.■■<^<~/c^J2 
 
 f 
 
 Inaugurate ^kmts, 
 
 COLUMBIA COLLEGE, 
 
 Published by order of the Board of Trustees. 
 
mi 
 
 AT THE INAUGURATION OF 
 
 MR. CHARLES KING 
 
 3U jlresttomt of Columbia College, Jto-fiorlr, 
 
 ON 
 
 7 
 
 r*t^^*~c\ 
 
 Wednesday, November 28, 1849, 
 
 IN THE COLLEGE CHAPEL. 
 
 *V0l* 
 
 PRINTED FOR THE COLLEGE. 
 
 SNOWDEN, PRINTER, 70 WALL STREET, (COURIER & ENQUIRER BUILDING.) 
 
 1849. 
 
omm^m^to®^ 
 
 OF 
 
 &l)e JPresilrent of Columbia College. 
 
 At a meeting of the Board of Trustees of Columbia 
 College, on Monday, the 7th November, 1849, Mr. Charles 
 King was chosen President of the Institution, vice N. F. 
 Moore, L. L. D., resigned, and entered the next day upon the 
 duties of the office. 
 
 A Committee of the Trustees was appointed, however, to 
 arrange a more formal inauguration at a future day ; and, 
 accordingly, this Committee, consisting of General Edward 
 W. Laight, Chairman of the Board, and of Judge J. L 
 Mason and Messrs. Ogden Hoffman and Robert Ray, 
 designated Wednesday, the 28th day of November, as the 
 time, and the College Chapel as the place, for the inaugura- 
 tion. 
 
 Invitations, on behalf of the Board of Trustees, were 
 issued by the Committee to the chief officers of the State 
 and City Governments, to the Members of Congress and of 
 the Legislature, to the United States and State Judges, to the 
 Chancellor and to the Professors of the University, to the 
 Principal and Professors of the Free Academy, to the Trus- 
 
tees of the Public Schools, to the Chamber of Commerce, 
 to the Public Press generally, and an invitation was given 
 through the newspapers, to the alumni of the College, to» 
 the parents and relatives of students, and to all interested 
 in education, to attend. 
 
 At a very early hour the College Chapel was thronged, 
 and numbers, unable to obtain entrance, went away. 
 
 At eight o'clock precisely, the hour appointed, the Trus- 
 tees of the College, accompanied by such of the invited 
 guests as had attended and by the President and Faculty of 
 the College, entered the Chapel. 
 
 The Rev. Dr. Haight, one of the Trustees, invoked the 
 blessings of Heaven on the proceedings, and then General 
 Laight thus addressed the Assembly : 
 
 Ladies and Gentlemen : — 
 
 As Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Columbia Col- 
 lege, it is made my duty to present to you, to its alumni, to 
 its under-graduates and to its Professors, Charles King, 
 recently elected to preside over this Institution ; and here I 
 take the liberty to express my firm belief, that, under his ad- 
 ministration, the prosperity of this ancient seminary will 
 suffer no diminution. 
 
 Mr. King then took his seat as President, whereupon 
 Professor McVickar, a^ Dean of the Faculty, rose and ad- 
 dressed him as follows: 
 
Mr. President : — 
 
 In rising to congratulate you in the name and on the 
 part of the Faculty, and as Senior Professor of the Institu- 
 tion over which you are called on to preside, my first words 
 will, I fear, seem too sad for the occasion. But the memo- 
 ries of the Past crowd too thick upon me, in using that 
 appellation, to permit me to proceed without giving them 
 utterance. I cannot but here remember that you are the 
 fourth incumbent towards whom I have addressed the same 
 official word. 1 cannot but remember that of those who 
 stood with me when I first, as Professor, used it, no one now 
 remains on earth. President and Professors, all gone ! Of 
 that academic circle, 1 stand alone ! Such are the trials 
 of life ! But more — in using these official words, I cannot 
 but recall how much of my heart's blood and life's labor 
 has been mixed up with this College; and of its life, how 
 large a proportion has been identified with my own. Of the 
 95 years of its duration, more than one-third has been under 
 my teaching. This is what no living voice but mine may 
 say — nay, no voice now mute, within these walls, ever could 
 say it. Of all servants this College has ever had, I am the 
 one of longest service. This boast at least, "no man," (to 
 use the Apostle's words,) "may stop me of, within the 
 regions of Achaia." But, Sir, in the spirit of boasting I 
 say it not ; rather in that of deep humility — and still more 
 in the light of a prospective apology — lest in the freedom of 
 untutored speech, I may say that which might seem to 
 trench on the new relations between us, or on the respect 
 
due to the honorable Board of Trustees, before whom I 
 speak. Should, then, aught too freely said thus escape 
 me, I pray you, Sir, and them, to lay it to this account 
 — to the charge of one whose steps, since he came to man's 
 estate, have not often wandered, and his heart never, from 
 this home and work-shop of his youth, his manhood, and 
 his age. 
 
 Permit to me, sir, another debt of the olden time. I re- 
 member well — the first time — as Professor, I said, " Mr. 
 President." It was in addressing one who has long since 
 gone to his rest and his reward — a good old man — and it is 
 a comforting reflection to me now, that my youth was then 
 in some degree the stay of his age — and lightened the load 
 of over anxious labor, to as devoted and as efficient a Presi- 
 dent as this College ever had. — Sir, Dr. Harris was a man 
 under-rated by those who looked at him from without — for 
 his abilities were moderate and his humility great, but he had 
 within, a tender heart — great firmness and deep piety — the 
 three greatest elements of Academic Discipline — and he 
 ruled accordingly, through the heart, the reason, and the con- 
 science of -the student. But above all, Religion was with 
 him the corner stone of discipline — he built upon that Rock 
 — " how can you respect man," he would indignantly ask of 
 some irreverent pupil, " if you fear not God V and, at such 
 words, I have seen obstinacy melted into penitential tears. 
 Therefore, Mr. President, did he hold our Chapel services in 
 relation to College duties, as builders hold their corner stone 
 foundations — all important to be rightly laid — and therefore, 
 too, did he seek to make them with the students personal de- 
 votions, using to that end a portion of the Liturgy of the 
 Church, as prescribed in-the original charter, together with an 
 appropriate Collect, all which he had suitably arranged and 
 bound and marked with the College name for daily use, in 
 
a thin quarto volume : and I count it, sir, a most happy omen, 
 that on the very day of your election, that same original 
 volume was recovered from the dust under which for years 
 it had lain, and replaced, for that day at least, on the desk 
 before you. May I add without offence, " Let not the dust 
 again gather upon it /" 
 
 But to my present duty. In the name of my associates 
 and for myself, I hail you, sir, as our Presiding officer, and 
 here pledge to you, individually and officially, our best aid in 
 word and deed, in the fulfilment of the high and holy trust 
 on which this night you solemnly enter ; and I do this with 
 the more confidence, sir, as reading in your character, not- 
 withstanding your newness to the task, some of the choicest 
 elements of the Academic Ruler — the courtesy of the gen- 
 tleman, the decision of the soldier, the ready talent of the 
 man of the world, and above all, the warm and generous 
 sympathies of a frank and fearless nature — powerful to win 
 the hearts of all — above all, those -of ingenuous and ardent 
 youth. In these native elements of the Ruler, kind Nature 
 has been bountiful to you, sir, and you have but to add to 
 them that facility which practice in College duties gives, and 
 that growing love for them which habit and a higher wisdom 
 brings forth, to be to our beloved College all it needs and all 
 it can desire. 
 
 But you have another claim upon our confidence — your 
 ancestral strain. You bear, Sir, an honored name. The 
 son of Rufus King, alarum et venerabile nomen, may not be 
 received within these walls, without awakening both remem- 
 brance of the father's talents and virtues, and confidence in 
 those of his son. Your honored father, Sir, for eighteen 
 years served this College as member of its Board of Trus- 
 tees ; and though often, by his more public duties, withdrawn 
 from their meetings, was yet never wanting in its hours of 
 
8 
 
 * 
 
 trial. I may not for myself forget, that to his approving 
 voice, with others, I owe it, that I now stand here to 
 address you. Still less may I forget for the College, the 
 debt of gratitude she owes him, when, in her hour of peril . 
 with expediency pleading against principle, and talents 
 against modest worth, he threw his weight into the scale of 
 honor, and, in conjunction with the late Bishop Hob art, 
 saved, at the sacrifice of private friendship, the integrity of 
 the College's original Charter, and the fidelity of its religious 
 trust. The son of such a father, we may well say, cannot, 
 when entrusted with a still higher responsibility, cannot b& 
 wanting in devotion to the same sacred cause. 
 
 But, to turn to another poiiat. — As touching the claims of 
 our College to the respect and confidence of our common 
 country, you, Sir, who are so familiar with the history of 
 that country, need no prompter. Thus much, however 
 permit one of her affectionate sons to say that although 
 not yet a century old, there is no College in our land that 
 has written her name in fairer characters on its annals, or 
 left deeper footprints on its soil. Before our Revolutionary 
 struggle, while itself was scarce fledged, our College took 
 an eagle's flight, and gave to the nation and its coming con- 
 test, I might almost say, its sword and shield — the Marcel- 
 lus and the Fabtus of our Rome- — Hamilton and Jay. — 
 What, I pray you, were the story of our Revolution without 
 these names ? So, too, again — when that eventful struggle 
 was over, and order was to be built up out of ruin, what 
 College of our land, I ask, furnished architects of their 
 country's greatness earlier or abler, more zealous or more 
 successful, than our own — even dismantled and robbed as 
 she was, through the license of war, of all the usual aids and 
 appliances of learning and science ? Scarce had the din of 
 arms given way in our city to the quiet arts of peace, before 
 
9 
 
 she sent forth among her sons, as before, leaders to their 
 countrymen — only now in a peaceful field, turning the 
 sword into the ploughshare. Need I name but one, as a 
 sample? That far-sighted statesman— the very ttoXitikoc 
 of ancient Greece — one born to rule the " fierce Demo- 
 cratic" — a politician not wanting in personal ambition, but 
 then marrying that ambition to great designs of national 
 benefit. After this description, need I name to you De 
 Witt Clinton, as our Alumnus ? — he who, in " marrying" 
 the Lakes to the Atlantic, and his fame to the deed, has 
 both immortalized his name and enriched his country, by 
 opening- for it a deeper channel of wealth than American 
 history assigns to any individual man since the days of 
 Columbus. , But these, you may say, are a past story. — 
 11 Where are your living sons ?" Look around you, Sir, (in 
 society I mean,) and gather them at will, on the right hand 
 and on the left. From the Gubernatorial chair — from the 
 Senator's seat — from the Judge's bench — from the Pulpit, 
 the Bar, the Professor's chair, and the Merchant's desk — 
 from every form and grade of honest and honorable life 
 among us — gather them at will! — While for the present 
 ripening fruits of our College, I need but point you to the 
 thronged benches of our students before you, and their 
 intelligent and eagle glances, to satisfy you and all, that 
 they are not likely to diminish the fame of their Alma 
 Mater, or forget the glory of their fathers. Into the Presi- 
 dency of such a College, Sir, do you this night formally 
 enter: and little prone as I am to such thoughts, I can 
 almost envy you the pride and pleasure of wielding for your 
 country's good, such instrument of power as the govern- 
 ment of such a College gives. But I am content that it 
 should rest in right hands — where there is both an eye to 
 see and a heart to feel. In the words of Gray, on a similar 
 occasion : — 
 
10 
 
 " Thy liberal heart and judging eye 
 The flower unheeded shall descry, 
 And bid it round Heaven's altar shed 
 The beauties of its blushing head ; — 
 Shall raise from earth the lowly gem. 
 To glitter on the diadem."' 
 
