^iTY ^ i 
 
 /.d J qiiiS 
 
 <P 
 
 THE HEAD OF MARK HOPKINS HAS BEEN PLACED 
 ON THE NEW BRONZE DOORS OF THE CAPITOL 
 AT WASHINGTON IN THE PANEL WITH THOSE 
 OF EMERSON AND AGASSIZ. 
 
 Following are some of the comments of the press in regard 
 to him at the time of his death — 
 
 Argus, Albany: 
 
 Massachusetts, his native commonwealth, and even the 
 United States are not broad and wide enough to contain the 
 full measure of the fame of this grand old man, who was, in 
 its broadest sense, a citizen of the whole earth. 
 
 The Christian Union: 
 
 Everything about him was great ; his bodily frame and 
 stature, his countenance, massive and leonine, yet softened by 
 an inward grace, a dignity that was never lessened and a play- 
 fulness that was never lacking in social intercourse, the perfect 
 '- ’-simplicity of true greatness, a humility profound, central and 
 wholly moral, combined with a noble consciousness of himself 
 in which no great man is lacking. If we spread over these 
 G qualities the grace of benignity, we will have a fair outline of 
 the man. 
 
 Journal, Albany: 
 
 The sudden death of ex-President Mark Hopkins of Williams 
 College at William’stown today ends one of the most remarkable 
 and useful careers in the records of our country. * * * As 
 a writer of religious and philosophical works Dr. Hopkins ranks 
 with the foremost of American thinkers. Those who knew 
 him can not speak without emotion of the charm and beauty 
 of his private life. 
 
2 
 
 Journal, Boston : 
 
 In the death of Dr. Hopkins, ex-President of Williams Col- 
 lege, the country has lost one of its foremost educators, one of 
 its finest minds, one of its noblest and sweetest spirits. As Dr. 
 Peabody once finely said of him, no one appreciated his pre- 
 eminence as an educator more than those who approached 
 nearest to him in that profession. * * * To have been 
 
 brought in contact with him, to have known him as teacher 
 and friend, to have received his counsel and sympathy, are 
 privileges which hundreds of Williams graduates today cherish 
 among the brightest memories of their lives. The feeling which 
 his students had for him was something more than respect or 
 admiration ; it was a true and deep afifection, which was undi- 
 minished by the lapse of years, and which will only take on a 
 new sacredness now that the object o’f it has passed to his rest. 
 
 Times, New York: 
 
 His death removes from the ranks of educators one of the 
 most loved of teachers, one of the most eminent of philo- 
 sophical writers, and one of the men who have been' longest 
 active as instructors. He had long been regarded as the fore- 
 most philosophic thinker born in this country since the days of 
 Jonathan Edwards. Moreover, by his peculiar aptitude in 
 imparting information and in stimulating original thought he 
 did a wonderful work in the way of popularizing philosophic 
 studies. Much of his success in this work was due to his great 
 mental acumen and the clearness and simplicity of his methods. 
 
 Journal, Boston : 
 
 Every one who is familiar with Dr. Hopkins’s administration 
 of the college knows how heavily the pecuniary problems of 
 its management pressed uponr him, and that it often happened 
 that the most magnificent educator of his time was obliged to 
 take time and strength which he would have chosen to give 
 to his classes for the work of securing funds, 
 
3 
 
 Daily Advertiser, Boston: 
 
 It would seem wonderful to a stranger, but not to one who 
 has ever had an opportunity of meeting him, the veneration in 
 which Dr. Hopkins is held, not only in Williamstown, but in 
 the surrounding vicinity. The students of the college fairly 
 idolize him, and the townspeople look upon him as one of the 
 greatest men living. * And so he is, for in his simple, unostenta- 
 tious way he has done more to mould public character into 
 the right channels than, perhaps, any other living man. 
 
 Republican, Springfield : 
 
 The afifection for Dr. Hopkins is in no sense an autumnal 
 enthusiasm, for it has been shared by every class which he 
 taught. * * In the class room he was clear, benignant 
 
 and masterful. * * It has been said of Dr. Hopkins, as 
 
 Baxter said of Matthew Hale, “On philosophical and founda- 
 tion points, his very questions did help me to more light than 
 other men’s solutions.” His mental habits were leisurely, 
 logical rather than intuitive, and they were as distinctly a 
 growth and advancement as the processes of nature. His sys- 
 tem of philosophy was an upbuilding, and as he went on from 
 gravitation to the highest attributes of man the student ex- 
 perienced a peculiar delight in the orderliness of the procedure 
 — and it would have taken an able opponent of the Hopkins 
 system to convince the fresh young mind that God did not 
 think just as Mark Hopkins did. The keen and kindly humor 
 which Dr. Hopkins displayed was one of his most charming 
 possessions, and as it flashed out as an episode in the stately 
 march of his mind it was very illuminating. 
 
 Independent, New York : 
 
 He had a superb physique. He was a “King of men.” In 
 estimating the breadth of his influence this fact should not be 
 overlooked. None except those who were near him in the days 
 when as President he “taught all the studies of the senior class, 
 corrected all their, literary exercises, and preached once every 
 
4 
 
 Sabbath,’’ which he did for twenty long years, can know the 
 physical energy and grip of his manhood. He had great 
 staying power. 
 
 One very striking and beautiful thing to remember of him 
 is that in the last years of his life his mind opened to the widest 
 sympathies. His appreciation of scholarship, of culture, of the 
 value of truth and character in every phase grew, those who 
 knew him best say, with every receding year. He always 
 loved truth and he always loved noble character. But his 
 great mind got farther and farther away from the narrowing 
 lines of sect and dogma, nearer and nearer to the great heart 
 of things. 
 
