r vimwi a^ umi- owdoin College Bulletin Number 84 October, 1918 Inauguration of President Sills Brunswick, Maine Entered as second-class matter, June 28, 1907, at Brunswick, Maine under Act of Congress of July 16, 1894 Published monthly by the College Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2012 with funding from University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign http://archive.org/details/addressesatinObowd PRESIDENT SILLS ADDRESSES at the INAUGURATION of Kenneth Charles Morton Sills as President of Bowdoin College June 20, 1918 Brunswick, Maine 1918 Order of Exercises MUSIC The Star Spangled Banner MUSIC Prayer of Invocation, By The Reverend Samuel Valentine Cole, D.D., LL.D., Vice-President of the Board of Trustees Address for the Faculty, By Professor Charles Theodore Burnett, Ph.D. Address and Investiture, with Presentation of the Keys of the College, By The Honorable Clarence Hale, LL.D., President of the Board of 0\erseers Inaugural Address, By President Sills MUSIC DoMiNE Salvum Fac Pr^sidem Nostrum, Edzvard Haines IVass * Domine salvum fac Praesidem nostrum Et exaudi nos in die qua invocaverimus te. Gloria Patri et Filio et Spiritiii Sancto Siciit erat in principio Et nunc et semper in saecida saeciilorum. Amen. MUSIC Benediction, By The Reverend Charles Morton Sills, D.D. Address for the Faculty By Professor Burnett As a member of the college Faculty, I take unusual pleasure in congratulating us upon — ourselves, on possessing miscellane- ous abilities so varied and ample that twice in nine years Governing Boards have helped themselves to us when seeking a college president. Most — and seriously — I congratulate our- selves upon the leader that has been given us. To enumerate in detail the specific qualities which meet in him and brought upon him, first the scrutinizing, then the approving eyes of our Boards, might seem fulsome on this occasion. The press has already done this. I turn rather, for matter of congratulation, to more intimate and homely relations: — the happy chance that has relieved us of the trying period of adjustment between faculty and stranger president; the fact that we have already formed the habit of working with our new leader; and his proved ability to work with young and old. I think it just to congratulate you, in turn, Mr. President, not upon your distinction, an idle subject of congratulation these great days, but on your opportunity to use the prestige of your office to great ends; and on having as your immediate helpers a Faculty that knows the meaning and practice of loyal cooperation. You know that they know it; under your notable predecessor, President Hyde, their practice was your practice. And, men and women of Brunswick, I congratulate you too. The confidence you gave long since to the new President, whereby you made him one of your leading citizens, is this day being amply confirmed. And now, in the presence of an illustrious company, not 6 Bowdoin College merely this latter day group, which gives the life and the semblance of reality to this day's doings, nor of that wider group only, reaching out into the homes and marts, the courts and camps of America, and across the seas, where Bowdoin men at this moment are among those daring greatly for our country; but in the presence of that larger group of which we are a brief portion, the voices of whose leaders, in their day, echoed through the very arches of this old church — four gen^er- ations of your own immediate predecessors in office, Mr. President; — in this ample presence you are taking your place upon the Seat Perilous. You are taking this place because the College must have a leader and because you are the man. But, members and friends of Bowdoin College, you cannot test and use to the uttermost the capacities of this new leader until you have given him your confidence in full measure and your cooperation without measure. The task of the leader, whether in education or affairs is today as always to reveal men to themselves; not to hold a mirror up to nature; we have per- haps had too much of that bad practice in both education and politics; rather to disclose in clear form and persuasive colors what in other men has not yet come to light at all — vague yet vital ends, inarticulate but eternal meanings. The leader's power to reveal is the measure of his right to lead. God grant such insight and persuasiveness, such confidence and co- operation, to the new head of this old College ! Address of Investiture By Judge Hale My dear Mr. President: A little more than a century and a quarter ago, James Bowdoin and other good men of Massa- chusetts were accustomed to meet in Boston for frequent con- ferences in reference to forming a Maine college. These con- ferences afterwards resulted in the conclusion that: "In order that the moral sense of the Eastern Section be improved by culture of the arts and sciences, according to the sentiments and maxims of the fathers, a public seminary of learning be opened in the Eastern District." Those in authority were moved to this conclusion largely by the letters and petitions of good ministers of the Gospel in the Maine District. Legis- lation followed. Bowdoin College was born. A few years later, in 1802, President Joseph McKeen was calling his eight students by the thump of his cane upon the stairs, down from their rooms in the second story of Massachusetts Hall, to morn- ing and evening prayers, in the chapel on the first floor. By the goodness of God, in the growing years, six