Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2009 with funding from 
 
 Princeton Theological Seminary Library 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/highereducationaOOjaco 
 
— ^ i\ n\ 
 
 * APR 18 1911 
 
 AN ADDRESS 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE 
 
 The Literary Societies 
 
 COLLEGE OF NEW JERSEY, 
 
 REV. MELANCTHON W. JACOBUS, D.D., LLD. 
 
 Tuesday, June 22, 1874. 
 
 PRINCETON : 
 Printed bv C. S. Robixso.v, 
 
 1874. 
 
EXTRACT FROM THE MINUTES OF THE 
 CLIOSOPHIC SOCIETY. 
 
 Clio Hall, June 23d, 1874. 
 
 Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be presented to the Rev. 
 Dr. Jacobus, for his eloquent and timely address delivered this morning 
 before the Literary Societies of the College, and that a copy of the same 
 be requested for publication. 
 
 WILLIAM A. PACKARD, 
 
 JOHN T. DUFFIELD, 
 
 WM. SANDERSON CHEESMAN. 
 
 EXTRACT FROM THE MINUTES OF THE 
 AMERICAN WHIG SOCIETY. 
 
 Whig Hall, June 23d, 1S74. 
 
 Resolved, That the thanks of the American Whig Society be pre 
 sented to the Rev. Melancthon W. Jacobus, D. D., LL.D., for his able and 
 eloquent address, delivered to-day, and that a copy be requested for pub- 
 lication. 
 
 HENRY C. CAMERON, 
 CHARLES W. SHIELDS, 
 DUDLEY G, WOOTEN. 
 
JLIDIDIE^ESS 
 
 Gentlemen of thk American Whkj and Ci.k;- 
 soPHic Societies. 
 
 I am carried back just forty years, to the time 
 when I stood here, a lad among my seniors, and was 
 graduated with my Class of '34. Carnahan, in his 
 quiet dignity and worth, was Pfesident^and there 
 was the brilliant Dod, and the learned Torrey. and 
 the scholarly Vethake, and the accomplished and ele- 
 gant Jas. W. Alexander, and the masterly and magnetic 
 Joseph Henry, and the erudite Stephen Alexander, 
 who still adorns his chair, and the venerable and 
 beloved Vice President, John Maclean, who is also 
 among us to-day. the venerated and honored Ex- 
 President of the Institution. "O King! live for ever." 
 
 The Old North College, prison-like as it was 
 before its ordeal of flame, and as it is to-day, graced 
 the Campus, flanked by the Library and the Philo- 
 sophical Hall, with Mr. Clow's Refectory, and with 
 
the mansions of President and Vice President afront, 
 right and left. East and West Colleges were pro- 
 jected in that time, and the Clio and Whig Halls 
 were set on foot by one of my own class lately 
 deceased, the Rev. Daniel Wells. As yet these 
 Societies were domiciled in the sky-story of the 
 Library, meeting on different nights to avoid cross- 
 ing each other's path. 
 
 The patriotism of the College annually shone out 
 on Independence nightwith a candle in every window- 
 pane of the Old North front, and with turpentine 
 balls and rockets set flying through the grounds. 
 May I say that her patriotism displays itself in a 
 higher kind of illumination — a light in every window- 
 pane indeed, but the light of living men scattered 
 widely throughout the land and in all lands. 
 
 To-day we come up hither to behold what revo- 
 lution has been wrought here by the quiet energy of 
 taste and money. Honor to the men who have so 
 nobly set their hand to this long needed work. The 
 Gymnasium, the Observatory, the Reunion Hall, the 
 Chapel, Dickinson Hall, the New Library and the 
 Scientific Hall ! Honor to the man who with such 
 princely munificence has undertaken these last three 
 imposing structures together. And honor to him, 
 who, not unmindful of the higher culture, as befits 
 
this College, proposes a new and elegant Chapel, to 
 be the Sanctuary of this Institution. 
 
 You can see the bulk of a full million of money 
 in these improvements of the College. Honor to 
 the College Head who has so wisely planned and 
 executed the work allowed to him by these munifi- 
 cent appropriations. And we bless God that men 
 of ample wealth and of liberal conception — the mer- 
 chant princes of our land — are finding out the grand- 
 est ends of money — the most truly useful, the most 
 richly profitable and the most really lasting — build- 
 ing to themselves monuments in these enduring edi- 
 fices they erect, in the large endowments which they 
 institute, and what is more and better, in the grati- 
 tude of lonof orenerations. 
 
 Who could have thought that it would be left to 
 a German merchant of our day, by wealth acquired in 
 commercial industries, and by the inspiration of a 
 zeal for Greek learning, to unbury the ruins of ancient 
 Troy, four cities deep — himself drinking in a new 
 life, where 
 
 " The Attic bird 
 Trills her sweet warblings all the Summer long." 
 