 Evening Post, New York: 
 
 But with all this wide range of instruction in the class-room. 
 Dr. Hopkins has been a great power with the students through 
 his personal character and example. In him they have seen a 
 man of the rarest combination of qualities, of the highest mental 
 ability, acknowledged as one of the foremost thinkers of the 
 time, who has moved among men in the most modest and 
 unassuming manner. No man was ever more accessible or 
 more ready to show his fellow-feeling with all classes and con- 
 ditions. Children were drawn to him, and the most illiterate 
 could approach him with freedom. He was too broad-minded 
 to be held within the limitations of any school, party, or sect. 
 He sought truth, and welcomed it from all sources. He was 
 patient and tolerant with others. Firm and determined in 
 exposing error and rebuking wrong, he was always courteous 
 and sparing in denunciation. His strength was in his clear- 
 mindedness and his ability to make the truth so clear that 
 others could see it, and in the affectionate earnestness with 
 which he commended it to them. 
 
 Berkshire County Eagle, Mass. : 
 
 Hon. Marshall Wilcox, a graduate of Williams in the class 
 of ’44, spoke next and feelingly told of the worth of the de- 
 
parted man. Mark Hopkins was a remarkable man. He was by 
 nature endowed with that physical strength which marked him 
 everywhere. He was physically perfect, from the soles of his 
 feet to the top of his head, and this figure was but a fitting 
 abiding place for the master spirit within. He has been a 
 fixed star in the firmament of the country for fifty years. We 
 have been illumined and instructed and guided by its light as 
 no other man could guide. He has been connected with 
 Williams college for more than sixty years. No other man 
 could have so upheld the college, and this was due chiefly to 
 his moral power which was the basis of the man. Mark Hop- 
 kins was a man 'of Christian life. Were I asked, “Where is a 
 perfect man ?” I should point to Mark Hopkins for he was the 
 most perfect man I ever knew. Whoever taught the principles 
 of Christianity more clearly or more forcibly? Throughout his 
 long life no reproach ever shaded it. His whole heart was with 
 the college; it was the child of his afifections. He was the 
 father of the college, the crowning glory of our country. He 
 led, guided, moulded and shaped it. His influence as a teacher 
 was world wide. His idea was not to make learned men, but 
 good men, and thus, great men; for there is no greatness that 
 is not founded upon goodness. He was modest ; he had not 
 that genius of audacity of which we hear. He maintained the 
 college to make useful men, based on the moral qualifications 
 which he possessed. To see him was to be impressed by him. 
 His figure was an inspiration and told us that we stood in the 
 presence of a superior man. His countenance was lined with 
 the stamp of a good and pure man. When he preached he 
 impressed you with the spirit with which he was himself 
 inspired. This was the secret of his power — to impress, in 
 school or out, touching every student. His influence today 
 pervades the world. His life success was due to the great moral 
 power and goodness with which he impressed everybody. We 
 all loved him, especially during the senior year when his mind 
 ranged over us. This was, to us, the crowning year of all and 
 more prolific of good than all the others put together. Mark 
 
6 
 
 Hopkins was the greatest, most distinguished, most brilliant 
 man ever produced in this country. A great teacher is a great 
 man, and he was the chief of the great men of this country. 
 He stands foremost among the many great men and women 
 this country has produced. 
 
 The Congregationalist. By Rev. Addison P. Foster, D.D. : 
 
 Another of the world’s great men has gone to his rest. This 
 land has seldom seen his equal ; and the Old World, with its 
 larger list — its Arnold, its Maurice, its Stanley — has none 
 superior. * * * The first thing that impressed us there in 
 
 Dr. Hopkins was his greatness of character. There were in 
 him a dignity and benignity combined which greatly moved 
 us. It is not often that the emotions of fear and love are 
 awakened by the same person. Such a power we find in God, 
 but seldom in man. It was, however, in Dr. Hopkins. We 
 feared him and loved him. His greatness awed us; his good- 
 ness won us. * * * 
 
 That which impressed the world most in Dr. Hopkins was 
 his greatness of thought. He was a rare thinker, less dependent 
 on books, more nearly original in his methods and conclusions, 
 than almost any other man of his time. He had unusual 
 analytical power. As he turned the blowpipe of his thought 
 on the most difficult subject, it melted and flowed down before 
 him, and was instantly resolved into its parts. 
 
 Evening Post, New York. By N. H. Egleston : 
 
 By general consent Dr. Hopkins stands before our minds as 
 a great teacher, with all that the word implies. In this respect 
 he was unique in the history of our country, and stands apart 
 from all others. He recalls to us the character and work of 
 Socrates as no one else does, but with the added grace and 
 virtue of a finished Christian character, which was a distinctive 
 element in all his teaching. 
 
7 
 
 Rev. S. W. Pratt, in Evangelist : 
 
 I have taken notes of a great many speakers, but of no other 
 whom I could follow so easily, or whose thought I could get 
 so clearly. All things considered, he was the greatest preacher 
 I ever heard and the greatest man I ever knew. When I try 
 to conceive of Gladstone ‘‘the grand old man,” the image of 
 President Hopkins comes before me, who is to me the grand 
 old man. 
 
 Hrgw.?, Albany: 
 
 No one could attend a commencement at Williams College 
 and remain a total stranger to his personality. The love and 
 almost idolatry that gathered around the venerable form of 
 this hoary seer v/ere a revelation to observant persons of the 
 grand traits and gifts that could inspire them. The attentive 
 hush that settled on the gay and careless assemblage at alumni 
 dinner when he rose to speak was affecting and thrilling. 
 
 Commonzvealth, Boston : 
 
 Williams College, Massachusetts, the country and the world 
 lose a great light in the death of Mark Hopkins. As thinker, 
 teacher and preacher, he stood pre-eminent. None bore more 
 willing or loving testimony to his commanding ability than 
 those who ranked nearest him, and none will mourn his loss 
 more deeply than they. His mind and temper were especially 
 calculated to impress and shape the personality of others, and 
 at the teachers’ desk he found his greatest field of usefulness. 
 How well he did his life-work, how faithful his ministrations, 
 how simple yet rich and rounded his life, the world knows 
 chiefly through the lives of others who passed under the spell 
 of his influence. The announcement of his death may well 
 bring sorrowful yet loving tributes from all parts of the coun- 
 try. Few men are by nature so richly endowed and still fewer 
 employ their power so modestly, worthily and with such far 
 reaching effect. 
 
