Undergraduate Literary Exercises in Sanders Theatre.

ORDER OF EXERCISES.

MUSIC BY THE PIERIAN SODALITY.

PRAYER

By the Rev. Andrew Preston Peabody, D. D.

ORATION.

By Franklin Elmer Ellsworth Hamilton, '87.

EICHBERG'S NATIONAL HYMN.

(With original words.)

Glee Club.

POEM.

By Francis Sterne Palmer, '87.

BERCEUSE.

Gounod-Brand.

Pierian Sodality.

ADDRESS TO THE UNDERGRADUATES.

By Edgar Judson Rich, '87.

ODE.

By Lloyd McKim Garrison, '88.

Shortly after eleven o'clock yesterday morning the classes grouped themselves in four knots at their respective gathering positions, and cries of "'87," "'88," etc., resounded through the Yard. The procession formed in the order of classes, with the Seniors in the lead, and marched to Sanders Theatre. As the procession entered the theatre, the Pierian Sodality from its position on the stage, began Mendelsohn's "Cornelius March." During the performance of this piece the classes sought their seats, the Seniors in the body of the house, the Juniors in the left divisions of the first balcony, the Sophomores to the left and right of the centre division, and the Freshmen on the extreme right of the first balcony. The centre division was reserved for members of the faculty and guests of the college. Among these were to be seen President Eliot, Reverends Phillips Brooks, Edward Everett Hale; Sir Lyon Playfair; Prof. Creighton of Emmanuel College, Cambridge; Col. Higginson; Waldo Higginson, with whom was his guest, Hon. F. A. Channing, M. P.; Major Russell; Ex-Mayor Green, of Boston; Rev. Alexander McKenzie, Leverett Saltonstall, John T. Wheelwright, G. E. Woodberry, H. K. Oliver. Roger Wolcott, and others. The second gallery was reserved for graduates and their friends. In these two reserved portions and scattered throughout the entire house, many ladies added color and brightness to the scene. At last the seats were filled, and crowds pressed into the passage-ways behind. Sixteen hundred faces looked expectantly toward the stage as the Pierian moved aside and Rev. A. P. Peabody, conducted by Mr. Winthrop Wetherbee, chairman of the Literary Committee, led the way up the central steps to the stage, followed by the four speakers of the day. They proceeded to their seats ranged behind the reading-desk in the center of the stage, and waited until all should be quiet. As the venerable form of Dr. Peabody rose before the audience, a still greater hush fell upon the assemblage, and with deep reverence they listened to the opening words of the ceremony which was to commemorate the two hundred and fiftieth birthday of our great College. In stirring and heartfelt words, Dr. Peabody recalled the past glorious success of the college, and invoked God's blessing upon it for the future. At the close of the prayer, the orator of the day, Mr. Hamilton, '87, stepped forward, and pausing a moment until the last sound in the house was hushed, he began in a clear, forcible voice the

ORATION.

The anniversary which we are met this morning to observe is one of extraordinary significance. We commemorate the quarter-millenium of a university which, "first among equals," has striven to give form to American education; we commemorate the triumph of Puritan life and the widening success of that struggle of Puritanism which, running through eight generations, would perfect a form of education distinctively Puritan, yet wholly American. We commemorate the progress of that idea of liberality in education, which, cherished first and most ardently at Harvard, has passed from her to every kindred American institution. While commemorating the work of Harvard University, we foresee the inevitable fulfillment of her hopes, and therefore celebrate the natal day of a university at once the oldest and the newest in the land. Newest, I say, as well as oldest, for Harvard University from the days of Increase Mather has maintained as a fundamental principle that a university founded "for Christ and the Church," and holding the motto, "Truth," ought in no wise to depart from the path marked out in that famous resolve, libere philosophari, made so early in her history. It has been her endeavor during more than two centuries to think without bigotry and to train men who not only shall think, but also shall act in that spirit of advance which seeks to keep pace with the spirit of the age.