 As Athens and Corinth were the eyes of Greece — 
 as Oxford and Cambridge are the eyes of England — 
 as Yale and Harvard are the eyes of New England 
 — so Princeton is set in the forehead of our Middle 
 States to be one of the eyes of America. 
 
8 
 
 Here are all the elements of permanence and of 
 prosperity and of power. With such a record, 
 wrought in the rock of her hard pathway, with such 
 k proud list of her sons adorning our country's his- 
 tory, with such a prestige in the well earned confidence 
 of the people, where can large wealth be better 
 expended than in adding to her facilities for educat- 
 ing the young men of our land? Treasure of New 
 England merchants and of Alumni and patrons in 
 all quarters, has rained down upon Harvard and 
 Yale. And they have steadily multiplied their edu- 
 cational appliances under such public favor. Enlarged 
 Faculties, enriched Libraries and Museums, extended 
 schemes of Instruction bv Professors and Tutors in 
 every department, this is their glory ! And we claim 
 for our Alma Mater all that generous and ample 
 patronage which shall make her, as she of right ought 
 to be, the first Educational Institution in the land. 
 Princeton needs to-day the enlarged means for aid- 
 ing her advanced students in pursuing their favorite 
 branches at home and abroad, under her endowed 
 fellowships and scholarships — as the means also of 
 supplying the land with scholars and teachers who 
 shall well maintain the honor of their order. This 
 should be a seat of learning for pilgrim scholars to 
 frequent with their devotions. But the rush of busi- 
 ness, the Battering bait of wealth, the pressure of 
 
poverty, all make high learning almost impossible in 
 a land like ours, unless learned livings be provided. 
 And these could be so adjusted as to engage 
 the advancing fellow or scholar, all along, as 
 an instructor also, so that all the talent and 
 acquirement could be well utilized as fast as 
 it is obtained. Our CoUecje needs her course 
 to be extended, so as to be fully abreast of 
 the foremost, with all the advanced appointments 
 of our time. She needs the money always to com- 
 mand the highest grade of teaching, and to hold it 
 in a way that shall not be a shame to think of, as a 
 fair compensation. She needs enrichment ot her 
 laboratories and museums, and of her philosophic 
 and scientific apparatus. And men of wealth might 
 covet the privilege of cultivating such a field with 
 such a noble and generous soil. 
 
 This grand old College of New Jersey, with no 
 pittance of appropriation from the State whose name 
 she bears and honors, and whom she supplies with her 
 men of might — with no portion even of the agricultu- 
 ral grant — must look to her sons, and to her patrons 
 whom she reckons with her sons. 
 
 The State, in this age of our commonwealth, 
 cannot be relied upon for the higher education. 
 Her philosophy is the productive philosophy. She 
 will amply provide for her Public Schools. She 
 
lO 
 
 will even make the District School House her 
 Parish Church, and instead of making- education 
 relioioiis, will make education her relio^ion. She 
 may even endow her colleges and universities. 
 But too often it must be upon conditions which would 
 not be safe for the culture of the land. And here 
 are great principles of vast importance at stake, 
 which cannot by any means be yielded. 
 
 The State proceeds too commonly upon the theory 
 that education, in its narrow, secular, practical, mate- 
 rialistic sense, works out the conservation of the 
 commonwealth. But there is an education which 
 only makes more potent and damaging the evil spirit 
 of its possessor. And the mere outside training and 
 furniture which supplies with a popular personal 
 power to sway the masses and to wield the govern- 
 ment for evil as well as for good, carries with it, and 
 in itself, no salvation for the country. We plead for 
 education, and for education by the State. But we 
 would not stop at such an education as the State will 
 give us. This nation, more than any other, is depend- 
 ent for her very life upon the well-diffused intelli- 
 gence of the people in secular affairs. But the 
 higher education must also be provided that shall 
 give a full and complete training to the man in the 
 whole circle of knowledges : in the humanities and 
 the realities together, in mind, body, soul, and estate : 
 
1 1 
 
 that shall make him better know himself, and better 
 understand human character, and history, and destiny 
 — that shall teach him what man is, and what man has 
 been, and has done, and what he may become, and what 
 all nature is, as an exhibition of her Maker. " Literae, 
 Amicitia, Mores." Shall I say then, by way of a 
 passing- plea for our noble College so well equipped, 
 that she needs a still better and fuller equipment, 
 that the million or more so lately given and so well 
 expended, calls for millions more in a course of solid 
 culture, that shall well repay with ampler millions in 
 the generations to come. 
 