8 
 
 D. C. Brewer in the New York Observer: 
 
 This man we mourn, God’s wonder-working hand 
 Framed for a masterpiece; and though the tide 
 Of time has dared to sweep the well-loved face 
 From out our sight, yet ages shall not hide 
 His goodly fame ; and though with might, a race 
 Of giants fill the earth, and distant skies 
 Resound their deeds — the sweet and proud renown 
 Of this devoted one shall still remain. 
 
 An heirloom to all men. 
 
 Rev. C. H. Rickett,, in Springfield Republican: 
 
 Dr. Hopkins was remarkable for the versatility of his genius. 
 He was a regular trained physician, was a master of rhetoric 
 and during the weak days of Williams college was sole in- 
 structor of the senior class, but the chief fame lay in his ex- 
 position of empyrical truth. He had the rare faculty of grasp- 
 ing great truths in their entirety and making others see them 
 as clearly as himself. In all his teachings he was clear, con- 
 cise and comprehensive. He was a consummate master of the 
 difficult art of saying much in strong, nervous, readable Eng- 
 lish. He was a man of exceptional symmetry. His figure, like 
 Saul’s, was superb, and his physical energy such that for 
 twenty years he did the work of two ordinary men. But mind 
 and body were matched by the breadth of his sympathies and 
 the simplicity of his life. In his death the learned Christian 
 world has lost a prince. 
 
 C hie ago T ribune : 
 
 One of the greatest men in this country, if not in the world, 
 passed away yesterday morning. Dr. Mark Hopkins has con- 
 fessedly occupied the foremost position among metaphysicians 
 and divines for half a century. His works are many and 
 standards on the subjects of what they treat. His students — 
 and they number thousands — will deeply deplore his loss. 
 
9 
 
 Boston Advertiser: 
 
 Mark Hopkins is dead. The towering, white-haired, noble 
 figure, the man whom to so many men seemed more fitly than 
 any other to combine the “strength and beauty” of which 
 he so often wrote and preached, is gone. Theologian, keen 
 and powerful teacher, whose influence and personality more 
 than anything else have made Williams College what it is 
 today ; writer of simple, luminous English ; speaker, vigorous 
 and eloquent; advisor of public men, ardent lover of truth 
 and despiser of sham, a man, many sided, quick to thought 
 and earnest in action, singular in purity, notable for breadth 
 and liberalism, his loss is one that comes straight home to 
 thousands of minds and hearts. 
 
 To those who in budding young manhood looked up to him 
 and were led and moulded by him, the news will come like that 
 of the death of a parent. “The dear old doctor” it has been 
 for many a year, and this the endearing term applied with 
 ripening age. “Mark, the perfect man,” was the affectionate 
 pun of earlier years. A student pensketch of four strokes, an 
 epigram that gathers well the complete respect and fond regard 
 that he enjoyed. “I would rather sit at one end of a pine table 
 with Mark Hopkins at the other, than to have the tuition of 
 the greatest university in the land,” is the remark which 
 Williams College tradition credits to President Garfield. 
 
 Mail and Express: 
 
 Dr. Hopkins’s career was as unique as it was protracted and 
 full of honors and usefulness. All over the world are men 
 eminent in all the walks of life who had been in the habit of 
 regarding President Hopkins not only as their own beloved 
 teacher, but as the Prince of all teachers, as a father and as a 
 friend. 
 
 Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, N. Y. : 
 
 Mark Hopkins was among the foremost minds of his day and 
 generation — a trained controversialist, when occasion demanded 
 
10 
 
 a thoroughly equipped scholar, a superb pulpit orator, a skilled 
 metaphysician, but more than all a college president unexcelled 
 in capacity as a teacher and in the leading of an exalted morality 
 and spirituality. There may not be another better college 
 president than was Mark Hopkins at his best estate. 
 
 J. A. Wight : 
 
 To me he stands the tallest, broadest, grandest man whom 
 I have ever known. 
 
 The world has, and will continue to have, great men ; but 
 the like of Mark Hopkins need not be expected. 
 
 By Washington Gladden : 
 
 To the Tishbite, stony-eyed 
 
 With a sorrow no speech might break, 
 
 ’Twas the callow prophets cried: 
 
 “Knowest thou that the Lord will take 
 Our master from us today, — 
 
 That today his voice shall cease?” 
 
 “Yea,” saith the prophet; “yea, 
 
 I know it ; hold ye your peace !” 
 
 No sons of the prophets we; 
 
 To us no vision came 
 Of the whirlwind’s majesty. 
 
 And the chariot of flame ; 
 
 Yet forth from us one was caught 
 To the seats of the seraphim ; 
 
 Our Master; lo, he was not; 
 
 For God had taken him. 
 
 List, the morning stars are hushed 
 As the mighty soul takes wing. 
 
 And the tremulous skies are flushed 
 Where the portals open swing; 
 
 From the earth, no voice nor cry; 
 
 From the heaven but the dropping dew; 
 
 And for men who look steadfastly 
 Into heaven, there is silence too, 
 
11 
 
 No murmuring note we raise, 
 
 No dubious word we dare; 
 
 For the prophet, the heart’s deep praise 
 For his mantle, a voiceless prayer ! 
 
 Translated, as it was meet. 
 
 Ere his spirit’s eye grew dim ; 
 
 From the paths that knew his feet 
 It was only a step for him. 
 
 O kingly soul ! dost thou 
 
 From the blue above us bend 
 
 With a benediction now? 
 
 To us who loved thee, send 
 
 Thy peace, in our hearts to stay, — 
 
 Thy courage, our souls to cheer? 
 
 We wait for thy voice today. 
 
 For, verily, thou art here! 
 
 We see thee, standing there. 
 