It is wise, upon an occasion like this, that we should seek instruction rather in the past than in the present. And through these two and a half centuries we are carried back into the morning of our national life, back into those sober religious days of sturdy New England Puritanism where we find ourselves with men who, in the spirit of their Cromwell, have determined to secure forever on these quiet shores, a retreat from "The King's Return to His Own Again." For "it was," as our own poet says, "the drums of Naseby and Dunbar that gathered the minute men on Lexington Common; it was the red dint of the axe in Charles's block that marked One in our era." What marvel, then, that we see these men of duty, with their motto, "Faith in God, faith in man, faith in work," taking orders for a college at Newtown and appropriating for its establishment "a year's rate of the whole colony," that, so runs the record, "the Commonwealth may be furnished with knowing and understanding men and the churches with an able ministry." Yet this was "the first occasion on which a people ever taxed themselves to found a place of education,"

Follow the life and work of that little seminary during those first years of poverty and suffering, dependent for very existence upon a precarious benevolence and tossed upon every sea of political and religious controversy that rocked the province. Though led at times into error, and once, during the frenzy of the Salem witchcraft, even tempted to persecution, still she remains true to the motto upon her walls - raising higher and higher the standard of the literature of the country and sending forth from her doors larger and wiser men. Long before the resistance to the Stamp Act; before the fearless voice of Patrick Henry rang out; before Faneuil Hall had thrown open its doors to an eloquent patriotism, a graduate of Harvard, in his Commencement Thesis, "announced the whole doctrine of the Revolution" in words that sounded like a tocsin through the land. And, as if in answer to the summons, there passed from the college halls, in quick succession, an Otis, a Warren, a John Hancock, a Quincy, and a younger Adams.

We are told that at the period of the Revolution even the undergraduates caught the inspiration of the times, and that their declamations and forensic disputes breathed the uncompromising spirit of liberty. With the enthusiasm of the hour they voted unanimously to take their degrees clothed only in the manufactures of their native land; and when Washington, on Cambridge green, took command of the American army, the students forsook the college in a body that its halls might shelter the patriot troops. Pass through the transcept of this hall, raised as a memorial to those sons of Harvard who fell in the last war, and there upon the tablets upon the walls read a Mother's proud testimony to the patriotism of her twelve hundred and thirty-two volunteers, who, as one man, followed their flag to the front; and trace her tribute to the memory of her three hundred and sixty one martyrs who gave their lives to the cause. Nor let us forget at this hour and in this place that the gray covered as devoted hearts as the blue, and that many a soldier of the South who fell on the field of battle claimed Harvard as his Alma Mater.

Thus it has ever been in the history of the University. In the necessitous provincial days fostering a spirit of fortitude, in the early crisis of Independence inspiring to patriotism, in the hour of trial admonishing to duty, she has always taught her students to study, not only the wisdom of the past, but also the lessons of the present, and the more perplexing problems of the future. And for this reason, if for no other, Harvard stands where she does to-day as the representative university of the representative republic. The reforms of which she is a leading exponent, are simply the necessary outcome of the call of a nation for an enlargement of the higher education. Constantly has the university, down through the long list of her honored faculties, endeavored to meet the educational needs of the country, and it has been this endeavor which has assured to Harvard the eminent success that she now enjoys. Thus, although an outgrowth of Puritanism, she nevertheless has sought to become a cosmopolitan university in a country by no means Puritan; and though surrounded and often restrained by conservative influences of the most positive character, she has struggled continually not to be conservative. And as the school at Newtown, founded originally as a Theological Seminary, soon became, in compliance with the country's need, a college, so, later, when it was discovered, to the amazement of many, that all education is not comprehended in

Lingua, Tropus, Ratio, Numerus, Tonus, Angulus, Astra,

the college broadened into a university - a university so extensive, that in her instruction to-day we see the most recent sciences placed upon an equality with mathematics and the classics.

The university now has reached another great epoch in her work with the adoption of reforms, as startling to the present conservative conception of education as they may appear destructive to the time-honored significance of the academic degree. But much of this alarm arises from the failure of the American college in the past to keep pace with the nation's spirit and growth. The attempt upon the part of Harvard to meet the demands of a growing people very naturally has given much occasion for criticism. The origin of such criticism, however, is by no means recent. We read that many "godly men of the province," even in the seventeenth century, "conceived a great sorrow" from a like cause. And even earlier, the one Indian youth, whom tradition recalls as having received a degree by the side of his Puritan brothers, doubtless heard the same question discussed.