 But to open a more dubious question. To the Presidency 
 of our College, sir, your accession has been widely hailed 
 o'n the peculiar score of being a public and a business man, 
 opening thereby a new sphere of popular influence, and 
 creating a new bond of sympathy between the College and 
 the needs and wants of our great commercial metropolis. 
 Wisely used, sir, as I doubt not such influence and sympathy 
 will be, I, too, join in the congratulation ; and yet, in all such 
 sympathetic control from without, I cannot but read some 
 shadow of danger. To "popularize education," Mr. Presi- 
 dent, to accommodate College studies to what are deemed 
 the practical wants of a business community, is an experi- 
 ment, as you well know, that has often been tried and as 
 often signally failed, here and elsewhere, at home and abroad. 
 Our own partial trial of it, a few years since, was perhaps 
 too short to be held a conclusive one. That, however, of 
 the London University as being a thorough trial, may be so 
 regarded. Devised as it was, by some of the acutest and 
 most practical minds of England — carried out as it was, by 
 some of the most talented of its teachers, and supported as 
 it was, by the wealth of the greatest commercial city on 
 earth — what more could be demanded, and yet it failed — 
 failed utterly, so far as its fundamental principle was con- 
 cerned, viz : that of popularizing education — while all its 
 actual success and strength has come from the very methods 
 of education which itself was established to overthrow. 
 And this result I state, Mr. President, not on vague report, 
 but on the personal acknowledgments to myself, made by 
 the very teachers and founders themselves. A deeper cause 
 of ill-success for such plans must then be fonnd, than want 
 
11 
 
 of skill or means, and do we not find it, I ask, in the very 
 principle which it advocates — Education governed from 
 without — this is its root error -ngurov ipevdag. I care A not 
 from what quarter that dictation come — from the will of 
 rulers or from the voice of the multitude — it is usurpation 
 whence-soever it come, in the eye equally of the scholar, the 
 Statesman and the Christian. Education, sir, is a mission 
 from God to man — the teacher and not the taught, in the 
 community — giving and not taking impress — moulding and 
 not to be moulded by the mass on which it is sent to operate ; 
 and, therefore, looking not, as such scheme proposes, to what 
 is, but what ought to be, in the community. Such, sir, I 
 hold to be the true nature of all sound education — essen- 
 tially an aggressive power, making man what he would not 
 be — an antagonistic power, fighting everywhere against 
 man's natural propensities — in fine, (to use holy words,) " the 
 salt of the earth" — and we teachers, of whatever grade, 
 must hold it our mission to watch, lest that salt lose its salt- 
 ness. But to return to the application. While I, therefore, 
 unite in such congratulation, that a " public man" is placed 
 at our head, I yet do it with the more confidence, as know- 
 ing that your own education, sir, was in schools of another 
 mark — in the schools of our ancestral land — where solid 
 learning and laborious study and careful training — intellec- 
 tual, moral, religious training — is made to lie at the founda- 
 tion of all other attainments in education. I say " training," 
 sir, in contradistinction to mere imparted knowledge — not 
 learning merely, not science only, not dogmatic opinions at 
 all — but that quiet, solid, unobtrusive " training," which con- 
 stitutes, I may say, distinctly, Anglo-Saxon education, 
 wherever that race is found. In my own survey of foreign 
 schools, sir, some years since, deeper learning I found in the 
 schools of Germany — deeper science in the schools of France, 
 and more precocious and versatile talent in our own ; but 
 
I* 
 
 deeper elements of national safety, that best product of edu- 
 cation, the union of the gentleman, the scholar and the 
 Christian, I found nowhere more truly worked out than in the 
 higher schools of England. Nor do I deem such praise of 
 English schools an unfilial or unpatriotic eulogium, any 
 more than I would, the praises of Shakspeare or of Milton : 
 for Anglo-Saxon education, in all its sterling virtues, is our 
 heritage as well as theirs ; and to that same deep inbred 
 strain resulting from it, do we of the new world, owe our 
 national glory, as they of the old world do theirs. With 
 them of England, it has not only made of a little island a 
 world-wide empire, but it has based that empire on foundations 
 too deep for the currents of popular caprice to overthrow. 
 The whirlwind of revolution which has of late years deso- 
 lated the fairer lands of Continental Europe, has passed 
 harmless over the sterner soil of England. The storm has 
 uprooted all of shallower growth than the old-fashioned 
 English oak. Learning could not save Germany — science 
 could not save France ; but the old Anglo-Saxon educa- 
 tion — education interpenetrated by religion — could and did 
 save England, and I pray to God may long save her. Let 
 me not then, sir, in this be misinterpreted. What I here 
 stand to praise and plead for, is not English schools or Eng- 
 lish Universities, but the maintenance and advance in our 
 land and wherever decayed the restoration t of what may 
 well be termed the scholars's birthright, the common law of 
 our race, our Anglo-Saxon inheritance — solid, classical, 
 religious training — coming down as it does, from the time of 
 Alfred, bearing as it does, the marks of good King Edward, 
 and standing side by side in English history with the Magna 
 Charta of John and the Bill of Rights of the Revolution. 
 As no American citizen fears to defend the principles of the 
 latter, because written in England's annals, so let no Ameri- 
 can scholar, the former, because best exemplified in the old 
 
13 
 
 English Universities now standing. Permit me then,. sir, to 
 open this point, of the primitive University education of 
 England — so far, at least, as to shew that in them and their 
 government, we find the truest model of what should be our 
 own — the old Anglo-Saxon, democratic education ; and in 
 their actual wealth, strength and national influence, do we 
 read the natural results of the popular principles on which 
 they were originally constituted, and by which they still 
 continue to be, in the main, governed. Such exposition, 
 though not new to yourself, sh>may yet be so to many, and 
 thus, perhaps, open to some new thoughts as to what our 
 American Colleges may become for our own rapidly rising 
 Empire. 
 
 English Universities then, are in this country greatly mis- 
 understood. They are supposed to be, in their nature, a 
 combination of Colleges — in their government, under 
 aristocratic, if not rather Royal dictation — and their 
 wealth, the result of patronage or of law. Now, in each 
 one of these particulars, there lies a fundamental error. — 
 The Universities are not a union of Colleges ; but, on the 
 contrary, far older than the Colleges they include — the 
 whole of the College system, with its tutors and private 
 statutes, being an after growth, and forming no part of the 
 scheme here recommended. In proof of this priority, we 
 find many thousand students at Oxford — when, as yet, 
 there was no College there — or, at most, but a single one — 
 University College — which boasts, doubtfully, Alfred's 
 name as its founder, and exhibits his bust in its halls. — 
 Thus too, again, as late as the Fourteenth Century, we find 
 but three Colleges in Oxford — while there were in it at least 
 three hundred halls, for the accommodation of its University 
 students. Nor is the government of those ancient corpo- 
 rations better understood. Instead of being an aristocratic 
 
14 
 
 or Royal polity, it is truly a Republican one — res publico, — ■ 
 a common weal — one in which all its members enjoy a 
 common franchise, and exercise equal rights — thus making 
 every University Measure, the free expression of the com- 
 mon voice of all its sons. Now such, contrary to the 
 American use of it, is the original and true meaning of the 
 term "University" — (Universitas) — i. e., "community" — 
 many members constituting one body — having reference 
 therein, not as it is here used, to the wide circle of studies 
 pursued, but to the wide chicle of members included — hold- 
 ing, as members, all its worthy sons — admitting them, upon 
 satisfactory examination, to a share alike in its honors, it's 
 privileges, and its governing powers, and purifying itself, if 
 need be, of unworthy members, by depriving and degrading 
 them from the same. Of this primeval, Anglo-Saxon, self- 
 governed Republic of Letters, the Universities of England 
 still retain the essential features. The Executive govern- 
 ment within them is mainly in the hands of Proctors and 
 Examiners — holding office by rotation, and changed every 
 two years ; — while of the supreme legislative body, viz : 
 the " House of Convocation," — every graduate of the Uni- 
 versity who has been found qualified to take his master's 
 degree, is ex officio a member and a voter ; and this privilege 
 is for life, or until, for cause, deprived. Therefore is it, that 
 every great University question in England becomes a 
 national question — bringing forth, as it does, its sons from 
 every quarter of the realm, to gather around, with heart 
 and hand and free voice, as more than once I have seen 
 them do — old and young — rich and poor — cleric and lay — 
 titled and commoner — thronging into the Senate House, 
 around their beleagured Alma Maler, like children around 
 some threatened home roof-tree — to maintain her cause, 
 enlarge her forces, strengthen her bulwarks, or rebuke her 
 enemies. Such, Mr. President, is a picture of fact — not 
 