 The tall form gravely bent; 
 
 The thin and silvery hair 
 
 O’er the lordly dome besprent ; 
 
 The keen uplifted glance; 
 
 The long arm’s curving sweep; 
 
 The serious countenance 
 
 Where the merry twinkles sleep. 
 
 We hear thee speaking now. 
 
 Each weighty word well weighed, — 
 
 Simple, and clear and slow, — 
 
 No rattling fanfaronade 
 
 Of words, but a master’s thought. 
 Untainted by sneers or gibes. 
 
 Like his who the people taught 
 With authority, not as the scribes. 
 
12 
 
 And now come memories fleet 
 Of the dear delightful days 
 
 When we sat at this Master’s feet, 
 And spake with him face to face ; 
 
 The plain old room, once more. 
 
 With its serried benches bare! 
 
 And the Teacher, sitting before. 
 
 In his quaint old swinging chair. 
 
 Now a question strikes a spark. 
 
 And the theme begins to shine. 
 
 Till the truth that once was dark 
 Is touched with a gleam divine; 
 
 There find we guidance meet 
 In a way we had not known, 
 
 From the pebbles under our feet 
 To the sapphire under the Throne. 
 
 And the ever quickening word 
 That finds us, and leaves us, men ; 
 
 “Stand up!” the summons is heard; 
 What answerest thou again? 
 
 Thus Plato reasoned of old ; 
 
 Thus Spencer reasoneth now; 
 
 Thus Kant hath the story told ; 
 
 Thou hearest ; what sayest thou ? 
 
 “For thyself be wise; walk thou 
 In the light that lighteth thee ; 
 
 For the truth that thou dost know. 
 
 Is the truth that maketh free; 
 
 And lo ! he is ever nigh 
 
 Who is Lord and Giver of light ; 
 
 To him lift up thine eye. 
 
 And he shall guide thee aright.” 
 
13 
 
 ^ And ever, amid the noise 
 
 Of the world’s tumultuous throng, 
 
 We have heard that august voice, 
 
 “Up ! quit you like men ; be strong !” 
 
 We shall hear, as we have heard. 
 
 Till the last long silence fall ; 
 
 For the Master’s quickening word. 
 
 It abideth with us all. 
 
 Referring to Arnold and Agassiz, Dr. Spring says : “But no 
 one of those eminent men was as great an artist in the class- 
 room, no one of them carried instruction to such a consummate 
 pitch of spiritual power as Dr. Hopkins. His art was as natural 
 and as unstudied as the lyric gifts of Robert Burns. It was 
 worth a journey across the continent to see him manage a 
 class.” In no great man has there been a finer blending of 
 traits. 
 
 President Andrews. 
 
 He kindled fires which will burn as long as human intellects 
 respond to great thoughts : and millions of men who never saw 
 Williams College have felt their souls kindle under the glow 
 of his splendid intellect. 
 
 F. H. Kasson, in Education. 
 
 Speaking of President Eliot : 
 
 One can hardly help comparing this best representative of 
 the new with the best representative of the old. This repre- 
 sentative is President Hopkins. They stand alike for virility, 
 mighty personality, wisdom, comprehensiveness of plan, devo- 
 tion to duty. President Hopkins touched men as individuals. 
 * * * The like of President Hopkins we shall not soon see 
 
 again. 
 
 President Thwing, in The Forum. 
 
14 
 
 President Hopkins occupied the pulpit last Sunday morning 
 and preached one of his best sermons presenting a great truth 
 with rare clearness, simplicity and power. Those who heard 
 him, recognize no signs of mental decay, only the ripened 
 richness and benignant splendors of autumn. — Adams Paper. 
 
 One of the greatest men of the Age. — Springfield Paper. 
 
 The first of living educators. 
 
 Dr. A. P. Peabody. 
 
 I desire on behalf of the people of Massachusetts to thank 
 you for the long patient and beneficent service you have 
 rendered to the republic of letters. It is a source of pride and 
 solace to us that we can claim your long life as a glorious part 
 of our public riches. 
 
 Governor Bullock. 
 
 We can not if we would, and if we could we will not transfer 
 to any other the profound reverence, the deep affection, with 
 which we cherish the name and fame of the retiring President. 
 His title to these is inalienable and imperishable. We will not 
 ask you to bend the bow of Ulysses. Let it here remain unbent 
 forever as the sacred symbol and trophy of victories achieved. 
 
 President Garfield to President Hopkins' successor. 
 
 The death of Dr. Mark Hopkins, ex-president of Williams 
 College, at his home in Williamstown, June 17, at the ripe age 
 of eighty-five years, four months, recalls his own words when 
 delivering the funeral oration of President Chadbourne — “A 
 great light has gone down, but it has not gone out.” By 
 common consent he occupied the position, recently assigned 
 him by Dr. A. P. Peabody, of Cambridge, that of “the foremost 
 place among American educators.” For over sixty years he 
 was connected with Williams College, three years as a student, 
 two as a tutor, six as a professor, thirty-six as president, and 
 then again fifteen years as a professor . — Peace Journal. 
 
IS 
 
 The Harvard 250th Anniversary. 
 
 Giving the Degrees. 
 
 The giving out of honorary degrees was a splendid incident. 
 For the time in the history of the university, probably in defer- 
 ence to the new order of things, President Eliot spoke entirely 
 in English, and it speaks volumes that his words lost not an 
 iota of impressiveness on that account. Governor Robinson 
 was the first to receive his new title, and then came Secretary 
 Lamar and Senator Hoar. Each was greeted heartily and long, 
 especially the governor. When President Dwight of Yale arose, 
 the graduates crowded reparation for whole years of rivalry 
 and bitterness into enthusiastic hand-clapping and cheers. But 
 the most significant incident was when the venerable Dr. 
 Hopkins rose. Cheer rang upon cheer, and it was long before 
 the president could proceed. The tribute to Dr. Dwight was 
 given largely for his college. The greeting of Dr. Hopkins was 
 the tribute solely to a great and good man, and showed that 
 there is still reverence for such things among our young men. 
 