But the very criticism of a progressive institution evidences the necessity for education in the future to meet the demands of an advancing practical life. Is it not high time that a country like our own, which has given to the world such signal triumphs of non-collegiate training in the pursuits of industry, and has witnessed in mechanics and engineering the proudest attainments of inventive genius, should offer to her sons a university training adapted to fit them as well for a life of manly work as for a life of cultivated leisure? The call for collegiate students to interest themselves less in what concerns them as mere catalogues of books, than in that which concerns them as "men and leaders of men" was heard in this very hall, in that scathing arraignment of the American scholar which is finding in the broadening claims of education its justification and confirmation.

It was the hope of the founders of the University that "so long as New England or America hath a name on the earth's surface," the fame and fruit of their work should be "blesseed." Two centuries and a half have passed away since the college, which, in the words of one of her most famous presidents, now stands

". . . like a Pharos founded on a rock,"

was planted, at the promptings of weakness, in a new land among a free people. On this anniversary morning we know how she has stood during successive generations, as inflexible in purpose as when a humble Puritan "School of the Prophets," she listened to the preaching of her first president, the devout Dunster. She has trained clergymen, schoolmasters, soldiers, statesmen, mechanics. Through her quarter-millennium they have entered her doors, received her instruction, and passed on to their work. And, as in the beginning these walls re-echo still the footsteps of the ambitious, pressing on toward the future. Would that, if but for a moment, we might recall the departed good and great of Harvard's line, that we might conjure from the "doggerel dirge and Latin Epitaph" some fitting memorial to the many who have gathered in these halls and lingered among the shadows of these elms! But no; they are forgotten. Of John Harvard himself, the most meagre traditions remain, and only his munificence to our University, preserves from oblivion his name. "He died upon a date, misstated upon his monument, - a monument which does not mark his grave!"

Looking back through this quarter-millenium, can we not see that the work of the University has been the work of a people; a work marked at times, it is true, by prejudice and intolerance, at times by liberality and magnanimity; now betraying feeble struggles and powerful temptations, now recalling waves of enthusiasm "on whose crumbling crests we sometimes see nations lifted for a gleaming moment?" Can we not see how her influence has grown from her work? Consider for a moment that influence. Each generation, as it has passed, has bequeathed to the University some ample accumulation of wealth, some new lesson of "Truth" learned, some old problem of life solved. Nobly has she repaid her bequests! Not the Commonwealth of Massachusetts alone, but the whole country, through state and territory, has been furnished from her graduates, "with knowing and understanding men, and the churches with an able ministry." In 1699, it was truly, if somewhat quaintly said, to the General Court by the Earl of Bellamont, while Governor of Massachusetts, "It is a very great advantage you have above other provinces, that your youth are not put to travel for learning, but have the Muses at their doors." For this advantage, keeping pace with the increase of population and wealth, has given to the State of Massachusetts a foremost place in refinement and learning and to her metropolis a classic name. The influence of Harvard has been fundamental, for she has promoted a freedom of thought; through her call for an earnest individuality, she has inspired her sons to more courageous persistence as pioneers of intellectual reforms. In the privations of poverty the instruction at Harvard has always encouraged a noble ambition and effort, as, in prosperity, it has lent new meaning to affluence and culture. In sectarian disputes and political reformations; during "the vicissitudes of the infant settlements;" through the perilous struggles of a patriotic resistance to injustice; amid the fires of a civil strife testing a great social principle, Harvard University, whether tried by penury, or endangered by a prosperous growth, has stood throughout, a conscientious champion of "Truth," and a fearless preacher "for Christ and the Church."