 Gentlemen oj the Societies : 
 
 Standing here to-day where the Temple of 
 Science and the Temple of Religion are provided 
 for together by the munificence of noble men, I 
 may fairly speak to you of The Higher EnucATioN. 
 
 " The Scientific Hall," with grand proportions, 
 walled and roofed — a massive pile — unfinisheci but 
 steadily approaching to completion, this is the fitting 
 type and exponent of our College to-day. But 
 science, in its true idea, is systematized knowledge, 
 knowledge in its utmost breadth, not narrow and 
 partial knowledge, but universal. For science is not 
 physical science merely, but metaphysical and moral 
 and theolooical also: not the knowledo-e of matter 
 only, but the knowledge of niind and soul also as 
 
I 2 
 
 essential to the personality, and of mind and soul as 
 not matter, but immensely superior to matter. 
 
 The subtle materialism which pervades so much 
 the thinking of our time, touches at various 
 points, the great problems of education, narrows the 
 sphere of knowledge and threatens already a sub- 
 version of the old educational system. 
 
 This is true as respects both the subject and the 
 object of education. 
 
 I. For who is to be educated ? What is he ? 
 If he be only material and not spiritual also, only 
 body and not soul — then why is not a first class Gym- 
 nasium the proper and sufficient appliance ? Then 
 it is muscle that is to be educated. It is the cultiva- 
 tion of tissue and fibre, which, in this view, are not 
 merely the organ of mind but the mind itself Then 
 indeed, there is the prime absurdity of denying one's 
 proper personality in order to draw out and elevate 
 his personal traits which distinguish him from any 
 other man. Then, indeed, it is tenement and not ten- 
 ant which is to be informed. It is shell and not kernel 
 which is to be made to grow. Then, as one has said, 
 there is the phenomenon of "soulless professors 
 lecturing to soulless students, to prove that they 
 have no souls, by arguments which are only noisy 
 breath unless they have souls toapprehend and appre- 
 ciate the arguments." 
 
13 
 
 And if, as this thinking maintains, the man is 
 only a superior brute, with the spirit of the brute 
 that goeth downward, what need we for a college 
 but a well-appointed Menagerie, arranged according 
 to the respective habitats, and fitted up with its 
 adaptation to the instincts of each ? 
 
 Or if, as some will have it, the man is only what 
 he eats — determined in all his mental and moral 
 characteristics by the food he masticates, then surely 
 we are to institute the modern curriculum on the 
 basis of a first-class Restaurant, where the education 
 shall be by means of the diets, selected and gradu- 
 ated to produce certain aptitudes and faculties for 
 success in the several pursuits. And the philosophic 
 faculty is to be made by one bill of fare, and the 
 artistic faculty by another, and the industrial faculty 
 by another, and the course of food is the curriculum, 
 one course to produce the soldier and another the 
 scholar, one the savant and the other the servant. 
 
 And this leads me to advert, in passing, to a 
 kindred error in the modern education that mistakes 
 cram for culture — that drives the machine by such 
 high pressure and at so many miles an hour as 
 jeopards everything on board. This is truly mater- 
 ialistic. It is not education in any proper sense. It 
 is stuffing, not drawing out the man. It surfeits him 
 so as to make the study a disgust, until the intel- 
 
Ijctual clysptiptic rejects liis proper food. It makes 
 the curriculum a race-course and never is done with 
 the lash and the spur until the end is reached. The 
 student may be driven mad by such a process, or he 
 may be overtasked to his death. Or at best he will 
 long to get out of the strait-jacket and prison life 
 of the college, with its ding\ dong, bell, and go to the 
 polytechnic or university to pursue his favorite 
 branches at his will. 
 
 But I proceed to maintain that "scientific theories 
 of matter and of life, all have ethical relations and con- 
 sequences. These are assumed in politics and law, 
 in the sciences of natural rioht and of social obliea- 
 tion. And any community must soon feel that 
 literary institution to be a positive scourge, in which 
 a sceptical science relaxes (if it does not deny) all 
 the moral obligations which spring from a true 
 faith." I see in the drift of modern thought perils 
 imminent to our educational systems. Ihe subtle 
 poison is in the atmosphere. It is breathed in the 
 magazine, in the lecture, in the newspapers. The 
 revolution is actually going on. And these perils 
 can be best provided against by enriching and 
 stren<rthenine such a colleofe as this. We maintain 
 the catholicity and authority of science. // is not 
 the believer who cripples and restricts scientijic 
 research. It is the unbeliever ivho co?tfiJics it to the 
 
15 
 
 narr invest spheres of sense and grovels along with it 
 there. And as the President of Yale has well 
 said " the present aspects of society at home and 
 abroad are compelling thoughtful men to ask, 
 whether the practical relaxing of the bonds of duty 
 amone men of culture and education is not the result 
 of a more or less distinctly acknowledged theoretical 
 scepticism." Plain enough is it that the sceptical 
 scientist who will have nothing to do with a personal, 
 primal cause in Nature, cannot teach a true science. 
 