other Bowdoin presidents have done their work and gone to their reward. Good men; great men. I think it is not too much to say that the College has met the hope of its founders; it has pursued its upward course "in accordance with the sentiments and maxims of the fathers"; it has "advanced education and re- ligion." It has extended its beneficent hand to five generations of men. Four thousand and forty-one students have pursued a four years' course of liberal studies, and have received the Bachelor's degree; two thousand and eighty-seven young men have received the degree of Doctor of Medicine. And now we 8 Bowdoin College have come to this welcome day in its history when we are to invest a new President with the authority of his great office. I deem it a high privilege and honor to be permitted, in behalf of the Government of the College, to give voice to its con- gratulations. When, in 1836, Harvard University celebrated its two hundredth anniversary. President Quincy reminded its as- sembled friends, that it was not with "a display of dazzling and delusive words" that Harvard should make a holiday; but rather with a view to its future service. And so, Mr. Presi- dent, the thing that stands before us today is service. How can you make the College help men? This is the same world the founders of the College saw a century ago. The human mind is the same. The human heart is the same. But there are more people in the world. Things have become more complicated. And the more complicated they have become, the more need of the College; the more need that the first pur- pose of its founders be re-stated : to teach Righteousness : to teach first the Righteousness that exalteth a Nation. Presi- dents McKeen, Appleton, Allen, and Woods saw the world perhaps as clearly as President Hyde saw it, when in his inaugural address he spoke of the "infinite width of the celestial diameter which separates barbarism from civilization, the peaceful security of society from lawless violence, and which shows how vital is the relationship between the College and the Community." But the college President of a century ago could hardly have imagined how terrible an illustration was possible of that ''celestial diameter" between peaceful security and lawless violence. Five years ago the apostles of freedom the world over were feeling assured, in the language of a great English statesman, that the history of liberty was "showing a gradual, but sure, substitution of Freedom for Force in the eovernment of men." Of a sudden we awoke Inaugural Exercises 9 from our dream, to find ourselves caught in the grip of n world war thrust upon us by a powerful autocracy to attain the mastery of the nations by a great crime, involving the slaughter of millions of men. It soon became clear that Democracy is on trial; that there is an irrepressible conflict between Force and Free Government. In this conflict millions of young men from college and factory and farm in all the free nations of the world, are pouring out their blood. Upon our own nation now rests the burden. Upon her depends the decision. Her life is at stake. In the midst of war, Mr. President, let the first teaching of the College be that there can be but one end of such a conflict: that, as sure as God reigns, Freedom shall triumph over Force, and will accept no peace but by a final and conclusive victory. Let this teaching be a part of college education and religion. At a time like this, I should be ashamed if I did not put this teaching as the first duty of the College in helping men; for this pertains to the teaching of Righteousness which the founders of the Col- lege inculcated. They meant the College to be sacred to sound learning. But they meant above all — and we mean above all — that it be "sacred to Liberty and the Rights of Mankind." When William Pitt, the Great Commoner, was ruling England in the Seven Years War in the middle of the eighteenth century, his presence was a personal inspiration and an irre- sistible driving power in carrying the war to victory. It was said of him that no person went into his presence without be- coming at once a braver man. Mr. President, let no young man breathe the air of Bowdoin College during this world con- flict without at once becoming a better citizen and a braver man. Beyond the duty of the College to teach Righteousness, it is, of course, her duty to cherish and to teach sound learning. The early tendency of universities and colleges was to store 10 Bowdoin College up learning. Now we know that it is the duty of the college to diffuse learning; to make it efficient; not simply to fill the mind, but to educate it, to lead it out and train it to be an effective instrument in helping the world. Leading the mind out means sometimes to lead it out into new fields; it means always to keep it open to find new fields. This is progress. But progress is not forgetfulness. He that looks to the future must be taught by the past. Nobody can get along without the advice of wise men who have gone before. We have been reminded that no lawyer ventures to try his case until he has sought sedulously what the dead judges have said. No man undertakes to instruct the people in popular government with- out reference to the old apostles, to Lincoln and Jefferson and Washington. Bowdoin College is reaching out to the future, but it cannot, if it would, cut itself off from its splendid past. It must study, too, all the past to get the great lessons of his- tory. For you cannot imagine a college