Some future orator, on some distant anniversary, will recall, perhaps, this day. I charge him to forget not, in the gratulations of that occasion, the Puritan founders of Harvard. Let their memory, as a widening influence, through his words, reach on and out, like the light of the setting sun, though they themselves have passed from us and risen on another and sublimer life. But if there is yet one lesson to be drawn from this hour it is surely this, that the future history of Harvard, like the voice of our widest usefulness, calls to us, as the students of a great university, for the best work and noblest living, - to make, as says Carlyle, some nook of God's creation a little fruit-fuller, some human hearts a little man-fuller. And as Harvard, at once the oldest and the newest, Harvard first among equals, but ever first, passes from us into the future, let us recall again those burning words spoken so recently to us here: "Your country needs a new enthusiasm. To whom but to you, her young men, shall she look to give it her? You are the trustees of posterity. On whom else shall she call to wake the deep slumber of careless opinions; to startle the torpor of an immoral acquiescence; to kindle burning aspirations; to set noble examples; to cleanse the Augean stables of politics and trade; to shame false ideals of life; to deepen the lessening sense of the sacredness of marriage; to make your Press nobler and less frivolous; to make the aims of society more earnest; to make homes pure; to make life simple; to defy the petty and arrogant tyrannies of the thing which calls itself public opinion; to trample on the base omnipotence of gold? She calls to you! Will you hear her voice, or will you, too, make, like the young ruler, the great refusal?"

The Glee Club, which had thus far sat on the right of the stage, moved to the centre and sang Eichberg's magnificent National Hymn. At the conclusion of this, Mr. Palmer delivered.

Long years ago, the stern New England rock

A wizard smote, and straightway forth did gush,

Here in this wilderness that felt the shock,

A fountain, filling all the forest's hush

With joy. Our College was that woodland spring,

The Puritan was he who there made flow

A fount that in the years to come should swing

Its mighty tide through all the land, and show

How great is truth to conquer wrong and woe.

More than two centuries with frost and snow

Of fierce New England winters now have gone,

The stream grows hoar with time and yet its flow

Is still as young as on its birthday's dawn,

As young as youth eternal, a fountain still

Of youth, new and fresh, yesterday, to-day,

To-morrow, flowing, changing at its will,

Though men sometime its course would turn or stay

Still with the nation's life it makes its way.

Our stream to-day its narrow banks o'er-flows.

Deserted ruins on its course appear

That tell where once the towers of temples rose;

And yet its waters still are fresh and clear

With purity, and savor of the spring

Rock born, and of the forest-flowing rill:

And still those youths are here who first did bring

Their sober minds unto the college-mill,

Though now they do not go in ruff or frill.

Behold the modern Puritan, his talk

Is all of matters grave, his face sedate,

He moves and 'tis a most majestic stalk,

His flashing eye could rule a troubled state,

He yearns to serve his country, and meanwhile

For college offices has no distaste;

And yet, forsooth, let him provoke no smile,

'Tis only sad that in our age he's placed

And that so much stern virtue goes to waste.

And those young princes of the native race

Whom our fore-fathers vainly tried to tame,

Does haze that fills the distant years efface

Their savage splendor, or does it still flame

Across the sober tints of college life,

When some young magnate of the West arrays

Himself in gorgeousness, his dress all rife

In bright, barbaric hues, and so essays

Ehe war dance and the tomahawk doth raise?

Our College in the years that saw her young,

And like young mothers full of love and care

And foolish fear, around her children flung

Her arms too close, nor granted them that share

Of trust and freedom they in justice craved,

But growing wiser as the years went by

She loosed the petty irksome bonds and saved

Their love for her and taught them to descry

In her a friend and not a crafty spy.

Many brave hopes Fair Harvard's fountain fed.

And great achievements on its stream were borne;

Men who in stirring times the State have led

And names by poets, thinkers, workers worn,

All these were ours and our bright list adorn.

One name the fountain claims its own and keeps,

Life's river may not bear that name away;

Joyous and loving as sunshine which leaps

About the stream and gilds its dancing spray,

This one the true embodiment doth seem

Of youth eternal, and while the fountain's play

Doth last, his ever kindly wit shall gleam

Within its pools, the while his laughing voice

Doth make the murm'ring waters to rejoice.

No need to tell his name for you all know it, -

Our Doctor, Autocrat, the Poet.

The fair sunshine does not alway make bright

Our stream, there was a time when war swept o'er

The shud'dring land, when face to face met Right

And Wrong; and then the river onward bore

Its tide of youth and hope all dark and red

With blood shed by its bravest and its best.

The later Puritan, whose heart regained

Its ancient zeal, opposed his stubborn breast,

And by his side were heroes of the West.