 Look at the new programme of scientific educa- 
 tion as already announced. 
 
 " The connection of man with the lower animals 
 shall form the basis of a new system of psychology. 
 Mental science will start on a new track in search of 
 other objects than our metaphysicians have hitherto 
 kept in view. Psychology will be based on a new 
 foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of 
 each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light 
 will be thrown upon the origin of man and his his- 
 tory. And here is a theory involving a complete 
 overthrow of a system of mental science in which 
 mind is regarded as a substance distinct from the 
 body." Can anv education be lower than this? 
 
 I have stoodon the topof the Righi whenfar below 
 on the beautiful Lake Lucerne, the cloud had settled 
 like a roof over a portion of the waters, and you 
 
1 6 
 
 could see the tiny steamer ploutrhing its way to where 
 it entered under the cloud, the passengers shrinking 
 at the chill and darkness, and not at all considerino- 
 the higher realm of thought and observation above 
 them. So I have seen a child trying to pick up a 
 patch of sunshine from the carpet. It was there. 
 But it did not belong to the things which may be 
 handled. 
 
 Such a theory of knowledge as we have referred 
 to, confounds the distinctions of thought, and utterly 
 bewilders all investigation. Not satisfied with dis- 
 carding traditional assumptions, it demands mathe- 
 matical proof of that which is not at all subject to 
 such analysis. As if one should require of his son 
 to prove his filial temper by the algebra — to take the 
 square root of an affection — to work out his demon- 
 strations of fidelity upon the blackboard, and to dif- 
 ferentiate the right and wrong of his conduct by 
 the calculus. 
 
 Wecall for more of science, notforless. Weprotest 
 aoainst narrowincr die circle of the sciences so as to 
 exclude the higher realms of thought. VVe plead 
 for science in its widest sphere, beyond the mere 
 material phenomena, for science above the analysis 
 of the laboratory, or the scope of the anatomist. 
 Has it come to this, that brain work is to be measured 
 by the inch, according to the correlation of physical 
 
17 
 
 forces ? Shall we have its value then computed by 
 the yard, or shall we have its horse-power calculated, 
 for driving an eno^ine, or o^overnincr a state? That 
 education must be halfway and one-sided that so 
 dwarfs and belittles science as to confine it to sensi- 
 ble objects. That is indeed, sensation without reflec- 
 tion. Here, " science " pleads for ignorance. 
 
 Take the scientific methods, as applied, for 
 example, to the worlds beyond our reach. You 
 have the spectroscope, and you credit that wonderful 
 instrument, as it reveals to you, by the colored lines 
 which their atmospheres cast upon the canvas, what 
 are the materials out of which those starry orbs are 
 built. And here are the lines of YiQ-ht, which are 
 cast by the atmosphere of that spirit-world upon the 
 inspired page, and which reveal to our conscious- 
 ness its very constituent elements. There w'as a time 
 when nothing but driftwood floatino- on the ocean 
 currents indicated to men the existence of this con- 
 tinent as a possible or probable fact. ^And then a dar- 
 ing navigator carried back the testimony oi it as 
 something seen by himself, and this w^as credited. 
 And such testimonies and proofs we have had of a 
 world beyond the stars belonging to our spiritual 
 system. And why should they not in like manner 
 constrain our belief? I have stood in the old Cathe- 
 dral at Pisa, under the chandelier where Galileo gazed 
 
i8 
 
 and where he discovered the proof of the earth's 
 motion. And I have thoug"ht how strikingly typical 
 it was. that in the apex of that sanctuary nave, high 
 arching towards the sky, there was fixed the strong 
 staple from which that grand demonstration was 
 hung. So much for the experimental method. And 
 is experiment more than experience ? 
 
 And now if we apply the favorite historical method 
 of the modern school what have we ? We have the 
 documents in the most ancient and corroborative 
 form, of manifold record, which give us the history of 
 the supernatural along with the common items of the 
 day. And these histories belonging to the most en- 
 lightened age, and current in the most learned commu- 
 nities of Greek and Roman culture, attested by let- 
 ters to the chief cities of the world and with every 
 element of authentication. Why should the histori- 
 cal method, so vaunted, be ruled out here, and only 
 here ? as if history could be voted unhistorical, and 
 turned to fable, at will. Science calculates transits 
 and eclipses, and properly glorifies her methods of 
 positive knowledge from data of natural law. But 
 here we have the very time-tables according to which 
 the years of history have been kept from the begin- 
 ningf, and have been noted centuries beforehand, with 
 unerring accuracy. And now to deny the document, 
 or to question the date because of the data, would 
 
19 
 
 be quite as disingenuous as it would be to challenge 
 the scholars who have gone out to the ends of the 
 earth to watch the transit of Venus. 
 