without an historical sense. I would not have it forego the study of the earlier centuries through the Classics. No man could put the value of such study with greater clearness than your predecessor when he said in his inaugural : "These ancient tongues con- tain the words, and sing the deeds of the bright, gladsome, hopeful. Godlike childhood of the race. ... We bear in mind the fact that the community whose scholars do not read the classic authors, will itself be found without poet or historian to record its own life in words which other men and other ages shall care to read." I believe, too, that the College ought not to forget that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are a part of the Classics; that they still con- tain truths that are not worn out, and rules of conduct that are not barred by the Statutes of Limitation. It is not for me to suggest the fields of learning the College is to cultivate, or the avenues of thought it is to explore. I Inaugural Exercises ii think it was Gladstone who said that during certain centuries the English universities did not accomplish the work they ought to have done because they stored up learning, but did not seek direct avenues to make learning applicable to the wants of society; that they constantly had before them an ideal of some- thing better, but did not set themselves to the practical service of mankind in the old paths. Sometimes too high an ideal dispirits rather than inspires. You remember the old proverb that "the best is often the enemy of the good." Let the Col- lege, then, do its every day duties in the service of mankind with faithfulness, and with watchfulness for new fields of duty. Watchfulness implies the spirit of the teachable. And if the College gives any lasting thing to a man, it is the teachable spirit, the spirit of constantly learning something and im- parting what he knows. When we say that scholarship trains the mind, we mean that it puts the mind in a teachable frame and not in a taught frame. The best thing the College gives a man is the ability to learn constantly from the great storehouses of the past, and from the lives and the learning that have gone before, and to impart to the world what he knows. The gift of the College, then, is not only knowledge, but the sense of proportion, which is the best definition of wisdom, I think, that has ever been given. It may be that during this great world conflict, colleges can do little more than wait. It is a proverb, you know, that in the midst of war, laws are silent. In the midst of war, lear- ing is silent; but it is the silence of watchfulness, not of in- attention. Although in the pressure of affairs of our later life, the tendency is to make the president of a college merely its execu- tive and the master of its business, do not forget that in all the avenues of study and of usefulness in which the college advances, the president is still the leader and the teacher. 12 Bowdoin College When the first president was inaugurated, the Governing Boards, with solemn form, turned over to President McKeen the keys of Massachusetts Hall, then the only keys of the Col- lege. This custom has prevailed for a century. For the eighth time it is our duty and pleasure to observe it. As a token of the confidence which we repose in you, Mr. President; as a symbol of the authority with which we gladly invest you, ! commit to your hands the keys of Bowdoin College. Inaugural Address By President Sills In accepting from your hands, Sir, the keys of Bowdoin College, I am deeply sensible of the honor, the duties, and the responsibilities which the Governing Boards have imposed upon me. Such responsibilities can never .be lightly assumed : but to succeed in the presidency a man like William DeWitt Hyde, in such critical and uncertain days as these, is made possible only by the generous assurance of support and cooperation from the Governing Boards, from the Faculty, and from the students, alumni, and friends of Bowdoin. I should like here also to thank the representatives of other colleges in New England and our guests whose presence with us today shows that we are working out our academic problems to- gether : "We share our mutual woes, Our mutual burdens bear; And often for each other flows The sympathizing tear". Members of the Governing Boards, Alumni, Undergraduates, Friends of the College, and you, my colleagues on the Faculty : An inauguration is inevitably a time for looking ahead, for announcing plans and formulating policies for the future. This year such a programme is uncommonly difficult.. We do not yet realize what sacrifices we shall, as a nation, be called upon to make, before the war is won and a righteous peace estab- lished. Perhaps in the next year our halls of learning will be as denuded of students as are the proudly war-scarred uni- M Bowdoin College versities of Oxford and Cambridge and Paris and Rome today. These few seniors happily present here to represent a class six times as large, the long honor- roll of undergraduates already in service, a fourth of the Faculty absent in war work, the financial burdens and worries that the times exact — these things attest in part what the war means to us. Half of the heart of the College is now in France; and the remaining half here beats in sympathy, — its thoughts largely over there. Nor is it an exaggeration to say that these conditions and these sacrifices, which are probably only a small beginning, are due in no small measure to the leadership of our American