 By the death of Mark Hopkins, ex-President of Williams 
 College, America loses one of her most distinguished educators. 
 Probably the annals of no country contains a record of con- 
 tinuous service by an instructor in one institution which equals 
 his in length and unflagging activity. As tutor, president and 
 professor, he devoted about sixty of his eighty-five years to 
 hard work within the walls of his Alma Mater, and made his 
 name famous all over the United States and Europe. Every 
 detail of college government passed directly Under his eye ; 
 and his powerful personality so impressed itself upon every 
 department that the sentiments of the great majority of 
 Williams graduates who enjoyed the benefit of his instruction 
 were w-ell voiced by the late President Garfield, when he said : 
 ‘T would rather take my college course in a log cabin, in daily 
 contact with Mark Hopkins,* than in the most magnificently 
 equipped university the old world ever boasted, without him.’’ — 
 Evening Star. 
 
16 
 
 From Williams College Obituary Record: 
 
 Those who have enjoyed the instruction of Dr. Hopkins 
 will not feel that the words of the Albany Lazu Journal are any 
 too strong in saying: “We do not hesitate to pronounce Dr. 
 Hopkins at once the most original and most influential in- 
 structor who has ever lived in this country, combining grace 
 with strength, simplicity with profundity, wit with reason, and 
 the most cheerful tolerance of the opinions of others with a 
 mild and persuasive assertion of his own.” 
 
 i 
 
 HarpeAs Magazine of June, 1886, says of Dr. Hopkins: 
 Indisputably the foremost philosophic thinker of our country 
 since the time of Edwards, and combining with great mental 
 acumen remarkable aptitude as a teacher, it was almost a 
 matter of course that in his hands philosophic studies should 
 have a place of more than usual prominence. He has had in 
 a remarkable degree the faculty of making mental and moral 
 science, usually regarded as abtruse and repulsive to the 
 majority of students, both intelligible and attractive. It has 
 been his conviction that we may know and ought to know 
 what is nearest to us, ourselves ; that we are capable of ascer- 
 taining the laws and movements of our own being. This, in 
 his apt, clear way, he has taught year after year, and many 
 are the graduates of Williams who look back upon their studies 
 in philosophy as the most interesting and valuable of their 
 college course; indeed many a son of Williams looks back to 
 senior year as the most memorable year of his life. 
 
 The venerable and venerated Mark Hopkins, says the 
 Springfield Union, was one of the greatest men of his age.. 
 He had great ability and he used it reverently toward God and 
 lovingly toward men. As an educator his work as the head of 
 Williams College was of the very first importance, and his 
 “boys” are in all parts of the civilized world and are better and 
 stronger men because the impress of Mark Hopkins’s noble 
 character was placed upon them during their college life. — 
 Massachusetts Paper. 
 
17 
 
 It would seem wonderful to a stranger, but not to one who 
 has ever had an opportunity of meeting him, the veneration 
 in which Dr. Hopkins is held, not only in Williamstown, but 
 in the surrounding vicinity. The students of the college fairly 
 idolize him, and the townspeople look upon him as one of the 
 great men living. And so he is, for in his simple, unosten- 
 tatious way he has done more to mould public character into 
 the right channels than, perhaps, any other living man. His 
 mode of life is a perpetual example to all who come in con- 
 tact with him, and the strict integrity which has always charac- 
 terized him is before the eyes of all. His fatherly counsel has 
 proved a source of happiness to many a troubled young man, 
 and his house is a haven of refuge for all who used good advice. 
 He is radically practical and practically radical — a combination 
 seldom met with. He can be inflexible when necessary and 
 stern to the offender. Many a delinquent has quailed before 
 that piercing glance and the calm severity of his questions. 
 
 In his manners. Dr. Hopkins is a courtly gentleman of the 
 old school, affable, gentle, and with the refinement that comes 
 from a vast amount of information and a thorough knowledge 
 of mankind . — Boston Daily Advertiser. 
 
 With tall, erect, commanding presence, -finely chiselled, 
 aristocratic features, high forehead, very bright eyes, looking 
 out piercingly and far from under their shaggy, penthouse 
 eyebrows, aquiline nose, and a mouth conveying the idea of 
 firm determination, tempered by refinement and gentleness, 
 this worthy Professor, who has seen over eighty summers and 
 winters, in his dress, bearing, and manner would anywhere be 
 taken for an English gentleman of high position, culture, and 
 refinement — and in truth he is one of whom any nation might 
 well be proud. 
 
 A prince of thinkers, he is at the same time thoroughly 
 practical, and also possesses a rich vein of quiet humour. 
 Brave, tender, and true, he is every inch a man, and a born 
 leader of men. 
 
18 
 
 Personally he is as much beloved and respected by two 
 generations of Williams College students as he is esteemed by 
 intelligent readers in many lands, who only know him- through 
 his admirable philosophical treatises, lectures, and sermons — 
 such as his “Evidences of Christianity,” the “Law of Love” 
 and “Love as a Law,” “An Outline Study of Man,” “Strength 
 and Beauty,” etc. These works are fully abreast of the most 
 advanced science and thought of the present day, and constitute 
 invaluable contributions to the Christian armoury. 
 
 A. J. Symington, London. 
 
 A ripe and rounded life has been suddenly and fitly ended; 
 ended, as the old rabbis would have said, by the kiss of the 
 Almighty. A great and venerable man, loved and honored 
 these many years by successive generations of students and 
 by the larger world without collegiate bounds, has calmly and 
 unhesitatingly answered that call which at last sets all noble 
 souls free. 
 