The gilded youth were also there to show

Good metal lay beneath the outward dross,

And all went forth against the country's foe,

Nor did they heed of life and limb the loss,

But were the foremost in the fierce affray;

And many died, and dying so, died well,

And Harvard hon'ring all, and fain to pay

Her debt of love to those who fought and fell,

Has built a stately hall her love to tell.

Pray heaven that war may never come again

To fill the nation's heart with grief and hate.

But strife will come and with it woe and pain,

And bloodless battles will be fought, as great

As those of war, and men will freely spend

Their lives to add unto the truth some light;

And in this strife must Harvard join and lend

Her learning and her zeal to those that fight

Against all evil things and to uphold the right.

Old Harvard's stream must ever onward sweep

Still wid'ning, blessing, lab'ring, singing, strong

With youth, joyous with hope, and broad and deep

With wisdom gathered from the years which throng

Its past; and yet 'midst all this honor fair

And power which to its age and works belong

It still must keep and guard with fondest care

The purity of that clear fount which gushed

From out the rock when all was new and forest-hushed.

The Pierian Sodality now came forward again and under the leadership of Mr. Forchheimer, played with much grace and feeling the charming Berceuse of Gounod. Such a thunder of well-merited and continuous applause followed this that it was doubtful whether or no the piece would be repeated. As applause to the music on occasions like the present is very unusual, it must be taken as a mark of approbation of the delightful Dodelinette and its exquisite performance.

Mr. Rich then arose and continued the lighter note which the Berceuse had struck in a very well delivered address to the undergraduates. Mr. Rich's manner of speech was all that could be desired and the peculiar taking humor that pervaded his words was well brought out by voice and gesture.

ADDRESS TO UNDERGRADUATES.FELLOW STUDENTS: - In this age of Darwinianism and Spencerianism, when it is the fashion for writers and orators to trace the growth of the infinitely complex from the inconceivably simple, an occasion like this would be sadly incomplete without an attempt to apply the principles of evolution to some appropriate object. And on this occasion when we, the unweaned children, are gathered together to celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth birthday of our revered mother, what more grateful service could we render her than to show how much better and wiser than her elder children are we, her latest born. Let then the "Evolution of the Harvard Student" be the burden of my remarks.

It must be remembered that the Harvard student and the rest of mankind sprang from the same stalk, that the separation did not take place until about the year 1636, when our branch of the family rose into etherial heights in the vain hope that some time it might be able to commune with the gods of high Olympus in their own tongue.

Consider this Harvard student for a moment functionally. He appears to us under three distinct forms, first, as a creature addicted to study - in a moderate degree; secondly, as a creature supposed to pray; and thirdly, about which, in those early times at least, there can be no conjecture, as a creature most prone to transgression. We will now trace out his evolution along each of these principal lines of development, beginning with the last.

Our early fathers were firm believers in the total depravity of mankind. If, at any time, a brother's faith in this doctrine seemed weak, he was exhorted to look at the young men of the college, upon whose souls the devil still held tenacious grip. Upon the college authorities responsibility bore heavily. It was an axiom with them that if there was a choice between right and wrong, the student would always do wrong: if there was no wrong to be done within easy reach he would go out of his way to find it, as if to prove the truth of the fundamental theological dogma of the day. The college exercised great ingenuity in attempting to anticipate the student. A list of all conceivable offences was drawn up, and the penalty for each affixed. Some offences were punishable by expulsion, some by suspension, some by flogging, some by cuffing, a list of fifty-two minor offences by fines, ranging from a penny for tardiness at prayers, to pound2 10s. for absence from town a month without leave. Flogging was administered by the President, in the presence of faculty and students. In order to realize the picturesqueness of this performance, imagine such a case of discipline brought down to our time, and this place the scene of punishment. The members of the faculty are ranged on the platform, and you, the students, are summoned to witness and to take warning. The culprit is brought forward. Our worthy President invokes divine blessing; then, with all solemnity, flogs or cuffs the student as the nature of his offence demands; and, finally, petitions the Almighty to give the offender a new heart, and to bring him into the folds of the righteous.

The system of fines is still more amusing. We can picture to ourselves the mischief-loving student going through a mental calculation in order to ascertain in what way a given sum of money invested in fines would yield the greatest return in fun - whether he should get drunk, or thrash a fellow student, or lie to the Dean, or cut a recitation, or swap jack-knives without the consent of the proctor, all of these offences being punishable by the same fine, one shilling and sixpence.