15 
 
 fancy. But equally in error is the opinion, that their great 
 wealth is the fruit of royal or aristocratic patronage. Far 
 from it ! Kings and Queens have, doubtless, occasionally 
 been among their donors ; but even from them, it came as 
 gifts of love, or, perhaps, sacrifices of penitence, pro salute 
 animce suce — not, therefore, in the spirit of vulgar patronage, 
 as here supposed — not, as too often in our land, money 
 wrested by entreaty, from cold hearts or unwilling hands — 
 not the alms of strangers — not the dole of a government 
 charity — not the equivalent Jfeid by pride for flattered 
 vanity — but flowing as from a full fountain — a stream of 
 love — the free gifts of sons and their unpaid affections — or, 
 perchance, if coming from prudential calculation, still the 
 wise outlay of those who were willing to expend their 
 wealth for what was their own, in law as well as love. — 
 Such, sir, are the sources of strength to an English Uni- 
 versity; and therefore do they stand like their own ancestral 
 oaks, and coming down from the same good old time — 
 strong, not because man has built his puny fence around 
 them, but because they have been watered by the dews of 
 Heaven, and have struck their roots deep into the hearts 
 and homes of the nation. Now is not this, I ask, a more 
 republican picture of education, than our own Colleges 
 present ? — and is it not more in accordance with all our 
 boasted democratic institutions and principles ? But what 
 is still more to the point — does it not afford an adequate 
 solution to their possession, and our want of national influ- 
 ence and wide-spread patronage ? Does it not explain 
 why those Universities are part and parcel of the life of the 
 nation, while our American Colleges are found to stand, as 
 they are charged, falsely through our negligence, with 
 doing — like dead things, amid the living interests of society 
 — bolstered up by laws and patronage from without, instead 
 of a living force within? — taking so little hold as they do 
 
16 
 
 ■on the sympathies even of their own Alumni, and gathering 
 so little as they do, from their subseqnent wealth ? Is not 
 this the solution ? Think you, sir, such would be the case, 
 were their diplomas made — title deeds to an estate — giving 
 to them an elective franchise in a common body, and 
 securing to them the privileges of citizenship in that Re- 
 public ? Would then zeal, money, or labor be wanting in 
 our service ? Would libraries, apparatus, scholarships, 
 prizes, be asked for, as now, in vain ? Surely not ! At the 
 banner cry, "Columbia, to tiie rescue!" how would its hosts 
 start to life, like the Scottish chieftain's warriors, where least 
 thought of — " from copse, and heath, and cairn" — from the 
 plough and the machine-shop, and the manufactory, as well 
 as from the bar, the pulpit and the desk — to aid and strengthen 
 their common home ; or, let me rather say, (speaking as I do 
 before the first soldier* of our land, with his laurels fresh upon 
 him,) like as when, on some doubtful field, he has marked a 
 perilled banner, and bade the drums beat, to the color ! — how 
 quick, through willing hearts and united hands, that failing 
 banner has arisen — risen higher than before — and been borne 
 aloft in the arms of victory, till planted on the highest citadel 
 of fame. So would it be, fellow alumni, (to you I speak,) 
 with our College pennon — none in our land, I well believe, 
 would then float higher, or wider, or fairer. 
 
 But to draw these thoughts to their conclusion — let no 
 American mind deem this a picture of fancy — not only has 
 it been realized, as we have seen elsewhere, but it is silently, 
 step by step, advancing to be realized here. The principle of 
 self-government is alike the spirit of our age and of our land, 
 and the very barometer of our progress. The Faith I mean 
 that every institution which the true interests of society de- 
 
 * General Scott, who was seated beside the President 
 
17 
 
 mand, has within itself the vital force by which it lives, and 
 the strength by which it stands ; and, therefore, when left to 
 itself, the conservative wisdom by which it is to be best 
 ordered and regulated. I pretend not here, sir, to speak in 
 the spirit of prophecy, when I say, such days are coming; but 
 I do claim to speak under a thoughtful experience of the 
 past, when I say that such change in our system of educa- 
 tion, throwing it upon self-government, is in accordance with 
 the changes that have actually come over all our institu- 
 tions — political, religious, social and financial. Time was, 
 sir, as we well know, when these all were governed from 
 without — when rulers were to be imposed and not chosen — 
 when religion was to be supported by Government — when all 
 professions were to be guarded by law — when banking, to be 
 safe, must be made a monopoly — and even the loaf of daily 
 bread regulated and determined in weight and price. Such 
 things were, but the wisdom of experience has taught our 
 rulers another lesson, and that is, that under the guardianship 
 of general statutes, all these things may be left safely to self- 
 control — to the guidance of watchful self interest, and to the 
 strength and wisdom that union imparts. Thus has reli- 
 gion severed itself, and become strong as it has done so — 
 thus, too, the medical profession — thus, in great measure, the 
 legal — and thus, altogether, every varied form of trade, 
 labor, enterprise and finance. What, then, forbids but that 
 education, collegiate and other, under wise guidance, should 
 follow — finding that it, too, has within itself a vital life — that 
 the Republic of Letters is not the scholar's dream, but may 
 and will be realized by every College in our land, wherever 
 its sons are embodied into its service, entrusted with an elec- 
 tive franchise within it, and made the final guardians of the 
 honor and prosperity of their own Alma Mater. 
 
 On another strong ground, too, sir, this principle may be 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 advocated, as the surest safeguard of our political freedom. 
 That, sir, comes not from popular education alone — that se- 
 curity Austria has had even beyond us, in our boasted, public 
 schools. Nor is it free education only — i. e., unpaid for, — 
 that gives the security — that, Prussia has provided, for, more 
 amply than we have done — but it is education free in the 
 sense of being self-governed — i. e., left in the hands of its 
 own sons — working out its own free results — not centralized 
 into one focus, but the light of a thousand independent 
 centres, and not pared, dowr? and squared to suit a Govern- 
 mental policy, either in books or teaching, but the free action 
 of free minds — suiting education to the wants and need of 
 intellectual, social and immortal man. But leaving to future 
 time these higher views, permit me, sir, to close with the 
 enumeration of two or three specific points of improvement, 
 to which, in the name of my associates, I would gladly turn 
 your attention, and that of the Board of Trustees, in whose 
 presence I speak : — 
 
 1. The want felt, in our College, of larger and more 
 scholarlike provision for deserving, needy students. Our 
 free scholarships are perhaps ample in number, but they 
 bring no means of support. What is further wanted are 
 endowed scholarships, exhibitions and open monied prizes — 
 enabling the friendless and penniless scholar to fight his 
 way through College, "proprio marte" — not as a favored 
 stipendiary into a Benefice, gained by importunity and con- 
 cealed through shame — but to such a prize as talent, learn- 
 ing and good conduct alone can secure — the palm of victory, 
 as well as the means of support 
 
 2. Our public examinations to be made more formal, in- 
 teresting and influential — by the presence of the Trustees 
 as Judges — by distinguishing and calling out to a higher ex- 
 
10 
 
 animation those who compete for honors — by the use of the 
 pen in such contest, as well as " viva voce'' answers — and by- 
 opening all such competition to a free and generous rivalry- — 
 admitting disappointed candidates to the right of " chal- 
 lenge" and further trial — and, finally, by a more public and 
 permanent publication of such honors. 
 
 3. As an aid to our discipline, we need that the link of 
 communication between the College and the parents or 
 guardians of our students be strengthened by more frequent 
 and formal intercourse. This need is not perhaps with us as 
 great as with Resident Colleges, and yet, in one light, it is 
 still more so, since our hold upon the student is less. They 
 may be to him, " in loco Parentis, , ' > we cannot — therefore, we 
 must call in that influence to our aid — a reward to the diligent 
 and the good — a terror only to the idle and irregular. 
 
 And lastly, If I may be permitted again to urge that root 
 of all true discipline, I would say, we need to make our 
 daily Chapel services more effective, by making them strictly 
 devotional on the part of the students themselves, through a 
 responsive service : and thus sending them to their respective 
 lecture rooms, with their minds sobered, their spirits calmed, 
 their sense of responsibility deepened, their studies exalted 
 into piety, and their academic duties into acts of religion. 
 Such is the blessing, which Reason teaches must follow this 
 duty rightly performed — and does not Faith add to it one 
 still deeper, viz : the blessing promised to those who glorify 
 the Giver in His gifts, and all whose works are "begun, con- 
 tinued and ended in Him V 
 
 But, sir, I have done. I have too long trespassed on your 
 patience, and that of the honorable Board of Trustees, as 
 well as all others here assembled to listen to your discourse. 
 
20 
 
 I conclude, then, as I began. Personally and officially, in 
 my own name and that of my associates, I here pledge to 
 you, Mr. President, the cordial co-operation of each and all 
 of us, in every measure of yours, that may conduce to the 
 peace and order, the honor and the welfare of the College — 
 praying for you, sir, an honorable and successful adminis- 
 tration, and commending you, for that end, to God's guid- 
 ance — the Giver of every good and perfect gift, and without 
 whom " nothing is strong — nothing is holy." 
 
 After the conclusion of Professor McVickar's Address, 
 the President read the Discourse which follows ; — 
 
Mr. Chairman, 
 
 And Gentlemen of the Board of Trustees: — 
 
 In accepting the high and honorable office to which it has 
 been your pleasure to call me, I am neither unmindful of its 
 great responsibilities, nor of my own insufficiency, adequately 
 to meet them. But in full reliance, gentlemen, upon your 
 intelligent and steadfast support — upon your cheerful and 
 earnest co-operation, gentlemen of the Faculty, and upon 
 the ingenuous appreciation by the young gentlemen, Students 
 of the College, of all well-intended efforts for their good, I 
 have entered upon the duties of the office into which I am 
 now formally inaugurated. 
 
 Mr. Dean of the Faculty, I have listened with a full heart 
 to the kind congratulations with which you have welcomed 
 me. I accept them as pledges of harmonious intercourse, 
 in our official relations, not less than in our personal rela- 
 tions, and as made alike in your own behalf, and in that of 
 your distinguished associates in the Faculty of the College. 
 
 Your mention of an honored father's name, in connection 
 with mine, touched both my affections and my ambition ; 
 and, in proportion as that father was instrumental, in his 
 character as Trustee, in promoting the welfare of the Col- 
 lege in past days, will be my endeavor, in the more responsi- 
 ble office of President, to walk — haudpassibus cequis indeed, 
 but still to walk in his footsteps, and to carry out the good 
 work of those who have gone before us. 
 
22 
 
 For, if, in the language of the Roman classic, it be the 
 natural dictate of ingenuous natures " summa ope niti vitam 
 silentio ne transeant, et memoriam nostri quam maxime Ion- 
 gam efficere," — if all desire to do something in life which 
 shall make men unwilling wholly to forget them after death, 
 it is hardly less natural to exult in the good name that has 
 been handed down to us ; and, therefore, so to fashion our 
 course as that it may not depart from ancestral renown, 
 avito honore, nor desecrate memories which the grave has 
 placed beyond the reach of calumny or the fear of change. 
 
 In the illustrious names which you have cited of those 
 whom our College has sent forth into the world, to do battle 
 in it for the right, and to prove, as so many of them have 
 proved, the thoroughness and the value of the training received 
 within its walls, you furnish not to me only, but to the 
 students who hear you, fresh stimulus so to fulfil, each in his 
 sphere, his duties here, that future times may point to the 
 alumni of this hour as not unworthy of their great fore- 
 runners ; and in their praise and just renown, we all — you, 
 gentlemen of the Faculty, and you, gentlemen of the Board 
 of Trustees, as well as myself, may be remembered as having 
 in our various appointed stations, contributed somewhat to 
 the eminence of these our disciples. 
 