 Only those who knew Dr. Hopkins can speak adequately of 
 him, and it is impossible for them to speak dispassionately. 
 So large a place has he filled in their lives, so deep is their 
 sense of indebtedness to him, so venerated and peculiarly hon- 
 ored has he been in their inmost thoughts these many years, 
 that he is, and must remain, a man apart. The time may come 
 when his services to his time will be impartially determined ; 
 but not at this hour, nor by those who received the impress of 
 his large and catholic spirit. It is doubtful if such a time will 
 ever come ; for the real work of Dr. Hopkins was personal, and 
 his real greatness was in himself rather than in any work of 
 his hand that will remain now that he is gone. Not until 
 the productive power of the mists that roll inland from the 
 outlying seas is accurately measured will the essential greatness 
 of a true and inspiring teacher be ascertained and 'registered. 
 It was as a personal influence upon individual lives that the 
 famous head of Williams College expressed the noble thought 
 that was in him, and transmitted the pure passion for truth 
 which possessed his soul. 
 
19 
 
 Great teachers are rare in any age. They appear among us 
 at longer intervals even than the great poets, with whom they 
 share the divine function of serving men by breaking the bread 
 of life to them. From Socrates onward one runs swiftly and 
 almost in a breath over those whom the world has recognized 
 as its greatest teachers. They have rarely been great scholars 
 so far as attainment is concerned; they have rarely been 
 specialists in their mastery. of departments of knowledge; but 
 they have always possessed that insight into principles which 
 separates the man of real scholarship from the pedant ; and 
 they have been, in the phrase of a scholar who died for truth’s 
 sake, awakeners of slumbering souls. 
 
 The charm of Dr. Hopkins’s method in the class-room lay 
 in the personality of the .man ; a personality always impressive 
 and at times wonderfully attractive ; a personality which in- 
 stantly awakened respect and steadily deepened it into rever- 
 ence. The amplitude of intellectual range did not check a vein 
 of humor which often pierced the closest discussion, nor conceal 
 a swiftness and finish of mental action which sometimes, when 
 gentler measures failed to win an obstinate debater from an 
 untenable position, secured eviction by summary process. The 
 unfailing interest of those discussions, the variety and diversion 
 which often marked them, the sense of adequacy in the com- 
 plete and symmetrical unfolding of the whole man in his entire 
 relationship to life — all these remain an invaluable possession 
 to those who hold them in memory. But something more and 
 something better remains : an attitude of mind to which no 
 new truth is alien, a habit of thought at once conservative and 
 progressive. It is a great gain in these days to possess the 
 faculty of quiet, healthful growth; the power to expand with 
 the expansion of knowledge and to adjust one’s self by normal 
 processes to the movement of the time. No pupil of Dr. 
 Hopkins ever needed to react against his teaching when, in 
 the great field of life, he found himself compelled to face and 
 settle great questions in the solitude of his own soul. The 
 large, catholic spirit of the great teacher was in some respects 
 
20 
 
 the noblest of his qualities; it preserved him from dogmatism, 
 from narrowness, from the vices of tlieorizing, from the fatal 
 blunder of closing the doors of his mind against new truth. 
 And it has made it possible for his pupils, continuing the move- 
 ment of his mind upon theirs, to stand in vital fellowship with 
 their time, to rest immovable amid its eddies, and yet to move 
 with its heaven-directed tides. In Dr. Hopkins’s long and noble 
 life there was nothing more characteristic, nothing nobler, than 
 his attitude in the religious discussions of recent years. It has 
 been an inspiring spectacle, amid so much narrowness and 
 bigotry, to see the venerable thinker still serenely expectant 
 of new truth, still nobly tolerant of intellectual difference. To 
 the last hour of his life and in his last published words the great 
 teacher stood for freedom, for light, and for truth. 
 
 Now that he is gone, the great place he filled becomes more 
 distinct. His impressive presence will be sorely missed, not 
 only in recurring college festivities, but on platforms where 
 his calm spirit, his freedom from all bitterness, and his simple 
 and noble eloquence have long been potential. To the college 
 which his instruction advanced from obscurity to a leading place 
 among kindred institutions, his work will remain an endowment 
 of inestimable value ; to those who sat at his feet, and who 
 have revered him as teacher and friend, his memory will abide 
 green as the great hills which will henceforth keep their mute, 
 majestic watch around his resting-place . — The Christian Union. 
 
 The Independent, in a review of the meeting of the American 
 Board at Des Moines, says : 
 
 We can not stop without a word as to the most magnificent 
 figure in the meeting, that of Mark Hopkins. At the age of 
 eighty-four he presided with wisdom and force. The speech 
 with which he pressed and carried unanimously the great 
 decision of the meeting imposed instant conviction. Seldom 
 has a finer instance been seen of the power of a great character 
 dominating an occasion. 
 
21 
 
 Looking back upon the wonderful career of that prince of 
 teachers, who has so recently been promoted to a place in the 
 Unseen Universe, it may be instructive to consider the nature 
 of the power that he exercised over his pupils. It was some- 
 thing different from the influence exerted by ordinary peda- 
 gogues and professors. It was more nearly allied to the deep, 
 unfelt forces of nature which, like the attraction of gravitation, 
 or the pressure of the atmosphere, no one feels, but no one can 
 escape. His commanding presence, his noble figure, his majes- 
 tic expression, marked him everywhere as a king among men, 
 before whose glance disorder and iniquity must of necessity 
 vanish as surely as darkness at the coming of light. 
 
 Yes, we knew that he was great, but we did not then realize 
 the full measure of his greatness. It seemed to our boyish 
 minds quite natural that the president of a college should 
 tower above his fellows in that little glen among the Berkshire 
 hills, but it was only after we had left his care, and had mingled 
 with many men in many climes, that we learned to know our 
 master as greater than them all. He was one of those rare 
 beings whose life, while revealing the possibilities of human 
 nature, has rendered more easy of comprehension the problem 
 of the divine incarnation in the person of Jesus. 
 
 Henry M. Lyman* M.D., 
 
 Chicago. 
 
 President Hopkins, in his ever young old age, has now the 
 grateful remembrance of all men in the ministry and in mis- 
 sionary service, who will work in liberty in order that they 
 may serve in the truth, for his most timely, weighty and 
 decisive influence thrown grandly in at another critical juncture 
 in the history of religious liberty in the world. 
 
 Rev. Newman Smyth. 
 