 For truth, shining out upon us from the sky belongs 
 to no age, nation or language exclusively, but to all 
 alike. All tongues and peoples owe it equal hom- 
 age, and are bound to plant themselves where they 
 can best find it out. 
 
 Proctor says, "What if our eyes were telescopes ! " 
 Yes ! What if they were such telescopes as " sub- 
 stantiate the things hoped for, and evidence the things 
 not seen," 
 
 And here is the Book, which is unlike any other 
 book — so confessedly above them all — unaccounta- 
 ble altogether except upon the supposition of its 
 higher origin and substance — dealing with science 
 long before science was born — so anticipating the 
 findings of science without an error, long a^res before 
 science began, as to prove that it was the product 
 of His mind who gave to science birth ; the Book 
 which gives the history of all history — the only 
 orieinal account of all orioins — the table of the 
 races and the order and genesis of populations, and 
 the birth and growth of languages — the Book from 
 which the greatest authors of all ages have drawn 
 their inspirations — which has furnished subjects to 
 the highest art — which has been more criticised and 
 
20 
 
 searched into than all other books tog-ether — its jots 
 and tittles, its sentences and syllables counted 
 and memorized until it could be reproduced from 
 the books and brains of its adherents if every copy 
 of it were given to the flames — which has been per- 
 secuted as if it had been an invading army of sav- 
 ages, but which will not down at any word of 
 authority and power. You are asked to pronounce 
 this Book a fable, and the Religion which it reveals, 
 a fallacy and falsity. But the name it heralds to the 
 world is to-day the Name above every name. 
 
 And here I would put in a plea for the study of 
 this earliest and noblest classic, as being itself the 
 fountain of learning — as having all science and all 
 philosophy and all literature here in the germ. I 
 would have it studied in both of its wonderful lan- 
 guages as part of the college curriculum. Books 
 more stirrintr than Homer, more touching than the 
 Medea, more lovely than Virgil are here. 
 
 But as there can be no true culture, without a true 
 cultus, a true ideal and object of worship, what 
 must come of a culture that worships a blind 
 and unintelligent force ? Can we be educated 
 by the new system, to love a set of forces ? 
 a set of galvanic forces, a set of vital forces? 
 The ancient heathenism that worshipped the powers 
 of nature, at least personified them. It was the Sun- 
 
21 
 
 God. It was the spirit under the leaf, and in the 
 flower, and in the stalk of grain. And yet that cul- 
 ture so defective, upwards, was bondage and dark 
 night upon the soul and upon all their social institu- 
 tions. It was when Greece and Rome had a culture 
 that struggled towards a divine Personality which 
 they could freely invoke, that there came forth what- 
 ever was admirable in the higher classic culture. 
 
 I have walked through Plato's Grove of Acade- 
 mus, and have plucked the solitary orange blossom 
 from the deserted field, and I have thought how the 
 great teacher has been superseded by the greater, 
 and how the (fc'Aoao(f:a has given way to the aotfca^ the 
 /.oyu^, the 0£av6(io)7:o:;. 
 
 And ask a moment, if you will have aw, what is 
 the inevitable law of such a belief or nonbelief 
 worked out in the popular education ? It is a law 
 of moral gravitation issuing in all debasement and 
 despair. Rejecting a Divine Personality and with 
 it all personal accountability, every man a law to 
 himself, no binding- obligations, no fear of retribution 
 in the future world, no sanctity of an oath, no moral 
 forces left, justice a farce, and not a force, the world 
 is chaos. Positivism becomes blank negativism. 
 The spirit of the age becomes utter lawlessness. 
 To command it by law, must then be 
 
22 
 
 " As bootless. 
 
 As to send precepts to Leviathan 
 To come ashore." 
 
 But this modern thought that will repudiate most 
 ot all any Supreme Personality, offers to our modern 
 civilization a worse than heathen development. 
 Savage barbarism in society is the sure result. Not 
 even the Great Spirit of the Indian becomes a 
 restraint upon the evil passions of men. Give us 
 back the Pantheon and the Parthenon, orods and 
 goddesses without number, rather than none, rather 
 than this negation of all cultus and true culture 
 together. 
 
 Stop a moment, and ask what culture this mod- 
 ern thought has produced. What poem has it writ- 
 ten ? What world-renowned masterpiece of art has 
 it brought forth ? What Handel or Beethoven has 
 it produced in music ? What Angelo with easel or 
 chisel ? What idol even, has it cast like the Athen- 
 ian Pallas, for its worship ? A statue of Minerva, 
 indeed, but overtopping it, and as the only object to 
 be seen from afar, the golden tip of her spear. 
 
