progress in education in this country in a certain way, are Noah Webster of the class of 1778 and Joseph E. Worcester of the class of 181 1, both lexicographers, to whose work most of the American people who are at all particular about their speech have been accustomed to refer as the final authority. The universal presence in schools in former times of Webster's spelling book and its disappearance in these later days will largely explain the increased illiteracy of college students in these days. There is nothing which the secondary schoolsi need so much as a revival of Webster's spelling book, if we may believe published statements respecting the deficiency of students in the elements of English — a deficiency which is not always removed by extensive courses in English literature after students enter college. The great educational work done by Yale is of course the direct work of training its own students. With few exceptions the graduates of Yale have recognized the training they received as valuable and have been grateful to the college for it. That all chairs have not been filled with equal ability, that the same chair has not been filled always with uniform ability, that some professors have been better teachers than scholars and some better scholars than teachers, and that the un- dergraduates have always known just how great the faculty was, individually and collectively, every graduate of the College is perfectly aware. It cannot be doubted chat the work done here for two centuries has fitted men THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 9 well for the struggle of life and that most of the graduates of the College have been respectable and respected in the communities where they have lived and have been recog- nized as men of influence. But who can tell the story of their lives? In the Triennial Catalogue of Yale the names of about 20000 graduates are recorded. Of these about 900 have held positions in Yale or some other college; about 3000 have some special record for public office or work; and about 16000 have no record beyond their academic degree — who can tell how much the coun- try or the world owes to these 20000 men ? The number is very small compared with the many millions of people who have lived in the two centuries just gone. And yet I do not doubt that in some way direct or indirect the influence of Yale has extended, through these 20000 graduates, to a large part of these millions, affecting their education or their ideas or their principles or their lives. It would be invidious to mention the names of dis- tinguished scholars who have contributed to build up the educational work of Yale and make it the potent factor it has been in the education of the country, because it would be impossible to name all. You of former genera- tions and you of the present generation will readily call to mind men who by their learning, vigor and culture did much more for you than merely instruct. The list is a long and noble one of which no Yalensian can fail to be proud. Though great men have died, great men have been found to take their places ; and the faculty to-day 10 YALE IN ITS RELATION TO will not suffer in comparison with the faculties of other days. The roll of presidents is a famous one; but however much we may admire the former Presidents, of whom the men in this audience have had personal knowledge, Day, Woolsey, Porter, Dwight, or any of the earlier men, no one doubts that Arthur T. Hadley, son and in- tellectual heir to the ever-to-be-remembered James Had- ley, is at least the peer of the best of them. Most of the Yale men who have engaged in the work of education have had on them, all their lives, the stamp of Yale College, and have cherished the Yale ideas and have followed the Yale methods. No other single word describes what these are so well as "conservatism." They have held fast to what was good, and been slow to enter new and untried paths. The education that in the past had succeeded in giving men power, has seemed to them good enough for the future ; and they have been slow to accept knowledge without discipline, or culture without power. As a result the manliness, force, and indepen- dence which particularly characterize the Yale student, have been reproduced throughout the country by the permeating influence of Yale training. "A boat race," said a newspaper correspondent last summer, "is never lost by Yale till the race is ended." He meant by that that every particle of strength would be exerted by a Yale crew to the last stroke, so that the race would fin- ally be won if it were possible, as it generally is. It is that resolute determination to do one's best in a manly way THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 1 1 every where in life, without affectation or snobbery or parasitical sycophancy or the undue worship of ancestors, that is the characteristic mark of Yale men, and that is sure to appear wherever Yale men teach. And where have they not taught? North, South, East, and West, Yale educators have been ait work founding colleges, and academies and schools, formulating the principles of public education and making the policy of new states more liberal even than that of the mother New England, stim- ulating public interest in new methods and building up graded systems of popular education with all the varied institutions needed for its protection. The earlier development of this work took the form of attempts to establish in new territory colleges as like Yale as possible. Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth and Hamilton, may be taken as examples. "The first three presidents of Prince- ton were Yale men and to the efforts of the first president, Jonathan Dickinson, Yale 1706, more than to the efforts of any other man are due the founding and early develop- ment of Princeton University. The work of Aaron Burr the second president, Yale 1735, confirmed the Yale tradition in Princeton, and the name of Jonathan Edwards the third president, Yale 1720, according to Hallock, "contributed more to the fame of Princeton on the continent, short as was his presidency — than the name of any other official connected with its history." The first president of King's College, now Columbia, was Dr. Samuel Johnson, Yale 17 14. He was the only Episcopal- ian clergyman in Connecticut; was highly esteemed by 12 yALE IN ITS RELATION TO Benjamin Franklin and was urged by him to become pres- ident of the institution founded by him in Philadelphia, afterward the University of Pennsylvania. When King's College was reorganized as Columbia, William Samuel Johnson, Yale 1744, a distinguished United States Senator from Connecticut and an eminent lawyer, became the first President. He was the first graduate of Yale to re- ceive an honorary degree in law, having been made a doc- tor of Civil Law by Oxford in 1776. Dartmouth College had for its founder and first president. Dr. Eleazar Wheel- ock, Yale 1733, for thirty-five years pastor of a church in Lebanon, Conn. The story of his work for the Indians and the development of his Indian School into Dartmouth College, is too well known to need repetition here. The Yale stamp has always been on Dartmouth, and the spirit of the two institutions has been and is, not unlike. Hamilton College was established by charter of May 26, 1812. It was founded by a Yale graduate, Samuel Kirk- land of the class of 1768, who drew his inspiration from Eleazar Wheelock of the class of 1733, President of Dart- mouth. Like Dartmouth, Hamilton was the outgrowth of Christian work for the Indians. For fifty years of its existence practically all the presidents and professors of Hamilton College were Yale graduates. Among them were some men so eminent that they will not soon be forgotten. The ordinance of 1787 providing for the government of the territory northwest of the River Ohio contained among other remarkable articles — a requirement of pub- THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 13 lie provision for education — its language is : "Religion, Morality and Knowledge being necessary to good govern- ment and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall forever be encouraged." That ordinance has been most faithfully obeyed within the great region to which it applied, every state carved out of the territory having made noble provision for public education from the common school to the university. "Ohio University, established at Athens, Ohio, in 1802, bears the double distinction of being the first college in the United States founded upon a land endov/ment from the national government, and also of being the oldest col- lege in the Northwest Territory." Dr. Manassah Cutler was the father of the University. He was a Yale man of the class of 1765, and a minister of the Gospel, pastor in Ipswich, Mass. He drew up the plan for the college, and made it as much like Yale as he could, but the legislature modified his plan and assumed large powers in the elec- tion of trustees, so that Ohio University though a child of Yale did not ultimately resemble Yale as much as it resembled a state university. But that was not because Dr. Manasseh Cutler had forgotten the character of his Alma Mater or had broken away from his Yale conserva- tism, but simply because other influences were too strong for him to control. Yale influence was thus the first to start higher education in the great Northwest Territory, and the institution founded by Cutler still lives and pros- pers with as many students as Yale herself had when I was an undergraduate. 14 YALE IN ITS RELATION TO Twenty- four years later, in 1826, when northern Ohio had been well settled by good people from Connecticut, Western Reserve College secured its charter. It was the first college established in the northern half of Ohio. The project to establish it originated with a Connecticut clergyman, Rev. Caleb Pitkin, a Yale graduate of the class of 1802. The institution was modeled after Yale, not only in respect to the course of study, but also in respect to its governing board, a majority, as at Yale, being clergymen; and of this majority in the beginning four out of seven were Yale men. The first president who was a graduate of a college was Rev. George E. Pierce, D. D., a Yale graduate of the class of 1816. Of him it is said that "he was thoroughly imbued witli the Connecticut idea of a college." That means the Yale idea. Most of the faculty of Western Reserve College were Yale men and "for a number of years the institution was mod- eled upon Yale College, in the minutest particular." After this statement it is perhaps needless to add, in the language of the president of another Ohio college, that "from the first. Western Reserve has been one of the very best col- leges in the country." Graduates of Western Reserve are now at the head of several of the most important depart- ments of Yale ; while several of the presidents and many of the professors of Western Reserve have been Yale men. Henry L. Hitchcock, of the class of 1832, Carroll Cutler, of the class of 1854, both presidents, and Henry N. Day, of the class of 1828, Elias Loomis, of the clalss of 1830, Nathan P. Seymour, of the class of 1834, and Lemuel S. THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 15 Potwin of the class of 1854, may be mentioned not as a complete list but as a sample of the Yale men who have made Western Reserve — now expanded into a university — the excellent college it has always been. Illinois College was established in 1829 at Jacksonville, in the limits of what is now the imperial state of Illinois. All the influences leading to the establishment of this college originated at Yale or with Yale men. The pro- motors of the enterprise "followed the advice of the presi- dent and professors of Yale College and these venerable advisers warned against subjecting the institution to political or denominational control." Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher, Yale, 1831, was the first president. Rev. Dr. Julian M. Sturtevant, Yale 1826, was his successor, and his presidency was long and prosperous. The college was founded when Illinois had no colleges and had a population of only 160,000. Yale put her impress on the young state and has kept it there to a greater or less degree ever since. Beloit College was founded in southern Wisconsin in 1848. All of its first faculty of two were Yale men. Its first president was Rev. Dr. Aaron L. Chapin, Yale 1837, who held the office for thirty-six years, till 1886. To-day as ever, Yale is represented in the faculty of Beloit. The ideas of the founders of Beloit were the same old conservative Yale ideas which have so gener- ally characterized Yale educators whether at home or abroad. As the Beloit men themselves expressed it, "Education was understood to mean chiefly a self-de- i6 YALE IN ITS RELATION TO velopment, of the individual under training, to a true self-possession and command of his best faculties." To- day Beloit and Yale are alike presided over by one of their own brilliant graduates; what Arthur T. Hadley is to Yale, Edward D. Eaton is to Beloit; and if I were seek- ing in the whole west for a young Yale I should go at once to Beloit; and I have no hesitation in saying that there is no denominational or independent non-sectarian college in the west that is better than Beloit. President Eaton is a graduate of one of the departments of Yale. I have chosen to speak of these colleges, not because Yale men were to be found in their faculties — ^there are many colleges all over the country that can not be named today of which the same is true ; but because these institu- tions seem to have been created as well as developed by Yale influence, and in their career they have largely affected the character of the great Northwest all of them having been established most opportunely by Yale in- fluence within the territory dedicated to freedom and ed- ucation and religion by the ordinance of 1787. Passing from the consideration of institutions intended to reproduce Yale, I come next to consider the work of a few men who have been notable as educators. Foremost among these, worthy to be classed with Horace Mann in consideration of the originality of his plans and the ex- tended scope of his work, was Henry Barnard of the class of 1830, who closed his long career of usefulness in this first year of the twentieth century — a man whose influence upon the schools and the secondary education of the coun- THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 17 try was so pronounced that the largest educational con- vention of the year, with its ten thousand teachers from all parts of the country, fitly paused in its deliberations to celebrate at one entire session the remarkable achieve- ments of this distinguished educator. He was a man of original ideas. He believed in progress. He never rested satisfied with what most of the world was rea|dy to ac- cept as the ultimate attainment. For him there was al- ways something better further on ; and the great army of educators, good and bad alike, were compelled at last to follow his leading. And he is not the only one who has gone out from Yale and has done a broader educational work than that outlined by her traditional policy. In- deed it may be confidently asserted that the work done by Yale graduates as educators outside of New Haven, in re- cent years, has shown a much less close conformity to the conservative ideas of Yale than that done in the first half of the century. Too much honor cannot be given to Daniel C. Oilman, of the class of 1852, first president of Johns Hopkins. He went out from Yale to assume the presidency of the University of California and after some years of vigorous work in which he succeeded in giving form, purpose and life to that university, he was called to take up a new work in Baltimore. Discarding the tradi- tions of the old colleges of the country he set himself to the task, not of building up another rival college for under- graduates, but of establishing a genuine university in which graduates of the best colleges of the land could ad- vance in knowledge beyond the limits of all the colleges. i8 YALE IN ITS RELATION TO under men distinguished for their original investigations ajnd for their great attainments in the subjects which they undertook to teach. How great his success was you all know. How much the old colleges are indebted to him for a new impulse and for his grand leadership in creating a real university, the faculties of those col- leges very well know; and how great a service he ren- dered to the country can be witnessed by hosts of bright graduates of Johns Hopkins filling most important positions in most of the leading colleges of the country, and bringing to their work a new inspiration derived from great