 Many a son of Williams looks back to it as the most memor- 
 able year of his life. That senior recitation-room, the throne 
 of the presidency during Dr. Hopkins’ long incumbency of the 
 
22 
 
 office, and where, although he has laid down the seals of author- 
 ity, he still presides in a most important sense, and so long as 
 he continues to teach, will preside, by the legal sway of thought 
 and character which he exercises, make one think of the 
 Platonic Academy, or Socrates in friendly converse with his 
 pupils, rather than of the ordinary class-room. The glory of 
 that room has been that there the freest inquiry has been 
 encouraged and the students taught to see and think for them- 
 selves, to call no man master, but to seek and welcome the 
 truth as that for which they were made. — Nez(j England Journal 
 of Education. 
 
 One year ago, on this culminating Thursday evening of our 
 annual convocation, there was one central figure in the great 
 assembly. No one was more profoundly concerned or more 
 ardently engaged in all the themes that filled our thought, 
 and none so moved all minds and hearts. We looked up 
 lovingly upon his benign and earnest face and venerable form 
 and hung upon his persuasive voice. Tonight we mourn for 
 a beloved and honored president, a master of assemblies, a 
 chief of the fathers, a bright example of Christian manhood. 
 That he was a great educator some sixty college classes bear 
 their testimony. He was not only long the head of a literary 
 institution, he might almost be called himself an institution. 
 He was a great thinker. 
 
 Dr. Bartlett of Dartmouth. 
 
 He was known and recognized over the continent as the 
 foremost teacher and thinker of his time, as an accomplished 
 scholar, a Christian philosopher and servant of truth, a devoted 
 patriot and friend of liberty. As the president of Williams 
 College, he became a leader and champion of the essential 
 doctrines and truths of the Christian religion. By his devotion, 
 energy, sagacity and genius the college was carried through 
 its period of trial and darkness and established on immovable 
 foundations. He made this his life work, to establish this 
 
23 
 
 i 
 
 institution on a secure basis as a permanent fountain of educa- 
 tion and Christian influence. For this he labored; for this he 
 wrote his great sermons ; for this he composed his profound 
 books ; for this he inspirel students and men and churches. 
 To think, work, and strive for truth, for progress, for light, for 
 the upbuilding of men and society and his country — this was 
 the purpose and mission of this gifted and grand man. Few 
 lives in the history of New England will have so enduring and 
 precious a fruitage as the life of Mark Hopkins. If he desired 
 wide influence, permanent remembrance, and lasting impress 
 upon his age and his country, he adopted the best means to 
 realize his wish. This was a great life, and its greatness con- 
 sists in his devotion to high ends and noble aims. As a thinker, 
 as a writer, as a preacher, as a philosopher, he was a rare man ; 
 as a teacher and guide and inspirer he was unsurpassed in this 
 generation, but above, and higher than these, was that grand 
 manhood, that fldelity of convictions, that sweet and saintly 
 spirit, that consecration to unselflsh labor and Christian truth. 
 He was as near the ideal of a saint and sage as any character 
 of our history. He was deeply respected and loved by all who 
 knew him, and his name will live as one of the best and greatest 
 of men . — Adams Transcript. 
 
 In the senior year the Williams men of our times were almost 
 constantly under the care of Dr. Hopkins. I should like to 
 present him to you as he appeared to us then, in the street, 
 in the study, at the lecture desk, in the pulpit — the tall, rather 
 gaunt form, shouldders broad and slightly bent, the great dome 
 of his head bare, save only for the few grayish brown locks 
 that he was want to coax over it with the palm of his hand ; 
 a strong and rather prominent chin, a bright gray eye, a bearing 
 in which real dignity and great humility were singularly and 
 beautifully blended. He preached to us often in my day, in 
 the village church, where the students occupied the gallery, 
 speaking simply, earnestly, deliberately, and usually without 
 notes or manuscript. But he was not a fluent man ; his thought 
 
24 
 
 needed time to ripen it. And his greatness as a speaker was 
 really never seen except in those fully written baccalaureate 
 discourses, which were always the feature of commencement 
 week. No matter who might be on the commencement pro- 
 gram — Everett, Choate, Wendell Phillips, Beecher, Storrs — no 
 audience of the week would be so crowded and none so stirred 
 and impressed as that of Sunday afternoon. 
 
 But Dr. Hopkins was pre-eminently a teacher. His throne 
 was the homely swinging chair in the senior lecture room, 
 where, with limbs crossed, and body slightly leaning forward, 
 he discoursed, questioned, reasoned, of the great things of man 
 and God, and all their earthward and heavenward relations. 
 Student and scholar that he was, it is not as a discoverer or an 
 original investigator in philosophy that he will be remembered, 
 but as a teacher — an architect of mind, a builder up of char- 
 acter, a leader and inspirer of men. Dr. Hopkins was in the 
 truest sense, an educator; for this was essentially his work — 
 to lead forth the minds of his pupils, to make them think, to 
 guide their thinking, to develop their faculties and their man- 
 hood. He would wake up the dullest mind ; he would force the 
 student to see all sides of the question ; he would make him 
 think and express his thought, and then, by a bombardment 
 of questions, force him to either defend his opinion or relin- 
 quish it. 
 
 And with all this intellectual subtlety and logical fencing 
 there was a moral thoroughness that illuminated every process 
 of reasoning. You knew that what this man wanted was truth, 
 and that what he wanted of truth was to enlarge and ennoble 
 life. He wanted to help those under him to be men. And this 
 was his work — the truth-loving, law-abiding. God-fearing train- 
 ing of men. 
 
 Garfield often-quoted saying is exactly true: “A college 
 that consisted only of a pine bench on which I could sit down 
 and talk with Mark Hopkins would be worth more to me than 
 all the educational machinery that money can buy.’’ 
 
 Dr. Washington Gladden. 
 