 II. But this materialism in the modern thouo;ht, 
 shows itself also, in limiting the object of education ; 
 in demanding that the culture shall be such only as 
 shall directly subserve the material interests. The 
 true end of education is not what the man shall most 
 do,butwhatheshallmostbe, and this too, in order that 
 
23 
 
 he may most and best do the part assigned to him. It 
 is character more than calHno-. Character first and 
 calhng next. Not to get tools, so much as to become 
 himself the superior instrument or agent for all the 
 work of life. In an age like ours, and especially in 
 a land like ours, where material values are the high 
 prizes of life to the multitude, it is no marvel if old 
 barriers should be broken down in our educational 
 systems. It is seen that the practical talent is that 
 which succeeds; that mere scholarship, however prized 
 by the possessor, does not win the chief prizes of 
 our day. It is even said that high learning is often 
 positively in the way of one's success in life; may so 
 smooth and polish a man as to make him a poor 
 wrestler for promotion in every day affairs. It is 
 even asserted, and is true in a sense, that "the great- 
 est men in the world have not been the elegant and 
 refined scholars of their time — that Brindley and 
 Stephenson, for example, the men who gave to 
 Britain her canals and railways, did not read and 
 write till they were twenty years of age." But surely 
 this is no argument for postponing one's elementary 
 learning till his majority. It is said also that 
 "D'Israeli, with all his literary resources, never laid 
 down a line of state policy that was not scouted, while 
 Sir Robert Peel, whose speeches were the heaviest 
 platitudes and whose quotations were commonly from 
 
24 
 
 the Eton grammar, reversed his country's financial 
 poHcy, regenerated Ireland, and died with the blessing 
 of all England on his head." But what does this prove 
 against the most liberal culture for a man as part of 
 his training in life ? D'Israeli's learning did not 
 come out of the University. And those uncultured 
 magnates would have achieved much more, with all 
 the accessories of educated power. And unless the 
 learned failures are traceable to the learning, then 
 nothing is proved except that only iheir exalted 
 scholarship saved them from being failures altogether. 
 It has been charged that the high education 
 " ritles the cannon until the strength of the metal is 
 gone." But if the metal was of poor stuff, or lack- 
 ing in careful preparation for the strain upon it, then 
 rifled or unrifled, it would have burst at the first dis- 
 charge. Power is the popular criterion. And it is 
 recited as a stunning fact, that "he who wielded our 
 government with the strongest hand, is pronounced 
 by his biographer to have been the most ignorant 
 man in the world." But is this a plea for ignorance? 
 I know that La Place was accused by Napoleon of 
 always searching after subtleties — that his ideas were 
 problems and that he carried the spirit of the infi- 
 nitesimal calculus into the management of business. 
 Yet this was no fault of the calculus,but only of its 
 application. I know that, as is said of Sir John Hunter, 
 
25 
 
 men may be ignorant of the dead languages, and yet 
 may be able to teach those who sneer at their ignor- 
 ance that which they never knew in any language dead 
 or living. But is that an argument against the clas- 
 sics in education ? No ! But to-day 1:hat learning is 
 sought with most avidity which graduates a man as a 
 railroad president or bank president upon the fattest 
 living. And not the rings of the planets are studied 
 half so much as the municipal or state rings of the 
 contractor. Where are the college graduates to-day 
 in the foremost ranks of learning pushing forward 
 literary enterprises,controlling our public schools, and 
 guarding all our educational interests ? Alas ! " One 
 to his farm, another to his merchandise." I have lately 
 seen it alleged that for the last twenty years no grad- 
 uate of our American colleges has risen to fame as 
 an orator, a poet, a statesman, or an historian, or in 
 either of the learned professions. And even if this 
 be so, why is it except that the public mind has so 
 set itself to the new methods as to turn aside the 
 course of popular education from the ideal to the 
 practical, and to merge it in business affairs. I see 
 it stated that the greatest warfare of the nineteenth 
 century, is the industrial warfare — the struggle 
 between the great nations for supremacy in the 
 various industries. And out of this legitimate strife 
 come the great World's Fairs of Sydenham, Paris, 
 
26 
 
 Vienna, and the Centennial of Philadelphia. And out 
 of such a want come the Cornell and Michigan Uni- 
 versities. Plainly enough the industries of the 
 country claim to be developed. There is a training 
 that is adapted to this. Let it go forward. Let 
 wealth and talent be applied in this direction also. 
 Let the masses enjoy the freest, fullest benefit of 
 such a practical education for pursuing their chosen 
 specialties. But give us the old college, which should 
 not be superseded, but which may be enriched and 
 enlarged in its appliances and its apparatus, so as 
 to become an university only more universal than 
 hitherto. 
 