teachers and new methods of scientific investigation. And among the great men whom Oilman gathered around him with a judgment that was almost faultless, we are proud to name one of yesterday's orators. Dr. Wm. H. Welch, the most distinguished pathologist and bacter- iologist of our country. The direct influence upon the colleges of our country, exerted by Johns Hopkins planned and administered by Dr. Oilman can hardly be overestimated. The methods of study and the learning of tha:t university are being reproduced from the Atlantic to the Pacific in every institution that has money enough to secure graduates of Johns Hopkins for its faculty. A number of American colleges have thrown aside the bands which compressed them and have expanded into genuine universities. But it was Daniel C. Oilman who led the way, and every man who cares for progress in educational work and for the highest learning will ac- knowledge that the United States owes a debt of gratitude THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 19 to Dr. Oilman for the work he has done outside of Yale. President Oilman has been doctored by more universities and colleges than any other graduate of Yale — indeed any college that has not conferred the doctorate on Oilman is ipso facto not really respectable^ — but he is still in ex- cellent health and is even now ready to take up amd carry forward successfully another very important educational work as director of the Washington Memorial Associa- tion at the Capital. I recall another name worthy to be mentioned here with especial honor, the name of a man not lacking in bril- liancy, but whose career has been wrought out by such pa- tient and faithful work, that no man ought to feel any- thing but joy at the success which he has attained. I refer to Hon. William T. Harris, of the class of 1858, the accomplished United States Commissioner of Educa- tion. The highest educational work of the country is undoubtedly done in the colleges; but the greatest work is done in the public schools. It is in these schools that the great body of citizens of the republic are being trained, and the future of the country so far as respects its peace and order and industrial prosperity is dependent on this work far more than on the work of the colleges except so far as the work of the colleges tells on the work of the schools. The teachers in these schools are numbered by the hundreds of thousands. And a man who can teach the teachers, giving them alike new con- ceptions of their work and new methods of doing their work, so that all along the line from one end of the coun- 20 YALE IN ITS RELATION TO try to the other there shall be a pedagogical revival with deepened interest in study on the part of the millions of scholars, is an educational general, and fit to be com- mander in chief. And Wm. T. Harris is the man. He is a philosopher. He founded and has edited the Journal of Speculative Philosophy, the first journal of the kind in the English language, if the language of philosophy can properly be called English; and yet he did not lose his common sense, his clear way of stating things, his power of suggesting new thoughts and plans to teachers and thus getting them out of the ruts, nor his ability to awa- ken enthusiasm in teachers for their work. Above the roar of the mighty flood of so called pedagogical learn- ing with which our country is being inundated, the clear good sense and philosophical suggestions of Mr. Harris never fail to reach the understanding of teachers and to prove most helpful to them. His views on education aire always sound, and the great multitude who listen to his words and in turn repeat them in substance to a still greater multitude, make his influence on the education of the people beyond calculation. Let him be honored as he deserves for what he has done and what he is doing. The government at Washington honored itself when it made Wm. T. Harris Commissioner of Education, and whatever the party in power he should be retained in his present office as long as he is able to serve the cause of education as well as he has done in the past. Of Andrew D. White, of the class of 1853, it is diffi- cult to say whether he is more distinguished as a writer THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 21 and thinker forty years in advance of. his age, or as a diplomatist eminent for his services as the representative of his country at the courts of Russia and Germany, or as an educator blending the purposes of a land grant college with the broad educational ideas of Ezra Cornell and establishing and directing successfully for years that unique institution, Cornell University. Certainly his suc- cess in any one of these directions has been sufficient to satisfy the ambition of most men. As President of Cor- nell he did much to promote new theories of education and to enlarge the scope of educational institutions. The institution which he created had little resemblance to Yale, but it is not unlike the leading state universities of the west. The conditions of the endowments were doubt- less in a large degree responsible for this ; though no one supposes that Dr. White, even if given a free hand, would have attempted to reproduce a Yale at Ithaca. Something new and as far as possible original must be the outcome of his labors, and such in the judgment of the Yale faculty at the time was the outcome. As the years go on Institu- tions like men learn from experience and soon drop off their unpleasant features and assume new ones that are desirable. This has been the history of Cornell and without losing in any degree her individuality, she has at last fallen practically into line with all the successful universities of the country. Dr. White gave to her ser- vice some of the best years of his life and not an incon- siderable part of his fortune. 22 YALE IN ITS RELATION TO Chfcago University, which though a mere child in age has the size, strength, ambitions and activity of the full grown man, owes its existence and resources in the last analysis to the thought and suggestion of a Yale gradu- ate; and owes its development, verve and originality to its first president Dr. Wm. R. Harper who graduated at Yale as doctor of philosophy in 1875, ^"d who as a profes- sor at Yale had the opportunity to fill himself with the Yale spirit if he did not secure it as an undergraduate at Muskingum College. Perhaps he did, for the first precep- tor of that institution was David Putnam, grandson of Gen. Israel Putnam and a graduate of Yale in the class of 1793. Time will not permit an extended notice of Dr. Harper's great work in Chicago ; and it is not necessary ; for in these days the University of Chicago is very much in evidence; and the world knows how much the amia- ble, versatile and progressive first president. Dr. William R. Harper has done for education. I do not claim it all as a part of the glory of Yale, but I do claim an undi- vided and indivisible share. I should be glad to pay a just tribute to the work done in Atlanta by Horace Bumstead of the class of 1861 ; in Tulane University, at New Orleans, by William Pres- ton Johnston, of the class of 1852; in New York, by Charlton T. Lewis, of the class of 1853 '• in Rochester, by Augustus H. Strong, of the class of 1857; in Cornell, by Moses Coit Tyler, of the class of 1857; in Lincoln and Iowa City, by George E. MacLean, of the Theological class of 1874, and by many others whose work is emi- THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 23 nently worthy of special mention. But I cannot further deal with individuals, but must briefly state the essen- tial facts. Yale furnished the first president of at least eigh- teen colleges and the list is remarkable as much for the distinguished character of the institutions as for their number — I name them : Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, University of Georgia, Williams, Hamilton, Kenyon, Illinois, Wabash, University of Missouri, University of Mississippi, University of Wisoonsin, Beloit, Chicago, California, Cornell, Johns Hopkins, and Western Reserve. One hundred five graduates of Yale have been president of a college, aind at least eighty-five different colleges have at some time had a Yale graduate for president. Among these are the state universities of Wisconsin, Min- nesota, Iowa, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Mississippi, Wyoming, Indiana, Georgia, Missouri, Ver- mont, California and Oregon — and probably others. Among the other colleges, not state institutions, are Dick- inson, Middleburry, Hampden-Sidney, Amherst, Rutgers, Trinity, Lafayette, Transylvania, Tulane, Lake Forest, Pomona and Whitman, and the Imperial University of Japan. More than six hundred graduates of Yale have been professors in some college. I wish I could name them, including the distinguished men who have done their work here at Yale — ^but the mere reading of the names of professors, the chairs they filled and the col- leges they served, would require the entire time permit- ted for this address. No one can doubt that the influence 24 YALE IN ITS RELATION TO of these men in so many institutions in all parts of our country has contributed much to the advancement of higher learning in all sections, to the elevation of the people, and to the prosperity and true grandeur of our republic. The prairies that for hundreds of miles stretch in al- most unbroken continuity through the West do not excite in the traveler to the Pacific any especial emotion of won- der. Such emotion is excited by the tall peaks further west that tower heavenward, the sentinels of the Rockies, grand, gloomy, solitary, sublime. But the prairies, mo- notonously level and tame though they are, can feed the world. The largest part of the alumni of the college are like the prairie — inconspicuous but useful. Some of the others are like the foot-hills, elevated but small in com- parison with Shasta's heaven-piercing head. Compara- tively few rise to mountain heights — and hardly one at- tains the grandeur of the solitary peak to whose majesty the world does homage. But the inconspicuous lives are not always the least useful lives. The men with the longest record in the triennial catalogue are not neces- sarily the men who have done the most good. Many a graduate as principal of an academy, a high school or a preparatory school of some kind, has done a work that in its breadth, power and beneficence is not equaled by the work of more conspicuous men in higher fields. I would rather have the glory which rests upon the memory of Dr. Arnold, of Rugby, than the halo which encircles THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE COUNTRY 25 the proudest don of Oxford. It is a great thing to be a real thinker. It is a great thing to have a noble charac- ter. But it is a greater thing to plant your thoughts in intellects where they will grow, and to put your principles which have made character, into hearts where they will be cherished. In this thought the teachers of all grades can rest content. And Mother Yale, as she calls the roll of her sons who are worthy of her love, will not omit a single one however humble, if only he hais done what he could.