25 
 
 He would question like Socrates and discourse like Plato, 
 and always in the easy, quiet, assured way of a master. If his 
 eyes would sometimes twinkle over the exertions of some 
 members of the class to extricate himself from the deep waters 
 of some unlooked for interrogation, yet the master would relieve 
 in due time, in tones that would encourage and strengthen 
 for further and continuous effort . — New York Observer. 
 
 Long ago a doctor of divinity, now gone to his reward, was 
 wont to say in the alumni meetings that he “came back to 
 look upon Greylock and the grand old head of Mark Hopkins.” 
 The expression was extravagant, but the feeling was genuine. 
 The men of the old days used to think that the man and the 
 mountain matched. When mountains and men teach loftily 
 there is created an environment out of which much good 
 comes . — The Republican. 
 
 But better than the shadow of a lofty mountain is the influ- 
 ence of a lofty soul. These mountains, these Berkshire hills, 
 these valleys of the Hoosac and the Housatonic have been 
 made famous as the dwelling place of the greatest American 
 teacher. There have been other men more successful in getting 
 large endowments, or attracting pupils in large numbers, there 
 have been men greater in administration and with greater 
 attainments in scholarship upon the illustrious roll of our New 
 England college presidents than Mark Hopkins. But for the 
 personal power of teacher over pupil I suppose we have never 
 had his superior or his equal. We have never had his superior 
 in the influence of a great personality. 
 
 Senator Hoar. 
 
 For many years Williams has been regarded as the highest 
 type of small college. It was finely said that Mark Hopkins 
 and one student would constitute a university, so profound 
 was the educational influence of that eminent man upon every 
 one subjected to it. — Tribune. 
 
26 
 
 It is no disparagement to the large and able men who have 
 been and still are connected with Williams College, that its 
 alumni pronounce as they do these names. One is a name 
 unsurpassed in the educational annals of the country. In some 
 departments of work and some kinds of instruction others may 
 have been superior to him ; but taken all in all for what he had 
 to do, for his place, his conception of it, and what he made of 
 it, we doubt if this country has had his equal . — The Inde- 
 
 My friend was, I think, the foremost teacher of his genera- 
 tion. I said of him in my address that he was a Puritan teacher 
 and philosopher — a Puritan by birth and education, teacher 
 by virtue of that divine instinct which impels men to gather 
 knowledge that they may bestow it upon other men. Gentle 
 in manners, firm in principle, he was a prince in that kingdom 
 of truth which is, after all, the only kingdom worth living for 
 and loving. 
 
 David Dudley Field, LL.D. 
 
 It is difficult, or, rather, impossible, for me to indicate in a 
 few words, in a way at all adequate, my conception of Presi- 
 dent Hopkins — the elements of his greatness and the sources 
 of his power. The lapse of forty years has not lessened, but 
 greatly deepened, my sense of his magnificent qualities of mind 
 and heart and my admiration and affection for him. In my 
 thought his place is with the great ones of God’s election, in 
 whose life and work are realized the highest possibilities of 
 our nature under the discipline of divine providence and grace. 
 
 In point of rank and influence as a college president he has 
 had no superior in this country and but one or two equals. 
 There can be no question as to his right to a place in the front 
 rank of American scholars distinguished for philosophical and 
 religious thought. He was a remarkably luminous, profound 
 and constructive thinker. His writings are like the sunlight 
 itself--Hear, strong, invigorating. The very luminousness of 
 his thought tends to lessen the reader’s sense of its penetration 
 
27 
 
 and depth. I know of no writer who surpasses him in the skill 
 and power with which he uses the deeper principles of philos- 
 ophy in the illustration and enforcement of relig^ioiis truth. 
 Dr. Hopkins was a highly original and constructive thinker, 
 especially in the sphere of ethics, in which he wrought out a 
 system worthy to rank with the best in point of elevation, 
 unity and comprehensiveness. 
 
 Prof. G. W. Northrup, 
 
 Chicago University. 
 
 To find ones self, to get upon one’s own feet, to acquire 
 intelligent control of the reasoning faculty and to see things 
 in a large way — that is the great end of a four years’ separa- 
 tion from close contact with what may be termed the business 
 of life, and Dr. Hopkins trained us in the acquisition of this 
 independence by his lucid and masterful presentation of the 
 great problems of life. His own mind moved easily along great 
 lines, he dwelt familiarly among the large thoughts, but there 
 was nothing of vagueness or cloudiness about his reasoning. 
 He was a most wise teacher, for he was not bent ou imposing 
 formulas upon his pupils ; the whole tendency of his teaching 
 was to aid others in finding the paths which his mind traveled 
 and to give them the exhiliaration of mountain climbing, not 
 the fatigue of mere scrambling up steep places. 
 
 Horace E. Scudder. 
 
 I 
 
 The hundredth anniversary of Williams College must 
 specially commemorate the life and influence of Mark Hopkins. 
 For nearly sixty of the hundred years his name was con- 
 spicuous on its list of teachers. Except those of the last six 
 classes there are but five or six of the hundreds of its living 
 graduates who were not taught by him. 
 
 He is sometimes called ‘‘the prince of teachers” but that does 
 not fully express the truth concerning him — he was a prince 
 of men teaching. It was not that he was a master skilled in 
 the science of pedagogics or that he had wonderful and peculiar 
 
2 098690297 
 
 28 
 
 methods but that he — a wonderful man and a master of men — 
 drew students about him and taught them. 
 
 His power was first in his personality. Here was a man, 
 richly endowed, masterful, of majestic presence, and powerful 
 mind, who had somehow been set in that little town, and 
 though often called away to more conspicuous posts, was con- 
 tent to stay and think and labor and teach. Here was a 
 philosopher and seer, who had not retired from the world but 
 who early found his place, and in an unworldly, patient, humble 
 way wrought right on, with or without the ordinary means of 
 influence, in sublime faith in the power of the truths and 
 principles that he believed. 
 
 In a large sense he was a man of the world, one who knew 
 men and knew the system in which men lived, one who had 
 sought out universal and controlling truths and solved the 
 mystery of living. 
 
 Rev. Llewellyn Pratt.