colleges in the national life during the past four years. At a college gathering such as this we are justified in empha- sizing the contribution made by our colleges in the great con- flict for freedom and humanity. It is a twofold gift — men and ideas, although perhaps it is idle to make that separation. The great service early rendered by college boys to the cause for which we now fight has not, I think, been sufficiently recognized. Long before our troops were in France, earlier even than the messengers of mercy from the Red Cross, the drivers in the American Field Ambulance service showed France that chivalry was not dead in America, and carried to the gallant and hard pressed French people the sympathy of the United States that was never neutral. By far the large majority of those ambu- lance drivers were college men; happy, care-free lads from all parts of the country, not without the faults of youth, but high spirited,- generous representatives of the American people. They anticipated Pershing's admirable phrase, "We are here, Lafayette." And while among them and in the Foreign Legion there were many athletes and many with technical training, there were also surprisingly many who were impelled to go by that idealism that is bred of literature and science and art. Some of them, like that noble Dartmouth lad who gave his life Inaugural Exercises i5 Christmas night, lie there the advance guard of that goodly company "Who give their merry youth away For country and for God." In the world of thought, from August 1914 until April 1917, our American colleges and universities were helping to mould American opinion. All over the country college professors were with remarkable unanimity outspoken in their sympathy for the allies. We sometimes forget that splendid challenge that was sent to Germany very early in the war, to lay her case before a jury of American professors. who had received their university training in Germany and who had had in the happy past many ties binding them to that land. That challenge was never accepted for the verdict was a foregone conclusion. Here at Bowdoin we may well be proud of the fact that the address of sympathy to the people of the allied nations, signed by five hundred well known Americans, bears the names of three members of our faculty — two of them the honored names of President Hyde and Professor Johnson. When the history of the war comes finally to be written, it will be seen, I think, that the colleges interpreted in advance with clear vision what was later to be the sober thought of the nation, as the college boys were the first to go overseas. Today we see the justifica- tion of it all : and no man can say that the colleges were not right. Since April 1917 our colleges, and I am speaking particularly for colleges of liberal arts, such as ours, have been making the same contribution to the nation. We have sometimes been asked what service can be rendered by our students, who have had little technical training, in a war that demands scientific skill of the highest order. To such as doubt the worth of a liberal education it may in this instance be enough to say that from our present undergraduate body boys have gone not only i6 Bowdoin College into the usual branches of the Army and Navy, but into avia- tion, into government laboratories of chemistry, as assistants in neurological work, as junior navigating officers, as v^ireless operators, as candidates for officers in heavy artillery, as students of naval architecture. This is v^hat a liberal training does today : and if one looks over the roll of Bowdoin alumni in the service, he will find the same situation. Two graduates of the College are in charge of large orthopedic hospitals for returned soldiers, one on the Atlantic, one on the Pacific coast; another is general manager of the American Red Cross; an- other is in charge of the organization of hospitals for the Army. Such service, — it can be duplicated by any other of our col- leges, — I dwell on to show that when the test came, the College was ready. Her sons who had received a liberal training, with- out great difficulty adapted themselves to new conditions and took up with intelligence and enthusiasm their tasks in the service on land and sea and in the air. And while the younger sons of the College have thus been serving their country, the College that stays at home and trains for the future has also been making its contribution to the national life by sending forth others liberally educated, by upholding ideals of patriotism and righteousness not only for its students, but for the general community. If all those voices that from university and college desks have spoken for the right should be suddenly withdrawn, unquestionably the morale of the nation would be hurt. For the people look to the colleges as never before for moral leadership. It has seemed to me appropriate to emphasize toda}^ what our colleges have been doing for the nation since the war, because one hears occasionally that all education in the future must be technical and efficient, and that the college of liberal arts must change the whole basis of its training. I do not for one instant believe it. An institution that has stood the test Inaugural Exercises 17 during these past few years has about it quaHties that are strong and abiding, and in peace even more than in war is essential to the national life, for it has proved that it can prepare for most unexpected emergencies. A nation that re- ceives annually into its