 It seems, too, a natural and praiseworthy display which 
 you, sir, who for so many years have been honorably con- 
 nected with the College, thus make of her jewels. By them 
 we desire to be judged, not meaning, if honest effort and en- 
 tire devotion of faculties to the task can effect it, that the 
 future shall be shamed by the past, because of any falling off 
 in the standard of education, or in the character, qualities 
 and acquirements of our graduates. So far, therefore, as 
 these great names give us a claim upon the public for op- 
 
23 
 
 portunity to send forth more of such a stamp, I fear not to 
 offer the pledge in your name, gentlemen, and in my own, 
 that what has been, shall again be—favente Deo, 
 
 On another point, which in so kind a spirit you have 
 touched upon — my own early education — I may not dilate; yet 
 I cannot hear it alluded to, as you have alluded to it, without 
 recalling, with deep emotions of veneration and gratitude, 
 the enlightened and ever watchful parental solicitude to 
 which I was indebted for so many and such precious oppor- 
 tunities of thorough education ; nor without recalling — and 
 this I address especially to those among my hearers who 
 may be students — without recalling with bitter, but now un- 
 availing regrets, how much too often those opportunities 
 were neglected — how much too often that parental solicitude 
 was sharpened by the self-willed presumption of youth 
 which measured its own notions of duty, of advantage, and 
 of pleasure, against the maturer judgment, and the calm and 
 affectionate injunctions of parental anxiety and authority. 
 Yet, imperfect as was the use made of the advantages of 
 my school-boy days, so thorough was the instruction, and so 
 generous the emulation at Harrow, an English public school, 
 at which I passed six years, that it was impossible not to 
 acquire, in that branch most relied upon — the Classics — some 
 considerable proficiency ; and, together with tolerable pro. 
 ficiency in Latin and Greek, some of that discipline of mind 
 and accuracy of taste, which, in all but the most untoward 
 natures, are the sure offspring of such studies. 
 
 The strong bonds of fellowship formed at school and 
 at college, outlast later bonds, and hence the influence 
 which you so justly claim for the alumni of this Col- 
 lege. Great indeed may that influence be upon the charac- 
 ter, usefulness and progress of the College. Diverging into 
 many different, opposite, and often conflicting paths, in after 
 
24 
 
 life, as students do, the Alma Mater still remains the com- 
 mon friend of all, and her festivals and solemnities, her 
 rites and celebrations, should bring all back to the house- 
 hold with feelings unchanged, affections unabated, and above 
 all, with earnest purpose to uphold her interests and advance 
 her renown. 
 
 How indeed could they more acceptably discharge their 
 duty, not to Alma Mater alone, but to their country, than by 
 encouraging and sustaining the sound education and moral 
 training whieh they themselves have enjoyed ? 
 
 The influence of an educated class in a country like ours, 
 where Opinion is King, and where consequently it is of such 
 vital importance that opinion be founded in wisdom, cannot 
 be overrated. In the wilderness of free minds, with no au- 
 thority to restrain, no traditions to influence — and when to 
 doubt and to deny is so much easier, and looks so much 
 bolder and wiser, than to reason, to prove, and to believe — 
 incalculable is the value of sound learning and careful moral 
 training — if only as drawbacks or drags upon the rushing, 
 headlong progress of the social machinery. 
 
 Knowledge, indeed, is not Wisdom, though it is Power — 
 and hence the greater necessity of that sound education 
 which, while it supplies the demands of the intellect, takes 
 care to cultivate the moral nature, and makes goodness and 
 knowledge to go hand in hand. It is spirits thus finely 
 touched to fine issues, that are best fitted to give direction 
 to human affairs, and to maintain that equilibrium between 
 the antagonist forces of our social and political systems, 
 which constitute at once their power and their peace. 
 
 If this be so, and if those to whom is committed the charge 
 of education, can lay to their souls the grateful unction, that 
 
25 
 
 they have had a share in invigorating this conservative in- 
 fluence and agency, which, while maintaining what is good 
 and. sound in old opinions and old habits, are not adverse to 
 changes which reason and expediency may sanction — 
 surely in such reflection, there is reward for the toils and 
 anxieties inseparable from the career of a public instructor. 
 
 To such reward, you, gentlemen of tjie Faculty, have 
 made your claim good — and you will persevere in well 
 doing. For me this career is now to begin, for although 
 long occupied in pursuits not wholly dissimilar in aims with 
 those of Collegiate Education — the improvement and refine- 
 ment of the age — it was through an entirely dissimilar 
 agency. 
 
 On the threshold of this new career, it is natural to pause 
 for a space, and consider well the course that is before me — 
 to take a view of the whole ground — and thus be enabled to 
 trace a chart for my future guidance. 
 
 And the first place in my thoughts, as in my care, is given 
 to you, young gentlemen, Students of the College. It is grate- 
 ful to me to be able to say, that the intercourse between us 
 within the brief period since I entered upon my duties, has 
 been marked by manliness and gentlemanly consideration 
 on your part. I anticipate, undoubtingly, that such will con- 
 tinue to be the character of that intercourse. I ask for your 
 confidence — your heart — for I shall enter with my whole 
 heart into ail that may tend to promote the welfare, elevate 
 the character, and encourage the progress of each and all 
 of you. 
 
 With large and varied experience of the world, and with 
 the knowledge which that experience imparts — aided by 
 early culture, and such desultory addiction to letters as a 
 
26 
 
 hurried life would permit — I bring all that I am, and all thai 
 I can, unreservedly, to your service. Time has not abated, 
 nor use of the world weakened, my warm, natural sympa- . 
 thies with youth. I still rejoice in its joyousness, and can 
 pardon its thoughtlessness, and bear with its waywardness, 
 and trust in its instinctive uprightness, ingenuousness and 
 truth — Truth, above all, for where that is, all that is pre- 
 cious exists, or may be engrafted. The Master, whose 
 insight into human character was complete, has admirably 
 said to youth : — 
 
 " To thine own self be true,- 
 
 And it must follow, as the night the day, — 
 Thou canst not then be false to any man." 
 
 I know, too, the temptations in the midst of which your 
 age is especially set — temptations against which, my young 
 friends, we are wont daily to invoke the Divine aid and 
 protection ; which sincerely invoked and faithfully availed 
 of, will not fail. In all seasons of doubt, of trial, and of 
 dire temptation, I ask you to come to me, as to a sure friend, 
 and not a stern monitor ; as to one in whom both duty and 
 inclination will concur rather to persuade than to enforce ; 
 but yet as one who, feeling deeply the responsibility of his 
 station, must not and will not hesitate, when reason and 
 mildness shall prove ineffectual, to maintain rigorously the 
 discipline of the College. 
 
 I have already referred to my own early education, and 
 to the regrets, never to be allayed, with which I look back 
 upon opportunities then neglected. Credite experto, my 
 young friends, and be persuaded, that, as no after study can 
 fully compensate for the neglected hours and opportunities 
 of early youth, so no regrets, other than for crime, can be 
 more poignant than those with which these neglected hours 
 and opportunities are recalled. I exhort you to spare your- 
 
27 
 
 selves these regrets — to pursue with unremitting steadiness 
 and an intelligent sense of their value, the studies in which 
 you are engaged, not as conscripts — not as forced laborers — 
 but as willing disciples, who, by your own acts and signa- 
 tures, have bound yourselves to diligence and obedience. — 
 It may seem a thing indifferent to some of you now, to incur 
 the displeasure of those in authority over you, and to be 
 objects of their censure ; but a future day may bitterly prove 
 that such things are not indifferent — when some bright 
 hope shall be blasted, some long-cherished dream at the 
 moment of being realized, be rudely dissolved by the record 
 too surely preserved and produced, of early delinquency. 
 
 And not only to avoid the evil consequences, in after life, 
 of idleness and inattention at College, but for the sake of 
 the positive advantages and gratifications so certain to flow 
 from a course of diligence, do I urge this upon you. 
 
 There is no pursuit, there is no position, there is no condi- 
 tion in life, in which a cultivated mind and a refined moral 
 nature, are not eminently self-rewarding, while they are sure 
 passports to confidence and affection, if not to rewards, from 
 others. The professional man, the merchant, the mechanic, 
 the farmer, the sailor, the soldier, each and all, is better in 
 his particular vocation, if thoroughly educated. The sol- 
 dier, did I say? Why, gentlemen, we have before our 
 eyes, to honor this occasion — and I esteem it a signal honor — 
 and to give point and force to my remarks — the most illus- 
 trious living example of a soldier, pre-eminent in all the 
 knowledge and practices of war, and garlanded again, and 
 again, and again, with the laurels of victory — felix fortis 
 et invictus — who never yet, in the rush of battle, nor in the 
 more trying scenes of the lingering and harrassing march 
 through pestilential regions, nor under the provocation, so 
 hard for a noble nature to bear, of treachery in a false foe, 
 
28 
 
 or, harder yet, in false friends — nor in the plague-stricken 
 camp — never forgot, for a moment, the lessons of his early 
 education and moral training — never forgot that, with her 
 glorious banner, his country confided to him her morals, her 
 civilization, her respect for law, her reverence for religion, 
 equally with her sword of war, — and nowhere, never in 
 the career of Winfield Scott, has the victorious soldier 
 in aught detracted from the character of the polite scholar, 
 the virtuous citizen, and the Christian gentleman. 
 
 ..... Pariter pietate vel armis 
 Egregius. 
 
 In the light of such an example, I may say to each one of 
 you, if you will give yourselves to the work and overcome 
 temptation and sloth, in the language of the old Anchises, 
 
 Si qua fata aspera rum/pas, 
 
 Tu Marcellus eris. 
 
 I could willingly prolong these remarks, my young friends, 
 but the hour passes, and other topics and parties require my 
 attention. I will, therefore, close this special address to you 
 with a precept, often in the mouth of my old master of Harrow, 
 Dr. Drury, whose clear ringing voice I almost seem now to 
 hear — whose calm, firm eye I almost now feel the influence 
 of; — a precept which, amid many things learned, and many 
 more forgotten, since that day, dwells in my memory — that 
 memory which forgets never — the memory of the heart. 
 
 It is the concluding counsel of old Peleus to the young 
 Achilles — 
 
 Kiev apiCTSvelv tcai vnsipoKOV s[J.[ievat akXo)V. 
 