These absurd methods of punishment gradually died out, but it was not until about the time of the Revolution that flogging fell entirely into desuetude, and it was some time into the present century before the system of fines was wholly discontined. The faculty became less autocratic and more rational in their government. It dawned upon them by degrees that a student might have an iota of reason and common sense. And, as years rolled on, as the student became less of a child in age, greater freedom of action was allowed him. The liberal form of government did not reach its ideality, however, until the year 1885, when the conference committee, - peace be to its ashes! - was established. But this much abused conference committee has not lived in vain if it has only shown that there is little or nothing in Harvard College requiring the attention of such a body. Its very uselessness indicates the ideal condition of college discipline.

Let us now look at the student on another side of his nature - the religious side, and here we will attempt to trace briefly his evolution and his growth. Founded, as our college was by the stern Puritan, for the purpose largely of educating men for the Christian ministry, we should naturally expect that the spiritual needs of the student would receive the most careful attention. Presidents and professors were chosen with regard to their theological views: the curriculum was shaped to meet the religious wants of the student; religious exercises were frequent and compulsory. Prayers were held twice a day, and absence from service was punished by a fine. At the morning service, held in winter by candle light, the student was obliged to read a portion of the Old Testament out of the Hebrew into the Greek; and at evening prayers a portion of the New Testament out of the English into the Greek. One marvels that under such a stultifying system of worship, a student emerged from college with a spark of religious fervor in him. But, like prescribed Latin and Greek, prescribed religion was slowly abandoned, until, at the beginning of this memorable year in Harvard's annals, the last vestiges of an antiquated and unnatural system have disappeared. These changes, which we choose to call growth, are trumpeted abroad by hostile critics as a departure which brings with it the decay of religious life at Harvard. It is the death-blow to compulsory religion, but it is the signal for the re-awakening of true religion. To-day there is in this college a greater respect for religion, a purer and nobler religious life, than there was two hundred years ago, when religion was secondary to theology; than one hundred years ago, when religion was tempered by fear; than fifty years ago, when religion was subservient to policy; than yesterday, when religion by reason of its compulsion was fast losing its hold upon the students. The attitude of the religious papers upon this question is deserving of the severest censure. Their utterances are maliciously false; they display a temper becoming the bigoted sectarian but, not the humble Christian. Let them know, and all the world besides, that religion is not dead at Harvard; that on the contrary, under a voluntary system, it is entering upon a new and purer life.

But we have not yet considered the student in the light in which he is usually regarded by the outside world, that is, as a cultivated, learned and wise man. Let us then see in what ways he has acquired this culture, learning and wisdom at different periods in the history of the college. In the laws of the college, printed in 1646, we find the following, referring to the qualifications for admission: - "When any scholar is able to read Tully, or such like classical Latin author, extempore, and make and speak true Latin in verse and prose, and decline the paradigms of nouns and verbs in the Greek tongue, then may he be admitted into the college, nor shall any claim admission before such qualifications." Thus, during almost the entire first century of our college's existence, a student need only talk gibberish Latin, write doggerel Latin verse, show some familiarity with Greek grammar, in order to gain admission to the first institution of learning of the land! But woe unto the student who found himself here without a pretty thorough training in those meagre requirements. Once under the authority of the college he could not, by a vigorously enforced statute, use his mother tongue except in public declamation. If he could not give in choice Latin a reasonable excuse for failure at recitation, he suffered double penalties; if he failed to ask in Latin for food at the commons, he went away hungry. But the students had the satisfaction of knowing that the inflictors of this refined torture were themselves sometimes put to the test. It is related that an honored president of this University, once desiring the ejection of a dog which had strayed into evening prayers, called out in angry tone, "Exclude canem, et-shut the door!"

After four years spent in learning a few cant conversational Latin phrases, and in acquiring a smattering of Greek and of Hebrew, the student was ready to receive his first degree. If, upon examination, it were found that he could "read the original of the Old and New Testament into the Latin tongue and resolve them logically," he became by the authority of the college a Bachelor of Arts.