stream thousands of young men at the age of twenty-one, who have had their minds quickened and their sympathies broadened by collegiate training, is going to be able to conduct a long war successfully if we are wise enough, as I doubt not we shall be, to raise and not to lower the draft age. And furthermore when the dark clouds of war pass, we shall be able to carry on the works and arts of peace more skilfully and more generously. These words of merited praise for our colleges which you all approve and which are now bestowed by the man in the street, by no means imply that our colleges cannot be bettered nor the training given improved. Indeed the measure of our pride in the college as an institution is, like Dr. Arnold's in- terest in Rugby, our desire to make it better. The pioneer stage of the American college is at an end. We have established in- stitutions of all kinds, furnished them with buildings and staked their claims. Doubtless to meet new needs new halls of learn- ing will be opened from time to time. At the present moment many of us are watching with interest the foundation in New York City of an Academy of Political Science, heralded by The Nation and The New Republic as admirably adapted to current social conditions — an institution where there is to be no President and where the Faculty is to elect the Trustees on the theory, no doubt, that then the wicked will cease from troubling and the weary will be at rest. There may be a place for such an academy, as there may be room for new technical institutes. But in the main we ought to avoid the setting up of new colleges and the duplication of work already well done. Our energies should now be employed in developing and im- i8 Bowdoin College proving the colleges and universities we already have. Each of these has its own place, its own mission, its own individu- ality: it is the part of wisdom to plan not extensively but intensively. Our colleges will need as much generous support trom individuals and from the state as has been so lavishly poured out in the past: for they must keep pace with the thought and demands of an increasingly complex civilization. Among our American colleges which are the product of American conditions and adapted to American needs, what is the distinctive place of Bowdoin? We have in the past stood stoutly for a liberal education: and we shall continue to stand for it. We have no desire to become a university, nor to tack on a technical annex; we hope to avoid also the temptation common to many small colleges who wish to become big. The type of boy to whom we appeal, the constituency from which we draw and which should be enlarged so as to include in our student body more boys from outside of New England, the standards of scholarship which we maintain — all these things will probably make it unnecessary to place any formal restric- tions, at least for many years, upon the size of our entering class. Most of us would not wish to see the College have more than five hundred students; but numbers are not the ultimate test. We are striving to make our own contribution in our own way, ready so far as details are concerned always to change with changing times, but maintaining firmly the principles and traditions of the New England college. To train men effectively, the thing of central importance is the teaching force. Here at Bowdoin we have always given, and I trust we shall always give, complete independence and a very large share of the management of the College to the Faculty. It has been a matter of policy with our Governing Boards for many years to adopt all the recommendations of the Faculty on educational matters. We hold that the members Inaugural Exercises 19 of the Faculty are not merely teachers, they are educational experts and in their hands should be placed the management of the educational policy of the College. All this is not de- termined so much by legal statute as by proper cooperation be- tween president, boards, and staff. Under President Hyde no appointment or promotion was made without the approval of the permanent faculty; and that practise will be continued. The direction of the educational policy of the College must be granted as axiomatic, if the teaching given is to be really liberal. There is small danger of fantastic vagaries among teachers who are assured of freedom and sobered by responsi- bility. Many of the unhappy instances of late, where the ques- tion of academic freedom has been raised, have occurred where teachers had no fair share, no responsibility in managing the college or university to which they were attached. In speaking of the Faculty it should not be forgotten that it is comparatively easy to secure administrators. We Americans take by nature to business and direction; it is the hardest task of the College to secure good teachers, — and a great teacher is rare indeed. If the small college offers to its teachers an opportunity to take an active part in its management, the advantages of a uni- versity in affording scholars greater facilities in books and laboratories and more in the way of professional stimulus will be in no small part offset. When people speak enthu- siastically of the power and influence of the teacher, we should ask them to make good their words by seeing that our college teachers have a chance to exercise that influence and thus not only to mould character but to mould the institution which they serve. Good teaching is so important in a small college, because a liberal training frees the