 And now, ladies and gentlemen, permit me to address 
 myself directly to you, as parents or relatives of the Stu- 
 dents, and as representing in some sense, that public at 
 
29 
 
 large, upon the favor and support of which, all our institu- 
 tions of education must mainly depend. 
 
 Your presence here this evening is a pledge that you duly 
 appreciate the value of a Collegiate Education. 
 
 It is in such Institutions, that, on the threshold of the 
 world into which they are about to enter, and in which, 
 according to the uses made of their opportunities at College, 
 will be their honor and usefulness — the ingenuous youth of 
 the land are to receive the impressions, the instructions and 
 the example, which unfold the character, enlarge the intellect, 
 and purify the heart. 
 
 All this is embraced in the single word Education, which, 
 the rudiments being received before, is here to be carried 
 forward. The manners and the mind are both to be cared 
 for — indeed, a cultivated mind of itself refines the manners — 
 abeunt studia in mores. The dignity and independence of 
 a free moral agent are to be conciliated with the respect for 
 discipline and subordination and degree, indispensable alike 
 to success in this world and in college. Here, in short, is to 
 be fashioned, in the highest attainable perfection, the scholar, 
 the citizen, the good man, the Christian gentleman. 
 
 In order to bring about such results, we need your co- 
 operation as parents— your co-operation as members of 
 society. We claim, on behalf of Columbia College, that it 
 offers in this great and populous city, rare advantages for 
 education, and that it should find large sympathy and sup- 
 port. A brief sketch of what the College aims at accom- 
 plishing—of what in times past, it has accomplished— and 
 what, with an earnest appliance of its means, and a fair and 
 liberal support from the community, in the midst of which it 
 is placed, it may reasonably hope still further to accomplish, 
 
30 
 
 will, it is believed, be not wholly uninteresting to most of 
 my hearers : and cannot fail, it is thought, to establish the 
 claims of the College upon the city of New York for larger 
 opportunities of doing the good it can do, and desires to do. 
 
 Columbia College is an institution older than the Re- 
 public; and from its establishment in the reign of George II. 
 1754 — when it was first incorporated by royal charter — to 
 the hour in which we live, with an interval of some five or 
 six years during the Revolutionary war, when its Students 
 were dispersed — its library and philosophical apparatus were 
 scattered, and its buildings occupied as hospitals — it has 
 been steadily and successfully at work, educating the youth 
 of the country. 
 
 Among its Alumni are to be found some of the most 
 honored members of the Republic, to some of whom eloquent 
 allusion has already been made by Professor McVickae. 
 One name, however, not included in his list I must recall ; 
 since from an early day to this now fleeting, from father and 
 father's father to son, it has been found on our College rolls, 
 and always with honor — it is that of Stevens,-- -John Ste- 
 vens, of Hoboken, who, far in advance of his age, far in ad- 
 vance of the old world and the new — perceived — I do not 
 say invented, but perceived, railroads — for they were pre- 
 sent to his mind in all the minute details of their use, and 
 traversed by steam locomotives as they now exist and are 
 worked, long before a steam locomotive or a railroad was 
 any where in use. In steamboats and other applications of 
 science and mechanics to the daily uses and wants of life, 
 he was alike original and successful ; — and there are sons 
 and grandsons of his now living, graduates of this College, 
 who walk worthily in their forefathers' footsteps; and when 
 unjust reproach is sometimes hazarded against our Institution, 
 
31 
 
 as too monastic in its course of studies, and not devoting the 
 requisite time to the application of science to the arts of 
 life, reference may be boldly made to the name of Stevens, 
 as at once vindicating the instruction, and adorning the 
 annals, of the College. 
 
 Its faculty has embraced some of the most learned and 
 eminent Professors — and in its course of studies, is a wise 
 union of the classics with the physical sciences. 
 
 Although deriving its chief endowment from Trinity 
 Church, it is in no just sense a sectarian institution, but opens 
 its portals wide, and in a truly Catholic spirit, to all who will 
 enter them in the pursuit of knowledge. As a proof of this 
 fact, and as a guarantee that no change can come over this 
 spirit, Sec viii. of the Act of the Legislature of March, 1810, 
 relative to the Columbia College, gives authority to the Trus- 
 tees to make all needful rules and regulations for carrying 
 on the institution — with this express proviso, " that such or- 
 dinances and by-laws shall not make the religious tenets of 
 any person, a condition of admission to any privilege or 
 office in the said College." Nor is this a late innovation 
 upon the original grant, for the like proviso is found in the 
 Royal Charter, wherein it is stipulated that the by-laws and 
 ordinances and orders to be made for conducting the business 
 of the College shall * not tend to exclude any persons of any 
 religious denomination whatever, from equal liberties and 
 advantage of education, or from any of the degrees, liberties, 
 privileges, benefits and immunities of said College, on ac- 
 count of his particular tenets in matters of religion." 
 
 A turther proof of this truly Catholic spirit is to be found 
 m the fact, that the original charter required, in addition to 
 other Trustees named, " that the Rector of Trinity Church, 
 the senior Minister of the Reformed Protestant Dutch 
 
S2 
 
 Church, the Minister of the French Church, and the Minis- 
 ter of the Presbyterian Church, be always ex-officio Trus- 
 tees." This provision, with various others of the original 
 charter, was annulled after the Revolution, when, by the act 
 of the Legislature of the State of New York, passed 13th 
 April, 1787, it was, among other provisions relative to 
 Columbia College, enacted, " that no persons shall be Trus- 
 tees of the same in virtue of any office, character or 
 description whatever." This, of course, vacated all the 
 seats held ex-officio. But among the Trustees named in that 
 same act, were several eminent Ministers and citizens of dif- 
 ferent denominations, including the learned Jewish Rabbi, 
 Gekshom Seixas, who was for many years one of the 
 Trustees ; and ever since, up to this day, in the selection 
 of Trustees, all vacancies being filled by the Board which 
 thus perpetuates itself — members of different denominations 
 are included. 
 
 I am the more particular in this detail, because undeniably 
 a prejudice injurious to the usefulness and best interests of 
 the College has been engendered against it, and even now 
 prevails to a considerable extent, as an exclusive Episcopal 
 institution ; a prejudice which subjects it more or less to 
 ostracism by other denominations, while, as it is a prejudice 
 and wholly unfounded, no appeal can be made to Episcopa- 
 lians, as such, by way of compensation, for favor to an In- 
 stitution of their own forms and faith. 
 
 The origin of this prejudice or error, doubtless, is to be 
 traced to the earnestness with which the establishment of 
 Columbia College, or as it was then known, King's College, 
 was resisted, lest it should become in the colony an instru- 
 ment of the established Church of England, — a resistance 
 which caused a delay of more than two years in obtaining 
 the charter from the Colonial Legislature; and what was 
 
33 
 
 more prejudicial still, the diversion of one-half of certain 
 funds voted by the Legislature to the College, but which 
 were eventually divided between it and the Corporation of 
 the city. 
 
 The grant, moreover, to the College by Trinity Church, 
 of a portion of the farm known as King's Farm, included 
 conditions, which, in spite of the express prohibitions in the 
 charter, might seem to warrant the inference that peculiar 
 favor at least, if not positive preference, would be shown to 
 students belonging to the Episcopal Church. 
 
 These conditions were that the President should always 
 be a member of the Episcopal Church, and that the morning 
 and evening service in the College should be the liturgy or 
 from the liturgy of the Church. As a matter of fact, how- 
 ever, no such preference was ever manifested, or has ever 
 been distinctly charged, and indeed the very first act of the 
 Governors of King's College, after its incorporation, was to 
 adopt, on the motion of Mr. Kitzema, the Minister of the 
 Dutch Reformed Church, a memorial to the Governor of the 
 Colony, asking by way of amendment to the charter, the 
 establishment of a Professorship of Divinity, with a suitable 
 salary, " for the education of such of the youth as might be 
 intended for the Ministry in that Church." The prayer of 
 the memorial was acceded to, and a Professorship of Divinity 
 was authorised, " according to the doctrine, discipline and 
 worship established by the National Synod of Dort." The 
 Dutch being at that time the most numerous of any single 
 denomination in the province, this concession to them of a 
 privilege denied to other denominations, and not even claim- 
 ed for that, from which the principal endowment of the Col- 
 lege was drawn, must be taken as a decisive proof of a 
 thoroughly liberal and Catholic spirit, as well as of a wise 
 and wary policy on the part of the Episcopal friends of the 
 College. 5 
 
34 
 
 Nor can the condition of the grant from Trinity Church 
 be regarded in any just view as exclusive. Practically, cer- 
 tainly it is not exclusive ; for when it was desired to secure 
 the services of an eminent scholar and clergyman of the 
 Presbyterian Church — the late Dr. J. M. Mason — the office of 
 Provost was created, so as to give to him the actual headship 
 and direction of the College ; while, in order to comply with 
 the language of the charter, the office, merely honorary, of 
 President, was conferred upon an exemplary clergyman of 
 the Church — the late Dr. Harris. Afterwards, upon the re- 
 signation of Dr. Mason, the office of Provost was abolished, 
 and the original duties and authority of the Presidency were 
 restored, and vested in Dr. Harris, who for many years- 
 discharged its duties most efficiently. 
 
 As to the other condition of the Trinity Church grant, 
 that the religious services, morning and evening, should be 
 the liturgy, or from the liturgy, it has long, if not always, 
 been so construed that no religious services are performed 
 in the College, other than the reading, each morning, in the 
 Chapel, by the President, of a portion of Scripture, and a 
 brief form of prayer prepared for the purpose, and in which 
 all Christian men, of whatever denomination, may join. 
 
 From this statement, it must be obvious — First, That no 
 ground whatever exists for characterizing Columbia College 
 as a sectarian Institution; and, Secondly, That it never can 
 become such, and therefore that it. may fairly challenge sup- 
 port from all denominations, since it shows equal impartiality 
 to all. 
 
 The original buildings of Columbia College were con- 
 structed by means derived from private subscription in the 
 Colony and in Great Britain ; the land west of Broadway, 
 between what are now Barclay and Murray streets, being 
 
35 
 
 at the time wholly unproductive, although now covered 
 with houses, pierced by streets, and constituting one of the 
 oldest parts of the city. This grant was made by the 
 Church in 1755. Twelve years afterwards, in 17G7, a con- 
 cession was obtained for the College from the Governor — Sir 
 Henry Moore— of 24,000 acres of land, lying, as was then 
 supposed, within the Northern boundaries of the State of 
 New York. When, however, the State of Vermont was 
 constituted, this tract fell within its boundaries, and hence 
 was lost to the College. 
 
 After the close of the Revolutionary War, a desire of 
 constituting a University seems to have been entertained, 
 to consist of all the Colleges and Academies in the State, 
 to be placed under the supervision and government of one 
 Board of Regents. A law to this effect was accordingly 
 passed in May, 1784, subjecting Columbia College, in com- 
 mon with other Colleges and Academies, to the supervision 
 of the Regents of the University ; and they immediately 
 undertook the appointment of Professors, and the establish- 
 ment of a course of literary and scientific instruction upon 
 a large scale, and far beyond the means of the College. 
 
 A small part, only, of these extensive plans was carried 
 out. In April, 1787, an additional law, regulating the Uni- 
 versity, restored Columbia College to the independent exer- 
 cise of its own chartered rights, under Trustees of its own 
 selection, and who maintain their own succession. 
 
 It cannot be without interest at this day, to recall the 
 names of the Trustees embodied in this bill of 1787. They 
 were : — James Duane, Samuel Provost, John H. Living- 
 ston, Richard Varick, Alex. Hamilton, John Mason, 
 Jas. Wilson, John Gano, Brockholst Livingston, Robert 
 Harper, junior, Daniel Gross, John Christoff Kunwe, 
 
36 
 
 Walter Livingston, Lewis A. Scott, Joseph Delaplaine, 
 Leonard Lispenard, Abraham Beach, John Lawrence, 
 John Rutherford, Morgan Lewis,- John Cochran, Gershom 
 Seixas, Charles McKnight, John Jones, Malachi Treat, 
 Samuel Bard, Nicholas Romaine, Benjamin Kissam, Ebe- 
 nezer Crosby. 
 
 In 1790, on the Report of the Regents of the University, 
 that Columbia College and the incorporated Academies 
 needed funds, an Act was passed for the encouragement of 
 literature, whereby, for the benefit of the Academies and 
 the College, the Regents were empowered to take possession 
 of certain lands belonging to the State, and among them 
 Governor's Island, within the City and County of New 
 York — to lease such lands, and from time to time to dispose 
 of and apply the rents thereof for the better advancement 
 of science and literature in the said College, and in the 
 Academies now or hereafter to be incorporated. 
 
 This grant, so far as it applied to Governor's Island, did 
 not take effect; but in April, 1792, the Legislature, with 
 well-timed liberality, made a most generous grant to the 
 College, " in aid of its funds, so diminished," as the preamble 
 of the Act recites, " by the events of the late war, as to 
 render it impracticable for the. Trustees to defray certain 
 necessary expenses, which have accrued to the College in 
 consequence of the alteration of the streets of the City of 
 New York, and to repair the losses which the College sus- 
 tained during the late war, with respect to its Library, and 
 to incur such further expenses as would render the Semi- 
 nary more extensively useful." 
 
 In consideration thereof, the sum of £1500 was voted for 
 enlarging the Library, £200 for a chemical apparatus, and 
 £1200 for the purpose of building a wall necessary to sup- 
 
37 
 
 port the grounds of the College ; £5,000 were added, to 
 provide for building a hall and an additional wing to the 
 College, while an annual payment was ordered of £750, for 
 five years, in aid of the payment of the salaries of Professors. 
 
 In 1802, by an Act amending the Act of 1792, certain 
 lands at Ticonderoga and Crown Point were granted to the 
 College. 
 
 In March, 1810, owing to difficulties in conducting the 
 management of this Institution, by reason of certain restric- 
 tions and defects in the charter, on application of the Trus- 
 tees, to the Legislature, the Corporation was continued, all 
 its rights and powers specified in a new Act, and all provi- 
 sions inconsistent, or that conflicted therewith, were repealed. 
 
 In this Act the names of the Trustees appear, and among 
 them, six of those who were Trustees in '87, viz: — John H. 
 Livingston, Richard Variok, Brockholst Livingston, 
 Abraham Beach, John Lawrence, and Gershom Seixas. 
 Their associates were Richard Harrison, John Wells, 
 William Moore, Cornelius F. Bogert, John M. Mason, 
 Edward Dunscomb, George C Anthon, John N. Abeel, 
 James Tillary, J. H. Hobart, Benjamin Moore, Egbert 
 Benson, Governeur Morris, Jacob Radcliff, Rufus King, 
 Samuel Miller, Oliver Wolcott, and John B. Romeyn. 
 
 Of all these men, eminent in their day, and who have left 
 blessed memories behind, but one survives — the venerable 
 and excellent Dr. Miller, who, only last year, by reason of 
 his great age, relinquished the Presidency of the Theological 
 Seminary at Princeton, but who still resides in that town, 
 taking deep interest in all that concerns the progress of 
 sound letters, and tends to promote the welfare and elevate 
 the character of his countrymen. 
 
38 
 
 In April, 1814, the property known as the Botanic Garden 
 was granted to Columbia College, on condition that within 
 twelve years the College establishment be removed thither. 
 This condition was rescinded by the Legislature in 1819, 
 and a grant of $10,000 was further made to the College in 
 that year by the Legislature. 
 
 It is with a double purpose that these liberal appropria- 
 tions by the people of the State of New York to Columbia 
 College, have been thus prominently brought to view, — 
 First, As testifying the enlightened spirit which, in times 
 past, actuated our Legislature ; and, Secondly, As cumula- 
 tive proof that no just imputation of sectarianism lies 
 against the Charter, the conduct, or the course of instruc- 
 tion of the College, since it is well known that even a well- 
 founded suspicion of any such tendency would have de- 
 feated all Legislative aid. 
 
 Thus favored of the public authorities and fostered by 
 the public treasure, Columbia College has gone on her 
 course with a steady, liberal, and, let it be added, a suc- 
 cessful aim, to educate good scholars, good citizens, and 
 good men. 
 
 It belongs not to this occasion, nor is mine the voice 
 qualified properly to commemorate the distinguished men, 
 who, as Presidents and Professors in this Institution, have 
 acted their parts well in furnishing forth to the Republic of 
 Letters, and to the Republic of Nations, an annual contri- 
 bution of well-trained scholars. 
 
 But I cannot withhold my tribute, however feeble, to the 
 learning, devotedness and excellence of my immediate pre- 
 decessor, Dr. Nathaniel F. Moore, whom sickness retains 
 at home this evening ; nor fail to express my gratification 
 
at seeing here present among us, in renovated health, 
 and with unabated interest in the welfare and honor of the 
 College, his immediate predecessor, Dr. Wm. A. Duer — 
 a name identical, from our early annals, with patriotism, 
 eloquence and learning. 
 
 Our scheme of instruction will speak for itself; and faith- 
 fully carried out by the Professors, and diligently pursued 
 by the students, it must produce results honorable to the 
 College, useful to the State, and abundantly remunerating 
 the large measure of liberality shown to us by the Legisla- 
 ture. 
 
 The Faculty consists of a President and six Professors. 
 The course of instruction embraces large and thorough 
 study of the classics, the exact and physical sciences, moral 
 philosophy, English composition, and the German language 
 and literature. 
 
 In order to evince their disposition to meet what was 
 thought to be a want of the city, by placing within the 
 reach of those who did not desire to pursue the full course 
 of this College, an opportunity for more practical instruction 
 as it is commonly esteemed, the Trustees, in 1830, estab- 
 lished a " Scientific and Literary Course," open to all ; and 
 efforts were not wanting on the part of the Faculty of the 
 College, to render it both an attractive and useful course. 
 
 But it did not find favor with the public, and upon a revi- 
 sion of the statutes in 1843, it was abolished. 
 
 One permanent good result from the attempt, however, 
 was a large increase of the philosophical apparatus of the 
 College, and a valuable addition to its Library, — which, in 
 order to give efficiency to the new course, were purchased 
 
40 
 
 by the Trustees, and now remain for the use and Improve- 
 ment of the matriculated students. 
 
 A number of Free Scholarships were also founded,- and 
 these still exist in the gift of several Corporations. The 
 Corporation of the City of New York, the Corporation of 
 the City of Brooklyn, the Trustees of the New York Public 
 School Society, the Trustees and Directors of the Clinton 
 Hall Association, those of the Mercantile Library Associa- 
 tion, of the Mechanics' Institute, and of the General Society 
 of Mechanics and Tradesmen, in the City of New York, 
 are entitled to two Scholarships each, and the Corporation 
 of Jersey City to one. This constitutes fifteen Free 
 Scholarships. 
 
 Moreover, every religious denomination in the city is 
 entitled to have always one student, who may be designed 
 for the ministry, educated free of all charges of tuition ; 
 and every school ( except the Grammar School of the Col- 
 lege) from which four paying scholars are admitted in one 
 year, has the privilege of sending one scholar to be educated 
 gratuitously by the College. 
 
 As a matter of fact, these scholarships are eagerly availed 
 of; and at this moment, of one hundred and ten matricu- 
 lated students, twenty-one are free scholars. 
 
 This, it must be admitted, is a large and liberal return by 
 the College for the aid it has received from the State — a 
 return made, too, in the most Catholic spirit, and one which 
 it may, without indelicacy, be urged in this address — would 
 seem to entitle the College to a larger share of the public 
 interest, and a larger support from the inhabitants of our 
 city and its suburban cities, than it has yet received. 
 
 The capacity of the College for instruction is far beyond 
 
41 
 
 the demands made upon it. The same Faculty which edu- 
 cates one hundred and ten students, could as readily and as 
 well educate two or three times that number ; and with the 
 rapidly increasing population in the midst of which we are 
 placed, it would seem the result of ignorance of the true 
 character, views and labors of the College, that no larger 
 number of students is gathered in its halls. 
 
 It cannot be from indifference to good education, for we 
 see — and we rejoice to see — other Institutions of high bear- 
 ing rising up around us and flourishing. In the New York 
 University, and in the Free Academy, we see generous 
 competitors in a noble career, and we bid them God speed ! 
 There is room for all — there is need of all. We have like 
 objects, aims and hopes, and can have no other rivalry than 
 that of seeking to excel in the career common to all. We 
 are of the same republic of letters — of the same family 
 household ; and not inaptly may be applied to us the passage 
 from the Latin poet, so finely applied by the great States- 
 man of America, to our United States : — 
 
 Fades non omnibus una, 
 Aec diversa tamen, quails decet esse sororum. 
 
 While institutions such as these flourish, the Republic will 
 stand and flourish — and social life and civil life — the arts 
 that adorn and the arms that protect our Fabric of Freedom, 
 will derive fresh lustre and fresh strength from the nurture 
 here found. 
 
 In this claim for support to collegiate institutions, it need 
 scarcely be added, that we by no means overlook the im- 
 portance of schools, public and private — which are, in fact, 
 the nurseries of the college. The wise liberality of our Legis- 
 lature has thrown open wide to all children between the age 
 of four and sixteen, the public schools of our city, free from 
 
 
 
42 
 
 any charge whatever for tuition: under the active and in- 
 telligent supervision of the Board of Education — (whose 
 efficient and able President, I am proud to say, is an alum- 
 nus of this College) — and of the Trustees of the Public 
 School Society — skilful and competent teachers are provided 
 in their sfihools, so that as a matter of fact, the Public Schools, 
 in the range of what they undertake to teach, are not sur- 
 passed, probably, by any of the private schools of the city. 
 
 For these private schools, nevertheless, there is and 
 always will be, an absolute necessity ; and to them, in an 
 especial manner, must this College be ever indebted for its 
 supply of Students — and therefore in them, and in the suc- 
 cess, the standing, the fair fame, and full and adequate re- 
 muneration of their masters, do we feel a direct and lively 
 interest. 
 
 But neither Legislative acts nor liberal compensation will 
 suffice to make schoolmasters what they should be, without 
 amore enlightened state of public opinion in respect of them, 
 and especially in regard of the estimation in which the pro- 
 fession of schoolmaster should be held. 
 
 That needs to be greatly elevated. We must learn to 
 look upon the schoolmaster — as in truth he is — the great 
 trustee of the future. He is to mould, form and fashion the 
 minds, the hearts, and the conduct of those to whom the 
 future belongs — that future towards which all the aims of 
 the present tend, as to a goal of greater happiness and im- 
 proved prosperity. 
 
 " Man never is but always to be blest." 
 
 And whatever the joys or the success of the passing hour, 
 we are all prone to look forward to loftier success and more 
 ample enjoyment in some period to come. 
 
. 43 
 
 To the sculptor, who from the shapeless marble reveals the 
 glorious statue within, and by skill and labor brings it forth, 
 almost ahving, breathing thing, to enchant the world, we 
 award high honors, high station, and high rewards — and 
 justly do we so. But to the artist who takes the immortal 
 mind, and with plastic hand and patient observation, and 
 ample knowledge, and unwearying industry, and refined 
 taste, and deep consciousness of the almost awful responsi- 
 bility of his work, fashions it to usefulness, restrains or sub- 
 dues its evil propensities, calls forth its nobler aspirations, 
 and fits it for honor here, for immortality hereafter — to such 
 an artist who, has seen civic wreaths decreed, public honors 
 paid, or even the stipulated pecuniary compensation, for the 
 most part, other than grudgingly extended ? 
 
 This should not be ; and until the schoolmaster is made the 
 companion in the land of those in it, who are most eminent — 
 until in the social scale and in general consideration, and in 
 the distribution of public honors and high trusts — he shall 
 feel and find that — other things being equal — none are to be 
 preferred to him — and that if not foremost among his peers, 
 he at least is peer among the foremost — par inter primos — 
 the full measure of his usefulness, the full, scope of his indis- 
 pensable authority cannot be attained. 
 
 In reference to the proper influence of educated and 
 learned men — for such schoolmasters are, or should be — 
 I cannot resist quoting from the wise Bacon, that "Learned 
 men forgotten in states, and not living in the eyes of men, are 
 like the images of Cassius and Brutus at the funeral of Junia, 
 of which, not being represented, as many others were, Taci- 
 tus saith — Eo ipso prcefulgebant quod non visebantur. 
 
 In our public ceremonials and festivals be places of honor 
 ever assigned to the public instructors — if we would have 
 
44 
 
 them such as they should be, both in their own esteem and 
 in that of their countrymen. 
 
 But to get back to the point upon which I was comment- 
 ing — the comparative paucity of students in our college, and 
 the possible explanation therof. I proceed to detail, with 
 some minuteness our course of instruction, which has already 
 been partially referred to, and to the nature of which is 
 sometimes ascribed the apparent public indifference to the 
 College. Let us look a little carefully at this matter. 
 
 Our rock of foundation is the Classics. Our terms of ad- 
 mission presuppose no inconsiderable progress in Latin and 
 Greek before the student can be received. Our standard in 
 this respect is pi-obabJy higher than at other like institutions 
 of our country. Is it too high ? Is too much time assigned 
 to this department ? All experience says no. And yet it 
 may not be doubted, that objections are felt against this por- 
 tion of our course. Unwisely, most unwisely — even in a 
 merely utilitarian sense — is the time given to classical in- 
 struction, deemed misplaced. There is no more palpable 
 error than to assume that classical studies — familiarity with 
 the tongues, and the great writers of Greece and Rome, are 
 only useful to professional men. They are even as know- 
 ledge, a mine of wealth to all men — and as training and 
 disciplining the mind — refining while they enrich it — and 
 fortifying while they adorn, they are of permanent, universal, 
 ineffaceable value. 
 
 "Expel Greek and Latin," says Dr. Arnold, the great 
 schoolmaster of our day, "and you confine the views of 
 existing generations to themselves and their immediate pre- 
 decessors ; you will cut off so many centuries of the world's 
 experience and place us in the same state as if the human 
 race had first come into existence in the year 1500. For it 
 is nothing to say that a few learned individuals might still 
 
45 
 
 study classical literature ; the effect produced on the public 
 mind would be no greater than that which has resulted from 
 the labors of our Oriental scholars ; it would not spread be- 
 yond themselves; and men in general, after a few generations, 
 would know as little of Greece and Rome, as they do actu- 
 ally of China and Hindostan. But such an ignorance would 
 be incalculably more to be regretted. With the Asiatic 
 mind we have no more connection or sympathy than that 
 which is derived from our common humanity. But the 
 mind of the Greek and the Roman is, in all the essential points 
 of its constitution, our own ; and not only so, but it is our own 
 mind developed to an extraordinary degree of perfection. 
 Wide as is the difference between us with regard to those 
 physical instruments which minister to our uses or our plea- 
 sures, although the Greeks and Romans had no steam engines, 
 no printing presses, no manner's compass, no telescope, no 
 microscope, no gunpowder, yet in our moral and political 
 views, in those matters which most determine human charac- 
 ter? there is a perfect resemblance in these respects." 
 
 But it is objected that in manhood the Greek and Latin are 
 so often thrown aside. Yet it by no means follows that be- 
 cause the man throws aside the books of the youth, he for- 
 gets all that he ever gained from them. Far otherwise — for 
 even unconsciously to himself, the educated man relains 
 " in the general liberality of his tastes, and comparative com- 
 prehensiveness of his views and notions," much of the effect 
 of early training; and as upon the face of Nature the bright- 
 ness of the verdure upon the surface, betrays the unseen flow 
 of the living waters beneath, so in the progress of life, the 
 ornate and fluent speech, and elegance and refinement of 
 sentiments and of conduct, may safely be referred in most 
 instances to the influence of the hidden, and perhaps even 
 unsuspected streams, of early classical instruction. 
 
 I cannot resist quoting on this head a passage of the fine 
 apostrophe to the Greek and Latin language by Henry Nel- 
 son Coleridge, in his book on the study of the Greek 
 Poets : — 
 
46 
 
 " Greek ! the shrine of the genius of the old world, as uni- 
 versal as our race, as individual as ourselves, of infinite 
 flexibility, of indefatigable strength, with the complication 
 and distinctness of Nature herself; to which nothing was 
 vulgar, from which nothing was excluded — speaking to the 
 ear like Italian — speaking to the mind like English, with 
 words like pictures, with words like the gossamer film of the 
 summer." 
 
 # # * # # # # # ■ # 
 
 " Latin ! the voice of Empire and of War — of Law and of the 
 State — inferior to its half parent and rival in the embodying 
 of passion and the distinguishing of thought — but equal to it 
 in sustaining the measured march of history, and superior to 
 it in the indignant declamation of moral satire — stamped 
 with the mark of an imperial and despotizing Republic — 
 rigid in its construction — parsimonious in its synonymes — 
 impressive in its conciseness, the true language of History, 
 instinct with the spirit of Nations and not with the passions 
 of individuals — breathing the maxims of the world and not 
 the tenets of the schools, one and uniform in its air and spirit, 
 whether touched by the stern and haughty Sallust, by the 
 open and discursive Livy, and by the reserved and thought- 
 ful Tacitus." 
 
 Would any of you — friends, parents of our youth — con- 
 sent that languages, of which all this and more can alike be 
 eloquently and truly said, should remain sealed to their young 
 minds, or strangers to their maturer studies ? Surely," surely 
 not. 
 
 But over and above the Latin and Greek, the study of 
 the higher mathematics, astronomy and chemistry are here 
 pursued, and their application to the business of life and its 
 wants, illustrated ;— the use and nature of the steam engine, 
 and the wanderings of the stars in their course, may alike be 
 learned here ; — the business of the civil engineer, and the 
 principles which guide the navigator over trackless seas, are 
 all laid open to the enquiring mind ; for we strive to make 
 useful as well as learned men. 
 
47 
 
 The principles of composition, the elegance of speech, the 
 beauties of style, the force, richness, and vastness of the 
 English tongue, are all made familiar to ears that will hear, 
 and to understandings that will comprehend ; and, finally, the 
 evidences of natural and revealed religion, are pointed out 
 with sufficient distinctness to excite interest, and stimulate 
 the awakened mind to further and fuller inquiries. 
 
 Of later years, through the liberality of a German, we have 
 a German Professorship. Mr. Gebhard, having long lived 
 and prospered among us, obeyed a generous impulse in leav- 
 ing at his death in the city of his adoption and residence, 
 some enduring token of his good will, and therefore founded 
 and endowed a Professorship, which bears his name — of the 
 German language and literature. 
 
 The Trustees of the College, in order to meet fully the 
 views of the founder, thenceforth constituted instruction in 
 the German as a part of the stated Collegiate course. 
 
 It is the only modern language thus privileged — for it is the 
 only one for instruction in which, ample provision has been 
 furnished to the College. 
 
 It can hardly be doubted, indeed, that like liberality 
 evinced in respect of other modern languages, or other 
 special branches of education, would meet with like appre- 
 ciation and concurrence on the part of the Trustees, and 
 that the College Curriculum would be so modified, as still 
 within the allotted term of four years, to embrace courses 
 differing for different individuals, according to their tastes, 
 capacities, or ultimate destination — but all tending to the 
 one great end, thorough education, and all entitling those 
 who should successfully and diligently pursue them, to Col- 
 legiate honors. 
 
48 
 
 For it can neither be the interest nor the desire of the 
 enlightened men charged with the government of this Col- 
 lege, to oppose themselves to such change or progress as 
 the times may call for ; always holding fast to the old foun- 
 dations, but building thereon such superstructure as may 
 better suit the public wants. 
 
 Such progress should be encouraged — cannot, indeed, be 
 resisted. Even in England, where usages and traditions 
 "have the force of law, the venerable Universities of Oxford 
 and Cambridge are undergoing essential modifications in 
 their schemes, and modes, and topics of instruction ; and 
 nearer home, at Harvard University, through the munifi- 
 cence of one individual, a course of instruction in the prac- 
 tical application of science has been founded, magnificently 
 endowed, and is now in successful progress, under the 
 auspices of the great name of Agassiz. 
 
 I speak to the ear of New York merchants, with hearts 
 not less liberal, with means certainly not less ample, than 
 those to which Harvard owes such an endowment. Shall 
 it be ever thus, that we must go out of our own city to look 
 for such examples of well-considered and well-directed 
 munificence ? 
 
 Might it not, for instance, well become the Tyre of the 
 West, opulent through commerce, to endow, in its own 
 ancient seat of learning, a Professorship of Commerce ? — 
 And even more instant and urgent than that, why should 
 this great seat of the navigation and commerce of the 
 United States be without an Observatory,* and without a 
 
 * Lest the claim urged above, for means to found an Observatory, of such charac- 
 ter and construction, and with such superior instruments, as our position and wants as 
 the great Commercial City of the West seem to justify — should mislead opinion as to 
 
49 
 
 Telescope fitted to the wants of Astronomy, as that science 
 is now developed ? And who more interested than the 
 merchants and ship-owners of New York, in founding such 
 an establishment, and in providing it with instruments ? 
 
 Again — in our polyglot city, what more desirable or 
 natural use of wealth, to those who can dispose of it, than 
 to provide means, through Professorships of French and 
 Spanish, for a thorough appreciation of the language and 
 literature of these two tongues ? 
 
 I hazard these suggestions, doubting somewhat as to the 
 fitness of putting them forth on this occasion, but doubting 
 not at all of their intrinsic fitness, nor of the great perma- 
 nent benefits which such applications of the wealth of our 
 city would ensure to its remotest descendants, to the gene- 
 rations that now live, and to the whole Republic. 
 
 what the Astronomical Professor of this College has done and is doing with such 
 means and instruments as he can command, the following note is added : — 
 
 An Observatory, as good as many of the Observatories in Europe, has been obtain- 
 ed by uniting the instruments belonging to the College with those of an Amateur 
 Astronomer of this city — Mr. Lewis M. Rutherford. This contains a fine Tran- 
 sit Instrument, of four feet focal length, made by Troughton & Symmes, of London, 
 belonging to the College, mounted on stone piers ; a Clock with Mercurial Pendulum, 
 contributed by Mr. G. W. Blunt, of this city; an Altitude and Azimuth Circle, 
 made by Troughton & Symmes, with Reading Micrometers, belonging to the Col- 
 lege ; and a fine Equatorial Instrument, made, the optical part by Mr. Pitz, of this 
 city— than whom there is no better workman in the world — the mechanical, by Gregg 
 & Rupp, belonging to Mr. Rutherford. The Object Glass of the Telescope of 
 this instrument is six inches in diameter ; it is provided with a Position Micrometer, 
 made by Troughton & Symmes, and a fine Chronemeter, by Parkinson & Frod- 
 SHam, both belonging to the College. 
 
 The Transit Instrument makes observations for time ; the Altitude and Azimuth 
 for latitude ; and the Equatorial, by differentiation with the Micrometer, determines 
 the right ascension and declinnion of unknown objects, makes maps of particular por- 
 tions of the Heavens, and measures angles of position and distance of double stars 
 suspected of physical connection and orbitual motion. These instruments are suffi- 
 cient to make valuable contributions to the advancement of Astronomical Science ; bu* 
 means yet are wanting to secure the labors of competent observers. 
 
 7 
 
50 
 
 Religion, Morals, Art, Science, Philosophy, Letters — such 
 are the triumphs — such the policy — such the memorials 
 which I desiderate for my country ; and especially do I 
 deprecate for her — and all the more earnestly, as the ten- 
 dency of popular feeling seems now too much in that direc- 
 tion — that stern policy of empire and of conquest which the 
 classic poet of antiquity, speaking through Anchises, lays 
 down for his future Romans : — 
 
 Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento 
 Ho8 tibi erunt artes, pacisque imponere morem 
 Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos. 
 
 Not such be our ambition ; but rather to convert the 
 sword into the ploughshare, and to give our earnest and 
 active natures to subduing the earth, and rendering it a 
 fitter habitation for peaceful men — to cultivating the arts, 
 the sciences, the humanities — to building up Churches; 
 Libraries, Colleges and Schools — mindful always of that 
 future for which the present is only the preparation, and 
 more zealous to leave to our children and their children's 
 children a free, peaceful, educated, moral Republic — pros- 
 perous, because wise — strong, because united — and just 
 and moderate, because strong — than a fierce, unrelenting, 
 despotizing Republic, such as Rome was. 
 
 To such results, you, who honor this occasion with your 
 presence, can do much, where little— very little — through 
 private munificence, has yet been attempted. 
 
 It will sound strangely, doubtless, at this period of the 
 world, and in this land of free thought, free acts, and Chris- 
 tian light and civilization, to refer for example meet for our 
 imitation, to the Saracenic rule, which, from the Ninth to 
 the Sixteenth Century, throughout the vast extent of the 
 Arabian Empire in three-quarters of the globe, maintained 
 
51 
 
 literature and science in the utmost brilliancy — the progress 
 of learning following the progress of Saracenic victories, 
 and making Bagdad the capital of letters, as well as of the 
 Caliphs. 
 
 That Haroun Al-Raschid, with whose wealth and power 
 and wondrous works, our childhood was wont to be excited 
 in the Arabian Nights, was a real and substantial friend of 
 letters ; and one of the finest passages in Sismondi's beautiful 
 work on the literature of the South of Europe, is given to 
 the celebration of the magnificence of this Caliph, and his 
 son, Al-Mamoum the Seventh of the race of the Abassides. 
 
 Within a century of the period assigned to that of the 
 burning of the Alexandrian Library by the order of the 
 Caliph Omar — the period of the deepest barbarism among 
 the Saracens — the family of the Abassidis ascended the 
 throne of the Caliphs, and introduced a passionate love of 
 art, of science, and of poetry. Haroun Al-Raschid never 
 built a Mosque without attaching to it a School, and never 
 took a journey without carrying many learned men in his 
 train. He laid deep the foundation of the love of knowl- 
 edge among the Arabians. But his son, Al-Mamoum, was 
 the great protector and father of Arabian literature. He 
 invited to his Court, and retained there by favor and reward, 
 all the learned men from whatever country he could collect 
 them — and from the subject provinces of Syria, Armenia and 
 Egypt, received, as the most precious tribute they could 
 render, all important books. 
 
 The progress of the nation in science was proportionate 
 to the zeal of the Sovereign. In all parts, in every town, 
 Schools, Academies and Colleges were established, and 
 numerous and well-filled Libraries flourished in all the large 
 cities. The rich Libraries of Fez and Laraca, preserved 
 
52 
 
 precious works to Europe ; for in Africa, which we are 
 wont to associate in our minds only with ideas of ignorance 
 and barbarism, numerous Libraries existed. Every chief 
 city of Spain, then too under Saracenic rule, had its Libra- 
 ries open for public instruction, at a period when all the rest 
 of Europe, without books, learning or culture, was plunged 
 in the most disgraceful ignorance. 
 
 How does our country in this XIX century compare with 
 barbarous Africa in these respects in the Xllth or XlVth ? 
 What do our sovereign people for themselves in the cause 
 of letters — at all comparable with the enlightened care for 
 the intellectual culture of their subjects, shown by those 
 whom we stigmatize as infidel Arabs and sensual despots? 
 
 But how is it even in our own day, that little towns in 
 Germany — little towns in Italy — have libraries, colleges and 
 academies, far surpassing ours. There is a fragment of the 
 dominions of the House of Brunswick — a small town with 
 the almost unpronounceable name of Wolfenbuttle — which 
 has a choice library of 300,000 volumes — one of the libraries 
 of the world. So, too, in the old town of Padua, in Lom- 
 bardy, some 1400 students — there have been 4000 — frequent 
 the lectures, and in Pavia, arcades, long drawn out, are filled 
 in like manner with scholars. Yet these are decaying towns 
 in a decaying country, where man persists in counteracting 
 the goodness of God — while here in our fresh land, where 
 intellect is free — wealth abounding — and enterprise unfet- 
 tered, we can point to no such proofs that the value of 
 knowledge, and the means of acquiring and disseminating 
 it, are appreciated by the people. 
 
 Nor in these remarks would I be considered as addressing 
 myself to men only. I ask the aid and countenance of 
 women, too, of mothers and of sisters. 
 
53 
 
 It was to the enlightened zeal for letters of a woman — 
 Maria Theresa — that the Italian Universities were in- 
 debted for a large measure of protection and means of sup- 
 port — and her armorial bearings still, or until within very 
 recent years, scattered throughout the collegiate buildings, 
 at once attested the fact of her liberality, and the grateful 
 memory retained of it. 
 
 So again, one of the most learned and distinguished Pro- 
 fessors in the University of Bologna, was a young woman — 
 Donna Maria Agnesi — who at the age of nineteen, lectured 
 from the mathematical chair. Her two published volumes 
 of " Analytical Institutes," are to be found in the library at 
 West Point, and thus the young female Professor of Bologna, 
 becomes an instructor to the young soldiers of America. 
 
 This instance is not cited, however, for imitation, so much 
 as for encouragement — as shewing together with that of 
 Maria Theresa and one even more striking with that of Mrs. 
 Somerville, whose admirable astronomical work on the 
 " Mechanism of the Heavens" is a text book in many col- 
 leges — that when the heart is in the work woman is not to be 
 surpassed by man. 
 
 I leave the subject with the mothers and sisters who hear 
 me, with this single additional remark, that as their agency 
 in fashioning the opinions most likely to influence youth, is 
 very powerful — their responsibility is in' proportion great for 
 so fashioning these opinions, that they shall encourage in 
 young men manliness of character and cultivation of mind — 
 the love of letters and the love of truth. Armed in such 
 panoply of proof, they may go forth into the world, with 
 head erect and heart elate, to take their place among men, 
 and to do with the heart of men, the work which in the 
 Providence of God shall be set before them. 
 
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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