What can be said in defense of a curriculum so narrow, so ill-suited to make men educated, much less useful? This - that at a time when natural phenomena were just beginning to be investigated with intelligence, when our literature was but in its infancy, when philosophy had hardly emerged from scholasticism, when history was yet unwritten, our college offered to her children the best that the age could give. And we are proud to say that this is a policy which our Alma Mater has ever followed. As science advanced, as philosophy became infused with an interest more human, as literature was written, and history recorded, she gladly opened her doors to the new light and gave her children a glimpse of a world of learning hitherto unknown. Gradually the ancient requirements were modified and broadened, until now the college offers to the student a course of study, the best calculated of any in the land to make her graduates educated, intelligent and useful men. Those who leave her doors now are not pedantic mincers of elegant Latin phrases, nor dilettante and captious lookers-on in a world of action, but men possessed of a knowledge which can rectify wrong and accomplish results; men who become powers in the religious, the social, and the political worlds.

But the question suggests itself - may not our college in thus broadening its curriculum and in giving almost absolute freedom of choice in the selection of studies, have gone too far? This is not the time to criticise flippantly, or to air personal whims, but I know that I voice the sentiments of hundreds of undergraduates and of graduates when I say that our college has made some serious mistakes. If it be the chief purpose of a college course to give a liberal education - and that I conceive is its purpose - there must be certain studies essential to such an education. Latin, as an indispensable aid to the study of law, of medicine, and of science, as the basis of almost all modern languages, as the very sap of the English language, should be required of every scholar seeking admission to college. But the elements of the language once mastered, I confess it seems like mere pedantry to pursue the study further; for the discipline which Latin gives has already been largely acquired, and as to its literature - see to it that you have first become familiar with the infinitely grander literature of your own language. Relegate Latin to the preparatory schools, but insist upon it there.

Again, there are studies universally admitted as essential to a liberal education which should be pursued after the student has entered college. In the place formerly occupied by prescribed Greek, Latin, and mathematics, let us have prescribed philosophy, political economy, and English literature, and also history and science, if the elements of these studies cannot be required for admission. In answer to these criticisms I know it can be said that where the option lies between Greek and Latin, Latin will almost invariably be chosen; and that those studies which we would prescribe are now, as a matter of fact, pursued by a large majority of students. But there will be those who will know nothing of Latin, and there will be those who will be ignorant of those other essential subjects; and then there will be men graduated from this college who will not be liberally educated.

But perhaps we criticise too severely, when we consider what stupendous strides our college has made towards attaining an ideal system of education; she has outstripped all rivals, who, while criticising her vehemently for every advance, are finally compelled to follow tardily in her footsteps

A word to close. With all this advance in methods of discipline; with this quickening and enlarging of the religious life; with this tremendous progress in the curriculum work, with all this, has there been a corresponding advance in the manhood of the student. For this, after all, is the test of the efficiency of every educational system. If self-reliance, sincerity, earnestness, are elements of manhood, then there has been advance; for there never was a time when students were more self-reliant, more sincere, more earnest, than they are to-day; and this year will go down to posterity as a year memorable not so much because it marks the quarter millennial of the existence of the college, but because it marks the culmination of an educational policy, the equal of which to produce true manhood, cannot be found in this land, or in any other land.

At the conclusion of this address Lloyd McKim Garrison, amidst loud and prolonged applause, came forward and spoke the ode in a manner well calculated to bring out its duties.

ODE.Mother, peerless, immortal, our lips but repeat

The words spoken so often before,

As we timidly, rev'rently, kneel at thy feet

And ask for thy blessing once more.

Our fathers rejoiced at thy dawn overcast;

We exult in thy radiant day;

So, our sons and their sons, when our glories are past,

And our names as forgotten as they;

For though mountain and river should part thee for aye

From the child thou hast reared at thy knee,

The niche that he keeps in his heart is too high

To be filled by another than thee.

The centuries fade, like a mist from the glass;

We are gone, - why we know not, nor where;

Yet as ever we wearily halt as we pass,

We behold thee, still young and still fair.

All the parts being now over, the great audience stood up, and, under the lead of the Pierian and Glee Clubs, sang "Fair Harvard," the now historic song of our common nursery, with the new words as written by the Odist. This was the close of a most successful morning celebration.