mind, and the way in which a course is given is as important as the subject matter. You, Sir, in your address have mentioned the Classics, and I agree that 20 Bowdoin College the Classics still have a place of importance in the kind of education which we give. But very much depends upon how the Classics are taught. We need greatly in our national, as in our individual life, the graciousness and liberality that come from contact with other civilizations and other worlds. We all need to be reminded of pagan times ; to have awakened in us "A Pan not dead Not wholly dead." Communion with the noblest spirits of the Hellenic and Roman ages somehow or other does breed fortitude and independence, as acquaintance with Latin and Greek unquestionably chastens the style. It means something to be a citizen of the world. Many people nowadays in their conclusions on the value of Latin and Greek are like the woman who was helping a gentle- man to pack up his library. In the midst of her work she remarked, "Somehow I never cared much for books. But then," she continued after a thoughtful pause, "I can't read and that may have something to do with it." Somehow, says the modern man, I don't think much of the Classics. But then I can't read them and that may have something to do with it. It would be a wicked waste of time to insist that every student shall con- tinue the Classics in college, or rather go on with Latin, as Greek is unhappily almost extinct. Yet the average college boy will do better work in his classes, will write better English, will be a little more of a gentleman and a scholar if he has had at first hand contact with the best Latin or the best Greek that has been written. A first-rate thing is never dead. On all sides we are being called upon to give more definite instruction. But, as the proverb puts it, though we do not know the goal, we are in locomotion. It would be better if we had a clearer notion of what education is all about; but as de- mocracy in the political world was so long deferred because men, willing though they were, could not find the right solution; Inaugural Exercises 21 and as democracy in the industrial world seems to be indefinitely postponed for much the same reason, so in the educational world we have to submit to constant experimentation. I share in the general feeling that for the college the absolutely free elective system is not without serious defects, because students are not mature enough to choose well. For them freedom might be defined as in the delightful French play, "Freedom is not to do what one pleases, but to do what is deemed wise." At Bowdoin we have safeguarded the elective system positively by requiring certain work and negatively by offering limited courses. We ought, however, in my judgment to make sure that every student before graduation should have had some work, whether in language, history, or art, that would give him insight into the ancient world; some courses that would introduce him to Eng- lish and other modern literatures; some work in philosophy or psychology; some courses in history and economics; and surely some work that would give him the point of view of modern science. A student who has had the foundations of a college course solidly laid by rigorous and for the most part prescribed courses; who pursues at least one subject intensively, and who has not utterly neglected literature, philosophy, history, and science would have at least the elements of a liberal education. It is a pity, too, that our machinery calls for courses and not for subjects. "I don't care anything about French: I need another course," is a remark heard on more than one campus. We should do well to substitute more general examinations for course credits. The undergraduate today is all too liable to think of his collegiate education as a conglomeration of units or hours or points, not as a unified intellectual accomplishment. We ought also to insist more on quality and less on quantity. The college can render great service by peaching and practicing the virtue of honest workmanship. Many a student gets in the business world the training in accuracy he should have received 22 Bowdoin College in college. Our boys in the officers' training camps write that the collegiate demands both on time and brains are relatively slight compared with the work required of them in military ancf naval science. Of course with such boys there is the immediate incentive of preparation for war; conditions would 'change much if peace were suddenly to be declared. And it is because the goal is necessarily distant and general that in our colleges we have so often to spur a student and so seldom to restrain him. For all that, we are to seek, whenever we fail to insist on thoroughness. A student's idea of accuracy is often like that of the fisherman's lad in the well known Maine story. His mother was writing to an absent member of the family. "George is going out mackerel fishing tomorrow with Captain Crabtree." "Is that all right, George?" "Well", said George, "it ain't to- morrow and it ain't mackerel and it ain't Captain Crabtree; but I guess it's all right". In trivial matters it is all right: and our students are concerned, and rightly concerned, with so many things besides books that we have become pretty generous. But if we recognize that one of our national weak- nesses is a failure to recognize the necessity of hard work and a willingness to believe one can "get by" through doing the big thing without the thorough attention