 The National Education applies itself to the indus- 
 trial and mechanic arts and to the natural sciences, 
 as being the kind of culture which the nation needs, 
 for the development of her material resources. And 
 that branch of learning is emphasized which best 
 enables the man to make profitable adventures, and 
 to turn his industries to most direct and valuable 
 account. What wonder that men become impatient 
 of the old routine, when it seems chiefly useful for 
 a well rounded and symmetrical culture of the whole 
 man, and pays, not in cash, but only in credit. Or 
 what wonder that the time is counted lost for business 
 which is spent in college, because it does not directly 
 tell upon a man's trade and profits ? When the 
 
27 
 
 School of Design turns out a draughtsman whose 
 salary in a silverware establishment, for patterns and 
 artistic devices, is equal to that of the governor of 
 New York, what wonder that this becomes the "liberal 
 education " in the accepted sense, and that such call- 
 ings take the place of the learned professions ? 
 Profit is good. Utility is good. To make two blades 
 of grass grow where only one grew before — to pro- 
 duce sixty bushels of corn to the acre — to know the 
 composition of soils so as to raise the largest crops — 
 these are valuable acquirements, and they have a 
 place in the culture of the nation. But the college 
 course is not superseded by these, nor is this agri- 
 cultural training incompatible with the old curriculum. 
 
 Before the Advent it was given to men to solve 
 the highest problems of truth by worldly wisdom 
 put to the utmost tests. The trial was a conspicuous 
 failure. The world, by wisdom, instead of attaining 
 to knowledofe of highest truth, attained to ionorance 
 of it. In the midst of all the mental illumination of 
 the Porch and the Academy, the altar at Athens had 
 on it the tantalizing inscription, Ayvwaza) Oeoj. 
 
 Since the Advent, it is left to the race to solve 
 the same grand universal problem by the appliances 
 of worldly power — to find out what the utmost achieve- 
 ments of physical forces can do in the steam and the 
 lightning, in the mine and the factory and the labo- 
 
28 
 
 ratory ; to gather up all material resources and to 
 find out what the power of labor can do, and the 
 power of trade, and the power of wealth, and the 
 power of armies, and the power of governments — 
 what is the power of the masses, and the power of 
 crafts, and the power of councils, and the power of 
 diplomacies and courts, and cabinets, to solve the 
 great world problem. This is the operation that is 
 now going on. Here is the huge system that exalts 
 material resources as the sphere for the highest 
 development of mankind and which calls forth the 
 sublimest energy of men in the race for perishable 
 wealth. The mind is surcharged with material aims 
 and schemes, until what wonder if the mind itself 
 becomes materialized, and if it seems to the average 
 man that matter is mind, or mind is matter, no matter 
 which, and that there is nothing- hicrher to be eained 
 than mammon. Here and there a High Priest of 
 learning discards the gilded prize, and like the great 
 Agassiz, says, " I have no time to make money." 
 Yet this very word from such lips is an imperial 
 summons, to which men of money respond. And 
 the wand of such a Masfician turns even the stones 
 into gold for his freest service. 
 
 But the tendency of speculative thought which 
 we have indicated, works itself out in the severely 
 practical direction. The applied sciences become 
 
29 
 
 the attractive field of study with many, as appHed 
 for gain. The " Hberal education " is that which 
 commands the most hberal pay. The classics 
 as they serve mainly to discipline the mind, are com- 
 ing to be disparaged, as having no practical use 
 beyond the reading of a druggist's label or a physi- 
 cian's recipe. The learned professions come to be 
 considered chiefly in the light of their productive- 
 ness in money. And a man's works forsooth, are 
 not any more his volumes as an author. They are 
 his factories, as a proprietor and producer — his cotton 
 works, or iron works. And so also what a man is 
 zvorth is not his moral value, but his estimated accu- 
 mulation in dollars and cents. And a man's securi- 
 ties, so called, are the instruments by which, not him- 
 self is secured at all, but only his revenue. And so 
 our very vocabulary bears the traces of the miscon- 
 ceit. But the highest knowledge is the knowledge 
 of Him in whom all truth culminates — whose Son is 
 King of truth, and the Truth itself, and who rallies 
 to His side all those who are of the truth and who 
 therefore respond to His voice. Intellect, alone, can- 
 not rule the world. Even in this presence of the 
 learned, and on this height of learning, I may say it 
 and challenge contradiction. The mere intellect 
 may be so debauched by a degraded materialism as 
 to sink its possessor in the deepest mire of the 
 streets. 
 
Scripture and history both reverse the world's 
 judgment in making mental culture wholly incom- 
 mensurate in importance wit'.i spiritual growth. 
 Even Goethe, the High Priest of culture, said he 
 never had a happy day in all his life. But the world 
 is crazed to-day with the greed of gain. Financial 
 problems are the prime questions of state. And the 
 experiment will be made, however desperately, by 
 the age in which we live, to prove what the world by 
 power can attain towards the ulcimate and perfect 
 good. 
 
 Power of industry, and power of machinery — 
 power of combinations — power of the pen, and of 
 the sword — power of the press, and of the purse — 
 it will all be tried, to solve the world's chief prob- 
 lems by worldly power. The higher learning mav for 
 the time be disparaged and debased by this rush 
 after wealth. The great teachers in our colleges and 
 universities may go begging, as offering no wares 
 that will find ready market, and the ministers of 
 religion may be turned out to starve as having noth- 
 ing for the multitude that will command a price. 
 But this experiment of power will be another failure. 
 And it will be written, after the centuries of striving 
 and of drudging for wealth, like as it was written at 
 the Advent — " The world by power knew not God." 
 
3t 
 
 In 1813, only a little more than three score yea^s 
 ago, there occurred a pair of events most truly typi- 
 cal. Robert Fulton was applying steam to the first 
 ferry boat on the Hudson to connect the metropolis 
 with what is now the sister city of Brooklyn. And. 
 at the same time, in Massachusetts, men were laying 
 holy hands upon the first American missionaries to 
 the heathen. What the material force has achieved 
 in these three score years, binding the continents 
 together, making the ocean passages great ferries 
 across — revolutionizing industries, stimulating com- 
 merce, and bringing the ends of the earth to our 
 feet, the highest arithmetic cannot calculate. What 
 that simple, single power of the steam engine has 
 added to the world's forces and resources in this 
 period no man can compute. Yet no steamer nor 
 rail car has ever carried a man to Heaven. 
 
 But calculate, if you can, what has been accom- 
 plished in the same interval by the spiritual forces 
 which the other agency has set in operation. Nations 
 lifted up from the debasement of barbarism and put 
 forward on a grand career of christian civilization, 
 and the moral face of entire communities wholly 
 changed. These are values not to be commuted by 
 figures, not quoted on the exchange lists, nor sold in 
 the markets. 
 
But if the Cosmos is only " a set of ponderous 
 stamps and" hammers and jagged iron wheels, where 
 man, as a helpless and defenceless creature, is liable 
 to be crushed to powder by a sudden, senseless 
 whirl of the machinery" — if, as Parton has it, " our 
 race is tossed about on this round ball of earth, 
 naked and shelterless, and sent shivering through 
 space — ivhy we don't know, and whence we don't 
 know, and ivJiither we don't know," — then what is 
 Science but a curious and bootless search into the 
 massive mechanism that ogives one no answer to his 
 queries, but whirls him into dust while he is study- 
 ing its parts ? This is stark heathenism back again 
 — where man is destined to be 
 
 — '' Seal'cl amid the iron hills, 
 To be imprisoii'd in the viewless winds, 
 And blown with reckless violence about 
 The pendent world." 
 
 Or if, as certain modern apostles ot science will 
 have it, the whole domain of spiritual truth is 
 unknown to them — the unspeakable riches of that 
 realm of thought which includes all supersensual 
 existence and essence, — then we must accept their 
 confession of ignorance. But they know no hope 
 for mankind, and they rob the world of its only con- 
 solation. 
 
 If man is proved to be a wondrous mechanism — 
 then surely the more mechanism, the more mechanic — 
 
33 
 
 the more machine, the more machinist. And this con- 
 scious meclianism — which is not a mere puppet, how- 
 eA'^er mechanically the arterial and nervous systems 
 may act — supposes a Supreme Personality, of mind 
 and will, by whom it is produced and to whom it is 
 responsible. 
 
 But, Gentlemen, we know of what is in the future, 
 as statesmen and savans do not know, and cannot 
 tell. We know of what is the rising star of empire, 
 and of who is the comings Man and the comin^ Kingr. 
 We know of an eclipse in which the sun will go out 
 in darkness; of a transit in which the heavens them- 
 selves shall pass away. And men of all nations and 
 tongues are watching with instruments which the 
 ages have well proved in the hands of the great and 
 the good, according to the highest science. Mean- 
 while we hail all scientific discoveries and appliances. 
 And a true science with all her train, will vet come 
 up, like the Magi, with her offerings of gold and 
 incense together — and will pay devout homage to 
 Him who is no longer, in the cradle, but on the 
 throne, the King and Head of our Humanity. 
 

 i 
 
 ^-^ 
 
 $