to details; we should insist on accurate knowledge of whatever is learned and not be con- tent with half done hasty performance. As Mr. Barrett Wendell so recently and so wittily remarked — the German has the faculty of knowing things without understanding much about them. The American on the contrary understands things without knowing much about them. There is a happy medium. And back of all we undertake, more important than the necessarily complicated methods and machinery of modern college administration, must be the impelling, driving spiritual force. "In college we deal with the spirits of men, not with their fortunes," wrote once a distinguished teacher. Our aim Inaugural Exercises 23 is not vocational : our goal is not efficiency. We hold that the real object of education is to make men free intellectually and spiritually, to develop the resourceful mind in a strong Christian character. Education concerns itself primarily with the in- dividual. It strives to make him not only a more useful, but a happier, more tolerant man. A person who in his formative years becomes acquainted even somewhat distantly with the best in literature and science and art, who has had some training in philosophical and religious thought, and in the historical point of view has within himself resources that will grow only more potent and more delightful with age. These are all truisms but they need constant repetition. I'he things of the spirit are the eternal things: they live on and endure when war and lust of conquest have passed. Think how many changes of government, what political revolutions, what de- vastating wars the ancient universities of Europe have wit- nessed. At times they have been in invaders' hands: often they have had temporarily to suspend. But Learning, the hand- maid of Freedom and Truth, though crushed to earth will al- ways rise again. This College after the sacrifices of the Civil War emerged only the more serene. And thus we doubt not it shall be in the future. Changes in administration and in detail there will of course be, some of them temporary such as are already contemplated to suit war conditions, others more lasting to adapt our course to an ever-changing world. But we shall be true to the ancient traditions, the ancient heritage of this institution: the spirit of the College will live on When years have clothed the lines in moss That tell our names and day and we shall strive to be true to those principles not only for ourselves, but for our beloved country. There is being fought now and there will be fought many years after the war ends 24 Bowdoin College the conflict between materialism and idealism. Through the terrible but purifying fires of war we are readjusting our ideas on the real values of life. In the nineteenth century there was antagonism between the humanities and science, until science won her rightful position in the world of thought. Today all that is changed; science and the older studies are allies in a common cause. In reading the admirable report of the Eng- lish Committee appointed by the Prime Minister to inquire into the position of Natural Science in the Educational System of Great Britain one is struck by this sentence. "While science should be valued as the bringer of prosperity and power to the individual or the nation, it must never be divorced from those literary and historical studies which touch most naturally the heart and the hopes of mankind." Science is fast being humanized: it may not be too much to hope that the humani- ties may be humanized too. So science and letters both con- secrated and vivified may train the soul of the nation. These are some of the hopes and fears that we entertain for the College as we start to carry on her work under a new administration, nurtured and strengthened by the influence of that great presidency that closed last June. Some of these fears may be groundless; many of these hopes will not be fulfilled. But with the aid and sympathy of all friends of the College we trust in this far eastern corner of our country to keep burn- ing on the shrine of scholarship and literature the lamp that has lighted the path of so many sons of Bowdoin in the past. It is not a garish light; but there is something warm and enheartening in its flame. It has made happier not only men who are enrolled in the book of Fame but many whose duties carry them along shaded paths and quiet streets. In these dark days it burns clearly on. "He was our only child", wrote to me the father of one of our boys killed in action in France, "and while our loss is irreparable, we are with you proud of Inaugural Exercises 25 the achievements of his brief life and glad to remember that we gave him an education the last of which was the wonderful inspiration and broadening influences received at Bowdoin which shall last through all eternity". That is one illustration of dealing with the spirits of men, not with their fortunes. And because we believe that in acquainting men with the best that has been said and thought in the world and in training them to carry that idealism into action we can contribute to them the most happiness and to the nation the best service; because we believe that, we shall continue to give at Bowdoin College a liberal education. Marshal for the Day Professor William Witherle Lawrence, Ph.D., Litt.D., of Columbia University. Delegates and Guests Attending the Inauguration Representing the State of Maine His Excellency Carl Elias Milliken, LL.D., Governor of Maine, with his Staff. Members of the Governor's Council. Hon. Leslie Colby Cornish, LL.D., Chief Justice of the Su- preme Judicial Court. Augustus Orloff Thomas, Ph.D., State Superintendent of Public Schools. Hon. Harold Marsh Sewall, LL.B., Chairman of the Maine Committee of Public Safety. Representing Nezv England Educational Institutions Professor Edwin Herbert Hall, Ph.D., LL.D., Harvard Uni- versity. Professor Byron Satterlee Hurlbut, A.M., Harvard Uni- versity. Professor Henry Pratt Fairchild, Ph.D., Yale University. Professor Francis Greenleaf Allinson, Ph.D., Brown University. Business Director Homer Eaton Keyes, A.M., Dartmouth Col- lege. Acting President George Henry Perkins, Ph.D., LL.D., Uni- versity of Vermont. Acting President Henry Daniel Wild, A.M., Williams College. President Arthur Jeremiah Roberts, A.M., Colby College. Inaugural Exercises 27 President David Nelson Beach, D.D., Bangor Theological Seminary. Dean George Daniel Olds, LL.D., Amherst College. Dean Frank Walter Nicolson, A.M., Wesleyan University. Dean Ida Josephine Everett, A.M., Wheaton College. President Hermon Carey Bumpus, Ph.D., LL.D., Tufts College. Dean Frank George Wren, A.M., Tufts College. Professor William Thompson Sedgwick, Ph.D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology. President Robert Judson Aley, Ph.D., LL.D., University of Maine. President George Colby Chase, D;D., LL.D., Bates College. Professor Lyman Granville Jordan, Ph.D., Bates College. Professor Fred Austin Knapp, A.M., Bates College. Professor Fred Elmer Pomeroy, A.M., Bates College. President Ralph Dome Hetzel, LL.D., New Hampshire College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts. Professor Mabel Elisabeth Hodder, Ph.D., Wellesley College. Professor Frank Hamilton Hankins, Ph.D., Clark University. President Howard Edwards, LL.D., Rhode Island State College. Other Guests Henry Pomeroy Davison, LL.D., Chairman of the War Council, The American Red Cross. President Frederick Carlos Ferry, Ph.D., LL.D., Hamilton College. Professor Waterman Thomas Hewett, Ph.D., Cornell Uni- versity. Rt. Rev. Benjamin Brewster, D.D., Bishop of Maine. Rev. Ashley Day Leavitt, D.D., Portland, Maine. Donald Baxter MacMillan, Sc.D., Freeport, Maine. 28 Bowdoin College Comraenceraent Speakers Henry Pomeroy Davison, LL.D., for the American Red Cross. Hon. Leslie Colby Cornish, LL.D., for the State of Maine. President George Colby Chase, D.D., LL.D., for the other Maine Colleges. Donald Baxter MacMillan, Sc.D., for the Alumni. Dean Frank Walter Nicolson, A.M., for the other New England Colleges. President Frederick Carlos Ferry, Ph.D., LL.D., for the Col- leges outside of New England. Rev. Ashley Day Leavitt, D.D., for the Church. Inaugural Exercises 29 Congratulatory Letters THE WHITE HOUSE Washington 22 May, 1918 My dear Professor Sills: I am sincerely interested to learn of your approaching inauguration as President of Bowdoin College, and beg that you will accept my most sincere congratulations. I am sorry to say that it is out of the question for me to consider such pleasures as you invite me to. It is only too clear that I cannot attend the inauguration, but you may be sure that my best wishes will go with you in the new duties which you are undertaking. Cordially and sincerely yours, (Signed) WOODROW WILSON. Professor Kenneth C. M. Sills, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine. 30 Bowdoin College THE SECRETARY OF THE NAVY, Washington. 21 May, 1918. My dear Dean Sills: I thank you most cordially for your telegram of the i6th inst. inviting me to be present at your inauguration as Presi- dent of Bowdoin. I do not know of anything that would give me as much pleasure as to accept, and nothing but the stress of official duties here in Washington would prevent me having the pleasure. I congratulate Bowdoin and congratulate you, and I wish you to know how deeply I value your friendship. Wishing you continued success and regreting my inability to be with you, believe me always. Sincerely yours, (Signed) JOSEPHUS DANIELS. Dean Kenneth C. M. Sills, Brunswick, Maine. Inaugural Exercises 3^ HARVARD UNIVERSITY CAMBRIDGE President's Office. May 28, 19 18. Dear President Sills: Let me congratulate you most heartily upon being the Presi- dent of Bowdoin College. It is a great opportunity, and ex- tremely interesting work. I am sorry that I shall not be able to be at your inauguration on June 20th, as that is the ver}- day of our Commencement here. With best wishes, I am Very truly yours, (Signed) A. LAWRENCE LOWELL President Kenneth C. M. Sills, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine. 32 Bowdoin College YALE UNIVERSITY New Haven, Connecticut. President's Office, Woodbridge Hall, 105 Wall Street. May 2y, 1918. My dear President Sills: I wish with all my heart that T were able to attend your inauguration on Thursday, June twentieth. Unfortunately our own Commencement comes on Wednesday, June nineteenth.; and the exercises last until so late an hour that it would be impossible for me to reach Brunswick in time for the inauguration. I must therefore content myself with sending you most cordial good wishes. Apart from the debt our country owes to Bowdoin, we here at Yale are under special personal indebtedness in many ways; and I feel sure that during your administration the same delightful relations will continue which haA^e been maintained under your predecessor. Very sincerely, ARTHUR T. HADLEY. President Kenneth C. M. Sills, Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine,