CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 LD1445 1909 
 The Inauguration of Ernest Fox Nichols, 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 030 633 949 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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THE INAUGURATION OF 
 ERNEST FOX NICHOLS, D. Sc, 
 LL. D., AS PRESIDENT OF 
 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 
 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE INAUGURATION 
 OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
(/>u*/% /u*£r& 
 
THE INAUGURATION OF 
 
 ERNEST FOX NICHOLS 
 
 D. Sc, LL. D. 
 
 AS PRESIDENT OF 
 
 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 
 
 OCTOBER 14, 1909 
 
 EDITED BY ERNEST MARTIN HOPKINS, SECRETARY OF THE 
 COLLEGE. PRINTED UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF HOMER 
 EATON KEYES, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MODERN ART, 
 AT THE RUMFORD PRESS, AND PUBLISHED AT HANOVER, 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE, MCMIX 
 
1445" 
 HO? 
 
 ^6 9 3^ 
 
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INTRODUCTION 
 
 On April 6, 1907, President Tucker forwarded to the trustees 
 of Dartmouth College his letter of resignation and asked that it 
 be accepted at the earliest possible time. However, at the insistent 
 solicitation of the trustees, he consented in a later note, written 
 May 11, to withhold this letter and to retain the presidency under 
 the necessary limitations of his illness, until such time as the board 
 could study the educational field and make intelligent choice of his 
 successor. 
 
 On June 8, 1909, the trustees met in Concord and by unanimous 
 vote elected Professor Ernest Fox Nichols, D. Sc, to be the tenth 
 president of Dartmouth College. Dr. Nichols was at that time 
 professor of experimental physics at Columbia University in the 
 City of New York, and he had been formerly for five years, from 
 1898, professor of physics at Dartmouth. In his chosen field he 
 had taken high rank and his work had received wide appreciation 
 in this country and abroad, and meanwhile he had interested him- 
 self in administrative problems of education and had shown execu- 
 tive ability of distinctive sort. The announcement of his election 
 was immediately made in the papers of June Q, and the news of the 
 action of the trustees received cordial indorsement from the Dart- 
 mouth constituency and from the educational world at large. 
 
 It was agreed by the trustees and Dr. Nichols, after election had 
 been made, that the President-elect should take up the active duties 
 of the presidency immediately at the time which President Tucker 
 had designated for his withdrawal from office, — July 1 5, the close of 
 the fiscal year. It was further the opinion of the trustees that 
 arrangements should be made for the formal induction into office 
 of President-elect Nichols as early as should be practicable in the 
 fall. To this end a committee was appointed to arrange for and 
 have charge of the exercises of the inauguration, consisting of 
 Frank S. Streeter, Esq., Chairman, Charles F. Mathewson, Esq., 
 Mr. Henry H. Hilton, and the Eeverend President Francis Brown. 
 The Secretary of the College was made secretary of the committee. 
 
6 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The committee proceeded at once to take the matter in charge and 
 to formulate plans. Formal meetings were held on Commence- 
 ment Day, June 30, in Hanover, and at Concord, July 10. At all 
 times, by informal meetings and by correspondence, the members 
 of the committee were in close touch with each other. 
 
 It was decided to hold the inaugural on October 14. An earlier 
 date probably would have been chosen but for the desire not to 
 anticipate Harvard's like event, already announced for the week 
 before. It was determined not to have the exercises extend beyond 
 the limits of one day, and it was voted to invite the chairman of 
 the alumni committee on funds for the new gymnasium, Mr. Edward 
 K. Hall, '92, to arrange for the laying of the corner stone of the 
 new building as an event of the exercises of inaugural day. After 
 careful discussion the committee planned for the program of the 
 day as it finally appeared. 
 
 The committee requested that Professor Craven Laycock consent 
 to act as marshal of the day, and he was authorized to choose 
 such assistants as might be needed by him. The music necessary 
 to the proceedings was put under the charge of the Musical Di- 
 rector of the College, Professor Charles H. Morse. Professor 
 Homer E. Keyes was asked to take charge of the printing necessary 
 for the occasion. It was voted that the Secretary of the College 
 be ex officio a member of all committees which should be appointed. 
 
 The local arrangements were put into the hands of three asso- 
 ciate committees, chosen from the faculty, and their cordial and 
 efficient co-operation in all things was one of the most vital factors 
 in making the details complete. Their organization was as follows: 
 
 ENTERTAINMENT COMMITTEE. 
 
 Professor Charles F. Emerson, Chairman. 
 Professor Harry E. Burton. Professor John H. Gerould. 
 
 DINNER COMMITTEE. 
 
 Professor Frank H. Dixon, Chairman. 
 Professor Frank A. Updyke. Professor Homer E. Keyes. 
 
 reception committee. 
 
 Professor William Patten, Chairman. 
 
 Professor George D. Lord. Professor Charles E. Bolser. 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 Invitations to be represented at the inauguration were sent to 
 each of the New England institutions of higher learning, to each of 
 those on the approved list of the Carnegie Foundation, to the State 
 universities, to the principal denominational colleges and uni- 
 versities, to the best known theological seminaries, to several of the 
 leading preparatory schools, and to a few other educational insti- 
 tutions. Invitations were also sent to the alumni associations and 
 clubs of the College in the various cities and states, to the senior 
 class in the College, and to delegations from the other classes and 
 the Associated Schools. A general invitation also was sent to the 
 alumni and a large representation of these planned attendance, 
 making arrangements to come and go on special sleeping cars in 
 order to leave all the room in Hanover available for the entertain- 
 ment of guests. 
 
 In arranging to extend courtesies the community was most kind, 
 and everywhere the houses were opened and guests were received 
 to the maximum capacity. The Inn likewise was crowded to its 
 limit, as were Massachusetts and Richardson Halls, available 
 through the courtesy of the students. The genuineness of the 
 spirit of hospitality among the members of the faculty and the 
 friends in the village made entertainment easy and the gracious- 
 ness of the guests made all things delightful. 
 
 The morning of the inaugural was one of Hanover's perfect 
 mornings. A clear sky, a bright sun, and a crisp air made the 
 ideal fall day which had been so much desired. At an early hour 
 the arrival of alumni and delegates from the trains in which they 
 had slept and the stir of visitors about the streets gave the village 
 an unwonted appearance, suggesting the events to come. At half 
 past nine the peal of bells began to ring the call to Morning Prayers, 
 which was the first of the exercises of the day. Professor John 
 K. Lord presided, and the service was simple and dignified. The 
 seating was so arranged that upon the emptying of the seats into 
 the aisles, under the direction of the marshal and his assistants, 
 the order was that desired for the various sections of the academic 
 procession. There was therefore little delay in taking up the 
 march to Webster Hall. The procession was led by the College 
 band. Behind came the student representatives of the college 
 and the Associated Schools, dressed in cap and gown, and acting as 
 an escort for the line which followed, — the trustees with the speak- 
 
8 INTKODUCTION 
 
 ers and the recipients of honorary degrees, the delegates and guests, 
 the faculty, the alumni. All except the alumni were in academic 
 costume. The line of march was from the Chapel to the south- 
 west corner of the Green, then sharp to the left to the corner oppo- 
 site Bissell Hall, then to the left again, straight along the east 
 side of the Green, into Webster Hall. Upon reaching this build- 
 ing the student escort stood in split ranks, and the procession en- 
 tered marching between these. 
 
 Within, the College choir and orchestra were seated upon the 
 platform in the apse; on the lower platform the trustees, speakers, 
 and recipients of honorary degrees were seated upon the east side, 
 and the President-elect and the faculty were upon the west side; 
 in the middle of this platform rested a small one, upon which was 
 the chair which became the President's place after his formal induc- 
 tion into office. The delegates were seated along the center aisle 
 of the floor, and on each side of the delegates and behind them sat 
 the seniors and student delegates. Beneath the galleries the alumni 
 had their places, and in the galleries ladies of the college community 
 and some of the guests had seats. The auditorium presented a 
 brilliant and impressive spectacle with the display of colors, shown 
 in the costumes of college officers and delegates, in the midst of the 
 dignified black of the student garb. The exercises proceeded ac- 
 cording to the order arranged, but especial mention should be made 
 of the excellence of the music, prepared under the direction of 
 Professor Morse and rendered by the College choir and orchestra. 
 
 The informal lunch in College Hall was attractively served, and 
 afforded pleasant opportunity for an intermingling of guests and 
 hosts. From the luncheon many went to visit the various buildings 
 which it was their desire to see. 
 
 The exercises at the laying of the corner stone of the new gym- 
 nasium were as distinctive in their way as were those of the morn- 
 ing. The affair had been carefully arranged by the chairman of 
 the committee on funds, Mr. Hall, and his painstaking oversight 
 was evident at every point. Moreover the definite promise to Dart- 
 mouth men of the early realization of the vision, long held by a 
 few, gave spontaneous enthusiasm which permeated all the proceed- 
 ings, and while in songs and cheers the undergraduates expressed 
 appreciation of that which was to be, the alumni joined with con- 
 sciousness of the blessing which comes to those who give. 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 It was extremely gratifying that a day which had been so suc- 
 cessful should be followed by an evening as illustrious. Under the 
 supervision of an efficient committee the care of no detail concern- 
 ing the dinner had been omitted. The menu was served with a 
 skill and attractiveness which bespoke the expert supervision of 
 Mr. Arthur P. Fairfield '00, the manager of the Inn and of the 
 Dining Association. The great hall was never more attractive, 
 and the presence of such a group of distinguished educators as was 
 in attendance promised the treat to come in the speaking. The 
 presiding officer, Mr. Mathewson, was in happiest vein and was 
 extremely felicitous in his capacity as master of ceremonies. Those 
 who spoke, in turn, entered into the spirit of the occasion with a 
 heartiness and definiteness of thought which put much matter for 
 reflection in the minds of those who heard, and which put the speak- 
 ing on an academic plane meet to crown the addresses of the day. 
 
 Thus came to an end the proceedings of the day, a glad celebra- 
 tion of vital import to the College, to which the number and acad- 
 emic rank of guests, the happy participation of the greatly loved 
 retiring president, and the evident promise of the new administra- 
 tion were the greatest of contributing causes. 
 
 DELEGATES AND GUESTS IN ATTENDANCE AT THE 
 
 INAUGURAL. 
 
 His Excellency the Right Honorable James Bryce, LL. D., 
 Ambassador from Great Britain to the United States. 
 
 His Excellency Henry Brewer Quinby, LL. D., Governor of 
 
 New Hampshire. 
 The Governor's Staff. 
 The Councillors of the State. 
 Members of the Supreme Court of the State. 
 
 harvard university. 
 Charles W. Eliot, LL. D., President Emeritus. 
 A. Lawrence Lowell, LL. D., President. 
 
 Wallace C. Sabine, S. D., Dean of the Graduate School of Ap- 
 plied Science. 
 Jerome D. Greene, A. B., Secretary to the Corporation. 
 
10 INTEODUCTION 
 
 YALE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Arthur T. Hadley, LL. D., President. 
 
 Henry A. Bumstead, Ph. D., Professor of Physics. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Josiah H. Penniman, LL. D., Professor of English Literature. 
 
 PRINCETON UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Woodrow Wilson, LL. D., President. 
 William F. Magie, Ph. D., Professor of Physics. 
 Augustus Trowbridge, Ph. D., Professor of Physics. 
 Owen W. Richardson, D. Sc, Professor of Physics. 
 
 THE CARNEGIE FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF TEACHING. 
 
 Henry S. Pritchett, LL. D., President. 
 
 WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 George H. Denny, LL. D., President. 
 
 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Nicholas Murray Butler, LL. D., President. 
 William Hallock, Ph. D., Professor of Physics. 
 James F. Kemp, Sc. D., Professor of Geology. 
 Albert P. Wills, Ph. D., Professor of Mathematical Physics. 
 Gary N. Calkins, Ph. D., Professor of Proto-Zoology. 
 Bergen Davis, Ph. D., Adjunct Professor of Physics. 
 George B. Pegram, Ph. D., Adjunct Professor of Physics. 
 Herschel C. Parker, Ph. B., Adjunct Professor of Physics. 
 Frederick S. Lee, Ph. D., Professor of Physiology. 
 Frederick P. Keppel, A. B., Secretary of the University. 
 
 BROWN UNIVERSITY. 
 
 William H. P. Faunce, LL. D., President. 
 
 Carl Barus, LL. D., Hazard Professor of Physics. 
 
 RUTGERS COLLEGE. 
 
 William H. S. Demarest, D. D., President. 
 
 PHILLIPS ACADEMY, ANDOVER. 
 
 Alfred E. Stearns, A. M., Principal. 
 
 PHILLIPS ACADEMY, EXETER. 
 
 Harlan P. Amen, A. M., Principal. 
 
INTRODUCTION 11 
 
 DICKINSON COLLEGE. 
 
 George E. Reed, LL. D., President. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH. 
 
 Samuel B. McCormick, LL. D., Chancellor. 
 
 FRANKLIN AND MARSHALL COLLEGE. 
 
 Jefferson E. Kirshner, Ph. D., Professor of Mathematics and 
 Physics. 
 
 GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY AND ST. LOUIS UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Henry J. Shandelle, S. J., Dean of Georgetown University. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT. 
 
 Matthew H. Buckham, LL. D., President. 
 Samuel F. Emerson, Ph. D., Professor of History. 
 
 WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 
 
 Harry A. Garfield, LL. D., President. 
 
 Frederick C. Ferry, Ph. D., Dean and Professor of Mathematics. 
 
 BOWDOIN COLLEGE. 
 
 William D. Hyde, LL. D., President. 
 
 Charles C. Hutchins, A. M., Professor of Physics. 
 
 UNION UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Charles A. Richmond, D. D., President. 
 
 middlebury college. 
 John M. Thomas, D. D., President. 
 Walter E. Howard, LL. D., Dean of the College. 
 
 KIMBALL UNION ACADEMY. 
 
 Charles A. Tracy, B. L., Principal. 
 
 BANGOR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
 David N. Beach, D. D., President. 
 
 NORWICH UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Herbert R. Roberts, D. C. L., Dean. 
 
12 INTRODUCTION 
 
 COLGATE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 William H. Crawshaw, Litt. D., Dean and Professor of English 
 
 Literature. 
 Melbourne S. Read, Ph. D., Professor of Philosophy. 
 William M. West, Treasurer. 
 
 COLBY COLLEGE. 
 
 Arthur J. Roberts, A. M., President. 
 
 MCGILL UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Charles W. Colby, Ph. D., Professor of History. 
 
 AMHERST COLLEGE. 
 
 George Harris, LL. D., President. 
 
 Arthur L. Kimball, Ph. D., Professor of Physics. 
 
 George A. Plimpton, President of the Corporation. 
 
 hobart college. 
 Arthur A. Bacon, A. M., Professor of Physics. 
 
 trinity college. 
 Gustav A. Kleene, Ph. D., Professor of Economics. 
 
 KENYON college. 
 William F. Peirce, D. D., President. 
 
 NEWTON THEOLOGICAL INSTITUTION. 
 
 George E. Horr, D. D., President. 
 
 WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Stanley L. Galpin, Ph. D., Associate Professor of Romance 
 Languages in Amherst College. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OP TORONTO. 
 
 R. Ramsay Wright, LL. D., Vice-President and Professor of 
 Biology. 
 
 NEW YORK UNIVERSITY. 
 
 John H. MacCracken, Ph. D., Syndic. 
 
 WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 
 
 William A. Shanklin, LL. D., President. 
 
 Caleb T. Winchester, L. H. D., Professor of English Literature. 
 
INTRODUCTION 13 
 
 LAFAYETTE COLLEGE. 
 
 Ethelbeht D. Warfield, LL. D., President. 
 
 HAVERFORD COLLEGE. 
 
 Albert S. Bolles, LL. D., Lecturer on Commercial Law and Bank- 
 ing. 
 
 OBERLIN COLLEGE. 
 
 Charles B. Martin, Professor of Archaeology and Art. 
 
 HARTFORD THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
 Melancthon W. Jacobus, D. D., Dean and Professor of New 
 Testament Criticism. 
 
 WORCESTER ACADEMY. 
 
 Daniel W. Abercrombie, LL. D., Principal. 
 
 UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
 Francis Brown, LL. D., President. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN. 
 
 James Burrill Angell, LL. D., Ex-President. 
 
 MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE. 
 
 Mary E. Woolley, Litt. D., President. 
 Mary G. Williams, Professor of Greek. 
 
 queen's university. 
 Arthur L. Clark, Ph. D., Professor of Physics. 
 
 OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Samuel L. Beiler, D. D., Dean of the Boston University Theo- 
 logical School. 
 
 HOLY CROSS COLLEGE. 
 
 Peter J. McLoughlin, LL. M., Professor of Jurisprudence. 
 
 OLIVET COLLEGE. 
 
 Ellsworth G. Lancaster, LL. D., President. 
 
 UNITED STATES NAVAL ACADEMY. 
 
 Henry F. Bryan, Commander in the United States Navy and 
 head of the department of Modern Languages. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 
 
 Henry C. Morrison, Sc M., Superintendent of Public Instruction. 
 
14 INTRODUCTION 
 
 BUCKNELI UNIVERSITY. 
 
 John H. Harris, LL. D., President. 
 
 BELOIT COLLEGE. 
 
 Abram R. Tyler, Professor of Music. 
 
 IOWA college. 
 Frank F. Almy, Professor of Physics in Columbia University. 
 
 COLLEGE OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. ' 
 
 John H. Finley, LL. D., President. 
 Lee Kohns, B. S., Trustee. 
 
 state university of iowa. 
 George E. MacLean, LL. D., President. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN. 
 
 Charles R. Van Hise, LL. D., President. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER. 
 
 Rush Rhees, LL. D., President. 
 
 NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Philip Fox, M. S., Professor of Physics. 
 
 TUFTS COLLEGE. 
 
 Frank G. Wren, A. M., Dean. 
 Edwin Ginn, Litt. D. 
 
 POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE OF BROOKLYN. 
 
 Fred W. Atkinson, Ph. D., President. 
 
 PENNSYLVANIA STATE COLLEGE. 
 
 Edwin E. Sparks, LL. D., President. 
 
 CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
 Ozora S. Davis, D. D., President. 
 
 st. paul's school. 
 Henry Ferguson, LL. D., Rector. 
 
 VASSAR COLLEGE. 
 
 Clark W. Chamberlain, A. B., Professor of Physics. 
 
INTRODUCTION 15 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. 
 
 Richard C. Maclaurin, Sc. D., President. 
 
 Dwight Porter, Ph. D., Professor of Hydraulic Engineering. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA. 
 
 Franklin B. Gault, Ph. D., President. 
 
 BOSTON COLLEGE. 
 
 Thomas I. Gasson, S. J., President. 
 
 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 
 
 Kenyon L. Butterfield, A. M., President. 
 
 Frank A. Waugh, M. S., Professor of Horticulture. 
 
 BATES COLLEGE. 
 
 George C. Chase, LL. D., President. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS. 
 
 Frank Strong, Ph. D., Chancellor. 
 
 CORNELL UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Jacob Gould Schurman, LL. D., President. 
 Edward L. Nichols, Ph. D., Professor of Physics. 
 Charles H. Thurber, Ph. D. 
 
 university of Maine. 
 James N. Hart, Sc. D., Dean. 
 
 WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE. 
 
 Edmund A. Engler, LL. D., President. 
 
 Levi L. Conant, Ph. D., Professor of Mathematics. 
 
 LEHIGH UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Natt M. Emery, A. M., Assistant to the President, and Registrar. 
 
 NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE COLLEGE. 
 
 William D. Gibbs, D. Sc, President. 
 
 Charles H. Pattee, C. E., Dean, and Professor of Mathematics. 
 
 HOWARD UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Wilbur P. Thirkield, LL. D., President. 
 
 EPISCOPAL THEOLOGICAL SCHOOL. 
 
 George Hodges, D. D., Dean. 
 
16 INTRODUCTION 
 
 HAMPTON NORMAL AND AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTE. 
 
 Hollis B. Frissell, LL. D., Principal. 
 
 BOSTON UNIVERSITY. 
 
 William E. Huntington, LL. D., President. 
 
 STEVENS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY. 
 
 Alexander C. Humphreys, LL. D., President. 
 George V. Wendell, Ph. D., Professor of Physics. 
 
 smith college. 
 Lawrence C. Seelye, LL. D., President. 
 Charles D. Hazen, Ph. D., Professor of History. 
 
 state normal school. 
 James E. Klock, Pd. D v Principal. 
 
 DRURY COLLEGE. 
 
 Francis K. Ball, Ph. D., Instructor in Greek at Phillips Exeter 
 Academy. 
 
 COLORADO COLLEGE. 
 
 William F. Slocum, LL. D., President. 
 
 wellesley college. 
 Sarah F. Whiting, Sc. D., Professor of Physics. 
 
 JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Ira Remsen, D. C. L., President. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO. 
 
 James H. Baker, LL. D., President. 
 
 TUSKEGEE NORMAL AND INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTE. 
 
 Booker T. Washington, LL. D., Principal. 
 
 CLARK UNIVERSITY. 
 
 Arthur G. Webster, LL. D., Professor of Physics. 
 
 RHODE ISLAND STATE COLLEGE. 
 
 Howard Edwards, LL. D., President. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO. 
 
 Edwin B. Frost, A. M., Director of the Yerkes Observatory. 
 
INTRODUCTION 17 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA. 
 
 Arthur G. Evans, D. D., President. 
 
 ST. anselm's college. 
 Joseph Joos, M. A., Professor of Science. 
 
 RADCLIFFE COLLEGE. 
 
 LeBaron E. Briggs, LL. D., President. 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF MONTANA. 
 
 Clyde Augustus Duniway, Ph. D., President. 
 
 SIMMONS COLLEGE. 
 
 James F. Norris, Ph. D., Professor of Chemistry. 
 
 CLARK COLLEGE. 
 
 Edmund C. Sanford, Ph. D., President. 
 
 THE DROFSIE COLLEGE FOR HEBREW AND COGNATE LEARNING. 
 
 Cyrus Adler, Ph. D., President. 
 
 DELEGATES FROM DARTMOUTH ALUMNI ASSOCI- 
 ATIONS AND CLUBS. 
 
 the general association. 
 Honorable Horace Russell, '65. 
 
 the boston association. 
 Rev. Francis E. Clark, '73. 
 
 NEW YORK ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Mr. Luther B. Little, '82. 
 
 WASHINGTON ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Mr. Henry P. Blair, '89. 
 
 CHICAGO ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Rev. Ozora S. Davis, '89. 
 
 MANCHESTER (n. H.) ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Mr. Henry N. Hurd, '94. 
 
 CONCORD (N. H.) ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Mr. John P. George, '78. 
 
18 INTRODUCTION 
 
 WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Mr. C. Henry Hathaway, '07. 
 
 VERMONT ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Dr. Charles S. Caverly, '78. 
 
 "the great divide" association. 
 Mr. Myron E. Witham, '04. 
 
 "of the plain" association. 
 Mr. Henry W. Pierpont, '03. 
 
 CONNECTICUT ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Mr. Lucius R. Hazen, '70. 
 
 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION. 
 
 President George A. Gates, '73. 
 
 philadelphia association. 
 Rt. Rev. Ethelbert Talbot, '70. 
 
 medical school association. 
 Dr. Arthur L. Wallace, '00, Med. '03. 
 
 THAYER SOCIETY OF ENGINEERS. 
 
 Mr. Amasa B. Clark, '89. 
 
 DARTMOUTH CLUB OF BOSTON. 
 
 Mr. George W. Estabrook, '61. 
 
 DARTMOUTH CLUB OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Mr. Edwin J. Morrison, '90. 
 
 DARTMOUTH CLUB OF WORCESTER. 
 
 Mr. Dana M. Dustan, '80. 
 
 DARTMOUTH CLUB OF WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Mr. James H. Conlon, '97. 
 
 RHODE ISLAND ASSOCIATION. 
 
 Mr. Nathan W. Littlefield, '69- 
 
 DARTMOUTH CLUB OF NORTHERN OHIO. 
 
 Mr. Willard G. Aborn, '93. 
 
 DARTMOUTH LUNCH CLUB OF SPRINGFIELD. 
 
 Mr. J. Frank Drake, '02. 
 
 dartmouth club of oak park (illinois). 
 Mr. Morton Hull, '09. 
 
 dartmouth club of lawrence (mass.). 
 Mr. John C Sanborn, '91. 
 
THE INAUGURATION OF 
 
 ERNEST FOX NICHOLS, D. Sc, LL. D. 
 
 AS 
 
 PRESIDENT OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGE 
 
 Order of the Exercises 
 
 I MORNING PEAYERS IN ROLLINS CHAPEL 
 9.30 A. M. 
 
 In charge of Professor John King Lord, Ph. D., LL. D. 
 
 Daniel Webster Professor of the Latin Language and 
 Literature 
 
 Anthem 
 
 Sanctus in A ...... Gounod 
 
 The College Choir and College Orchestra 
 
 Scripture Lesson 
 
 Selections from the Eighty-ninth Psalm 
 
 Hymn 
 
 "Come O Creator, Spirit Blest" 
 
 Prayer 
 
 Closing with the Lord's Prayer 
 
 II THE INAUGURATION IN WEBSTER HALL 
 10.15 A. M. 
 Anthem 
 
 "Gloria in Excelsis" Gounod 
 
 The College Choir and College Orchestra 
 
 Invocation 
 
 The Reverend Francis Brown, D. D., Litt. D. (Oxon.), of the 
 Board of Trustees, President of Union Theological Seminary 
 
20 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 The Induction and Presentation of the Charter 
 
 Frank Sherwin Streeter, Esq., A. M., in behalf of the Trustees 
 of Dartmouth College 
 
 The Acceptance 
 
 The President of the College 
 
 Welcome to "The Wheelock Succession" 
 
 Ex-President William Jewett Tucker, D. D., LL. D. 
 
 Response 
 
 The President of the College 
 
 Recital op Names op Delegates and Guests in Attendance 
 
 Professor Thomas Wilson Dorr Worthen, A. M., Cheney Pro- 
 fessor of Mathematics 
 
 Singing of Milton's Paraphrase of Psalm Cxxxvi. 
 Tune: "Nuremberg" 
 
 Speeches of Congratulation 
 
 In behalf of the English Founders and Benefactors 
 
 His Excellency The Right Honorable James Bryce, D. C. L., 
 LL. D., Ambassador to the United States from Great Britain 
 
 In behalf of the State of New Hampshire 
 
 His Excellency Henry Brewer Quinby, A. M., LL. D., 
 Governor of New Hampshire 
 
 In behalf of the Delegates 
 
 President Nicholas Murray Butler, LL. D., Litt. D. 
 (Oxon.), of Columbia University 
 
 In behalf of the Faculty 
 
 Professor Charles Darwin Adams, Ph. D., Lawrence Pro- 
 fessor of the Greek Language and Literature 
 
 In behalf of the Alumni 
 
 The Honorable Horace Russell, LL. D., of New York City, 
 President of the General Alumni Association 
 
 In behalf of the Undergraduates 
 
 Mr. Clarke Walworth Tobin, President of the Class of 1910 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 21 
 
 The President's Inaugural Address 
 
 Hymn 
 
 "For the Strength of the Hills We Bless Thee" 
 Arranged from Mrs. Heman: 
 Music by Gerrit Smith 
 The College Choir and College Orchestra 
 
 The Conferring of Degrees 
 
 The recipients of honorary degrees were presented by 
 
 Professor Charles Francis Richardson, Ph. D., Winckley 
 Professor of the English Language and Literature 
 
 Doctor of Divinity 
 
 Ozora Stearns Davis, President of Chicago Theological 
 Seminary (1854) 
 
 John Martin Thomas, President of Middlebury College (1800) 
 
 Doctor of Science 
 Richard Cockburn Maclaurin, President of the Massachusetts 
 Institute of Technology (1861) 
 
 Doctor of Laws 
 Jacob Gould Schurman, President of Cornell University 
 (1868) 
 
 Charles Richard Van Hise, President of the University of 
 Wisconsin (1848) 
 
 John Huston Finley, President of the College of the City of 
 New York (1847) 
 
 William DeWitt Hyde, President of Bowdoin College (179*) 
 Matthew Henry Buckham, President of the University of 
 Vermont (1791) 
 
 William Herbert Perry Faunce, President of Brown Uni- 
 versity (1764) 
 
 Nicholas Murray Butler, President of Columbia University 
 (1754) 
 
 Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton University (1746) 
 
22 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 Arthur Twining Hadley, President of Yale University (1701) 
 
 Abbott Lawrence Lowell, President of Harvard University 
 (1636) 
 
 Charles William Eliot, President Emeritus of Harvard Uni- 
 versity 
 
 James Burrill Angell, Ex-President of Michigan University 
 
 His Excellency Henry Brewer Quinby, Governor of New 
 
 Hampshire 
 William Jewett Tucker, Ex-President of Dartmouth College 
 
 Singing 
 
 "Men of Dartmouth" 
 
 Words by Richard Hovey '85 
 Music by Harry R. Wellman '07 
 
 The College Choir, College Orchestra and Students 
 
 Benediction 
 
 By the Right Reverend Ethelbert Talbot, D. D., LL. D., of 
 Pennsylvania, Bishop of Bethlehem 
 
 III INFORMAL LUNCHEON AT COLLEGE HALL 
 12.45 P. M. 
 
 IV INSPECTION OF COLLEGE BUILDINGS 
 2.80 P. M. 
 
 V EXERCISES AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER 
 STONE OF THE GYMNASIUM 
 
 4.00 P. M. 
 
 The student body and alumni formed in procession at College 
 Hall, thence marching to the Gymnasium site, where had gathered 
 many of the delegates and guests 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 23 
 Singing by the Student-Body 
 
 Introductory Words by the Presiding Officer 
 Edward Kimball Hall, Esq., A. B., LL. B. 
 
 Address by Professor Edwin Julius Bartlett, A. M., M. D. 
 New Hampshire Professor of Chemistry 
 
 Retrospect of the Gymnasium Movement 
 Professor John William Bowler, M. D. 
 Professor of Hygiene and Director of the Gymnasium 
 
 Singing by the Student-Body 
 
 Laying of the Corner Stone 
 
 By President Ernest Fox Nichols, D. Sc, LL. D. 
 
 Singing by the Student-Body 
 
 VI DINNER TO DISTINGUISHED GUESTS, GIVEN 
 AT COLLEGE HALL BY THE TRUSTEES 
 
 7.30 P. M. 
 
 Presiding Officer 
 
 Charles Frederick Mathewson, Esq., A. M., LL. B., of the 
 
 Board of Trustees 
 Speakers 
 
 His Excellency, The Governor of the State 
 
 His Excellency, The British Ambassador 
 
 President Lowell of Harvard 
 
 Ex-President Angell of Michigan 
 
 President Schurman of Cornell 
 
 President Hyde of Bowdoin 
 
 President Wilson of Princeton 
 
 President-Emeritus Eliot of Harvard 
 
MORNING PRAYERS IN ROLLINS 
 CHAPEL 
 
 The exercises of the day were opened in the morning at 9.30 
 o'clock with prayers in Rollins Chapel. Professor John King Lord, 
 Ph. D., LL. D., Daniel Webster Professor of the Latin Language 
 and Literature, presided. Graduating from Dartmouth College 
 with the Class of 1868, Professor Lord has served the institution 
 with unfailing ability and devotion, — as teacher since 1869, as act- 
 ing president in times of need since 1892. It is singularly appro- 
 priate that he should have had charge of the simple yet impressive 
 ceremony marking the close of one great era and the beginning of 
 another. 
 
 The program was as follows: 
 
 Anthem — Sanctus in A . . . . . Gounod 
 
 The College Choir and College Orchestra 
 
 Scripture Lesson 
 
 Selections from the Eighty-ninth Psalm 
 
 Hymn 
 
 "Come O Creator, Spirit Blest" 
 
 Prayer — Concluding with the Lord's Prayer 
 
 At the conclusion of the Chapel service, the delegates and invited 
 guests, together with the trustees, officers, faculty and alumni of the 
 College formed in academic procession, under escort of the senior 
 class. Led by the marshal, they marched diagonally to the south- 
 west corner of the campus: then turning sharply to east and north 
 proceeded to Webster Hall. Here were held the inauguration 
 exercises. 
 
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THE INAUGURATION IN WEBSTER HALL 
 
 INVOCATION 
 
 The invocation, by the Reverend Francis Brown, D. D., Litt. 
 D. (Oxon.), of the Board of Trustees, President of Union Theo- 
 logical Seminary, was as follows: 
 
 O God, most wise, most kind, most mighty, who hast 
 watched over this College from the beginning until now; 
 receive our thanks for all the blessings of the past years 
 upon it and especially for the good and faithful men 
 who have honoured Thee by patient service in it and for 
 it. We thank Thee for the faith and devotion of its 
 founders; we thank Thee for wise counsellors and 
 brave defenders; we thank Thee for generous bene- 
 factors; we thank Thee for quiet lives of teachers and 
 exemplars, and for earnest minds trained here to render 
 service to Thee and to the State. We thank Thee for 
 streams of influence and power flowing out from this 
 place to the ends of the world. 
 
 We bless Thy Name for the work of Thy servant who 
 has in these late years presided over the College and 
 pray for his continued peace and joy in a life made rich 
 by affection from the many who love him, and by the 
 faith of the multitudes who trust him, and by the manly 
 achievements of those who have been inspired by him, 
 with Thy service and companionship as the crown of his 
 rejoicing forevermore. We invoke Thy presence and 
 Thy benediction as we set apart one to whom like 
 responsibilities are intrusted. Let Thy grace be given 
 in full measure to him; dwell in his mind and in his 
 
26 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 heart; maintain him in health of body to carry the bur- 
 den of exacting duty; unite him with all those who are 
 here as the servants of truth and the formers of men, in 
 the accomplishment of great purposes. Grant him a 
 long and serviceable life, having the sunshine of Thy 
 presence to the end of it and entrance in hope at last to 
 the larger life beyond. 
 
 May the College prosper under his guidance and its 
 students learn the lessons of wisdom and of manhood, 
 of obligation and brotherhood and helpfulness. May 
 the commonwealth be enriched by its activities and Thy 
 Kingdom be advanced through it in all the days to 
 come. Let Thy blessing rest upon these exercises, and 
 upon all who have come up here to share in them, and 
 upon the institutions from which they come, and may 
 the result of all our education be the establishment at 
 length in the earth of Thine everlasting Kingdom of 
 righteousness and truth and love. 
 
 We ask it in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. 
 
 THE INDUCTION AND PRESENTATION OF THE 
 CHARTER 
 
 Following the invocation, Frank Sherwin Streeter, Esq., A. M., 
 in behalf of the Trustees of Dartmouth College, arose and address- 
 ing the assembly, said: 
 
 Honorable delegates, gentlemen of the board of 
 trustees, gentlemen of the faculty, the alumni, the 
 undergraduates, friends of the College, ladies and gen- 
 tlemen: A change of leadership is an important event 
 in the history of any college. With rejoicing for her 
 past and with firm confidence in her future, Dartmouth 
 takes that step today. 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 27 
 
 On the 6th day of April, 1907, after nearly fifteen 
 years of service, President William Jewett Tucker, 
 because of impaired health, requested an early accept- 
 ance of his resignation. At the earnest solicitation of 
 the trustees, however, he consented to remain in office 
 for a time in order that the board might have oppor- 
 tunity for deliberate consideration in choosing a suc- 
 cessor who should most clearly and fully meet the 
 requirements of the College and its traditions. 
 
 On the 8th day of June, 1909, the trustees with 
 enthusiastic unanimity elected Ernest Fox Nichols to 
 be the tenth president of Dartmouth College and voted 
 that the induction of the President-elect should take 
 place on the 14th day of October, 1909. 
 
 For that service we are now assembled. 
 
 Then addressing the President-elect, who stood before him, he 
 continued: 
 
 Ernest Fox Nichols, you assume the presidency of 
 this historic College at a time when the responsibilities 
 of that position are sharply emphasized. Serious prob- 
 lems today confront the administrators of all American 
 colleges. Questions of educational policy and adminis- 
 tration once regarded as settled are now reopened and 
 earnestly debated by men of the highest authority in the 
 educational world. The administrators of Dartmouth 
 must deal with these problems and, under your direc- 
 tion, we believe that they will be rightly solved. 
 
 In the evolution of recent years, the thousands of 
 loyal sons of the College have been brought into direct 
 relations with its administration. Five of the trustees 
 are taken from them, and the administration of the Col- 
 lege in the last fifteen years has been greatly furthered 
 
28 fNAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 by the affectionate devotion of her alumni. They have 
 been an inspiration to your predecessor in his great work 
 of up-building. They will not fail you in your work of 
 conserving, intensifying and enriching. 
 
 More than a decade ago you allied yourself to Dart- 
 mouth and became her son by adoption. You entered 
 into her fellowship and your loyal devotion to the Col- 
 lege and to the maintenance of her traditions made you 
 one with us. You are now coming back to your old 
 home, and the entire family unite in hearty welcome 
 to you as the head of the household. 
 
 That you bring the experience of the teacher, the 
 severe training of the investigator, the enthusiasm of the 
 scholar, united in rare degree with the broadest human 
 sympathy, inspires belief in your eminent fitness for 
 the administrative work of the College. That you come 
 to the presidency a young man gives promise of long 
 activity and accomplishment. 
 
 To you this high office is entrusted with confidence 
 that under your leadership the educational and adminis- 
 trative policies of the College will keep pace with the 
 most modern and progressive educational ideals. 
 
 Under this liberal charter, Dartmouth College has 
 carried on its work for one hundred and forty years. 
 Drawn in an age of ecclesiasticism, it is marked by an 
 avoidance of all sectarian restrictions. Vesting the gov- 
 ernment of the College in twelve trustees, it in terms 
 provides that at least seven shall be laymen. It is a 
 charter of freedom and privilege, rather than of prohi- 
 bition and restraint. 
 
 And now, by virtue of the authority vested in me by 
 the trustees of Dartmouth College, I deliver to your 
 keeping this ancient parchment. I induct you, Ernest 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 29 
 
 Fox Nichols, into the presidency of the College and 
 with it I give to you all the privileges, immunities and 
 honors pertaining to this position. 
 
 THE ACCEPTANCE 
 The President of the College, in accepting the charter, replied: 
 
 Sir: By your declaration and by the presentation of 
 this charter, I realize to the full that a time-honored and 
 very sacred trust has passed into my hands. I accept it 
 humbly and pray that God may grant me strength, wis- 
 dom, courage, to discharge the grave duties of my office 
 honorably and well. 
 
 WELCOME TO "THE WHEELOCK SUCCESSION" 
 
 Having been thus formally invested with his new authority, 
 President Nichols received his first greeting from Ex-President 
 Tucker, who in welcoming him into the "Wheeloch Succession" said: 
 
 President Nichols, I am permitted by the courtesy 
 of the trustees to introduce you at this point to a some- 
 what peculiar, because personal, succession, into which 
 each president of the College enters upon his induction 
 into office. The charter of Dartmouth, unlike that of 
 any college of its time so far as I know, was written in 
 personal terms. It recognizes throughout the agency 
 of one man in the events leading up to and including 
 the founding of the College. And in acknowledgment 
 of this unique fact it conferred upon this man — founder 
 and first president — some rather unusual powers, among 
 which was the power to appoint his immediate suc- 
 cessor. Of course this power of appointment ceased 
 with its first use, but the idea of a succession in honor 
 
30 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 of the founder, suggested by the charter, was perpetu- 
 ated; so that it has come about that the presidents of 
 Dartmouth are known at least to themselves as also the 
 successors of Wheelock, a distinction which I am quite 
 sure that you will appreciate more and more. For 
 Eleazar Wheelock was the type of the man, the impulse 
 of whose life runs on in men, creating as it goes a nat- 
 ural succession: a man whose power of initiative is evi- 
 denced by the fact that at sixty he was able to found 
 this College in the wilderness: a scholar by the best 
 standards of his time, the first Berkeley Fellow at Yale: 
 broad and courageous in his mental sympathies, a leader 
 in the progressive movements of his age : and of so high 
 and commanding a devotion of purpose that it brought 
 him to an accomplished end. I do not know in just 
 what ways the impulse of this man's life entered into the 
 life of my predecessors. To me it has been a constant 
 challenge. Whenever I have grown dull of heart as 
 well as of mind, tempted to shirk work or to evade duty, 
 I have found it a most healthful exercise to go over to 
 this man's grave, and read his epitaph — 
 
 "By the Gospel He Subdued the Ferocity of the Savage, 
 And to the Civilized He Opened New Paths of Science. 
 
 Traveller, 
 Go, if You Can, and Deserve 
 The Sublime Reward of Such Merit." 
 
 Dartmouth, as you know, has been singularly for- 
 tunate in the return into its own life of the fame and 
 service of some of her greater sons, singularly fortunate 
 also in the abounding and unflinching loyalty of all of 
 her sons; but I believe that the greatest possession of 
 the College has been and is still the spirit of Eleazar 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 31 
 
 Wheelock in so far as it has been transmitted through 
 his successors. I think therefore that the term "The 
 Successors of Wheelock" is worthy of public, if not of 
 official recognition. Unwittingly Wheelock himself 
 originated the expression in the very thoughtful pro- 
 vision which he tried to make for those of us who were 
 to come after him. "To my successors," he says in one 
 of the last clauses of his will, not to the trustees nor 
 to the College, but "to my successors in the presidency 
 I give and bequeath my chariot which was given me by 
 my honored friend, John Thornton, Esquire, of Lon- 
 don: I also give to my successors my house clock which 
 was a donation made me by my much honored patrons, 
 the Honorable Trust in London." 
 
 It is no matter of surprise, as we recall the utter indif- 
 ference of each generation to those things of its daily 
 handling which are likely to become historic, that these 
 perquisites of the succession have long since disap- 
 peared. But happily the intention of Wheelock was 
 caught and held in permanent shape. When John 
 Wentworth, governor of the Province of New Hamp- 
 shire, returned from the first commencement, he sent 
 back, possibly as a reminder of a deficiency on that occa- 
 sion, a silver punch bowl bearing this inscription — 
 
 "His Excellency John Wentworth, Esquire, Gov- 
 ernor of the Province of New Hampshire, and those 
 friends who accompanied him to Dartmouth the first 
 Commencement in 1771, in testimony of their gratitude 
 and good wishes, present this to the Reverend Eleazar 
 Wheelock, D. D., and to his successors in that office." 
 
 This bowl, which, as I now produce it, seems so inade- 
 quate to the draughts of that time, for this very reason 
 serves us the better as a kind of loving cup. 
 
32 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 In the spirit of the original gift, but after the fashion 
 of the later use, I now transfer it to you with the good 
 will of the long succession, and in the personal hope that 
 it may be many, many years before you will have the 
 opportunity to transfer it to your successor. 
 
 RESPONSE OF THE PRESIDENT 
 President Nichols responded as follows: 
 
 Dr. Tucker, through the years which may be given 
 me to serve this college worthily, I shall guard and cher- 
 ish this symbol of the Wheelock Succession for the 
 mighty hands through which it has passed, hands which 
 have held high the sacred torch of knowledge to light 
 the homes, the work shops, the streets of the world, that 
 none should grope in darkness, nor lose his way, nor run 
 into any kind of danger because of mental or moral 
 ignorance. I shall cherish this symbol of the Wheelock 
 Succession the more, sir, because it has come into my 
 hands from you, whom I have known and loved as my 
 chieftain. 
 
 RECITAL OF NAMES OF DELEGATES AND GUESTS 
 IN ATTENDANCE 
 
 Following this response, Professor Thomas Wilson Dorr 
 Worthen, A. M., Cheney Professor of Mathematics, recited the 
 names of delegates and guests in attendance. 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 33 
 
 SINGING OF MILTON'S PARAPHRASE OF PSALM 
 
 CXXXVI 
 
 The audience now rose and joined in singing Milton's noble 
 hymn, the paraphrase of Psalm Cxxxvi, to the tune of "Nurem- 
 berg" : 
 
 Let us with a gladsome mind 
 Praise the Lord, for He is kind; 
 For His mercies aye endure, 
 Ever faithful, ever sure. 
 
 Let us blaze His name abroad, 
 For of Gods He is the God; 
 For His mercies aye endure, 
 Ever faithful, ever sure. 
 
 He with all commanding might 
 Filled the new-made world with light; 
 For His mercies aye endure, 
 Ever faithful, ever sure. 
 
 He His chosen race did bless 
 In the wasteful wilderness; 
 For His mercies aye endure, 
 Ever faithful, ever sure. 
 
 Let us therefore chorus forth 
 His high majesty and worth; 
 For His mercies aye endure, 
 Ever faithful, ever sure. 
 
 All things living He doth feed, 
 His full hand supplies their need ; 
 For His mercies aye endure, 
 Ever faithful, ever sure. 
 
 SPEECHES OF CONGRATULATION 
 
 After the singing the marshal called upon the following speakers, 
 delegated to express congratulations: 
 
 In behalf of the English Founders and Benefactors 
 
 His Excellency The Right Honorable James 
 Bryce, D. C. L., LL. D., Ambassador to the 
 United States from Great Britain 
 
34 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 In behalf of the State of New Hampshire 
 
 His Excellency Henry Brewer Quinby, A. M., 
 LL. D., Governor of New Hampshire 
 
 In behalf of the Delegates 
 
 President Nicholas, Murray Butler, LL. D., 
 Litt. D. (Oxon.), of Columbia University 
 
 In behalf of the Faculty 
 
 Professor Charles Darwin Adams, Ph. D., Law- 
 rence Professor of the Greek Language and Lit- 
 erature 
 
 In behalf of the Alumni 
 
 The Honorable Horace Russell, LL. D., of New 
 
 York City, President of the General Alumni 
 Association 
 
 In behalf of the Undergraduates 
 
 Mr. Clarke Walworth Tobin, President of the 
 Class of 1910 
 
 Their addresses are here given in the order of delivery: 
 ADDRESS BY AMBASSADOR BRYCE 
 
 Mr. President, gentlemen of the board of trustees, 
 members of the faculty, alumni, graduates and under- 
 graduates of Dartmouth College: It is a great honor 
 and pleasure to me to be permitted to tender you, Dr. 
 Nichols, hearty congratulations upon your accession to 
 this office, so full of great opportunities for the service 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 35 
 
 of God and man. I do so, in the first place, Dr. Nichols, 
 on behalf of the younger graduates of Dartmouth, a 
 body of whom I happen to know something, being 
 myself a member of the Class of 1904. (Laughter.) 
 
 But I especially come to tender you congratulations 
 on behalf of the representatives, heirs and successors of 
 those English founders and benefactors whose good 
 thoughts and wishes bore a large part in the founding 
 of your College, and took that part because they were 
 impressed by and appreciated the admirable spirit which 
 the first of your predecessors brought to the advance- 
 ment of education and of this College. 
 
 If their venerable shades could be near us today and 
 could look down from that blue sky above our heads, 
 how they would rejoice to think to what their founda- 
 tion has grown, and how lovingly they would linger over 
 the many years of splendid service which Dartmouth 
 College has given to the world. 
 
 The foundation of this College was one of the last 
 good deeds done by English friends of the American 
 colonies before there arose the unhappy misunderstand- 
 ings which for a time interposed clouds of suspicion 
 between the people of the old land and the people of the 
 new. In the process of time those clouds have happily 
 rolled away, and the older and the sweeter memories 
 have again become clearer and stand out brighter to us, 
 as a mountain peak stands out after the mists have been 
 driven by the sun from its sides ; and we can now better 
 realize that continuity of life which belongs to both 
 branches of the stock. We realize how much of our life 
 has flowed out to these new lands and into what new 
 forms it has grown; and you realize how much of your 
 life has sprung from the old land and by how many ties 
 
36 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 of language and tradition you are bound to that old 
 land from which your forefathers came and from which 
 it is only your political fortunes that have now become 
 separated. It is a joy to us to think of this continuity 
 of intellectual life, that the underlying community of 
 aim and purpose, community of character and belief, 
 exist among both branches of the old stock and draws us 
 ever nearer together in spirit and feeling, even although 
 it is by different means and in different continents that 
 our work is to be done. 
 
 Thus we welcome every opportunity of testifying to 
 the interest that we in England feel in what you are 
 doing and the hope with which we follow the efforts 
 you are making — and making on a far grander scale 
 than is possible in any European country today, because 
 you have a continent for your field. We welcome, also, 
 those forms of connection which have grown up of late 
 years, such as the more frequent interchange of univer- 
 sity teachers going hither and thither ; such as the pres- 
 ence in Oxford — if I may particularly mention in this 
 connection my own university — of young men from the 
 American colleges and universities, who bring to us a 
 knowledge of your life and character, and who carry 
 back from us to you some knowledge of what people 
 are doing and thinking in old England. The founda- 
 tion of the Rhodes scholarships has been an exceedingly 
 valuable link between the younger men of both coun- 
 tries ; and I am glad to think that every year there are 
 going from the State of New Hampshire two students 
 who, in Oxford, will tell their English friends and com- 
 panions what is passing here, and will form one more of 
 those innumerable personal ties upon which the friend- 
 ship between the United States and England must be 
 based. 
 
INAUGUEATION OF PEESIDENT NICHOLS 37 
 
 I could wish that we had some similar foundation 
 which would bring our students to American universi- 
 ties, also, not only because there are some subjects, some 
 branches of science and learning, which you pursue here 
 with a greater wealth of appliances than we perhaps 
 have, and the study of which you have perhaps pushed 
 farther, but because it is of the utmost value to each 
 nation that it should be in that direct touch with the 
 f eelings and sentiments of the other nation that can only 
 be obtained by dwelling in it and by forming the per- 
 sonal friendships to which I have referred. Your young 
 men who go as Rhodes scholars now form an important 
 part of the lif e of Oxford. No students are more appre- 
 ciated or more popular; and I believe if some liberal 
 founder, some one of the wealthy men who so abound in 
 this country, and who are beginning to abound even in 
 Canada, would make a foundation for English, Scotch 
 and Irish students to come to your American and to 
 Canadian universities, it would confer a great benefit 
 on both countries. 
 
 What a noble thing a college foundation is. What a 
 large view those men had who established these founda- 
 tions for learning, in which there was lit the lamp which 
 should go on shining from generation to generation; 
 within whose walls there was always to be a body absorb- 
 ing and pervaded by the spirit and feeling which ani- 
 mated its predecessors, a body the members of which 
 felt themselves to be the heirs and successors of the 
 men who preceded them. That spirit animates you 
 here, as was so well expressed by my friend President 
 Tucker a few moments ago. How fine it is, that these 
 foundations should last and remain, century after cen- 
 tury, carrying on as in some ship of state the great, 
 
38 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 far-off traditions that have come down from the past, 
 and that those coming into the foundations should enter 
 into the spirit of the traditions, should maintain and 
 fortify them, so as to render to posterity services like 
 those which antiquity has rendered to us. Those are the 
 f eelings which we have had in our ancient college, where 
 we look back five, six or seven centuries to the men of the 
 early Middle Ages. Those are for us the traditions of 
 former years, which grow richer with all the added 
 wealth of recollections as time rolls on. They are grow- 
 ing up here also and though the period is shorter, the 
 feeling is with you fully as strong. 
 
 Let me say that I take special interest and pleasure 
 in coming and seeing one of these smaller New England 
 colleges — small relatively to the vast universities repre- 
 sented here today, which have thousands of students 
 where this College has hundreds. But the old New 
 England colleges have had a place and a mission of their 
 own, and a very noble mission it was. They had not the 
 immense funds which the wealth of benefactors now 
 bestows on some of the universities — a wealth, however, 
 not reflected in the incomes of the professors. In their 
 earlier day all those colleges were not only small but 
 poor. They had no museums, they had no laboratories, 
 they had small libraries, and the buildings were plain 
 and unpretending. But the spirit was there ; the enthu- 
 siasm for learning and for knowledge was there. The 
 teachers were in earnest, and the men were in earnest, 
 desiring to make the most of their opportunities. They 
 were not distracted from their zeal and interest in study 
 by other interests; their minds were not scattered or 
 dissipated over a large number of subjects, all claiming 
 attention, as the progress of science and learning have 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 39 
 
 now come to distract students today. Their thought 
 and industry were confined to comparatively few topics, 
 and to some it may seem that their intellectual life was 
 a narrow one. Well, gentlemen, it was not as wide, per- 
 haps, as now, when science is continually opening up 
 new subjects for us; but one thing let us say for these 
 men — what they knew, they knew! What they worked 
 at, they worked at! They had few subjects, but they 
 became masters of them. They devoted themselves 
 heart and soul to those subjects, and there was no part 
 of them, in so far as their opportunities went, that they 
 had not explored. The result was that these small New 
 England colleges turned out men of great strength of 
 will, firm character, and powerful intellect. They were 
 men to whose lives we can look with admiration for their 
 grasp and force of mind, such men, for instance, as the 
 one after whom you have named this hall. In the time 
 between the end of the Revolutionary War and the 
 Civil War, those eighty years in which this country was 
 being moulded into the shape it has taken, a large pro- 
 portion of the striking characters and the powerful 
 intellects were produced by these smaller New Eng- 
 land colleges. There is still room for that type of insti- 
 tution and for the kind of work it has done. I am half 
 disappointed to hear that Dartmouth has now more than 
 one thousand students because the small college seems 
 to have some great advantages in its smallness. But 
 you have kept the distinctive qualities which gave their 
 fame to the small colleges. You recognize that there is 
 still room not only for the man who is to have a wide 
 knowledge of many subjects, but also for the man who is 
 to have a thorough mastery of a few, and who, by the 
 mastery of those few, knowing how to study and how 
 
40 INAUGUKATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 he can get to the bottom of each of them, will so disci- 
 pline and train his mind that, whatever subject he is 
 set to, he will become a master of it. For those men and 
 that kind of training there is always room and need. 
 They are the strength of a nation. 
 
 May that spirit of thoroughness, may that earnestness 
 of mind and purpose, always live in this Granite State 
 and in those who come to this College. May the New 
 England colleges always cherish and be inspired by the 
 noble traditions which have come down to them from 
 the past ; and may Dartmouth always continue to main- 
 tain among them her place of ancient honor. 
 
 ADDRESS BY GOVERNOR QUINBY 
 
 As Governor of this Commonwealth I extend to 
 Dartmouth College the congratulations of its citizens 
 upon her fortunate selection for the presidency of this 
 splendid institution of learning, and I have the fullest 
 confidence that her high standard will be maintained 
 during his administration. 
 
 We welcome him to our midst as the president of this 
 College and assure him of the cordial co-operation of 
 • our State and of our people. As an alumnus of Bow- 
 doin College I wish to express my sincere personal in- 
 terest, for Joseph McKeen, a graduate of Dartmouth, 
 class of 1774, was inaugurated Bowdoin's first president 
 in September, 1802, and under him Nathan Lord, so 
 many years the honored president of this College, was 
 matriculated. 
 
 Dartmouth College cherishes with undiminished 
 regard the memory of her generous patron, Lord Dart- 
 mouth, and appreciates the continued interest in it 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 41 
 
 evinced by his successor. On this occasion we have with 
 us, as the representative of those early English founders 
 and benefactors, one of the world's foremost men of 
 letters, the Right Honorable James Bryce, England's 
 ambassador to America. May the bonds of friendship 
 now firmly uniting these two English-speaking coun- 
 tries grow stronger and stronger as the years roll by. 
 
 Dartmouth College was founded during the adminis- 
 tration of John Wentworth, the last royal governor of 
 New Hampshire after its separation from Massachu- 
 setts, and when the Province comprised but five coun- 
 ties, which Governor Wentworth is said to have named 
 after some of his friends in England; and through the 
 friendly efforts of Governor Langdon in 1807 a grant 
 of land was finally confirmed to the College. 
 
 Thus the founding and the history of our State are 
 so closely coincident and intertwined with the founding 
 and the history of Dartmouth College, that our citizens 
 of New Hampshire who are so proud of her record and 
 of the roll of illustrious men who have made her great, 
 feel a personal pride in the progress and accomplish- 
 ments of this College and in the achievements of her 
 graduates. 
 
 Take but the single instance of Daniel Webster : born 
 in the Granite State, educated in these classic shades 
 and a maker of imperishable history not only for our 
 State but for our Nation. In the historic battle of this 
 institution for its very existence, single-handed almost, 
 he saved for it its birthright; but while he made its 
 foundation secure, and while the names of Dartmouth 
 and Webster are forever inseparable in memory's hall 
 of fame, let us not forget those, some of whom are within 
 sound of my voice, who within the last twenty years, by 
 
42 INAUGUBATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 their wisdom, their courage, and their loyalty to their 
 alma mater, have produced from the modest nucleus of 
 less than two decades ago, the grand conditions which 
 now surround us. 
 
 Let the State foster this seat of knowledge; let us 
 show to those abroad that we fully prize its possession, — 
 and let the College on its part devote itself to extending 
 further and yet further its well earned renown, ever 
 bearing in mind, as I believe it will, that its policy must 
 be broad and that its acts must be dictated by the spirit 
 of charity for all and malice towards none. Then will 
 State and College be together a power for good govern- 
 ment and the cause of liberal education. 
 
 ADDEESS BY PEESIDENT BUTLEE 
 
 Mr. President, it is no mean honor to be the bearer on 
 behalf of these scholars and representatives of scholar- 
 ship of the messages of congratulation, good will and 
 good cheer, which they come so gladly bringing you as 
 gifts. To some of us you have been a trusted and 
 beloved colleague, to all of us a friend; and we recog- 
 nize the fact that in passing to this new post of honor 
 and distinction you are carrying to the discharge of its 
 duties a noble equipment of mind, training and char- 
 acter. May God bless you. 
 
 The post to which you have gone, sir, is no private 
 place. It is not only to be a member of the faculty, 
 primus inter pares, not only to be the companion, guide 
 and counsellor of scholars and students, but your office 
 has about it something of the prophetic character. You 
 are today set apart to be the voice to interpret the ideals, 
 the aims and the purposes, not only of Dartmouth Col- 
 lege but of all for which Dartmouth College stands, to 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 43 
 
 itself, to those who love it and know it, and to the people 
 of these United States, of which it is, and long has been, 
 a public servant. 
 
 You are surrounded on every side by noble hills. 
 Their granite typifies the strength, the solidity, the 
 endurance of tested human character, their changing 
 verdure marks the lesson of the mystery of life, which 
 tempts the fancy and perplexes the intellect of man. 
 Their peaks point upward in token of that aspiration 
 which is itself the supreme human feeling. 
 
 May you, sir, in this post bend to the making of 
 citizens of America the letters that you so well know, 
 the science that you so dearly love, and the arts which 
 you so highly cherish. May you so bend them and guide 
 others to the bending, for the making of citizenship, 
 which, like these great granite hills, shall have sturdy 
 strength and vitality, which shall have constantly 
 renewed life, and which shall have the aspiration that 
 turns its face, as they point their peaks, toward that 
 uppermost Heaven where the faith of man has fixed 
 the dwelling place of the Most High. 
 
 ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR ADAMS 
 
 President Nichols, we, the faculty of Dartmouth 
 College, welcome you as our head. We pledge to you 
 our loyal support, our trust and our affection. 
 
 We see laid upon you today a strong man's task; 
 from this day you stand forth as the man called to lead 
 this College — old and ever young — through a new stage 
 of her career. From this hour the honor of Dartmouth, 
 the efficiency of her work, the enlargement of her influ- 
 ence, the hopes of a thousand homes, are to rest day and 
 
44 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 night upon your heart. We, your faculty, assure you 
 that whatever of wisdom and strength within us lies is 
 from this day forth at your command. 
 
 The faculty of this College by the specific provision 
 of its ancient charter stand in peculiar relation to its 
 president. We have been appointed, in the language of 
 the charter, "to assist the president, in the education and 
 government of the students." It is thus primarily 
 through relation to the president that we come into rela- 
 tion to the college. We are appointed, sir, to help you. 
 
 And this personal relation, established in the begin- 
 ning by the charter, has been interpreted to us through 
 years of service with President Tucker. No man could 
 have been further from ever asking us to serve himself, 
 for no son of Dartmouth ever more completely exempli- 
 fied unselfish service. Yet as we have now these many 
 years served Dartmouth with him, we have found 
 double reward in that in serving the College we could 
 in some degree express the honor and the love in which 
 we hold him. 
 
 And now into this close relation, sanctioned by defini- 
 tion of the charter, and interpreted to each of us by pre- 
 cious experience, we enter with you. You already know 
 its meaning, for in all the years of your membership in 
 this faculty you, too, knew the joy and inspiration of 
 fellowship with him ; and the fact that you have so long 
 been one with us in loyalty to our chief makes it natural 
 for us today to enter into this same close relation with 
 you. What better bond could unite president and fac- 
 ulty at the beginning of a new administration than the 
 common love for one who embodies our highest ideals! 
 
 Had a stranger come today to take upon him this 
 high office, we should, it is true, have pledged to him our 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 45 
 
 loyal support — for Dartmouth's sake. But over our 
 welcome to him there would have hung something of 
 uncertainty, something of anxiety. But you come as no 
 stranger; in coming to Dartmouth you come home 
 again. Our comradeship was long since established in 
 years of work together; we learned then to take pride 
 in your distinguished achievements, to trust your coun- 
 sels, and to prize your friendship. In those years you 
 were born into the Dartmouth family. Long since, our 
 alma mater learned to call you not servant, but son. 
 
 The call from the New Hampshire hills found you in 
 a position of assured success. Your years of rigorous 
 discipline in a most exacting science had prepared you 
 for a period of research that was sure to add to the sum 
 of human knowledge in your chosen field. Your earlier 
 discoveries had won world-wide recognition; from this 
 field, where achievement and honor were so secure, you 
 were called to take up untried tasks, to assume heavier 
 burdens, to offer yourself a hostage to unknown for- 
 tune. That you had the courage to respond to this call 
 proves you a true son of Dartmouth. 
 
 And now we, your faculty, call upon you to lead us 
 courageously in the solution of great problems. No 
 administration of the College ever began with such 
 wealth of resources ; you find a splendid student body, 
 no longer representative of a locality, but of the nation; 
 in their hearts an enthusiasm that is marvelous in inten- 
 sity and power. You find material equipment that has 
 kept even pace with growing numbers. You find a 
 devoted body of alumni, in whose lives Dartmouth is 
 not a distant memory of youth, but a constant, living 
 force. All these resources it is yours now to use. 
 
 And you face problems that may well challenge your 
 mature strength. You come to the leadership of a great 
 
46 INAUGUEATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 college in a day when the very idea of the American 
 college has lost all clear definition ; its very existence is 
 challenged. There was a time when the college stood 
 as a clearly defined instrument of training for intelli- 
 gent manhood and citizenship, placed in the open field 
 between the elementary discipline of boyhood and the 
 professional training of full manhood. With the con- 
 stant pressure of professional studies downward that 
 distinction has disappeared. We listen eagerly today 
 to any voice that undertakes to define clearly the func- 
 tion of the American college of the coming generation. 
 This problem is yours. 
 
 You come into control of a great body of college men 
 at a time when the interests of college life have become 
 so complex, its social and physical delights so fascinat- 
 ing, its transient ambitions so absorbing, that sometimes 
 it seems that the reason for its being, the cultivation of 
 the intellectual life, were no longer to be central. We 
 believe that the high ideals of scholarship that have 
 marked your own career will enable you so to foster and 
 honor scholarship that the college shall be in truth in 
 the minds of students and alumni an "institution of 
 learning." 
 
 You come into a position of commanding influence 
 among young men at a time when the great problems of 
 society are essentially moral problems ; when the splen- 
 did material instruments that modern science has shaped 
 and the mighty commercial and industrial forces that 
 modern society has developed have brought a pressure 
 upon manhood under which too often it has broken 
 down. The ultimate challenge of the world to the col- 
 lege of your administration will be the challenge to send 
 out men of character, men of truth. In your own devo- 
 tion to truth, in your scorn of any lesser aim in your own 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 47 
 
 scientific studies, we find the assurance that this college 
 will under your leadership, as in all the great days of 
 old, "prepare the way of the Lord, and make his paths 
 straight." 
 
 You leave today to others the fame that was to have 
 been yours of further answering the old alluring ques- 
 tion, "By what way is the light parted?"; but, as you 
 come into the succession of Wheelock and Brown, of 
 Lord and Smith and Bartlett and Tucker, you come 
 into the glory of a clearer, steadier light, "that light 
 that lighteth every man." As you lead forth in the 
 radiance of that light, we, your faculty, gladly follow 
 you. 
 
 ADDRESS BY JUDGE RUSSELL 
 
 By the favor of the associated alumni of the College, 
 I am permitted to speak their word of welcome and con- 
 gratulation on this occasion; and to assure you, as I 
 do, Dr. Nichols, of their loyalty, sympathy and support. 
 
 This is a most interesting function, a great and stim- 
 ulating event. The presence of the British Ambassador, 
 still more appreciatively known to us as the author of 
 "The American Commonwealth," not to mention his 
 other writings, — this gathering of so many of the most 
 eminent educators of America, the coming of so large a 
 number of the alumni, some from almost across the con- 
 tinent, and the earnest enthusiasm of this large student 
 body proclaim it an event of the first importance and 
 not soon to be forgotten. 
 
 We are engaged in the business of installing a new 
 president of the college we love. The right man has 
 been found, and he is being put into the right place. It 
 
48 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 is a great office, sir, the insignia of which have this day 
 been placed in your hands. There is none of greater 
 honor, dignity and opportunity for usefulness among 
 all the employments of men. 
 
 Your achievements in science bring a new lustre to 
 the renown of this ancient seat of learning, while your 
 experience as an educator, here and elsewhere, your 
 known moral endowment and mental equipment give 
 assurance that under your leadership the College is 
 about to enter on an era of increased usefulness and 
 honor. For one, I feel that it is fitter we should thank 
 you for accepting the call than that you should thank 
 us for giving it. 
 
 The alumni, therefore, most cordially approve and 
 ratify the choice of the board of trustees. We abate 
 nothing of the affectionate gratitude we bear to your 
 predecessor, nor of the regret we feel that he has been 
 constrained to think it necessary for him to lay down the 
 burden he has borne so long and so satisfactorily. The 
 official connection may be severed but not the tie of 
 admiring affection. He will have the tribute of our 
 love while he lives and of our tears when dead. 
 
 It is now nearly twenty years since the alumni of the 
 College were invited into closer and more active rela- 
 tions with, and were given representation in the govern- 
 ment of the College. I count it as a great privilege to 
 have been one of "the committee to formulate the plan 
 by which this was brought about. I hazard nothing in 
 asserting there is no one to say the plan has not worked 
 well. It has intensified, not to say created, the Dart- 
 mouth spirit out of the College as well as in it. It has 
 kept up an interest on the part of the alumni in the 
 affairs and success of the College. It has resulted in 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 49 
 
 material benefits as well. Some of the finest and most 
 graceful of these new buildings, notably the new Dart- 
 mouth Hall and the splendid structure in which this 
 function is progressing, were built with moneys contrib- 
 uted by the alumni — not by a few, but the great body. 
 Si quaeris monumentum, circumspice. You will find 
 the alumni animated by a helpful spirit and a disposition 
 to give, each according to his means, to meet the needs 
 and promote the welfare of the College. With the last 
 mentioned consideration in mind, it is perhaps to be 
 regretted that few — if, indeed, any — Dartmouth men 
 have achieved a place in the ranks of the "criminal rich." 
 
 One could almost wish for your personal sake that 
 you were to succeed to a failure instead of to a success. 
 You would at least escape trying, not to say odious, 
 comparisons. But that is a low point of view, not for a 
 moment to be entertained. Still it must be conceded, it 
 took the highest kind of courage on your part to be will- 
 ing to step into the shoes of one who has a genius for 
 administration and who has accomplished so much in so 
 short a period of time. 
 
 I am sure you are glad to find so much ready to your 
 hand, — adequate buildings and equipment, a fair endow- 
 ment, an institution in the full tide of prosperity with 
 everything setting its way. You can give your atten- 
 tion almost unreservedly to what is after all a college's 
 excuse for being, the education and development of the 
 ingenuous youth who shall come here. What a hap- 
 piness is yours! 
 
 Of course all the problems of higher education will 
 demand your attention, and will be met and disposed of 
 as they arise. They will be almost as numerous as 
 breakfast foods and most of them as little nutritious. 
 It is not for me to expatiate on them now. 
 
50 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 The alumni have at times been alarmed by the appre- 
 hension that an attempt might be made to transform the 
 College into a university. To this they are opposed. 
 They want it kept a college. They think there is such 
 a thing as being too big and trying to do too much, and 
 this they deprecate. 
 
 There is a little sentence of only twelve words 
 repeated more often and more feelingly by the alumni 
 than all other eulogiums ever uttered about the Col- 
 lege. None so quickly touches their hearts. None so 
 surely penetrates to the fountain of their love and tears : 
 "It is a small college, but there are those who love it." 
 
 The occasion when these words were first spoken, the 
 majestic personality of him who spoke them, the 
 pathetic recital of a father, mother and brother's self 
 denial, to enable him to obtain his education here, the 
 effect on the dignified and austere court who heard 
 them, our own recollections of the College as we knew 
 it, and of our own personal history in connection with 
 it, have given to these simple words a significance and 
 inspiring interest which they can never lose. "It is a 
 small college, but there are those who love it." 
 
 It is no longer a small college. While we love it just 
 the same, and are proud of its growth and prosperity, 
 its dearest claim on our affection comes from the days 
 when it was poor, struggling and small. 
 
 To conserve this College, to nurture it, to promote it, 
 to send forth year by year a brave band of young men 
 equipped with a sound scholarship and manly character, 
 to extend the roll of its worthy sons, to preserve its his- 
 tory and traditions and to make it a potent force for 
 good to our country and to our race is the work which 
 Heaven has found for your hands to do. Thank God 
 that he has appointed you to so noble a task! 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 51 
 
 ADDRESS BY MR. TOBIN 
 
 To step from undergraduate file and rank and to 
 address a gathering such as this would be no slight 
 ordeal, save for one purpose: it is that purpose which 
 prompts me to speak. Who among you, that has shaped 
 or is shaping your manhood here in Hanover, wrapt in 
 the maternal cloak of the College, could not voice a 
 congratulatory word to the man who has been chosen to 
 guide its immediate destiny and to protect the fruits of 
 well nigh a century and a half of self sacrifice? 
 
 So, in behalf of the Dartmouth undergraduates, I 
 extend to Dr. Nichols hearty congratulations upon his 
 assuming the presidency of this College, a college of 
 some twelve hundred men, men who are taught well, 
 fully equipped to go forth, strong in the idea of being 
 of some real service to their fellows ; men among whom 
 democracy reigns supreme; men in whom Nature her- 
 self takes an interest in the forming of a compact organ- 
 ization, teaching at the same time the wonders of the 
 force that must he behind her hand. Moreover, there 
 is that ever-present spirit of power and of rich senti- 
 ment. 
 
 There are still men in College who will recall when 
 Dr. Tucker first expressed his intention of resigning, 
 and they will remember how a few days later Dr. 
 Tucker started away for a much needed rest. On the 
 way to the station his carriage passed in front of Col- 
 lege Hall, before which were gathered the students of 
 the College, called thither at a moment's notice by the 
 ever loyal spirit which binds Dartmouth men together. 
 And then went up a cheer, a cheer that shook the very 
 hills, re-echoing again and again — not the cheer that 
 
52 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 urges the athlete to deeds of prowess, but the cheer of 
 love, of sincere admiration for the man who had given 
 so much to Dartmouth. Dr. Tucker's carriage stopped 
 for a moment, and his words, as I remember them, were, 
 "Men, the College will be safe in your hands." 
 (Applause.) 
 
 I only mention this incident to illustrate the spirit 
 that was shown at that gathering, the trust which Dr. 
 Tucker had in the College and the love which the Col- 
 lege had for him. 
 
 I leave to Dartmouth history the perpetuation of his 
 record. But this is your day, Dr. Nichols. To you we 
 undergraduates now turn, full of confidence in your 
 ability, proud of your success in science and of your 
 good name, which you now link with ours and that of 
 the College. Though extending congratulations to you, 
 we congratulate ourselves upon having your leadership. 
 We are yours to command, and we take this opportunity 
 to greet the new administration with the same cheer of 
 loyalty that always belonged to the old. (Great 
 applause, followed by student cheering for President 
 Nichols.) 
 
 PRESIDENT NICHOLS* INAUGURAL ADDRESS 
 
 Following the speeches of congratulation, President Nichols de- 
 livered his inaugural address as here given: 
 
 The past sixteen years have been and ever will be 
 notable years in the history of Dartmouth College. In 
 that time the number of students has all but quadrupled; 
 and the material equipment of the College has expanded 
 in proportion. The College has added to its libraries, 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 53 
 
 built laboratories for its scientific departments and mod- 
 ern dormitories for its students. Its teaching staff has 
 grown in size and advanced in quality. In every direc- 
 tion the growth of the College has been rapid and great, 
 but at the same time normal and balanced. The student 
 body has changed in more ways than numbers, for if we 
 believe with William of Wyckham, "that manners mak- 
 eth man," and to a very considerable extent they 
 undoubtedly do, Dartmouth is not only graduating 
 more, but a better average of men than in earlier times. 
 Dartmouth's developments in these years has been due 
 in an extraordinary degree to the work of a single 
 leader, and that leader is Doctor Tucker. His win- 
 ning, alert, and earnest personality, his wisdom, fore- 
 sight, and his moral, mental, and physical energy, have 
 carried the College forward over many obstacles which 
 to others, at the time, seemed insuperable, and so they 
 might have been under other leadership. The College 
 has been truly blest with an intrepid and f arsighted pilot 
 who has brought her safely over rough seas and through 
 some narrow and dangerous channels. The College, the 
 State, and the Nation have just reason to take pride in 
 Doctor Tucker's great achievement. 
 
 That grave problems still face the College is but evi- 
 dence that Dartmouth is thoroughly alive, for in death 
 only are all problems solved. It is not, however, of 
 Dartmouth's individual problems that I wish to speak 
 today — I am not yet sure I know them all. I want 
 rather to speak of some of the problems common to all 
 our American colleges, and ask permission to speak of 
 them not as an administrator, but as a college teacher — 
 a calling in which I have some background of experi- 
 ence. 
 
54 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 The college is the latest phase of the institutional life 
 of our country to be assailed by the reformer, and it 
 cannot be denied that we have been unfortunate in some 
 of those who have hurried in to tell us our faults. All 
 angles of the complex problem are gradually coming 
 into view, however, and the public once awake may be 
 trusted to do its own thinking. 
 
 To open the whole subject in one address is mani- 
 festly impossible, yet there are some fundamental mat- 
 ters here which should be better understood. I shall 
 speak briefly first of the place and intention of the col- 
 lege in our American education and later on certain 
 aspects of the curriculum, on undergraduate lif e, and on 
 some of the problems of teaching. 
 
 The college rises on the finished foundations of the 
 secondary school and leads to the professional and lib- 
 eral departments of the university on the one hand and 
 directly into the open fields and the branching highways 
 of life on the other. It offers a quiet space for the 
 broadening, deepening, and enriching of the mind and 
 soul of man, a home of mental industry and moral 
 growth, a season for "the austere and serious girding of 
 the loins of youth," and an inspiration to "that other life 
 of refined pleasure and action in the open places of the 
 world." 
 
 To those approaching graduate studies the college 
 should offer those fundamental courses which serve as 
 points of departure for the higher branches of theoret- 
 ical and practical knowledge pursued in the university. 
 To all it should give sound training in those analytical 
 powers of reason upon which sane judgment must ever 
 rely for its validity, and it should offer that knowledge 
 of economic, social, and political problems essential to 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 55 
 
 enlightened and effective citizenship. The college should 
 aid its students to understand what man is today by 
 filling in the background, physical, mental, and spirit- 
 ual, out of which he has come in obedience to law. The 
 whole current of college life should be so directed as to 
 foster the finer qualities of mind and spirit which give 
 men dignity, poise, and that deeper sense of honorable 
 and unselfish devotion to the great and common good. 
 Whatever knowledge and trained faculties a student 
 may have acquired at graduation depend more upon the 
 man and less upon the college. Colleges may provide 
 the richest opportunities and the fullest incentive, but 
 that which lies beyond is work the student must do in 
 himself. College, like fife, is whatever the man has 
 industry, ability, and insight to make of it. "They also 
 serve who only stand and wait" was written to console 
 blindness and advancing years, not as an apology for 
 strength and youth. 
 
 The Cueeicultjm 
 
 To attack the curriculum seems to be an easy and 
 rather stimulating task for most reformers, but to grasp 
 its whole significance and deal fairly by it require more 
 thought and pains than many a magazine or newspaper 
 writer is accustomed to give to the things he so often 
 whimsically approves or condemns. To understand the 
 recent history of our colleges, from any point of view, 
 the intellectual development of the world during the 
 past half century must be taken into account as well as 
 the rather lagging response which has come from school 
 and church to its widening demands. 
 
 The middle of the last century saw the beginning of 
 several intellectual movements. Natural science got 
 
56 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 under way earliest by establishing the doctrines of evolu- 
 tion and energy. The bearing of these broad principles 
 soon became as necessary to our modes of thought as 
 they were immediately recognized to be for our material 
 development. Today there is no branch of knowledge 
 which has not in somewise been extended and enriched 
 by the philosophical bearing of these wide sweeping laws 
 which, at first, were the individual property of natural 
 science. So intimately have they become the guiding 
 principles of all modern constructive thinking that, steer 
 how he will, the man in college cannot escape their 
 teachings. Although these principles are still most sig- 
 nificantly presented in the laboratories in which they 
 arose, the student will as surely find their progeny in 
 philosophy and history, in theology and law. 
 
 The progress of half a century in the social sciences 
 (history, economics, sociology, politics), has been of 
 equal importance. Though no such fundamental and 
 far reaching doctrines as those of evolution and energy 
 have there been discovered, yet social studies have 
 become vital to the interpretation and upbuilding of 
 modern life and service. 
 
 What response did our colleges make to this revolu- 
 tion in thought, this sudden widening of intellectual and 
 spiritual horizons, this modern renaissance? For a time 
 practically none, for the curriculum was strongly 
 entrenched in an ancient usage. Something called a 
 "liberal education" was a kind of learned creed. The 
 intellectual atmosphere outside the college grew 
 broader, stronger, freer than in it. Forced by a rising 
 tide, the colleges first made a few grudging and half- 
 hearted concessions, but still held for the most part 
 firmly to their creed. The defenders could always point, 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 57 
 
 in unanswerable argument, to the men of profound and 
 varied talents who had been trained under their disci- 
 pline, — a discipline which all must freely admit has 
 never been excelled. But times had changed, profes- 
 sional schools and real universities had come into exist- 
 ence in America, and more kinds of preparation were 
 demanded of the college. Modern life in its vastly- 
 increased complexity had outgrown the straightened 
 mould of a clerical, forensic, and pedagogical curric- 
 ulum. 
 
 Finally in an awakened consciousness some colleges 
 made the mistake inevitable after too long waiting, and 
 not only established the newer subjects in numerous 
 courses, but took the headlong leap and landed in a cha- 
 otic elective system. 
 
 Under this unhappy system, or lack of system, for 
 every student who gains a distinct advantage by its 
 license, several of his less purposeful companions seek 
 and find a path of least resistance, enjoy comfort and 
 ease in following it, and emerge at the other end, four 
 years older, but scarcely more capable of service than 
 when they entered. Many another youth, neither lazy 
 nor idle, but lacking both rudder and chart, angles dili- 
 gently in shallow waters, goes no deeper than the intro- 
 ductory course in any department, comes out with many 
 topics for conversation, but no real mental discipline 
 and but little power to think. 
 
 During the revolutionary period in our colleges, in 
 which the newer studies took equal place along side the 
 older ones, Dartmouth moved more circumspectly than 
 some of her sisters. In response to pressure from within 
 and from without, required courses were reduced in 
 number and crowded back into freshman year. All 
 
58 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 other courses were grouped in logical sequences among 
 which the student had for every useful purpose all the 
 freedom afforded by what I have called the chaotic elec- 
 tive system; but obstacles and hazards which required 
 some serious thought and discipline to surmount were 
 strewn in the path of least resistance. The incomplete 
 angler also was compelled in some places to go deep 
 enough to get the flavor of several branches of learning 
 and acquire some sort of discipline. 
 
 Under this so-called group system, which has taken 
 many forms in different colleges, our education is 
 become liberal in fact as well as in name (the newer 
 studies may be followed for their own sake as well as the 
 older ones), and the college horizon has been vastly 
 widened. The older and newer knowledges now stand 
 on a footing of complete equality of opportunity, our 
 education has caught up with the time and is in harmony 
 with modern needs. Moreover the framework of the 
 present curriculum is elastic enough to easily adapt 
 itself to any changed conditions which may later arise. 
 
 In all this readjustment, many advocates of the clas- 
 sics have, it seems to me, been somewhat unduly alarmed 
 and have lost sight for the moment of some of the 
 sources of greatest strength in classical learning. They 
 have emphasized the discipline of classical studies too 
 much, and their charm too little. The undergraduate of 
 today will not shirk disciplinary studies if he can be 
 made to see definitely whither they lead and that the end 
 is one which appeals to his understanding and tastes. 
 He refuses to elect courses which are only disciplinary 
 or are so represented. 
 
 The classics are as truly humane today as they ever 
 were. Scientific studies have exalted observation and 
 
INAUGUEATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 59 
 
 reason, we are gaining a sudden and surprising insight 
 into nature and into social problems. We have grown 
 in constructive imagination and the power to think 
 relentlessly straight forward, but the vision has been 
 mainly external. Spiritual interpretations embodied in 
 the nobler forms of artistic expression, in music, in poe- 
 try, in art, have not kept pace with our purely intellec- 
 tual progress. It was in a genius for adequate, free and 
 artistic expression, it was in imagination, in poetry, in 
 consummate art, and an exalted patriotism that the 
 classic civilizations were strong. They had that in them 
 to which man with a clearer insight and finer apprecia- 
 tion will one day gladly return. Their literatures give 
 the fullest expression to the adolescence of the race, that 
 golden time when men were boys grown tall, when life 
 was plastic, had not yet hardened, nor men grown stern. 
 Truth, Beauty, Goodness were still happily united ; men 
 did not seek them separately, nor follow one and slight 
 the rest. Even philosophy with Plato was poetic in con- 
 ception, and rarely smelt of the lamp. 
 
 Some of the deeper experiences of the race cannot be 
 justly characterized as either true or false because they 
 have no place in the logical categories, hence unfeeling 
 reason cannot wholly find them out nor utterly destroy 
 them. Much confusion and harm have come to man's 
 most vital concerns through loss of balance and failure 
 to recognize limits to pure reason as we now know it. 
 Many a soul has been beaten back or shrunk by reject- 
 ing all impulses which could not be explained or fitted 
 into some partial scheme of things. In this both science 
 and theology, in different ways, have at times offended. 
 Both with an assumed authority have marred the spirit 
 by attempting to crowd it into the frame of a procrus- 
 
60 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 tean logic or to square it with a too rigid dogma. That 
 this was neither true science nor good theology is now 
 becoming clear, boundaries are shifting and the thought 
 of man is moving forward toward the freedom of his 
 birthright. No education which does not arouse some 
 subtler promptings, vague inspirations, — "Thought 
 hardly to be packed into a narrow act, Fancies that 
 break through language and escape" — can rightly inter- 
 pret the real and deeper sources of human action and 
 progress. Our present emphasis is warped and partial, 
 education should be an epitome of the whole of lif e, not 
 of a part of it. 
 
 The tendencies of our college life, whatever some may 
 say, are neither irreligious nor immoral, but quite the 
 contrary. Religion is a side of the student which the 
 present formal curriculum does not touch directly. To 
 fill out and complete our system, therefore, some broad 
 and effective religious teaching should be provided. 
 Yet just how can such instruction be given in a way to 
 hit the mark and not invade an instinctive sense of indi- 
 vidual privilege? There is no realm of teaching which 
 is more intimately personal and private than that which 
 deals with religious convictions, and nowhere is the like- 
 lihood of good and ill result more dishearteningly tan- 
 gled. Certainly such instruction in college could not be 
 in the slightest degree dogmatic, and any special plead- 
 ing would as surely defeat the intention. If courses 
 broadly cast could be offered, in which the simple pur- 
 pose was an impartial and sympathetic enquiry into the 
 highest teachings of the several great religions, with 
 emphasis laid on the ethical and social import of various 
 beliefs, Christian doctrine would inevitably gain in 
 authority and be seen plainly of all men to justify its 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 61 
 
 place in history. It is in a comparative study of reli- 
 gious teachings that I firmly believe Christianity will 
 soonest achieve its rightful and vital supremacy in the 
 minds of college men. Such studies can but add fresh 
 reasons for our faith. 
 
 As our colleges give courses in the classics and 
 aesthetics, so they offer ethical courses, and some add a 
 course in the philosophy of religion to their program of 
 studies. Yet for some reason, possibly because the 
 instruction is not simple and concrete enough, possibly 
 the human side is treated too contemptuously, whatever 
 the reason may. be, courses in morality and religion are 
 not now fulfilling their purpose because too few stu- 
 dents elect them. To make such courses compulsory 
 would be instantly to defeat their high purpose, and yet 
 somehow, the appeal of the college must be made to 
 transcend the too narrowly intellectual side of man. 
 Aesthetics, ethics, and religion are supremely rich in 
 human interest ; surely then courses of increased attrac- 
 tiveness somehow can be fashioned which students will 
 more freely choose to their larger growth and lasting 
 benefit. When this is done, and then only, shall we 
 enlighten the whole man. His heritage in a deeper life 
 will then no longer be left wholly to "time and chance 
 which happeneth to them all." 
 
 Before entering upon a discussion of that most inter- 
 esting and many sided person, the undergraduate, may 
 I in behalf of true science, in which I am deeply inter- 
 ested, add a warning? Scientific studies just now are 
 beset with some of the dangers of an unenlightened 
 popularity. The public has lately taken a wide but too 
 often untutored interest in natural science. A just 
 appreciation of the enormous difficulties which funda- 
 
62 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 mental investigation encounters, is rare, and the limita- 
 tions of our present methods of analysis are little under- 
 stood outside the walls of the research laboratory and 
 the mathematician's study. The blazonings of the lat- 
 est scientific achievements in newspaper and magazine, 
 too frequently immature and incorrect, with emphasis 
 all awry, are building up a quite unreasoning expecta- 
 tion in the minds of credulous readers. The study of 
 science may do for the student other and better things 
 than those he anticipates, yet many will be inevitably 
 disappointed at the problems which the study of science 
 will not solve. Enthusiastic parents, heedless of taste 
 and fitness, too often urge their sons into scientific pur- 
 suits, not realizing that lack of intellectual preference in 
 a boy is inadequate proof that he possesses that balanced 
 mind which scientific investigation requires, and unusual 
 pleasure at riding in an electric car is insufficient evi- 
 dence of a marked capacity for the broader problems of 
 electrical engineering. May not science be spared by 
 some of her too enthusiastic publishers and over credu- 
 lous admirers, who urge popular and sensational courses 
 in science in place of the fundamental instruction now 
 given. How much longer must newspapers and maga- 
 zines give money and valuable space for worse than 
 valueless matter only because it masquerades in the garb 
 of science. 
 
 Undergraduate Life. 
 
 From every point of view the undergraduate is the 
 central figure of the college. Clever or dull, industrious 
 or lazy, serious or trifling, he is the only apology the 
 college has to offer for its life. Him our restless critics 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 63 
 
 would give no peace and he takes a gentle vengeance 
 upon his accusers hy being unconscious of them. All 
 their thrusts are lost on him at whose shortcomings they 
 are mainly directed, for the real miscreant rarely reads. 
 
 The reformer's indictment is much too long to discuss 
 here in detail, but he has discovered, for instance, that 
 the average young man in college does not care enough 
 for knowledge to pay proper attention to his studies. 
 But this is not new, the average student never has. 
 Again he finds that too many young men in college drift 
 into a life of ease and indolence. But this is as true out 
 of college as in, and, worse, it is a failing by no means 
 confined to the young. To the stress of modern ath- 
 letics, he claims the average student contributes not his 
 muscle but only a voice. Yet in the earlier days before 
 athletics, which a few of us remember, some men in col- 
 lege were even voiceless. A very slow growth, well 
 rooted in a time-honored past, of indifference to scholar- 
 ship on the part of some students seems to him a deadly 
 fungus which has sprung up over night, an evil which 
 requires some immediate and drastic remedy if the col- 
 lege is to survive, and he chafes at our tolerance and 
 slowness to act. 
 
 An unhappy requisite for any thorough-going dissec- 
 tion is that death must precede it. Thus many a recent 
 thrust at the college is directed at conditions belonging 
 to a past existence. An even greater weakness of the 
 critical faculty, in our day, is in intemperance which 
 loses all sense of proportion and puts things too strongly 
 — a weakness into which even those in the highest places 
 have sometimes fallen. Thus evils which occur in the 
 few receive a stress and false measure of emphasis which 
 seem to attach them to the many. In the practice of the 
 
64 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 newer criticism "the exception proves the rule" in an 
 unfamiliar sense. 
 
 What class of students in college, it may reasonably 
 be asked, cause us most concern? Certainly not the 
 capable and energetic men who earnestly seek knowl- 
 edge. Such do not even require very skillful teachers 
 in the pedagogical sense, for given the necessary facili- 
 ties they teach themselves most things. Some guidance 
 from scholarly men they need, and little else. The dull 
 but hard working student, though less independent, 
 knows quite well how to care for himself and becomes 
 educated in doing so. The real difficulty comes with 
 the indifferent, idle, ambitionless man who often, by 
 reason of native capacity or sound early training, easily 
 makes the passing mark which technically puts him 
 beyond the reach of formal discipline and he tempts 
 envious chance no further. This man is no stranger to 
 us, he has always been in college, but we have come 
 recently to take more notice of him. He oftener comes 
 of well-to-do parents who also may look upon college 
 as a polite formality in a young man's life. But too 
 much emphasis must not be put on money, for the sons 
 of the rich are by no means all idle, nor, alas, are the 
 sons of the poor always industrious. To take an extreme 
 case, he is a man lacking in ideals, or equipped with an 
 unprofitable set. He often comes to college avowedly 
 despising books and their contents. He longs only to 
 study men, to build those life-long friendships which 
 brighten later years, and he too often hears much to 
 encourage this attitude at home. How then does this 
 youth go about so serious a business as the study of 
 men? By closely observing the more earnest among his 
 teachers and his fellow students who are using their col- 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 65 
 
 lege opportunities to fit themselves for life? No. But 
 rather by seeking companions as passive as himself and 
 drifting in the same sluggish current. I have no wish 
 to give this wretched man more discussion than his 
 flaccid and misguided purposes deserve, yet as critics 
 have made much of him and greatly magnified his num- 
 bers, surely we should give his weakened state a thor- 
 ough-going diagnosis that the treatment may be care- 
 fully chosen and salutary. 
 
 For this class of men home influence, or the lack of it, 
 is more often to blame than the college. It is an open 
 question whether the college has any obligation to help 
 a small group of men who care so little to help them- 
 selves. In the English system the answer frankly given 
 is that the college has none. The pass and poll men of 
 Oxford and Cambridge are present examples of a life- 
 less indifference to earnest scholarship in which the uni- 
 versity has acquiesced. In England, however, the indif- 
 ferent are separated from the working students and are 
 never a drag on their betters. In this country the num- 
 ber of this extreme type in most colleges is, as yet, small, 
 but the range between it and the real student is long, 
 and young men who are learning less than they might 
 are scattered all the way between. The problem is not 
 new, but it perplexes us and disturbs our counsels 
 exceedingly. It is difficult to conduct a college which 
 shall be at once an effective training school for studious 
 men and an infirmary for the treatment of mental 
 apathy. If it is our duty to the public to keep such men 
 in college, and many think it is, the problem presented 
 is how to wake them up, and a pertinent question arises 
 — are we at present organized to get at them by the only 
 open door? Do we often enough get at the center of the 
 
66 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 man through his false ideals and the husks of his intel- 
 lectual sloth? Can our teaching be made more direct 
 and personal, not in a meddling way, but by methods 
 vigorous and manly? 
 
 In most colleges this problem has been complicated 
 by numbers. The staff of teachers is not as large as it 
 should be, and the human side of teaching, which 
 requires the closest contact as well as breadth and sanity 
 in the teacher, is in danger. That flint and steel contact 
 between teacher and pupil, which many have reason to 
 remember from the classrooms of their day, is now less 
 frequent. The spark we have seen start mental fires in 
 many an indifferent mind is struck less often. The 
 hope of closer personal attention to students in college 
 is in larger endowments which will sustain a more num- 
 erous teaching staff and permit classes to be further sub- 
 divided according to scholarly ambition. This is a 
 change which few colleges can now afford to make, for 
 colleges must do with the means they have and keep 
 within their incomes, if they can. 
 
 As to how the much discussed decline in scholarship, 
 the real existence of which I seriously doubt, has come 
 about, there are widely different opinions. In the first 
 place, it may justly be questioned whether it is not 
 apparent rather than real. The average student 
 acquires more and wider knowledge in college now than 
 he did thirty years ago. Outspoken scholarly enthusi- 
 asm rather than the getting of lessons seems to have suf- 
 fered. Many students appear to have relaxed a little 
 in the seriousness of purpose with which they approach 
 their work. They certainly show more reserve in the 
 way they speak of it. Here it must be remembered, 
 however, that fashions the country over have changed 
 
INAUGUKATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 67 
 
 and the expression of interest and enthusiasm in some 
 subjects is more stintingly measured than a generation 
 ago. If anything, we now often get a scant portion 
 in expression where we used to get an over-weight. 
 Nowhere is this change more striking than in the gentle 
 art of public speaking. Yet fashions react on men, and 
 our time may have lost something in forcefulness from 
 its often assumed attitude of intellectual weariness, 
 from a painstaking effort at restraint and simplicity of 
 utterance. Our present tendency is to speak on the 
 lighter aspects of even grave matters — possibly a kind 
 of revolt against a flowery sentimentalism, an unctuous 
 cant, or a long face. It is not considered in the best of 
 taste just now to get into heated discussions and contro- 
 versies over man's most vital intellectual and spiritual 
 concerns. 
 
 This habit of repression has come into the college 
 from without. I do not think it began there. Science in 
 the university may have misled the thoughtless to some 
 extent by an emotionless discussion of facts, but facts 
 should be discussed without emotion; it is the lifeless 
 statement of purpose from which we suffer. The driv- 
 ing power of intellect is enthusiasm, and there is no lack 
 of it in that passionate devotion to research which so 
 painstakingly and properly excludes all warmth from 
 its calm statement of results. It is nothing short of a 
 divine zeal, an irresistible force, which urges the true 
 investigator on to those great achievements, which are 
 so profoundly changing the habits of our daily life and 
 thought. For any mental indifference, therefore, be it 
 real or assumed, science is in no wise responsible. Sci- 
 ence takes herself very seriously and is always in deadly 
 earnest. 
 
68 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 In only one phase of college life today may a student, 
 other than shamefacedly show a full measure of pleas- 
 ureable excitement, and that is in athletics. What 
 might not happen to him who threw up his hat and 
 cheered himself hoarse over a theorem of algebra, or 
 over the scholarly achievements of the faculty! Some 
 young men appear to have grown shy and to feel that 
 a show of enthusiasm over ideas reveals either doubtful 
 breeding, a lack of balance, or small experience with 
 the world. They would be like Solomon in saying, 
 "there is no new thing under the sun," and profoundly 
 unlike him in everything else, — an easy apathy to things 
 of the mind and spirit so often passes for poise and wis- 
 dom with the young! Thus some indifference in college 
 and out of it is undoubtedly more assumed than genu- 
 ine. But again we are in danger of utterance and man- 
 ner reacting on thought and effort. Signs of such a 
 reaction are already apparent. Thus the college atmos- 
 phere has seemingly lost, for the initially weak in char- 
 acter, some of its vigorous and wholesome mental incen- 
 tive. 
 
 May we not henceforth live our college life on a some- 
 what higher plane, where real simplicity, naturalness, 
 and downright sincerity replace all traces of sophistica- 
 tion and wrong ideals. Let genuine enthusiasm find 
 freer and more fearless expression, that we may become 
 more manly, strong, and free. Why can't some college 
 men stop masquerading in an assumed mental apathy 
 and be spontaneously honest? 
 
 Some who have sought an explanation of this slightly 
 altered tone in college life blame intercollegiate athletics 
 for the changed conditions, but I am not able to find 
 the cause there, and believe, as I have already suggested, 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 69 
 
 that it lies far deeper in the changed conditions of soci- 
 ety and our national life. The outcry to abolish inter- 
 collegiate sports is rather hard to explain. Aside from 
 the asumed injury done to studious habits, apparently 
 no one really objects to sports kept within bounds. But 
 our colleges by agreement may set the bounds wherever 
 they choose. Where, then, is the real reason for com- 
 plaint? On the other hand, intercollegiate sports do 
 more to unite the whole college and give it a sense of 
 solidarity than any other undergraduate activity, and 
 thus serve a worthy purpose. Moreover, the lessons of 
 sport are lessons of life and it is the moral worth rather 
 than the physical benefit of athletics which we can ill 
 afford to lose from student life. They effectively teach 
 a high degree of self control, concentrated attention, 
 prompt and vigorous action, instant and unswerving 
 obedience to orders, and a discipline in accepting with- 
 out protest a close ruling, even if a wrong one, in the 
 generous belief that he who made it acted in good faith. 
 Sport, like faith, knows no court of appeal. A man's 
 moral fibre comes out in his bearing toward his opponent 
 in the stress of play and in the dignity with which he 
 meets defeat or victory at the end of the struggle. By 
 gallant conduct toward a victorious adversary a bodily 
 defeat becomes a personal triumph. It is only when the 
 spirit is defeated through the body that upright men cry 
 shame! I believe one of the severest tests of a gentle- 
 man to be his ability to take victory, or defeat, with 
 equal good will and courtesy toward those against whom 
 he has bodily contended. Whether we get all that we 
 might out of our college sports is another question, but 
 year by year we approach nearer and nearer to the 
 higher standards of a true sportsmanship. 
 
70 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 The problem of athletics suggests another problem 
 which is its twin — What shall we do for the symmetrical 
 bodily development of those who do not train on col- 
 lege teams but who need physical training far more 
 than athletes do? Here is a question which has not been 
 successfully met and one which demands immediate and 
 wider consideration than it has yet received. 
 
 To strengthen interest in scholarship by introducing 
 a larger element of competition than at present is a sug- 
 gestion which recently has come from several different 
 sources. The competitive idea has long been in full 
 force in the older English universities with what is now 
 regarded there as a result to which good and evil have 
 contributed nearly equal parts. Our own colleges have 
 always offered some prizes for high scholarly attainment 
 but the inspiration for a sufficient extension of the cus- 
 tom to make it a leading idea in our undergraduate life 
 has been drawn from the extraordinary success of ath- 
 letic contests in arousing student effort and enthusiasm. 
 That a wider competition in scholarship than we now 
 have would produce some useful results lies beyond 
 question, but that those who expect most or all things 
 from it will be disappointed may be confidently pre- 
 dicted. It seems to me that the larger part of the ardor 
 students show for athletic contests is due more to the 
 appeal which bodily combat always makes to the dra- 
 matic sense than to the competitive idea in itself. It is 
 the manly struggle more than the victory which men 
 go out to see. I cannot conceive how we are to 
 clothe scholarship contests with a dramatic setting — as 
 well attempt to stage the book of Job, aptly called "the 
 drama of the inner life." The drama of scholarship must 
 ever be a drama of the inner life which will never draw 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 71 
 
 a cheering multitude nor light bonfires. To call men to 
 witness a contest in geometry is less strong in its appeal 
 to human sympathies and interest than the bootless cries 
 of Diogenes prostrated at the roadside, to those who 
 passed on their way to the Olympic games. "Base 
 souls," he cried, "will ye not remain? To see the over- 
 throw and combat of athletes how great a way ye jour- 
 ney to Olympia, and have ye no will to see a combat 
 between a man and a fever?" Competition is a funda- 
 mental law of nature, and it may be a human instinct, 
 but it can never be an ideal, for the virtue of an ideal 
 is a willingness for self-sacrifice of some sort, while the 
 virtue of competition is a willingness to sacrifice others. 
 Competition, therefore, is not a moral force, and as a 
 motive lacks the highest driving power. 
 
 Most that I have said of undergraduate life has been 
 in analysis of its weakest members. The vast majority 
 of college men are sound in mind and heart and purpose 
 and no young men were ever worthier of admiration and 
 respect than these. I have not dwelt upon them because 
 their condition suggests no vexed pedagogical nor 
 administrative problems. "They that be whole need not 
 a physician, but they that are sick." 
 
 The Teacher 
 
 As with the undergraduate, so with the faculty, many 
 a reformer has singled out the weakest member and has 
 seemingly affixed this label to all. But has he forgotten 
 that there are mediocre lawyers, physicians, preachers, 
 engineers, business men, all making a living from their 
 various occupations simply because there are not enough 
 men of first-rate ability to supply the world's needs? 
 
72 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 Teaching cannot stand alone, but must share the lot of 
 other professions. In a generation the monetary- 
 rewards in most occupations have advanced more rap- 
 idly than in teaching, where they never have been ade- 
 quate, and colleges have felt a relative loss. In law, in 
 engineering, in medicine, in business, the average 
 rewards for corresponding successes are roughly double 
 those in teaching. It is safe to say the colleges are get- 
 ting far more out of their better teachers than they are 
 paying for. Teaching is to many a very attractive 
 career, not because of the leisure for idleness which it is 
 supposed by some to offer but because of its possibili- 
 ties of service to the wholesome life and highest welfare 
 of society and the state. The teacher who takes his 
 calling seriously and fulfills its high demands spends 
 less time in idleness than his apparently more busy 
 brethren in trade. That he must give many hours to 
 wide-ranging thought and reflection has often misled 
 the public into thinking him an idle dreamer. But 
 dreaming and visions are a part of his business, though 
 the dreamer to be worthy must dream straight-forward 
 and the vision must be clear. How much do we not owe 
 to the dreamer, in science, in literature, in art, in reli- 
 gion, to say nothing of his part in those unthought of 
 benefits, those subtler influences grown up in tradition, 
 influences which have lost or never had a name, which 
 yet continue to inspire and brighten all our days — 
 visions seen by earlier men whose lives must have seemed 
 idle enough to an auctioneer? 
 
 Judged by the higher standards, there are unques- 
 tionably a few uncertain and indifferent teachers in our 
 colleges. There always have been. The proportion of 
 men of first-rate ability has improved, but there is need 
 
INAUGUEATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 73 
 
 of further improvement. As soon as the puhlic will give 
 the colleges sufficient means to command the men they 
 want, all cause for criticism will be removed. 
 
 We need special knowledge in college teachers, but 
 not specialized men. Whatever the subject, it is the 
 whole man that teaches. While being taught the under- 
 graduate observes the teacher and takes his measure in 
 several well defined directions: — the richness of his 
 knowledge, his enthusiasm for learning, his way of put- 
 ting things, his sense of humor, and the range of his 
 interests. He shrewdly guesses whether or not his 
 instructor would be an agreeable companion, if all 
 restraints were removed, and the subject of the day's 
 lesson swept out of mind. The student frequently 
 knows, too, whether or not his instructors are producing 
 scholarly work which competent students elsewhere 
 admire and respect. Nothing gives a teacher more 
 authority and command over the imaginations of his 
 students than a well-earned reputation for fundamental 
 scholarship and research, and nothing so much stimu- 
 lates the undergraduate's ambition for sound learning 
 and intellectual achievement as sitting at the feet of a 
 master who has travelled the road of discovery. Even 
 as much as a virtuous example breeds virtue in others, 
 so scholarly work breeds scholarship. Presidents and 
 boards of trustees have not always seen the great advan- 
 tage to a college of retaining a group of strong pro- 
 ductive scholars with an instinct for teaching, on its 
 faculty. 
 
 All these elements enter into the unconscious respect 
 the student feels for his instructor, and increase or 
 lessen a teacher's influence and worth in the college. 
 The driving of men through college is not as reputable 
 
74 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 as it used to be, and real intellectual and moral leader- 
 ship in teaching is steadily taking its place. Students 
 now largely choose their courses and instructors, for 
 varying reasons to be sure, but some of them are good. 
 Student opinion freed from mixed motive and super- 
 ficial judgment is usually wholesome and sound. 
 
 The college in all its relations is the most human and 
 humanizing influence in all our civilization ; and year by 
 year its gains in this direction are substantial. Taking 
 the good with the bad our colleges have never been as 
 well organized and equipped as now, nor have they ever 
 done their work more effectively than they are doing it 
 today. Any dissatisfaction with college life does not 
 find its basis in comparisons with earlier years, notwith- 
 standing many find, in such comparisons, partial reason 
 for complaint. We are not quite satisfied with the col- 
 lege, because it does not realize our later ideals of edu- 
 cation, not because it falls short of our earlier ones. It 
 is well to have ideals and to have them high, and it is a 
 wholesome sign of intellectual vigor to be impatient at 
 the long distance which separates the way things are 
 done from the way we think they ought to be done. 
 Beyond just measure, however, dissatisfaction paralyzes 
 hopefulness and effort; we must keep clear of pessi- 
 mism, if we are to go forward. 
 
 In twenty years of teaching and observation, I have 
 become convinced of some things connected with teach- 
 ing as a profession. No teacher can hope to inspire and 
 lead young men to a level of aspiration above that on 
 which he himself lives and does his work. Young men 
 may reach higher levels but not by his aid. The man in 
 whose mind truth has become formal and passive ought 
 not to teach. What youth needs to see is knowledge in 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 75 
 
 action, moving forward toward some worthy end. In 
 nobody's mind should it be possible to confuse intellec- 
 tual with ineffectual. Let it not be said : 
 
 "We teach and teach 
 Until like drumming pedagogues we lose 
 The thought that what we teach has higher ends 
 Than being taught and learned." 
 
 It ought to be impossible, even in satire, to say "Those 
 who can, do ; those who can't, teach." 
 
 The strong teacher must ever have the best of the 
 priest about him in the fervor of his faith in the healing 
 power of truth. Let our teaching be sane, fearless, and 
 enthusiastic, and let us not, even in moments of despond- 
 ency, forget the dignity, the opportunity, the power of 
 our calling. The teacher is the foremost servant of soci- 
 ety and the state, for he is moulding their future 
 leaders. Sound learning, wisdom, and morality, are the 
 foundation of all order and progress ; and these it is the 
 aim of the college to foster. If we can send into the 
 world a yet larger number of strong young men — men 
 clean in body, clean in mind, and large of soul, men as 
 capable of moral as of mental leadership, men with large 
 thoughts beyond selfishness, ideas of leisure beyond idle- 
 ness, men quick to see the difference between humor and 
 coarseness in a jest, — if we can ever and in increasing 
 numbers send out young men of this sort, we need never 
 fear the question, — "Can a young man afford the four 
 best years of his life to go to college?" 
 
 When the applause which greeted President Nichols' words had 
 subsided the College choir and College orchestra rendered the hymn, 
 
76 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 "For the Strength of the Hills We Bless Thee," arranged from Mrs. 
 Hemans and set to music by Gerrit Smith: 
 
 For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 
 
 Our God, our fathers' God! 
 Thou hast made thy children mighty, 
 
 By the touch of the mountain sod. 
 Thou hast fix'd our ark of refuge, 
 
 Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod; 
 For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 
 
 Our God, our fathers' God! 
 
 We are watchers of a beacon 
 
 Whose light must never die; 
 We are guardians of an altar 
 
 'Midst the silence of the sky; 
 The rocks yield founts of courage, 
 
 Struck forth as by Thy rod; 
 For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 
 
 Our God, our fathers' God! 
 
 Lo! the royal eagle darteth 
 
 On his quarry from the height, 
 And the stag that knows no master, 
 
 Seeketh there his wild delight; 
 But we, for thy communion, 
 
 Have sought the mountain sod, 
 For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 
 
 Our God, our fathers' God! 
 
 For the dark resounding caverns, 
 
 Where thy still, small voice is heard; 
 For the strong pines of the forest, 
 
 That by thy breath are stirred; 
 For the storms on whose free pinions 
 
 Thy spirit walks abroad; 
 For the strength of the hills we bless thee, 
 
 Our God, our fathers' God! 
 
Photograph by Langill 
 
 PRESIDENT FINLEY, EX-PRESIDENT TUCKER, AND EX-PRESIDENT ANGELL 
 CROSSING THE COLLEGE GREEN 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 77 
 
 THE CONFERRING OF DEGREES 
 
 The conferring of honorary degrees now took place. The recipi- 
 ents were presented by Professor Charles Francis Richardson, 
 Ph. D., Winchley Professor of the English Language and Lit- 
 erature. As each man was presented he moved to the centre of the 
 platform, where, as the degree was conferred upon him, the appro- 
 priate hood lined with Dartmouth green was dropped across his 
 shoulders. The ritual was as follows: 
 
 President Nichols. With the authority given me by 
 the trustees of Dartmouth College I shall now confer 
 academic distinctions upon those eminent scholars and 
 administrators whose names appear on the official pro- 
 gram in the list of honorary degrees. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Divinity, Ozora Stearns Davis, thoughtful student of 
 the problems of theology as applied to the training of 
 young men for the ministry. 
 
 President Nichols. Ozora Stearns Davis, graduate 
 of Dartmouth in the Class of 1889, scholar with a bent 
 toward practical affairs, earnest and effective preacher 
 and pastor, president of the Chicago Theological Sem- 
 inary. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Divinity, John Martin Thomas, president of Mid- 
 dlebury College, leader of an honored institution in its 
 second century of service. 
 
 President Nichols. John Martin Thomas, man of 
 wide intellectual attainments, effective minister of the 
 
78 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 Gospel, a college administrator, who has met a difficult 
 educational problem with originality and force. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor 
 to present to you for the honorary degree of Doctor 
 of Science, Richard Cockburn Maclaurin, distin- 
 guished scholar of Victoria University, Wellington, 
 New Zealand, and Cambridge University; now fitly 
 entering upon the direction of our chief New England 
 school of applied science. 
 
 President Nichols. Richard Cockburn Maclaurin, 
 profound student and productive scholar in both mathe- 
 matical physics and the law, trained in two hemispheres 
 and at home in three of the great geographical divisions 
 of the earth, recently chosen President of the Massa- 
 chusetts Institute of Technology. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, Jacob Gould Schurman, profound student in 
 philosophy, whose learning has been of influential ben- 
 efit even to the most distant islands of his adopted coun- 
 try. 
 
 President Nichols. Jacob Gould Schurman, cogent 
 and able writer on the deeper problems of philosophy, 
 ethics, and religion, servant of the nation as chairman 
 of the Philippine Commission, distinguished President 
 of Cornell University. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 79 
 
 Laws, Charles Richard Van Hise, President of the 
 University of Wisconsin, eminent investigator in the 
 science of the earth. 
 
 President Nichols. Charles Richard Van Hise, 
 ardent student and discoverer in the broad fields of 
 geology, member of the National Academy of Science, 
 and of several learned societies in other lands, able 
 administrator who is upholding the best ideals and tra- 
 ditions of a great university in the Middle West. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, John Huston Finley, economist, publicist, and 
 student of systematic philanthropy. 
 
 President Nichols. John Huston Finley, man of 
 wholesome ideals and a charming optimism, editor, stu- 
 dent and teacher of the social sciences, in succession 
 President of Knox College, Professor of Politics in 
 Princeton University, President of the College of the 
 City of New York. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, in behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, William DeWitt Hyde, President of Bowdoin 
 College, forceful worker for Christian ethics and the 
 co-operation of churches. 
 
 President Nichols. William DeWitt Hyde, Doctor 
 of Divinity, for the last twenty-four years President of 
 Bowdoin College, student and keen observer of men, 
 distinguished writer on the religious and moral aspects 
 of our social life. 
 
80 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, Matthew Henry Buckham, classical scholar, 
 efficient teacher, President of the University of Ver- 
 mont. 
 
 President Nichols. Matthew Henry Buckham, Doc- 
 tor of Divinity, and for thirty-eight years a university 
 president, sturdy veteran who ranks in years of service 
 all New England college presidents now in office. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, William Herbert Perry Faunce, teacher of 
 righteousness in a great metropolitan pulpit, executive 
 head of a university contemporaneous in its foundation 
 with Dartmouth. 
 
 President Nichols. William Herbert Perry Faunce, 
 graduate, trustee, and for the last ten years President 
 of Brown University, man of broad views and keen 
 insight, whose voice has ever been raised effectively on 
 the side of sane morality and true religion. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, Nicholas Murray Butler, President of 
 Columbia University, whose life work has defined and 
 enriched the mission of the educator. 
 
 President Nichols. Nicholas Murray Butler, pro- 
 ductive scholar and teacher of high distinction in the 
 art of teaching, facile administrator of extraordinary 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 81 
 
 ability, you carry the ideals of the university directly to 
 the people whom you further serve by speech and action 
 in the righteous cause of clean politics and government. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, Woodrow Wilson, President of Princeton Uni- 
 versity, historian and patriot, who has greatly promoted 
 the integrity of academic education. 
 
 President Nichols. Woodrow Wilson, lawyer, his- 
 torian, student of politics, man of great strength of pur- 
 pose, who is steadfastly forging the college that ought 
 to be out of the college that now is. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, Arthur Twining Hadley, brilliant among the 
 scholars of a great university, distinguished teacher and 
 statistician, leader of sound public opinion. 
 
 President Nichols. Arthur Twining Hadley, Presi- 
 dent of Yale University, from the shadow of which 
 Dartmouth sprang into light, eminent economist and 
 student of educational problems, your strong and 
 thoughtful utterances command public heed and inter- 
 est throughout the land. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, President of Har- 
 vard University, fit representative of a great New Eng- 
 
82 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 land family, who brings the trained wisdom of an hon- 
 ored past to the solution of the academic problems of the 
 future. 
 
 President Nichols. Abbott Lawrence Lowell, man 
 of large affairs, broad vision and clear reason, writer of 
 world-wide reputation on the problems of law and 
 government, recently chosen head of our oldest Amer- 
 ican college. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary Degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, Chaki.es William Eliot, profoundly influen- 
 tial in American education, and not less potent as a 
 force for personal and civic righteousness. 
 
 President Nichols. Charles William Eliot, pioneer 
 and courageous apostle of freedom in American educa- 
 tion, dean of college presidents and President Emeritus 
 of Harvard University. While bearing the heaviest 
 official burdens and responsibilities, you have ever given 
 generously of your strength to the sane discussion of all 
 questions of grave public concern. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, James Burrill Angell, pioneer leader, for 
 nearly forty years, of the earliest representative univer- 
 sity of the great Middle West. 
 
 President Nichols. James Burrill Angell, able 
 writer on education and on international law, eminent 
 diplomat and Minister of the United States to China 
 and Turkey, late distinguished head of one of our great- 
 est universities. 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 83 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, His Excellency Heney Beewer Quinby, Gov- 
 ernor of New Hampshire, native of Maine, patriotic 
 citizen of his adopted state, honored head of our ancient 
 commonwealth and ex officio a trustee of this college. 
 
 President Nichols. Henry Brewer Quinby, distin- 
 guished son of Bowdoin, whom his college has delighted 
 to honor, man of refined and scholarly tastes, able and 
 courageous chief executive of this important state which 
 for a hundred and forty years has offered generous hos- 
 pitality and support to Dartmouth College. We gladly 
 welcome you to the degree of Doctor of Laws. 
 
 Professor Richardson. Mr. President, on behalf of 
 the trustees, and at their request, I have the honor to 
 present to you, for the honorary degree of Doctor of 
 Laws, Wiixiam Jewett Tucker, beloved leader and 
 friend of every Dartmouth man. 
 
 President Nichols. Wilham Jewett Tucker, ninth 
 president and second founder of Dartmouth College, 
 the depth and richness of your inner life, the activity 
 and achievement of your outward lif e, will be a herit- 
 age twice blessed to this College forevermore. 
 
 As the degree of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon Ex-Presi- 
 dent Tucker, a spontaneous thrill of emotion brought the entire 
 audience to its feet, and at the conclusion of the ceremony the ap- 
 plause lasted for many minutes. The splendid expression of rev- 
 erence and affection for America's greatest exemplar of effective 
 idealism in education was the more impressive because unpremedi- 
 tated. 
 
 All the degrees having been conferred, President Nichols said: 
 
84 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 In behalf of the trustees of the College, I heartily- 
 welcome the recipients of these high academic honors 
 into our Dartmouth fellowship and declare them 
 entitled to all rights and privileges hereby belonging to 
 their several degrees. 
 
 The College choir, students and audience, accompanied by the 
 College orchestra, now united in singing "Men of Dartmouth." 
 Words by Richard Hovey, '85; music by Harry R. Wellman, '07. 
 
 Men of Dartmouth, give a rouse 
 
 For the college on the hill ! 
 For the Lone Pine ahove her 
 And the loyal men that love her, — 
 
 Give a rouse, give a rouse, with a will. 
 For the sons of old Dartmouth, 
 The sturdy sons of Dartmouth, — 
 Though 'round the girdled earth they roam, 
 
 Her spell on them remains; 
 They have the still North in their hearts, 
 
 The hill-winds in their veins, 
 And the granite of New Hampshire 
 
 In their muscles and their brains. 
 
 They were mighty men of old 
 
 That she nurtured side by side; 
 Till like Vikings they went forth 
 From the lone and silent North, — 
 
 And they strove and they wrought, and 
 they died; 
 But — the sons of old Dartmouth, 
 The laurelled sons of Dartmouth — 
 The Mother keeps them in her heart 
 
 And guards their altar-flame; 
 The still North remembers them, 
 
 The hill-winds know their name, 
 
 And the granite of New Hampshire 
 
 Keeps the record of their fame. 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 85 
 
 Men of Dartmouth, set a watch 
 
 Lest the old traditions fail! 
 Stand as brother stands by brother ! 
 Dare a deed for the old Mother! 
 
 Greet the world, from the hills, with a hail ! 
 For the sons of old Dartmouth, 
 The loyal sons of Dartmouth — 
 Around the world they keep for her 
 
 Their old chivalric faith ; 
 They have the still North in their soul, 
 
 The hill-winds in their breath; 
 And the granite of New Hampshire 
 
 Is made part of them till death. 
 
 BENEDICTION 
 
 The Right Reverend Ethelbert Talbot, D. D., LL. D., of Penn- 
 sylvania, Bishop of Bethlehem, pronounced the benediction: 
 
 The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, 
 keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love 
 of God, and of His Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord; and 
 the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son and 
 the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you 
 always. Amen. 
 
 This closed the exercises in Webster Hall. 
 
EXERCISES AT THE LAYING OF THE 
 CORNER STONE OF THE GYMNASIUM 
 
 Shortly before four o'clock in the afternoon the student body 
 and alumni formed in procession at College Hall, thence marching 
 to the new gymnasium site. Delegates, guests, and friends of the 
 College were also present at the exercises. 
 
 ADDRESS BY EDWARD KIMBALL HALL 
 
 After a college cheer for the new gymnasium and singing by the 
 student body, Edward Kimball Hall, Esq., A. B., LL. B., of the 
 Class of '92, Chairman of the Alumni Committee on Funds for a 
 New Gymnasium, addressed the gathering: 
 
 More than fifteen years ago the master mind of a man 
 who was both a great architect and a great builder 
 planned out the development of what some have called 
 "the New Dartmouth." He saw that to build a great 
 college in a small town in the hills, the College itself 
 must furnish not only facilities for education, but for 
 every other thing essential to the well-being of the stu- 
 dent and the proper environment of student life. 
 Accordingly, he built water works, a heating plant, an 
 auditorium, a great commons, College Hall (a social 
 rendezvous), and modern dormitory after dormitory. 
 And still the great college plant which was planned fif- 
 teen years ago was not quite complete. It is a source 
 of deep satisfaction that we are here today to assist in 
 its completion and that in the erection of this building 
 there is realized one of the fondest hopes of that man 
 
88 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 who for us is the wisest and most beloved of all builders 
 — William Jewett Tucker. 
 
 I dare say there is no college in the country where 
 there is greater need of an adequate gymnasium than 
 here at Dartmouth. For nearly half of the college year 
 the ground is covered with snow — and the need of 
 opportunity for regular indoor exercise is imperative. 
 Other needs seemed more imperative, however, and the 
 old gymnasium was packed almost to suffocation. Con- 
 ditions became impossible and finally the new gymna- 
 sium movement was set under way through the energetic 
 efforts of the Director of the Gymnasium, Dr. John W. 
 Bowler. 
 
 The undergraduates and the faculty loyally sub- 
 scribed the nucleus for a building fund — and then 
 appealed to the alumni. The time was not auspicious. 
 The alumni had only recently provided funds for the 
 erection of Webster Hall. Before construction was 
 under way, Old Dartmouth Hall was burned to the 
 ground. The alma mater had again called on her sons 
 in her hour of need and again they had responded. It 
 was evident that if the new gymnasium was to be built, 
 it was the younger alumni who must shoulder the larger 
 part of the burden. I trust I may be pardoned if I tell 
 our distinguished guests in what manner they have dis- 
 charged their responsibility. 
 
 The appeal was made less than a year ago. The coun- 
 try was then in the midst of a financial and business 
 depression. Already the total subscription lacks only 
 $15,000 of the amount required to complete the build- 
 ing. The names of four out of every five men of the 
 undergraduates and the last twenty-five classes as grad- 
 uated are already on the subscription list. Eighty-five 
 
INAUGUEATION OF PEESIDENT NICHOLS 89 
 
 per cent, of the total subscription has already been 
 turned over in cash to the treasurer of the College — and 
 today we lay the corner stone. 
 
 The gymnasium will eventually be the centre of a 
 great recreation and play ground covering fifteen acres. 
 The building itself will be plain in its finish but com- 
 plete in its equipment. Its general arrangement is 
 planned by Dr. John W. Bowler, of the class of 1906 of 
 the Dartmouth Medical School. The architect is 
 Charles A. Rich, of the class of '75. It is being built 
 under the direction of Edgar H. Hunter, of the class of 
 1901, assisted by Fred F. Parker, of the class of 1906. 
 
 It is a new type of gymnasium in that in addition to 
 the usual opportunity for physical development and 
 exercise of the ordinary gymnasium it provides facili- 
 ties for practice and training in athletic sports. There 
 will be over two acres of ground and floor space. Reg- 
 ular gymnastic exercises, training in field and track ath- 
 letics, practice in baseball, basketball, tennis, handball, 
 fencing, boxing and wrestling, may all be carried on at 
 the same time. I predict that many a bleak winter 
 afternoon will see more than half the students of the 
 College enjoying the various forms of recreation for 
 which this new gymnasium will provide abundant 
 opportunity. If this be true, no one building will play 
 a larger part in the College of the future than this. 
 
 While we cannot read the future, I know of no man 
 so well qualified to estimate the real value of this build- 
 ing and its true relation to the future welfare of the 
 college and its product, as the man to whom we are so 
 largely indebted for Dartmouth ideals of sportsmanship 
 and the wholesome sanity of our athletic policies. 
 
90 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 To Dartmouth alumni and undergraduates he needs 
 no introduction; to our distinguished guests I have the 
 honor of presenting Dr. Edwin J. Bartlett, Class of 
 1872. (Applause and cheers.) 
 
 ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR BARTLETT 
 
 When, in 1867, George H. Bissell, pioneer in the 
 development of petroleum, provided, at the wise desire 
 of President Smith, yonder "commodious and tasteful 
 structure" with its six bowling alleys and "most 
 approved gymnastic apparatus and furniture," it was 
 ample for the freshman class of sixty-three members, 
 or in turn for the whole undergraduate College of two 
 hundred and thirty-four. For comparison, Amherst, 
 Harvard, and Yale had been similarly equipped for 
 about seven years; and the total number of Freshmen 
 at Yale was 174, and at Harvard 156, that same autumn 
 when our entering classes numbered 63. 
 
 "The results" of the gymnasium, we are told officially 
 within the first year, "more than equalled the expecta- 
 tions." "Dyspepsia, debility, and other affections inci- 
 dent to a sedentary life" became for the time unknown; 
 "and the increased muscular power and agility of the 
 young men forced themselves upon the attention even 
 of unpracticed eyes." 
 
 But spaciousness for 234 is straightened circum- 
 stances for 1,300. And forty years is long life in the 
 mechanical world where every five years the machines 
 may profitably go to the scrap heap. So in 1907, in 
 that desperate forced march to bring the material 
 resources of the College into line with the human 
 demand, Bissell Hall was the most conspicuous object 
 in the rear. 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 91 
 
 Since the restoration of Dartmouth Hall and the 
 completion of Webster, had been an incubatory period 
 significant with precursory rumblings. There was to 
 be a fresh explosion of Dartmouth compressed air, and 
 a year and a half ago the power was applied. Doctor 
 Bowler said firmly, "Dartmouth is going to have a new 
 gymnasium"; President Tucker said, "Amen to that"; 
 Doctor Nichols a little later came into sympathetic rela- 
 tion to the central kinetics. Edward K. Hall said, for 
 the alumni, "We will get it, and I know the men who 
 not only will help start something but will also keep it 
 moving and stay with it to the end." And so were 
 formed the Gym Committee, and the committee from 
 each class since '84, and the local committees. You have 
 read their names in the Gymnasium News. This build- 
 ing is not the gift of any one set or kind of men. There 
 are today about 3,000 contributors; the largest single 
 gift is $5,000 ; one $2,000 subscription comes next, fol- 
 lowed by thirteen donations of $1,000 each. 
 
 And how cheerfully the money has been given. From 
 the undergraduate who put down his $25 and sent the 
 news to father, or the other who pledged and earned his 
 $5 or $10, up to the makers of the checks in three and 
 four figures, it has been a gift and not a tax. 
 
 A friend said to the subscriber of the largest sum, 
 "So he (mentioning a local solicitor) got $5,000 out of 
 you." "'No" was the reply, "he didn't get it out of me. 
 I had made up my mind to give it before I heard from 
 him at all." 
 
 Among the up-builders of these walls many mighty 
 men have conspired together. Some are now stiff in 
 the knees ; others are round where once they were angu- 
 lar, and are as well-padded by Nature as formerly by 
 
92 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 the outfitter's art; the slam from full speed upon the 
 frozen earth which once they bore like rubber balls 
 would now put them to bed for a month, and the twenty- 
 foot slide to a base would make busy the bone-setter and 
 the skin-grafter; some of those deep-chested runners 
 puff as they go up the subway steps, and take the ele- 
 vator for the first floor above the street; but prosperity 
 has softened only to ripen and mellow; the fat may have 
 reached the purse but not the heart or the head. 
 
 A believer in the conservation and correlation of 
 energy need not mourn these changes. They have their 
 compensations. For one who formerly at the crack of 
 bat could connect with the sphere whizzing from three 
 hundred feet hence can now as keenly discern the price 
 of wheat six months away; another now runs his course 
 in a far-away land as steadfastly as on the two-mile 
 track; another with the same cogent vitality that gave 
 him place upon three college teams has brought this 
 enterprise through to its present success ; another than 
 whom no more ferocious object ever plunged through 
 the opposing line now by contrast is making a fine 
 career in a gentlest field of scientific medicine; of the 
 "curatores reverendi et honorandi" — how great the loss 
 of this sonorous phrase from the Commencement stage 
 — one furnishes as keen a service to the College as on 
 the tennis-court ; another stands firm behind the admin- 
 istrative bat, or continues to make opportune hits for 
 the College ; while a third has lately taken up his work 
 as a walking delegate from the alumni. Only samples 
 these from hundreds. 
 
 And the cheering section has not been idle ; its money 
 has spoken as unitedly as its voice of yore — as its voices 
 on the 6th and 13th of November next — and has shown 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 93 
 
 us the one glorious way in which the game can be won 
 from the side-lines. 
 
 And the roofs of Hallgarten and the steps of Culver 
 have brought their offerings. 
 
 These all cannot much profit by the gifts they have 
 made. Their reward must be in the hearts of newly 
 matriculated college generations. How delightful if we 
 could bring them all back, — the athletes, softened, stif- 
 fened, adiposed, the restful ones, unsuppled and 
 untoughened — cut off their cigars and cocktails or 
 whatever indulgences of the prosperous life, put them 
 upon the training diet of Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, 
 and Azariah — "pulse to eat and water to drink" — and 
 have them meet daily for required exercise, to lay their 
 fingers upon the floor without bending the knees, to 
 twist that burdensome abdomen forward and backward 
 and sideways, to touch their fingertips behind the back, 
 to send the unwonted air swirling to the diaphragm, to 
 repeat these restorative acts until the joints creaked and 
 the muscles growled, to take the cure for a month. 
 
 The givers of this building have not had the full ben- 
 efits of a gymnasium themselves, and their gift prom- 
 ises to others a better chance than their own. The high- 
 est utility of a gymnasium has never been demonstrated 
 at Dartmouth, for which conditions rather than persons 
 are responsible. Even when the classes were more com- 
 mensurate with the floor space of Bissell Hall the stu- 
 dents never entered with unquestioning enthusiasm into 
 those uniform enforced exercises of twisting their 
 healthy bodies first to the right and then to the left, 
 extending and flexing their prehensile digits without 
 pinching anything, though they always saw to it that 
 the dumb-bells crashed properly upon the floor. 
 
94 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 They have much preferred "that which is puerile, 
 such as playing with balls, bowls, and other ways of 
 diversion" reprehended to the pupils of the Indian 
 School and of the College by the great founder. Per- 
 haps even rather would they "turn the course of their 
 diversions and exercise for their health to the practice 
 of some manual wits, or cultivation of gardens and 
 other lands at the proper hours of leisure and intermis- 
 sion from study" further recommended by the same 
 hygienic authority. 
 
 Few men, in all the years of Bissell Hall, look back 
 with complete satisfaction upon its opportunities; 
 nevertheless it has been the only indoor gymnasium and 
 full of occupation. Class exercises, romping or listless, 
 of late the peculiar privilege of Freshmen, have there 
 been required; weighings and measurings have been 
 taken at long intervals, furnishing interesting evidence 
 how men grow four years older while going through col- 
 lege, but little that the individual has actually used in 
 his development; spectacular gymnasts have functioned 
 therein, doing the giant's swing, hanging head down- 
 wards from the flying trapeze, or tumbling upon a mat- 
 tress;, scufflers at basketball have constantly defied the 
 "rules of the game." Athletes have there girded them- 
 selves for the contest and there washed off its sweat and 
 its grime, forgetting their weary muscles in the zest of 
 victory, or finding that the acuteness of an ache depends 
 upon how one feels; and there have come off the con- 
 cert, the lecture, the play, the dinner, the ball. Its walls 
 the most of any now, except perhaps the church, carry 
 the faint echoes of the distinguished past. 
 
 A great instrument, like this building rising before 
 us, will be eagerly watched for results. It is no toy, 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 95 
 
 and its usefulness will appeax in applications now undis- 
 covered; but we can foresee in part. It must come into 
 systematic and properly directed use like the other 
 laboratories of the College. Weighings and measurings 
 surely will be taken at frequent intervals — an excessive 
 undertaking — and on them will be based definite cor- 
 rective exercises for the individual need, required and 
 followed up. The physically deficient, the superficial 
 breathers, the fish-mouthed, the narrow chested, the 
 round shouldered, the one-sided, the undeveloped will 
 be made to work from day to day in persistent and well- 
 taught rectification until they can reach and maintain 
 a passing mark. No one man can do the work thus 
 demanded, and this building should be manned like 
 other departments in which individual instruction is 
 given — as all the laboratories should be but are not — not 
 as for those who lecture to three hundred or who can do 
 their work by three hours a week with a class, a book, 
 and a chair, but modestly, merely so that instructors on 
 duty six to eight hours a day, may work with divisions 
 of about fifteen and give examinations to all, and ade- 
 quate care to the deficient. An endowment is a logical 
 consequence of the building. 
 
 This gymnasium never could have come to the Col- 
 lege as a general gift of the alumni without the money 
 and the determined team-work of enthusiasts for inter- 
 collegiate sports. But they may have created a rival 
 to their own dearest love. Certainly herein lies the 
 opportunity for those who think the athlete already too 
 luminous, who loudly oppose competitive athletics, and 
 depict the terrible condition in which they allege the 
 many sit upon the grand-stand and shout themselves 
 hoarse while the selected and pampered few strive for 
 
96 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 the illustrated supplement, to accomplish the unat- 
 tained and work out activities for the multitude which 
 shall bear the fruit and slough the excrescences of our 
 intercollegiate games. Thus, perhaps, would be car- 
 ried out the wishes of many generous contributors who 
 do not greatly love the public display. 
 
 We believe that those also who thought as much of 
 athletics as of physical culture will not be disappointed 
 in the help they will have from this great building. 
 New problems are to be solved; conditions are con- 
 stantly changing; but if intercollegiate contests and the 
 training therefor have, as many of us believe, made col- 
 lege lif e more decent, made men more clean in mind and 
 body, rendered malice and brutality less common, helped 
 men to work shoulder to shoulder with others without 
 distinction of class, taught them to sacrifice themselves 
 to a common cause, to come to a common rallying point 
 in after life, to send back their hopes and their aid to 
 their alma mater, then college athletics will go on. They 
 have become morally and ethically sounder during the 
 period in which they have come to a greater importance, 
 in those institutions that possess them instead of being 
 possessed by them. And we look to a future of dis- 
 tinctly higher plane and better proportion, provided 
 always the college administration regards them as activ- 
 ities to be regulated wisely rather than suppressed or 
 allowed to run wild. Note the outlook through the 
 sports as stated in the constitution of the Boston Play- 
 ground Association, — "and through these plays and 
 games to create a love for out-of-doors life, habits of 
 obedience and self-control, and a keen sense of justice 
 and helpfulness." 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 97 
 
 I venture to quote here words that I used on another 
 occasion because I am willing, I hope Dartmouth is 
 willing, to stand firm upon the issue they imply: 
 
 "A college is an educational institution — a point to 
 be emphasized — not an athletic club, a hippodrome, or 
 a box office. Athletic sports have their place in the col- 
 lege not as an end in themselves, nor yet as a necessary 
 evil, but because notwithstanding some excesses they 
 have an important part in the development of the man. 
 And they are not doing their part if they do not teach 
 him a clean life, steadiness, persistence to the end, fair- 
 ness, honesty, obedience to law and to authority, to act 
 as part of an organization, to make self secondary to the 
 common purpose. 
 
 "Into the college at one end of the four years pours 
 very raw material, and from the other end issues a 
 refined but not perfected product. Viewed as a process 
 acting upon the individual, the changes are vast. The 
 graduate goes out with higher morals, ideals and ethical 
 standards than his earlier self. The mixture of units 
 to casual notice may seem to remain the same, but to 
 the close observer its average opinion and standard is 
 always changing, in some cases with surprising rapidity. 
 
 "The youthful standard of sport is crude, even bar- 
 baric — anything to win, always to win. And it is as 
 much the duty of the institution that encourages ath- 
 letic sport to bring its standards up to those of the best 
 sportsmanship as to foster sound scholarship, scientific 
 honesty and good citizenship. That means unwavering 
 purpose, steady pressure in the right direction, with 
 no more despair at slow results, or at the incoming of a 
 new generation of the untaught, than in English or 
 algebra, and with no more deference to hasty or oppor- 
 
 7 
 
98 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 tune undergraduate votes than in the matter of holi- 
 days or examinations. On the other hand, the well- 
 taught undergraduate becomes a clear-sighted and dis- 
 criminating man, and his enlightened judgment can be 
 trusted on all issues to which he comes without excite- 
 ment or immediate self-interest." 
 
 Here then may the daring gymnasts exercise their 
 craft upon the ropes and bars and ladders ; here the fac- 
 ulty may practice basket-ball and self-control; here 
 we hope will be a compulsory course in swimming with 
 the diploma of the College in jeopardy. Here will the 
 skilful foster and augment their cunning, the strenuous 
 prepare for the struggles of the strong, the fit be 
 selected for the contest and constant watchfulness be 
 exercised to maintain their fitness. And under these 
 spacious arches Hanover spring will not so linger in 
 the lap of winter but that a track team can go forth in 
 May in form to compete, and the baseball team — a full 
 month late out of doors — will take the field as ready 
 as those of temperate climes. 
 
 It has appeared more and more that Dartmouth's 
 athletic strength does not lie in combinations of ath- 
 letic stars who wander hither, or who are coerced by the 
 logic of superior argument. It is not natural to wander 
 hither; one must design to come; and students whose 
 college course is determined by athletic argument can 
 well be spared. Our greatest opportunity lies in the 
 development on the spot of homogeneous teams that 
 take the field in perfect physical condition animated 
 by the best spirit of sport. Such contestants are Dart- 
 mouth athletes in the truest sense. And how this gym- 
 nasium will stand as a bulwark for that policy all can 
 see. 
 
INAUGUEATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 99 
 
 The human male of nineteen who enters college may 
 be called by some "homo sapiens adolescens," but to me, 
 on the average, he is a boy; and a less mature boy than 
 formerly. This is merely stated as an observation, but 
 it is supported by the more scientific deductions of Dr. 
 Charles L. Dana, who said to us in his Commencement 
 address, "I would like to be a college president just for 
 a day so that I could send out into the market place 
 some views about our modern eastern colleges which 
 have of late lacked conspicuous approval because they 
 do not recognize that modernity has delayed adoles- 
 cence, and that the college boy having still an unripe 
 brain, is not to be treated with the responsbilities of 
 matured manhood." And he adds, "It has been my 
 experience that a very large number of boys go to col- 
 lege and have responsibilities thrust upon them for 
 which they are not physically or physiologically ready. 
 It is very well to say that at eighteen or twenty a boy 
 would be a man, but putting on the toga does not change 
 the processes of metabolism. I think that it is in accord- 
 ance with the laws of evolution that, as a man becomes 
 a higher type, he lives longer, and works later; he 
 should also have a longer childhood." 
 
 There may be abstruse reasons for this, but I men- 
 tion obvious ones. Your father's father — I speak to my 
 contemporaries — said to his son, "I will give you your 
 time," and the instrument was signed and witnessed. 
 If by working summers and teaching winters the eccen- 
 tric lad set out to make his way through college, the 
 father felt blameless of the doubtful experiment. Your 
 father said, "I'll help you." But it was only by close 
 economy and much helping yourself that you accom- 
 plished your purpose. Now you say, "I want my boy 
 
100 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 to have all the comforts he is used to at home," and 
 mother often comes to see that he is properly fitted out. 
 When you were in college half or two thirds of the 
 class were away teaching three months in the winter. 
 As late as 1869-70 the Harvard catalogue announces, 
 "School-keeping. Meritorious students whose circum- 
 stances require it, may, at the discretion of the faculty, 
 be absent for a limited time, not exceeding thirteen 
 weeks, including the winter vacation, for the purpose 
 of keeping school." And the same custom survived at 
 Dartmouth for ten or fifteen years longer. The student 
 teacher, in school hours at least, was forced to early 
 manhood. 
 
 The college boy of today has more commonly been 
 cared for all his life. He meanders socially through 
 the college; a smile of joy comes over his pleasant fea- 
 tures when we tell him that he has passed, and he has 
 only polite concern when we add that he might have 
 done better. He can say, "I don't know, sir," with an 
 amiable self-possession, with even a consideration for 
 our embarrassment that in itself deserves a favorable 
 mark. He breaks and his father pays. Sixty dollars 
 does not seem to him an excessive price for a suit of 
 clothes, although his father to this day finds it hard 
 to get by a $12 suit in the window. He is known afar 
 by his plumage. Until of late he has gone all winter 
 bare-headed (as soon as he got over being a Freshman) , 
 without an overcoat or gloves, and exposing his orna- 
 mental hose to the weather, though better customs now 
 prevail. In a crowd he may be thoughtless of others, 
 mischievous, and excitable, but not discourteous, mali- 
 cious, or mean. He would not stand the cruder ways of 
 former years, and he rarely breaks out into conspicuous 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 101 
 
 inebriety or wilful rowdyism. He is a phase in a devel- 
 opment that is not to be hurried and is much too good 
 to waste. Whether he wakes to ambition, as we regard 
 ambition, in his Junior year or in his Senior year, or not 
 till after a precarious diploma, he makes as substantial 
 a man as his father and his father's father. 
 
 If the maturing process, physical, social, mental, 
 moral, moved evenly like a roller of the sea it could be 
 treated effectively by mchscriminating machines. But 
 it is more like the variety of gardens, in which the peas 
 shoot out of the frozen ground, and the jpansies smile 
 at the unseasonable snows of May, while the limas rot 
 in the early cold, the bush beans wilt at the breath of 
 frost, the corn waits for the warmest sun and the late 
 tomatoes ripen when hand-picked and laid in the dark. 
 The soft, juicy apples of fall have no endurance, and 
 the russets, sound and mellow in the spring, defy the 
 teeth in the autumn. And the weeds have their varying 
 nature and predominance — the pig-weed aggressive and 
 obvious, but once pulled with the soil shaken from its 
 roots it is dead where it lies; the pursley lying low, 
 deathless until it ripens its seed, unless both eradicated 
 and removed ; and the subterranean wire-weed burrow- 
 ing pestilently in all directions, putting forth on the 
 surface mere off -shoots from the vicious lif e below. 
 
 So in the uneven development of the youth the long- 
 ing for friends predominates for a time and he gives too 
 much for popularity; or curiosity rules until he learns 
 by experience the defihng nature of pitch; another 
 craves recognition as an individual by any means that 
 seem to give him importance; another is too supersti- 
 tious in all things; another is overcome with the lassi- 
 tude of growth; and in another is that strange slowness 
 
102 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 of reaction that stimulates stupidity. Phases all. Mere 
 study does not impress him; the world is too interesting 
 for abstractions ; he does not hear in the college talk any 
 admiration for scholars; it does not seem a passion in 
 the teaching staff. For years at the greatest college 
 pageant for the recognition of scholarship — the Phi 
 Beta Kappa initiation — not more than six or eight of 
 the faculty have been present. 
 
 There is the f amiliar story of the athlete who after 
 a brief connection with the college averred that the only 
 unsatisfactory condition in college life was "those stud- 
 ies," and this has its equally significant obverse in the 
 instructors whose work would be wholly congenial if 
 it were not for "those students." Perhaps in passing 
 from the in loco parentis to the "at owner's risk" posi- 
 tion we have ignored conditions that are fundamental 
 and vital. 
 
 Let us agree without argument, although we may 
 state it in different forms, that the chief office of this or 
 any college is to make men, — fit to serve their day and 
 generation, and that a common quality of the man- 
 stuff, the lovable college boy with his immeasureable 
 possibilities, is that his soul is reached through his body. 
 
 Now into this scheme of a college to make men, comes 
 as an adjuvant, subordinate to the great end, this noble 
 building. 
 
 Its prime function shall not be to make athletes, 
 though we hope it will make more than ever ; nor acro- 
 bats, though doubtless they have their uses ; nor for the 
 calisthenic drills, of unquestioned advantage; nor as 
 a playground for games. But to bring the bodies under 
 subjection, to hold the coming men steady while they 
 are gaining their balance and their outlook upon the 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 103 
 
 world ; to be a well-adjusted part of the great plant that 
 is sending forth others to shoulder the burdens and take 
 the places by and by, of those of whose helpfulness this 
 gymnasium is a token. (Applause and cheers.) 
 
 The student body having sung several College songs, Chairman 
 Hall rose and thus introduced the next speaker: 
 
 No celebration of the laying of the corner stone of 
 this building would be complete without a word from 
 the man who is entitled to much credit, both as the one 
 who generated the force which brought the matter to 
 the attention of the alumni, and who also is largely 
 responsible for the general arrangement of the building. 
 To a Dartmouth audience, the speaker needs no intro- 
 duction; to our friends and guests, I have the pleasure 
 of presenting Dr. John W. Bowler, Director of the 
 Gymnasium. ( Applause. ) 
 
 ADDRESS BY PROFESSOR BOWLER 
 
 Dr. Bowler, in giving a retrospect of the gymnasium movement, 
 said : 
 
 Bissell Hall, Dartmouth's old gymnasium, was built 
 in 1867, forty-two years ago. There were at that time 
 only 331 students in the college. In September, 1901, 
 when I first came to Hanover, the College had already 
 outgrown the facilities of the gymnasium, and the prob- 
 lem of doing efficient work in the department of physi- 
 cal education was increasing in difficulty with the con- 
 stant and large increase in the size of the student body. 
 
 For some time we lived in the hope that some friend 
 of Dartmouth would give us a new gymnasium. Rough 
 
104 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 plans had even been designed, in accordance with this 
 vague hope when the burning of the old Dartmouth 
 Hall in February, 1904, made an immediate and imper- 
 ative demand for its replacement. The urgent need of 
 a new gymnasium had properly to await the satisfaction 
 of Dartmouth's greater need. 
 
 But when the new Dartmouth Hall had been com- 
 pleted in the spring of 1906, it seemed that the time 
 must be ripe for another gymnasium campaign. New 
 designs were prepared, and this time on a new and dif- 
 ferent plan. By April, 1908, confidence had risen to 
 a point that seemed to justify an interview with the 
 president of the College. In this interview, plans were 
 discussed in a general way, and permission was 
 requested to solicit funds for the proposed building from 
 the undergraduates and the alumni of the College. Dr. 
 Tucker gave the desired permission, and with it a great 
 deal of the most valuable advice, — one of the countless 
 instances in which the College is indebted to him for 
 unheralded assistances. 
 
 Rough, small pencil drawings of the plans were then 
 turned over to certain students in the Thayer School, — 
 I regret that I cannot recall and record their names, — 
 who prepared pen-and-ink drawings on a larger scale. 
 The campaign had thus been brought to the stage of 
 publication. 
 
 The editor of The Dartmouth kindly agreed to 
 pay for the line cuts of the plans to accompany the 
 news "story" of the proposed building and the projected 
 campaign for funds. 
 
 May 8, 1908, the plans were described and illustrated 
 in The Dartmouth, with the statement that if the stu- 
 dent body would subscribe ten thousand dollars, the 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 105 
 
 matter would be brought to the attention of the alumni. 
 As a sequel to this publication 101 members of the senior 
 class attended a meeting, held in D Tuck Hall, Mon- 
 day evening, May 11. The plans were explained to 
 them in detail and the method to be pursued in raising 
 the necessary funds. As a result of this meeting a sum 
 of $1,835 was subscribed. The same method was fol- 
 lowed on the three succeeding evenings with the follow- 
 ing results. The Junior class subscribed $1,790, the 
 Sophomore class $2,664, and the Freshman $3,220. 
 During these days some of the students who were 
 unable to attend the class meetings, handed in their 
 subscriptions, bringing the amount subscribed, at this 
 time, to about $11,000. 
 
 At this point, as the movement seemed to have good 
 support, it was deemed advisable to organize a commit- 
 tee to formulate plans to carry the campaign to a suc- 
 cessful issue. A general committee was therefore first 
 formed and a short time thereafter this general commit- 
 tee was supplemented by an alumni committee, having 
 in all twenty-three members, a representative for each 
 class from 1885 to 1907 inclusive. The work that this 
 committee has done, and is still doing, is most praise- 
 worthy. Scattered as many of the members of these 
 various classes are, it has required time, money, and 
 great patience to carry on the work, since many letters 
 had to be sent abroad to various countries, as well as to 
 alumni in every one of the United States. 
 
 It should be added, however, that many voluntarily 
 subscribed and in some cases more than what was 
 expected; thereby lightening the burden of the commit- 
 tee and affording them needed encouragement. 
 
106 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 It seems especially fitting at this time to mention the 
 advantages this type of gymnasium has over others. In 
 the west wing there is to be a full-sized baseball dia- 
 mond on the soil, the same as a "skin" diamond; this 
 will enable an entire infield to practice in their regular 
 positions. When it is not in use for baseball, tennis 
 courts will be marked out and those interested in tennis 
 will be permitted to use the courts. Arrangements will 
 be made whereby the posts and nettings can be removed 
 or replaced in a few minutes. 
 
 In the west wing, there will be ample room for all 
 branches of track and field sports. A space will be 
 allotted to each of the following sports : — high- jumping, 
 broad- jumping, pole-vaulting, shot-putting, sprinting 
 and hurdling. A straight-away, 120 yards in length, for 
 sprinting and hurdling will be one of the features. Sur- 
 rounding all these will be a running track about seven 
 laps to the mile and not less than ten feet wide. A floor 
 is to be laid in the east wing about twenty-nine feet from 
 the ground; this floor will contain hand-ball and squash 
 courts, boxing and fencing rooms. 
 
 Directly over the running track in each wing will be 
 a gallery at the same level as the trophy room. This 
 gallery can be used by those who desire to train for 
 indoor athletic games, where short spikes are used. The 
 track beneath the gallery will be the same as an out-door 
 track, where long spikes may be used. 
 
 The building will be well equipped with modern lock- 
 ers and bathing facilities, with separate rooms for the 
 home teams and the visiting teams, with private lockers, 
 bathing and toilet facilities. There will also be a num- 
 ber of rooms for the use of the athletic council, man- 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 107 
 
 agers of the various teams, as well as rubbing and dry- 
 ing rooms. 
 
 The gymnasium hall where the class exercises are to 
 be conducted will be 200 feet by 80 feet. Arrangements 
 can be made whereby three basket-ball games can be 
 played concurrently and still leave ample room for con- 
 ducting a larger class in gymnastics than can be accom- 
 modated in the present gymnasium. 
 
 The trophy room alone will be larger than our pres- 
 ent gymnasium. This room will contain cases, etc., for 
 the proper care of athletic trophies, and will also con- 
 tain the white enamel bricks which will bear the names 
 of those who have made it possible to erect this building. 
 
 The building will cover approximately 47,680 square 
 feet, as compared with the 4,000 square feet of the pres- 
 ent gymnasium. In other words this gymnasium will 
 cover about six times the area that Dartmouth Hall 
 does. Not least worthy of mention is the fact that it 
 will cost but from 25 to 40 per cent of what others have 
 cost that have been built within a decade, with fewer 
 facilities than this building will contain. 
 
 We may be asked, What benefits will the Dartmouth 
 students gain in this new gymnasium? With its great 
 facilities, it is expected that all students, as well as most 
 of the faculty, will become interested not only in one 
 branch of physical training but in the general upbuild- 
 ing of their bodies. 
 
 It would be unsafe for a physical culture enthusiast 
 to attempt here to depict the benefits that the newest 
 Dartmouth is to reap from the structure soon to be com- 
 pleted. It may be permitted me, however, at least to 
 allude to the sane body that supports the sane mind, and 
 to express the belief and hope that the building will be 
 
108 INAUGUEATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 a powerful aid to our new president in realizing his 
 ideal of balanced manhood as the proper goal of the 
 college. (Applause and cheers.) 
 
 LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE BY PRESIDENT 
 
 NICHOLS 
 
 Chairman Hall, in introducing President Nichols, said: 
 
 President Nichols, in the great work which lies before 
 you this building will have its part. It will make for 
 good in the welfare of Dartmouth College. It will help 
 to maintain her prestige, to preserve her traditions and 
 to make her men. 
 
 Moreover, it will stand as a lasting monument to the 
 loyalty of her sons — the loyalty of action and of sacri- 
 fice. That same loyalty, in behalf of her students and 
 her alumni, I now pledge to you, "instant, constant and 
 unfaltering" ; and as a token of that pledge, I present 
 you this trowel and request that with it you do now lay 
 the corner stone of the Alumni Gymnasium. (Ap- 
 plause.) 
 
 President Nichols then proceeded to lay the corner stone, in 
 which had been placed a sealed box containing 
 
 The Original Circular appealing to Alumni for con- 
 tributions: 
 
 A File of the "New Gymnasium News"; 
 Copies of last issues of 
 
 "The Dartmouth" 
 
 "The Dartmouth Magazine" 
 
 "The J ack-o' Lantern" 
 
 "The Aegis"; 
 
 The Address of Dr. Bartlett; 
 
 The Retrospect of Dr. Bowler; 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 109 
 
 The Program of Exercises; 
 
 The Program of the Inaugural Ceremonies; 
 
 A Copy of the History of Dartmouth Athletics. 
 
 In laying the corner stone, President Nichols said: 
 
 In the name of God, the Father, Son and Holy 
 Ghost, I declare this stone to be the corner of a house 
 devoted to that training of the body which shall make it 
 the sturdy, obedient servant of the mind and spirit of 
 man. 
 
 The entire audience joined in the "Dartmouth Song," after 
 which there was a procession to the campus. 
 
 This closed the exercises of laying the corner stone of the new 
 gymnasium. 
 
DINNER TO DISTINGUISHED GUESTS, 
 
 GIVEN AT COLLEGE HALL 
 
 BY THE TRUSTEES 
 
 At half past seven o'clock in the evening a dinner to distinguished 
 guests was given in College Hall by the Trustees of the College. 
 More than four hundred persons were present. Charles Frederick 
 Mathewson, Esq., A. M., LL. B., of the Board of Trustees, acted 
 as presiding officer. After calling the assembly to order Mr. 
 Mathewson appropriately introduced the following speakers in 
 turn: Governor Henry Brewer Quinby, The Right Honorable 
 James Bryce, President Abbott Lawrence Lowell, Ex-President 
 James Burrill Angell, President Jacob Gould Schurman, President 
 William DeWitt Hyde, President Woodrow Wilson, President 
 Emeritus Charles William Eliot. The full procedure is here given: 
 
 Mr. Mathewson. Mr. President, guests, alumni, 
 friends, and ladies above all (laughter), one splendid 
 administration has come to a close and another has been 
 begun. The inauguration of Dr. Nichols has occurred 
 under the happiest auspices — blue sky overhead, the 
 autumn tints of the hills surrounding, and in the pres- 
 ence of this great and notable assemblage; and he is 
 now peacefully on his way. But immemorial custom 
 seems to dictate that every occasion of this importance 
 shall terminate with a banquet, so-called, and Dart- 
 mouth early adopted this convention; for, as you were 
 today informed, at the first commencement in 1771, 
 Governor Wentworth with about sixty other guests 
 was present to partake of the commencement repast. 
 That repast, as the chronicler indicates, was simple but 
 
112 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 sufficient. It consisted of an ox and a barrel of rum 
 (laughter) — food and drink mingled in about equal 
 proportions, with some features to which our modern 
 academic banquets afford a depressing contrast. 
 (Laughter.) No wonder that the Governor, shortly- 
 after leaving, sent to the president of the College a 
 silver tureen of significant shape and proportions; but 
 this now seems to have descended to the use, and the 
 sole use, of being transferred from predecessor to suc- 
 cessor in recognition of what was, but is not. (Laugh- 
 ter.) "Troja fuit, non est!" (Laughter.) 
 
 It seems to be equally necessary that at these repasts 
 there shall be a toastmaster and that certain gentlemen 
 present, preferably distinguished guests, shall submit to 
 a reasonable amount of imposition in the matter of the 
 delivery of after dinner speeches, in order that the bal- 
 ance of us may be entertained. 
 
 But first I desire to return, in behalf of the Trustees 
 of the College, — the Corporation — our cordial and 
 heartfelt thanks and acknowledgments for this splendid 
 outpouring of guests upon this occasion. We know 
 that you have come, many of you long distances, con- 
 suming a considerable time, at great inconvenience to 
 yourselves and, no doubt, to the institutions with which 
 you are connected. We thank you; we cordially thank 
 you. You have done much to make these exercises so 
 impressive; you have given a demonstration of schol- 
 astic sympathy which will not be forgotten. We shall 
 always recall your presence with pleasure. We look 
 upon it as a recognition of the splendid history of this 
 College, as a compliment to the administration which 
 has passed and as an inspiration and a hope for that 
 which is to come. 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 113 
 
 We are the more indebted to you in view of the fact 
 that Hanover was not selected as an educational centre 
 by reason of the excellence of its transportation facili- 
 ties or of its contiguity to great centres of population. 
 Even Eleazar Wheelock complained, as early as that 
 day, that the springs of his phaeton were "sorely tried" 
 in the trip from Connecticut to Hanover ; and we read 
 that the transportation at the same time, at his order, 
 of about "five hundred gallons of New England rum," 
 which were imported by him — so he said — in order to 
 ingratiate himself with the savages (laughter), was 
 accompanied by great creaking of axles as this heavy 
 load passed over the country roads. I may add that 
 the character of the commencement banquet of 1771 
 has led to some skepticism as to whether the entire con- 
 signment was in fact employed for the benefit of the 
 savages. (Laughter.) 
 
 It is always a great pleasure to have with us the Gov- 
 ernor of the State of New Hampshire; it is an even 
 greater pleasure to have him present when he is the 
 estimable gentleman who now occupies the executive 
 chair. (Applause.) He favored us at Commencement 
 last June ; he has favored us again today. He has hon- 
 ored us by his attendance, and he was promised, in my 
 absence from the country, that he should not be called 
 upon to say anything tonight. But I left no power of 
 attorney by which any one might grant such a release; 
 and, accordingly, with much urging, he has consented to 
 respond in a word for the State of New Hampshire, 
 which has been so loyal to the College and to which the 
 College has been and will in the time to come be equally 
 loyal. (Applause.) 
 
114 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 ADDRESS BY GOVERNOR QUINBY 
 
 The annals of our State do not record the presence at 
 any one time within our borders of such a notable gath- 
 ering of distinguished men as have gathered here today 
 to honor this splendid institution and to honor our State. 
 I have promised the toastmaster that I would not 
 occupy your time at any length this evening; but, as 
 an adopted son of old Dartmouth by a two-fold tie, and 
 a loyal one, I feel called upon to say a word of greeting, 
 not only as a son of Dartmouth but as the chief execu- 
 tive of this State. I tender those guests from abroad 
 a most cordial welcome to the Granite State. May your 
 stay here be one of unalloyed pleasure, and may you 
 carry away from beautiful New Hampshire happy and 
 lasting memories of your so j ourn with us. ( Applause. ) 
 
 Mr. Mathewson. Any meeting which boasts the 
 presence of the distinguished Ambassador from Great 
 Britain is itself distinguished on that ground alone. Dr. 
 Bryce this morning referred to the fact that there had 
 been differences between our two countries and that 
 they were now happily passed. I am sure that no body 
 more cordially than this can re-echo that thought. 
 
 Ordinary occasions count for nothing; it is times of 
 stress and distress which count. At the time of the 
 assassination of the late President McKinley, it was 
 my fortune to be in England, arriving on the morning 
 that the news was published. Far from home, the shock 
 was inexpressible. For the ten days that he lingered 
 between life and death we were surrounded by solici- 
 tude, anxious inquiries, every exhibition of distress ; and 
 it seemed to me sometimes that if the King himself had 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 115 
 
 been stricken the anxiety would hardly have been 
 greater. How frequently was reference made at that 
 time to the beautiful message which President McKinley 
 sent to the King on the occasion of the then recent death 
 of Queen Victoria ! When the end came, every paper in 
 Great Britain which I saw appeared in mourning lines; 
 and when, a few days later, in the great church of St. 
 Giles at Edinburgh, I attended the memorial services 
 to the dead President, and saw the Lord Mayor and his 
 council in their robes of office, the officers of the garrison 
 end all the most estimable of the population of that his- 
 toric city gathered together to do honor to our dead, and 
 the old moderator, certainly more than four score years 
 of age, with hair as white as snow, thrice break down in 
 the midst of his prayer when referring to our stricken 
 country and to the widow who was left, I made up my 
 mind that every son of St. Andrew and St. George was 
 a brother of mine, wheresoever he might sojourn or 
 whensoever he might be met. (Applause.) 
 
 It is, among other things, because Dr. Bryce stands 
 for this sentiment of sympathy and unity that we love 
 and esteem him as we do; and while he, too, secured a 
 promise in my absence that he should not be called upon 
 to speak except at the morning exercises, he has kindly 
 waived his ambassadorial immunity and consented, at a 
 moment's notice, to say an additional word to us at this 
 meeting, because we so care for him that, not knowing 
 when he may return — although we hope it may be soon 
 — we desire to hear his voice once more before he leaves. 
 (Applause.) 
 
116 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 ADDRESS OF AMBASSADOR BRYCE 
 
 It is only a very few words that I should think of 
 offering to you at this moment nor did I intend to offer 
 any, though my sense of loyalty and obedience to consti- 
 tuted authority is so great that I cannot dispute the 
 demand of the toastmaster. I thank him for the allu- 
 sion he has made to the incident which showed the real 
 sympathy that unites the people to which I belong with 
 your people here. That was felt, also, at the death of 
 President Lincoln. No event in my memory ever pro- 
 duced so terrible a shock, a shock which everybody felt 
 as if it were a loss of his own, as was felt when we heard 
 in London of the death of President Lincoln. I do 
 not suppose any one who has ever lived in England, or 
 even stayed there long enough to understand the senti- 
 ment of its people, would doubt for a moment the truth 
 of what you, Mr. Toastmaster, have said. 
 
 Gentlemen, an English university man, who was at 
 one time a professor in Oxford and who has always 
 retained the liveliest recollections of his university life, 
 must naturally feel the greatest possible interest in 
 being present at university gatherings in this country, 
 and at times it seems to me that the true nature and 
 character of the American people, the things which 
 appeal to their feelings, the things around which their 
 minds play, are best to be seen and best to be under- 
 stood, by those who can read such an index of thought 
 and feeling, in connection with the universities rather 
 than in connection with the ordinary course of party 
 politics. I have always felt that there is a vast deal of 
 your life that does not express itself in your politics, 
 and indeed that does not express itself in your business 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 117 
 
 either, but which expresses itself best through your 
 university life, as the efflux and expression of your life 
 of thought and emotion, a current with less foam on the 
 surface than the current that bears your political for- 
 tunes, but not less deep and not less truly indicative of 
 the inner character of your people. 
 
 In coming here to see you today and to be present at 
 this celebration, there are three things that have partic- 
 ularly impressed me. The first is — and upon this I 
 desire to offer my congratulations to you, Mr. Presi- 
 dent, — the abundance of work that there is for a college 
 president to do. A strong and vigorous nature is never 
 so happy as when it sees more work to be done than it is 
 possible to overtake; and I can congratulate the Pres- 
 ident upon the enormous number of difficult and deli- 
 cate questions that await his solution. And indeed we 
 may congratulate the other college presidents in the 
 same way, because at another interesting university 
 gathering, in Cambridge, last week, the moral of what 
 we saw and heard was the same. 
 
 When I come to one of these gatherings I perceive 
 that the surface of American university life is positively 
 seething and bubbling with questions and problems con- 
 cerning everything that relates to the organization, stud- 
 ies, teaching and examinations in your universities and 
 colleges. That is a fine thing, because it is an index of 
 vitality; it is a very attractive thing to an observer. I 
 am almost tempted to enter into the discussion of some 
 of these very interesting questions, upon some of which 
 our English experience might throw a little fight. But 
 I have arrived at that period of life when it has become 
 much pleasanter to ask questions than to answer them. 
 Therefore, my contribution to the solution of these diffi- 
 
118 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 culties which are going to engage the thoughts and add 
 to the pleasure of the life of your President, would he 
 not to advance my own views, but to suggest a certain 
 number of difficult questions as fit subjects for contro- 
 versy. When I see around me so many distinguished 
 college presidents and ex-presidents, all of whom are 
 eminently qualified to bear a part in these discussions, 
 and some of whom have been doing so in the last few 
 months, I feel tempted to imitate her who threw down 
 the apple of strife in the Peleian banquet hall among 
 the Olympians, and to invite these college presidents 
 and ex-presidents to discuss these questions in our pres- 
 ence. (Laughter.) I think, ladies and gentlemen, that 
 I could ask more questions in five minutes than they 
 could settle in a week: such is the variety, such is the 
 amplitude of your university life; and I am the more 
 tempted to do so because it isn't my business. (Laugh- 
 ter.) There is nothing so pleasant and natural as giv- 
 ing your views on matters which are not your own busi- 
 ness. Being subject to the painful disability of sitting 
 here and listening to you discussing a great variety of 
 political and local questions, upon which my official posi- 
 tion debars me from expressing an opinion, and being 
 deeply interested in your fortunes and a graduate of 
 several of your universities, I am the more inclined to 
 jump in and take part in university controversies. 
 (Laughter.) However, I think it is too late to do that 
 tonight. I will imitate the theological lecturer at one 
 of our English universities who said to his class, "Gen- 
 tlemen, we are now arrived at one of the most difficult 
 parts of our dogmatic course. Let us approach it cau- 
 tiously ; let us walk up to it ; let us look it in the face — 
 and let us pass it by I" (Laughter.) 
 
INAUGUEATION OF PEESIDENT NICHOLS 119 
 
 I will pass it by, and will come to the second point 
 which has struck me particularly here in Dartmouth, 
 and that is the great beauty of your natural surround- 
 ings. It appears to me that a large part of what Dart- 
 mouth has been able to achieve through the distinction 
 of its famous graduates must have been due to the stim- 
 ulating influence of your air and your scenery. I don't 
 know that I have ever wished more to be an undergrad- 
 uate again, so that I might go out on long walks with 
 friends through these romantic valleys, these lovely 
 woods, and to these hill tops from which you get such 
 charming prospects up and down the valley of the Con- 
 necticut River. Being taken today to the top of your 
 observatory, I looked out to the east and saw a most 
 beautiful ridge, partly wooded, partly showing glades 
 and open slopes of sunny pasture, and I asked whether 
 that belonged to the College. I was told that it did not 
 yet belong to Dartmouth College, but that it was likely 
 some day to belong to it. I cannot help feeling that if 
 I were a resident here there is nothing I would try more 
 to do than to secure the possession for Dartmouth Col- 
 lege of that beautiful piece of hill and wood, because I 
 don't think there is anything that contributes more to 
 the joy of undergraduate life than having around you 
 places where you can ramble between the intervals of 
 your studies and can draw peace and joy from the sights 
 and sounds of nature. 
 
 That brings me to the third and last point that pre- 
 sents itself to my mind today. It is the passionate 
 attachment which the alumni of your American univer- 
 sities and colleges have for them. I suppose, in the case 
 of Dartmouth, that this may be partly due to the 
 delightful surroundings, the romantic scenery, in which 
 
120 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 your student days were passed. But I don't know of 
 any similar feeling equally strong in any other country. 
 The German universities cannot have it, because in 
 Germany, although the students are very fond and very 
 proud of their universities, it used to be, and I dare say 
 still is, the custom for a student to go to more than one, 
 and sometimes to three universities. He takes a part of 
 his course at one, a part at another, and a part at still 
 another. So his allegiance is always divided. Neither 
 is it the case in England, because, owing to our peculiar 
 constitution, the universities are too large, and there 
 are too few of them, to attract this special devotion of 
 their alumni; whereas the colleges within Oxford and 
 Cambridge are comparatively small, and, although they 
 lay a great social hold upon their members, especially 
 those of their members who belong to what we call the 
 foundation — that is to say, the fellows and scholars of 
 the college, — they do not lay the same hold upon the 
 affections and upon the memories of the ordinary stu- 
 dents. Although we do have college gatherings, I do 
 not think they excite the same amount of feeling as 
 yours do. They do not gather the same number of men 
 at the celebrations, and there is not the same display of 
 enthusiastic affection that you have here. 
 
 This spirit of attachment to the college seems to me 
 a fine thing, a noteworthy thing and a very useful thing 
 in your country. You are divided into a great number 
 of sovereign states, still for some purposes distinct, and 
 maintaining a great deal of commendable local pride; 
 but the boundaries of your universities transcend the 
 boundaries of your states, and, although Dartmouth 
 College is pre-eminently the college of New Hampshire, 
 and New Hampshire, as the Governor has said, is proud 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 121 
 
 of it, and worthily proud, it is still true that there are a 
 great many men among your alumni from outside the 
 boundaries of New Hampshire who do not yield at all 
 to the New Hampshire men in their zeal for the college. 
 Therefore, your net-work of college affiliations over- 
 steps the boundaries of the states and gives the colleges 
 a connection with almost every part of the country. 
 That is an interesting phenomenon to which we have 
 nothing quite similar, and it seems to me to add a great 
 deal to the utility of the college tie that it stretches out 
 over a vast country like yours, and that the alumnus of 
 one of your colleges, when he finds himself in a distant 
 state, feels quite certain that, if worthy of regard, he 
 will be entitled to the sympathy and help, if necessary, 
 of any of the alumni of that same college, not only those 
 of the same class but those who have been earlier or later, 
 wherever he may find them. It gives the college a great 
 sense of its mission and power, when it has this large 
 body of alumni all over the country, all looking to it, all 
 interested in its fortunes, who can all be called upon 
 when some special effort is required to come to its help. 
 It adds to the dignity of the college, and I think it adds 
 an interest to the life of the university man himself, who 
 feels that he is able to look back, still having a tie to the 
 place where those bright and happy student years were 
 passed and where those friendships were formed in 
 which lies so much of what is best in life. College friend- 
 ships are, perhaps, after all, the very best things we take 
 away from our colleges. They make much of the worth 
 and the joy of life. 
 
 This devotion of the alumni to the College appeals to 
 me as one of the most remarkable features of your edu- 
 cational system, and makes me wish that we were able 
 
122 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 in England and Scotland to knit a tie so close and so 
 enduring as the peculiar circumstances of America have 
 enabled her colleges to have with their alumni. It is a 
 great pleasure to be in a gathering animated by such a 
 spirit and to feel that the life of the College, centering 
 here, is throbbing and vibrating all over the United 
 States, wherever its alumni have gone. In the attach- 
 ment of the alumni there lies a great part of the strength 
 of American universities and colleges, and in the Amer- 
 ican universities and colleges there lies a great part of 
 the strength of the American people. (Applause.) 
 
 Mr. Mathewson. It is a source of great regret that 
 President Hadley of Yale University was unable to 
 remain to this banquet. Yale is the mother, or perhaps 
 the grandmother, of Dartmouth, since Eleazar Whee- 
 lock, being the father of Dartmouth, was a son of Yale 
 — I will not attempt to define the exact relationship. 
 But, while Dr. Hadley is himself unable to be present 
 to respond, he has sent this message, which I now have 
 pleasure in reading: 
 
 MESSAGE FROM PRESIDENT HADLEY 
 
 The Alma Mater of Dartmouth's first president 
 sends cordial and enthusiastic greetings to her last. For 
 a hundred and forty years Yale has not ceased to hold 
 Dartmouth in the highest honor. For a long time the 
 northern outpost of American learning, Dartmouth has 
 stood, like Durham of old, "half house of God, half cas- 
 tle 'gainst the Scot." She has at times ranked first 
 among American colleges in numbers; she has always 
 stood in the front rank for the maintenance of standards 
 and the making of men. Never in her history has this 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 123 
 
 leadership been more marked than under the wise 
 administration of President Tucker. We congratulate 
 the incoming president on the heritage into which he 
 enters. We believe it will become under his hands larger 
 and more glorious than ever before. 
 (Applause.) 
 
 Mr. Mathewson. I may observe that if this castle 
 has ever been held " 'gainst the Scot," it has fallen on 
 this occasion with ridiculous ease before the attractive 
 personality of the present Ambassador from Great 
 Britain. (Applause.) 
 
 In casting my eyes over our distinguished guests, 
 from all of whom we would like to hear, but from very 
 few of whom we will be able to hear in the short time 
 at our disposal, we naturally would first call upon the 
 representative of Harvard University, our neighbor and 
 the first institution of the kind established on American 
 soil, and welcome her new president upon his first 
 appearance, since his induction, at an academic func- 
 tion. 
 
 Although still in his swaddling clothes as a president, 
 he brings to that position ripe experience in many fields. 
 Taking up the study of law upon his graduation, a dis- 
 tinguished practitioner for many years, he thus became 
 a member of the "only class in which," it has been said, 
 "ignorance of the law is not punished." In the midst of 
 an active practice, he found time for study of the sci- 
 ence of government, and produced works in relation to 
 parties and politics at home and abroad which are clas- 
 sics in their way and are recognized authorities upon 
 the subject with which they have to deal. 
 
 He comes to grasp a standard already far and high 
 advanced. We wish and we predict that with firm hand 
 
124 INAUGUEATION OF PKESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 he will plant it even farther and higher, and that, when 
 he lays down that standard or passes it to another hand, 
 he will receive the verdict of "well done," to which his 
 talents and his zeal entitle him. 
 
 I have much pleasure in presenting to you the infant 
 president of the oldest university in America, Dr. 
 Abbott Lawrence Lowell. (Applause.) 
 
 ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT LOWELL 
 
 To make a speech after dinner is apt to be as little 
 enjoyable to the speaker as to the audience; but in this 
 case it is a pleasure to express my gratitude for the 
 honor that has been done me today and for the right in 
 the future to feel an even greater and peculiar interest 
 in Dartmouth. 
 
 President Nichols, it is the custom, I understand, in 
 all societies, for the last person admitted to act as mentor 
 to the next neophyte. The practical psychologists and 
 sociologists have not yet made a study of college presi- 
 dents (laughter) . Doubtless they will do so in the 
 future and we shall have all their qualities statistically 
 arranged. We shall know just their value for purposes 
 of advertisement on public occasions; we shall know 
 just the percentage of solid matter contained in their 
 very fluid discourses. We shall know many things 
 about them. 
 
 But, in the first place, we have tasks ahead of us 
 which we know. It boots little to inquire whether the 
 colleges of America are better or worse than they were 
 in our fathers' day. Our problem is with the future and 
 not with the past. The work of the past thirty years 
 in our colleges has been immense. To future genera- 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 125 
 
 tions it will probably appear almost incredible. But 
 you and I, sir, may be thankful that there is still work 
 left for us to do. 
 
 Progress in human affairs is a great deal like a boat 
 sailing to windward. She sails first on one tack and 
 then on another, for it is impossible for a boat to sail 
 in the eye of the wind; also, it is impossible for man to 
 progress directly towards truth. He must reach it by 
 over-accentuating one point at a time, and the point 
 which, it seems to me, it is necessary for us to accentuate 
 in the future is the moral side of intellectual attain- 
 ments. There is very little use in our comparing our- 
 selves with the community about us and saying we are 
 but the product of that which lies about us and that we 
 cannot rise above the level of the stream from which we 
 have come. Was there ever any community which was 
 so ready in its private munificence to encourage and 
 reward scholarship as ours today? Was there ever any 
 body of men who were so willing to give their money 
 to objects in which they, themselves, have no interest? 
 Was there ever a time when men were so ready to con- 
 tribute to the enlightenment of their fellow men when 
 they, themselves, were not enlightened, as we find in our 
 own community at the present day? How many men, 
 who themselves failed of a college education, who look 
 back and wish they had it, give money to help others to 
 get it, and give money to help along research which will 
 add to the sum of human knowledge? 
 
 In looking at the gifts that have been made to our 
 country in ways of that sort, can we say that we have 
 no right to insist that our country shall develop among 
 its students a higher aspiration for scholarship than 
 exists at the present time? It is not a question of 
 
126 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 whether there has existed more in the past; the ques- 
 tion is, whether what has existed can be increased in the 
 future. 
 
 Mr. Bryce has said truly that no man is happy unless 
 he has more to do than he can do in the twenty-four 
 hours of the day. I will say more than that, — that no 
 man who is working for a moral aim can feel that he 
 has put his standard high unless he is sure to die a dis- 
 appointed man. 
 
 I think that no one who is connected with our col- 
 leges can fairly set his hand upon his heart and say 
 that he is satisfied with the respect and admiration in 
 which scholarship is held by students in our colleges. I 
 think no man connected with any educational institution 
 can lay his hand upon his heart and say fairly to himself 
 that he is satisfied, completely satisfied, with the kind 
 of men that we are recruiting for the future instructors 
 of youth in our graduate schools. I do not say that 
 there is not a great deal of admiration for scholarship. 
 I do not say that we are not recruiting a great many 
 good men; but I say that we ought to recruit more and 
 that the stream ought to rise higher than it is today. 
 
 That is a moral question, and moral questions must 
 be met largely by moral means. As President Nichols 
 said today, and said rightly, we need larger rewards 
 for our scholars; we need larger rewards for 
 our university professors. The pay in many cases 
 is pitifully small. Nevertheless, that is not the whole 
 question. Many men today go through college to whom 
 the rewards in pecuniary ways are unimportant, and 
 who have the brains to devote themselves to the advance- 
 ment of learning, but who prefer to go into one of the 
 active occupations of life. Why? Simply because we 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 127 
 
 have not made them feel, as we ought to make them 
 feel, that the career of the man who devotes himself 
 to culture of the things of the mind, to improving the 
 sum of human knowledge and distributing it among 
 other men, has the greatest and noblest career that a 
 man can by any possibility go into. 
 
 And let me say just this, more. Let us not compare 
 ourselves among ourselves. Let us not say, "True, that 
 may be so ; but, then, it is a little better with us than 
 it is in some other places or most other places." Com- 
 paring ourselves among ourselves is not wise. The 
 spirit of "holier than thou" makes few converts and no 
 friends. There is a tale told in Trevelyan's "Life of 
 Macaulay" of how his father sent a shipload of mission- 
 aries to the coast of Africa. In order that they might 
 better succeed in reaching the natives, he sent mission- 
 aries of different denominations, and they quarrelled so 
 on board ship that they all had to be put ashore ; which, 
 as Trevelyan says, reminded him of the boy who took 
 his master's game cocks to the pit in one cage. They 
 tore themselves all to pieces, and the boy said, "Why, 
 I should think they would have known that they were 
 all on the same side." (Laughter.) 
 
 Let us remember this, that no president of a univer- 
 sity, no professor in a university, no alumnus of a uni- 
 versity, can do anything for his own alma mater that is 
 not also benefitting every other college in the country. 
 (Applause.) That is more particularly true of any 
 moral pressure, of any moral influence that he may 
 exert, for there is no alumnus of any college whose atti- 
 tude towards the aspirations for scholarship in his own 
 college does not contribute to raise or lower the general 
 code of the student body in every other college. It is 
 
128 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 that fact, that in raising our own college we raise every 
 other college in the country, which makes the dignity, 
 the pleasure, and the delight of working for one's own 
 alma mater. (Applause.) 
 
 Mr. Mathewson. But a few years ago, even within 
 the memory of the toastmaster, a Western university 
 was viewed askance by those of the East. It was 
 doubted that it could present the thoroughness of prep- 
 aration, the culture and efficiency which prevailed in 
 institutions of longer foundation. One man, first and 
 foremost above all others, demonstrated the fallacy of 
 that theory, and he is present as our guest tonight — a 
 man of many sides, with a mind of wide compass, a 
 graduate of Brown, a member of her faculty, for five 
 years President of the neighboring University of Ver- 
 mont and since 1881, President of the University of 
 Michigan. 
 
 He has found time to devote to high public service. 
 He has served upon various governmental commissions, 
 including the Deep Waterways Commission and the 
 Fisheries Commission, being chairman of the latter, — 
 work in which great tact and judicial judgment were 
 required. He has also, as was said this morning, repre- 
 resented his country in diplomatic posts; and, again, 
 has given of his strength to the duties of a regent of the 
 Smithsonian Institution. 
 
 After thirty-eight years of service at Ann Arbor, he 
 has retired, esteemed, full of honors, a striking figure. 
 He has come a long distance to do honor to this occa- 
 sion and to this College, and it is with no ordinary pleas- 
 ure that I present to you Dr. James Burrill Angell, late 
 President of the University of Michigan. (Applause.) 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 129 
 
 ADDRESS BY EX-PRESIDENT ANGELL 
 
 My first duty and my great pleasure is to recognize 
 the honor which the authorities of this College have this 
 day conferred upon me, for, in spite of all the kind 
 words which the chairman has just seen fit to use in 
 respect to me, I am still much puzzled to know why 
 you have chosen to make me a son of Dartmouth today, 
 to introduce me into this large and distinguished family 
 to which you all belong. I have been wondering 
 whether perhaps the authorities had got something of 
 the passion of adoption which an estimable lady whom 
 I know in the West had. After having adopted several 
 sons she has lately formed the idea of adopting a grand- 
 mother (laughter) , so that, she says, her children may 
 have the great luxury of looking upon a grandmother. 
 I have been wondering whether perhaps you have 
 decided to adopt a grandfather and bring him in among 
 these younger graduates, that they may have the luxury 
 of looking upon a grandfather among their alumni. 
 (Laughter.) 
 
 However that may be, I thank you most heartily for 
 the great kindness which has prompted this act. I am 
 very glad to be a link between Dartmouth College and 
 the University of Michigan, for you have rendered us 
 great service in the past. You gave to us years ago 
 that genial and skilful surgeon, remembered I am sure 
 with great delight by many who are here tonight, Dr. 
 Ben Crosby, whose irrepressible humor made sickness 
 almost impossible in his presence. You gave to us also 
 that brilliant scholar and profound philosopher, George 
 S. Morris, whose reputation is known with honor upon 
 both sides of the Atlantic. Alas ! alas ! both for you and 
 
 9 
 
130 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 for us, remorseless death robbed us of both of them in 
 the very prime of their years ! 
 
 We have tried to compensate you in part, as I hope 
 you will believe, by sending to you three of your pres- 
 ent faculty, who, I hope and believe, are rendering you 
 worthy service in our name and in yours. 
 
 The fact to which the toastmaster has briefly referred, 
 that there is such an intimate connection now between 
 the East and the West in all our work of education is 
 indeed a very pleasing fact to me. You have chosen 
 now to take as your chief executive a native of the West, 
 and we desire now to thank you for this. We have been 
 proud of his scientific achievements, as you have, in the 
 days that are gone, and perhaps it is not improper for 
 me to remind you in this connection of a conundrum 
 which, perhaps in our vanity, we in the West sometimes 
 propound. Some of you may have heard it, even in the 
 East. It is this : "Why were the Wise Men of the East, 
 in the Scriptures, so-called?" The answer that we give 
 in the West is, "Because they went West to find their 
 leader." (Laughter and applause.) 
 
 It is inspiring for us of the younger institutions to 
 stand here upon this historic ground. When we remem- 
 ber through what great trials Dartmouth has reached 
 her present high estate, through what years of poverty 
 she passed, what years of local political dissensions, what 
 years of tumult in the Revolutionary days, what years 
 of litigation in her great attempt to prove even her 
 right to live, we may well understand how it is that now, 
 in these brighter days, Dartmouth draws to her halls 
 ingenuous youth from all parts of the nation and sends 
 them out into all the world with her own spirit of virility 
 and manliness. We of these younger institutions, and 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 131 
 
 especially we of the western institutions, wish her all 
 prosperity in the years that are to come. With one 
 voice we all join in exclaiming, "Esto perpetual" 
 (Applause.) 
 
 Mr. Mathewson. Midway between the East and the 
 West, from which responses have been heard, is a great 
 university, largely endowed by private funds, but in 
 which the State of New York takes such an interest that 
 it might almost be called in the best sense a state uni- 
 versity, and at the present time it is experiencing high 
 prosperity under an extremely able executive. Born in 
 Prince Edward's Island, the recipient of the Canadian 
 Gilchrist scholarship in connection with the University 
 of London, studying broadly thereafter at London, 
 Paris, Edinburgh, Heidelberg, Gottingen, in Italy and 
 elsewhere, we recognize in him a master in political econ- 
 omy, a great servant of the state upon the Philippines 
 Commission, a man of broad and illimitable energy, and 
 since 1892 he has occupied the position of president of 
 Cornell University. 
 
 There is no customs duty upon the importation of 
 college presidents. From a somewhat careful exam- 
 ination of the recent act, that is the only product which 
 I find — altogether without limitation, upon the free 
 list (laughter), and I may say that Cornell University, 
 or any other institution, would have been justified in 
 paying a very high ad valorem duty to procure the serv- 
 ices of this distinguished citizen, had it been necessary 
 so to do. 
 
 We have a special interest in Cornell, too, at the 
 moment, from the fact that President Nichols in 1891 
 and 1892 held the fellowship in physics at Cornell, 
 
132 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 going I think from there to Colgate for his first pro- 
 fessorial appointment. 
 
 I know we shall all be pleased to hear from the Presi- 
 dent of Cornell University, Dr. Jacob Gould Schur- 
 man, who honors us with his presence tonight. (Ap- 
 plause.) 
 
 ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT SCHURMAN 
 
 I desire to thank the trustees and faculty of Dart- 
 mouth College for the great honor which they have 
 bestowed upon me today. I regard it as a very delight- 
 ful privilege to be enrolled in the Dartmouth brother- 
 hood. I also congratulate Dartmouth College upon 
 having taken for its new president, in succession to 
 President Tucker of glorious fame, an alumnus of Cor- 
 nell University, a gentleman to whom we gave a doctor's 
 degree after three years of successful work at the Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 The quality of the man is revealed in his address 
 today, an address keyed to a fine idealism, sobered by 
 the practical judgment of a wise man and the fruitful 
 experience of an educator and investigator. One truth 
 among many he uttered I think most profound and 
 timely. Our colleges and universities, he said, need in 
 their faculties men who specialize, but not specialized 
 men. I recall that your new president, when a student 
 with us, himself illustrated this ideal. Devoted as he 
 was to physics, he nevertheless in those years was deeply 
 interested also in philosophy and in literature; and I 
 venture to say that, if he recalls with gratitude today 
 the name of his principal teacher, our eminent physicist, 
 Professor Edward Leamington Nichols, he will rank 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 133 
 
 only second to him as an influence on his mind and 
 character our nobly inspiring Professor of English Lit- 
 erature, Hiram Corson. (Applause.) Surely it is a 
 circumstance of unusually happy augury that you 
 should have in your president a man who, in his tastes, 
 in his experience, and in his training, illustrates the pro- 
 found precept which he has laid down for the determina- 
 tion of the calibre of our faculties. 
 
 Your new President has many problems before him. 
 Judging from what some of us are going through, these 
 days, and have gone throught in these later months, it 
 might seem to a visitor from Mars as though the first 
 qualification for a college president were robust health 
 and good digestion. We had last week at Cornell Uni- 
 versity a visit from the Commercial Commission of 
 Japan, some seventy or eighty distinguished Japanese; 
 and one of them in his speech observed that America was 
 a land where there were many wonderful things to see, 
 enormous banquets to eat, but no sleep or rest. (Laugh- 
 ter.) Tireless days and sleepless nights, sir, are before 
 you; but I add, for your consolation, that no matter 
 how many banquets you may be called upon to share in, 
 you will not likely find in these degenerate days such an 
 Homeric banquet as characterized the first Commence- 
 ment of this institution. (Laughter.) 
 
 But there are many problems before you and all col- 
 lege and university presidents now calling loudly for 
 solution. I think it very fortunate that one of the typ- 
 ical New England colleges has called a new type of 
 president to participate in the solution of these prob- 
 lems. The New England colleges — I am not speaking 
 of the large universities — have selected as their presi- 
 dents clergymen, or, in these later days, men distin- 
 
134. INAUGUEATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 guished by humanistic culture or philosophy; but, so far 
 as I know, no New England college has selected a sci- 
 entist as its leader. A generation ago the thing would 
 have been deemed inconceivable. Science was supposed 
 to be at war with religion; yet your president discussed 
 in a very reverent and thoroughly appreciative way the 
 religious problems of this and similar institutions. A 
 generation ago it was said that the devotees of science, 
 while they appreciated intellectual training, let the emo- 
 tions, the imaginations and the sympathies dry and 
 wither. The address of your new president showed a 
 very clear appreciation of the fact that man is not pure 
 intellect, and that the training of the sentiments, of the 
 emotions and the imagination, is a highly important part 
 of education. 
 
 I am glad, and profoundly glad, that at last in a 
 typical New England college, which has stood pre- 
 eminently for humane culture, a scientist is called upon 
 to give us his view of these great problems. The pres- 
 ence of so many representatives of different colleges and 
 universities in this hall shows that these problems con- 
 cern not only one institution but all institutions alike. 
 There are problems peculiar to old universities; there 
 are problems peculiar to new universities; there are 
 problems peculiar to state universities ; there are prob- 
 lems peculiar to endowed universities, — but, underneath 
 all these differences, there is the common problem of the 
 training of manhood. That, too, was indicated in the 
 inaugural address. However much we may differ on 
 other and minor questions, the end we have before us is 
 clear to us all, and we all confess our allegiance to it. 
 
 It is the problem with which, according to Aristotle, 
 Nature herself is travailing, for the end of Nature is 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 135 
 
 the production of man. It is the object which, accord- 
 ing to Lessing, the course of history is providentially 
 accomplishing, for history is the education of the human 
 race. Colleges and universities stand for that function; 
 they co-operate with Nature and with Providence. Pro- 
 fessors and instructors are consecrated priests at the 
 altar of liberal culture. If there is some indifference to 
 their work in the community, if the intellectual life is 
 not rated as highly as we think it ought to be, the fault, 
 perhaps, gentlemen, is our own. Do we clearly compre- 
 hend and enthusiastically devote ourselves to the mission 
 which is before us? That, at any rate, is the way to con- 
 vince the world of the dignity and supreme importance 
 of the vocation to which we are called. Salaries are too 
 low for professors; they ought to be much higher, but 
 that is not the main issue. Do we ourselves really believe 
 that the intellectual life is the highest thing in the world, 
 after virtue and piety? If we, the faculties of our col- 
 leges and universities, are thoroughly permeated with 
 that conviction, then we can leaven the community with 
 our faith. In no other way can we quicken the intel- 
 lectual lif e of the community or raise the public estima- 
 tion of the things of the mind. 
 
 Far be it from us to accept the fatalistic creed which 
 is every now and then put forth in magazines and books, 
 that even the colleges and universities can rise no higher 
 than the level of the community to which they belong. 
 Our business is to rise higher. We are set apart to be 
 something higher. If we are not something higher, we 
 ought not to be here, we are shams and delusions. 
 (Applause.) But if we believe in these higher things 
 and fervently strive for them, no one need have anxiety 
 about the colleges and universities in this generous and 
 
136 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 appreciative republic which is always waiting for higher 
 leadership and ready to support it when it comes. (Ap- 
 plause.) 
 
 Mr. Mathewson. It is not necessary that a college be 
 large to be strong. There have been large colleges 
 which were weak colleges and small colleges which were 
 strong colleges; and I know of no better illustration 
 of the second category than Bowdoin College, at Bruns- 
 wick, Maine. The roll of the great statesmen which she 
 has produced would alone justify her existence; and 
 if to that roll we were to add names like those of Henry 
 W. Longfellow, Chief Justice Fuller and others which 
 will readily occur to our memories, it might well be 
 doubted whether, in proportion to the number of her 
 graduates, any other college has produced more, or per- 
 haps so much, of quality. 
 
 And Bowdoin College is connected or associated with 
 this institution by many ties. Both located in the upper 
 latitudes of New England, we have had many problems 
 and considerations in common. The distinguished Gov- 
 ernor of our State has called attention today to the fact 
 that the first president of Bowdoin College, from 1802 
 to 1807, I believe, was a Dartmouth man, Joseph 
 McKeen. It is well known, too, that our Governor, who 
 is also our alumnus now, is a graduate of Bowdoin. But 
 he might have gone farther, for, unless my recollection 
 is at fault, the second president of Bowdoin College, 
 Jesse Appleton, from 1807 to 1819, was also a graduate 
 of Dartmouth; and Francis Brown, President of Dart- 
 mouth College at the time of the celebrated Dartmouth 
 College case, and grandfather of our distinguished 
 alumnus of the same name whom you have heard today, 
 was some time a trustee of Bowdoin College. 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 137 
 
 We are favored in having the president of that splen- 
 did institution at our board tonight. He is the author 
 of "The Art of Optimism" and of "Practical Idealism," 
 charming works indicating an equally charming mind 
 and refined sentiment. With much pleasure I present 
 to you Dr. William DeWitt Hyde, President of Bow- 
 doin College. (Applause.) 
 
 ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT HYDE 
 
 It is a great privilege to express my thanks to you, 
 sir, and to the trustees of Dartmouth, for admitting me 
 into this goodly fellowship. When I cast about to see 
 why this honor has come to me I am reminded of a very 
 f elicitous phrase with which President Hadley once con- 
 ferred the degree of Doctor of Laws on the president of 
 an institution which was very near geographically to 
 New Haven, but whose president was not a conspicu- 
 ously distinguished man. I do not remember all the 
 phrases President Hadley used, but his climax was this, 
 — "successor of illustrious predecessors." (Laughter.) 
 
 I have received this honor today as the president of 
 a college of illustrious sons, and especially the president 
 of a college which has given President Nichols one of 
 his illustrious predecessors, President Lord. I have the 
 advantage of some of my brethren here who have 
 received degrees today of knowing precisely what my 
 degree signifies, for a few years ago the trustees of a 
 Methodist seminary in Maine sent a message to the 
 trustees of Bowdoin College to this effect, that their 
 seminary was somewhat run down and they felt that the 
 best way to brace it would be to have a degree con- 
 ferred upon the principal, and therefore they suggested 
 
138 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 that we confer upon their principal the degree of 
 LL. D., and then they added in brackets, "Doctor of 
 Legal Laws." (Laughter.) 
 
 Bowdoin College and Dartmouth College have always 
 been in the most friendly reciprocal relationships. The 
 first thing President Tucker did when he came 
 here to Dartmouth was to take from us a professor 
 whom we are all sorry to know is detained from this 
 gathering tonight by illness, a professor who, both at 
 Bowdoin and at Dartmouth, has proved himself one of 
 the most loyal colleagues that ever served upon a faculty 
 and one of the most devoted teachers that ever taught a 
 class — your own beloved Professor Wells. (Applause.) 
 By way of retaliation Bowdoin College of late has dis- 
 covered that when we want material for professors or 
 assistant professors, there is no such promising field for 
 forage as among the brilliant young instructors whom 
 President Tucker has gathered about him here at Dart- 
 mouth. 
 
 Then, there is another form of interchange which has 
 been carried on quite freely between Dartmouth and 
 Bowdoin. We have been in the habit of exchanging 
 those students who, in the language of our deans, 
 "require the stimulus of a new environment to shake off 
 habits of dissipation and acquire habits of studiousness," 
 and this exchange, I may say, most happily illustrates 
 the truth of the Scriptural maxim, "It is more blessed to 
 give than to receive." (Laughter.) 
 
 I join with you all most heartily in your congratula- 
 tions on the choice of a president. We are all incredu- 
 lous about new men and new things. I heard the other 
 day about an Irishman who did not believe the telephone 
 could do what it was advertised to do. With some diffi- 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 139 
 
 culty he was persuaded to try to communicate with his 
 wife Maria, some ten miles distant in a suburb, — this 
 wife Maria, by the way, being rather a severe disci- 
 plinarian. It so happened that he tried the experiment 
 in the midst of a thunderstorm, and the electricity came 
 over the wire and knocked him down on the floor. As 
 he got up he remarked, "That's Maria, all right." 
 (Laughter.) 
 
 Many of us have come to feel that no one but Presi- 
 dent Tucker could voice the Dartmouth spirit, but, as 
 we listened to the admirable address of President 
 Nichols this morning, I am sure we all said, "That is 
 the Dartmouth spirit, all right." (Applause.) 
 
 There was a fellow in my class at Harvard who was 
 put on special probation, and Dean Dunbar, who wrote 
 in rather a blind hand, sent notice in the usual form to 
 his father. The father could not make it out, and so he 
 asked the son to explain it to him. "Oh, yes," said the 
 son, "that is perfectly plain. Don't you see? 'Dear Sir, 
 — It is my duty to inform you that your son has been 
 placed on special approbation!' " (Laughter.) I do not 
 doubt that President Nichols looked on the ordeal this 
 morning as one of special probation; but I can assure 
 him and all the guests assembled that we leave him 
 under our special approbation. (Applause.) 
 
 It is a splendid thing, as President Schurman has 
 said, that the new president is a scientific man; though 
 not because science should ever be the leading interest in 
 a college of liberal learning. I believe the leading inter- 
 est should ever be the understanding and appreciation 
 of the thoughts, words, deeds and institutions of men. 
 But the sciences, especially in their laboratory methods, 
 have worked out a certain individuality and vitality of 
 
140 INAUGUEATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 contact of teacher with taught in common contact with 
 the materials with which they deal — a method which is 
 superior to the methods which thus far have been worked 
 out in most of our class rooms that deal with other 
 subjects. ! 
 
 Some years ago the story goes that one of our old 
 professors, when asked a question about a foot note to 
 Butler's Analogy, which he was teaching, replied, "I 
 am responsible for the text but not for the foot notes." 
 There are methods tolerated in most of our institutions 
 today that forty years from now will be as antiquated 
 and ridiculous as that. Within the past year, committees 
 in two New England institutions have reported to their 
 faculties and to their boards that certain general lec- 
 ture courses, dealing with a large number of students, 
 where the professor simply gives and the students pas- 
 sively receive, with no responsibility, except for the 
 sweet by and by and for the night before examination, 
 are not fit to be given in institutions of learning. The 
 bright student, who understood the principles of educa- 
 tion, would mark every such course in our institutions 
 with an "E" and say that such a course as that ought not 
 to be qualified to present its men as candidates for a 
 degree. 
 
 There are various ways of meeting this difficulty. I 
 will tell you a little experiment which we are trying this 
 year at Bowdoin. The important thing in a college, as 
 distinct from a university, is not the number of courses 
 that are spread out in a catalogue. That is a feeble and 
 futile imitation of a university. The banquet we had 
 tonight would have been no better if there had been six 
 times as many things to choose from. The success and 
 satisfaction of the banquet lies in the fact that there was 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 141 
 
 a sufficient variety and that everything was of the best. 
 That is the true policy for the small college as distinct 
 from the university. 
 
 The little experiment I speak of is this. We have 
 taken our Department of History and Political Science 
 and have limited it to four courses of three hours each, 
 running through the year, and we have three men to 
 teach them. An instructor takes the elementary course 
 in European history and has nothing to do in the year 
 but teach that one three-hour course of thirty-six stu- 
 dents, breaking the class up into little sections for 
 weekly conferences. The men sit around a table and 
 the instructor meets them more on a personal basis, talk- 
 ing the subject over with them as a scientist would do 
 in the laboratory. An assistant professor takes the class 
 in ancient history on the same method. The professor 
 himself, the head of the department, takes one course in 
 American history and one in civil government in the 
 same way. 
 
 This experiment would not apply everywhere. It is 
 only three weeks old, and I cannot say how we will come 
 out. But although we are not sure that it may not kill 
 the professors and bankrupt the treasury, we are fairly 
 sure that it will educate the students. I simply cite it 
 to show you that in our little college we are alive to the 
 problems which were discussed the other day at Har- 
 vard and which have been discussed in the inaugural 
 here today; and we rejoice that a man of scientific tem- 
 per and training in the laboratory methods of physical 
 science is to take charge not merely of the methods of 
 teaching science, but is to have the direction of the teach- 
 ing of all subjects in one of our great New England 
 colleges. 
 
142 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 One great victory has already been won, and Dart- 
 mouth has taken the lead in it. We have made college 
 education in this country democratic in respect of birth 
 and of wealth. On that broad foundation which Dart- 
 mouth has done so much to lay, the problem before us is 
 to rear a true academic aristocracy, an aristocracy of 
 moral and intellectual earnestness; and I believe that, 
 under the lead of this distinguished scientist, bringing 
 the methods of the laboratory at their best to the teach- 
 ing of every subject in the curriculum, Dartmouth will 
 be our leader still in this problem which is immediately 
 before us. (Applause.) 
 
 Mr. Mathewson. I can assure Dr. Hyde that the 
 quality of his administration at Bowdoin is so well 
 known that no characterization by the toastmaster could 
 add to the estimate in which it is held by this intelligent 
 audience. 
 
 The year 1856 was a prolific one. Not only was it the 
 year of the nativity of Dr. Lowell, if public prints are 
 correct, but it was also the year of the birth of Dr. 
 Woodrow Wilson, of Princeton. Their careers ran and 
 have run in some measure quite parallel. A graduate of 
 the splendid class of 1879 at Princeton, Dr. Wilson pur- 
 sued the study of the law and, for a time, its active prac- 
 tice. He also studied broadly the science of govern- 
 ment and, if I am not mistaken, occupied the chair of 
 political science at Bryn Mawr and Wesleyan. He, also, 
 is a productive scholar, "A History of the American 
 People," "Disunion and Re-union," "Congressional 
 Government," and other works, being standards of their 
 kind and so recognized. 
 
 I once heard that sturdy old Virginian, General 
 Roger A. Pryor, who was first through the embrasures 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 143 
 
 of Fort Sumter after the bombardment of April, 1861, 
 referred to as "the greatest living reflection on the 
 accuracy of northern marksmanship." Dr. Wilson 
 drew a fund of courage from the same soil and the same 
 stock, and when in 1902 he became President of Prince- 
 ton University he proceeded with the stern resolve of 
 his great predecessor, Jonathan Edwards, to clean up 
 the waste places and to eradicate from the curriculum 
 of that institution anything that appeared insufficient or 
 below standard, with the result that, if Princeton Uni- 
 versity was ever an easy place to get into, that time has 
 been succeeded by a period when it is one of the easiest 
 places to get out of, of all collegiate institutions in 
 America. (Laughter. ) 
 
 Dr. Wilson is now developing, as we all know, a great 
 graduate school. Distinguished names are being added 
 to its faculty which will be sure to inspire and elevate 
 the entire scholastic and teaching power of the univer- 
 sity in undergraduate as well as graduate work. 
 
 I have much pleasure in presenting to you Dr. Wood- 
 row Wilson, the President of Princeton University. 
 (Applause.) 
 
 ADDRESS BY PRESIDENT WILSON 
 
 It gives me peculiar pleasure to be the bearer of 
 admiring congratulations to the retiring President of 
 Dartmouth, Dr. Tucker, from the institution I repre- 
 sent. We have watched at Princeton the extraordinary 
 progress of Dartmouth under his administration with a 
 growing conception of what the character and power of 
 a single man can do. And also it is most gratifying to 
 me to bear messages of Godspeed to the new man who 
 is assuming this distinguished succession. 
 
144 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 I would prefer to believe that the honor conferred 
 upon me today by the gracious vote of the Trustees of 
 this College came to me as a representative of Princeton 
 rather than as an individual, for I like to believe that 
 such acts are a recognition of the community of purpose 
 which exists among the colleges of this country, and 
 that we are consciously trying to draw together into a 
 single force the powers, both individual and organic, 
 which lie in the educational institutions of America. 
 
 I have been thinking, as I sat here tonight, how little, 
 except in coloring and superficial lines, a body of men 
 like this differs from a body of undergraduates. You 
 have only to look at a body of men like this long enough 
 to see the mask of years fall off and the spirit of the 
 younger days show forth, and the spirit which lies behind 
 the mask is not an intellectual spirit : it is an emotional 
 spirit. 
 
 It seems to me that the great power of the world — 
 namely, its emotional power — is better expressed in a 
 college gathering than in any other gathering. We 
 speak of this as an age in which mind is monarch, but I 
 take it for granted that, if that is true, mind is one of 
 those modern monarchs who reign but do not govern. 
 As a matter of fact, the world is governed in every gen- 
 eration by a great House of Commons made up of the 
 passions; and we can only be careful to see to it that 
 the handsome passions are in the majority. 
 
 A college body represents a passion, a very handsome 
 passion, to which .we should seek to give greater and 
 greater force as the generations go by — a passion not 
 so much individual as social, a passion for the things 
 which live, for the things which enlighten, for the things 
 which bind men together in unselfish companies. The 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 145 
 
 love of men for their college is a very ennobling love, 
 because it is a love which expresses itself in so organic 
 a way and which delights to give as a token of its affec- 
 tion for its alma mater some one of those eternal, intan- 
 gible gifts which are expressed only in the spirits of 
 men. 
 
 It has been said that the college is "under fire." I 
 prefer, inasmuch as most of the so-called criticism has 
 come from the college men themselves, to say that the 
 college is on fire; that it has ceased to be satisfied with 
 itself, that its slumbering fires have sprung into play, 
 and that it is now trying to see by the light of that flame 
 what its real path is. For we criticise the college for the 
 best of all reasons, — because we love it and are not indif- 
 ferent to its fortunes. We criticise it as those who 
 would make it as nearly what we conceive it ought to 
 be as is possible in the circumstances. 
 
 The criticism which has been leveled at our colleges 
 by college men, by men from the inside, does not mean 
 that the college of the present is inferior to the college 
 of the past. No observant man can fail to see that col- 
 lege life is more wholesome in almost every respect in 
 our day that it was in the days gone by. The lives of 
 the undergraduates are cleaner, they are fuller of inno- 
 cent interests, they are more shot through with the real 
 permanent impulses of life than they once were. We 
 are not saying that the college has degenerated in 
 respect of its character. 
 
 What we mean I can illustrate in this way. It seems 
 to me that we have been very much mistaken in think- 
 ing that the thing upon which our criticism should cen- 
 tre is the athletic enthusiasm of our college undergradu- 
 ates, and of our graduates, as they come back to the 
 10 
 
146 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 college contests. It is a very interesting fact to me that 
 the game of football, for example, has ceased to be a 
 pleasure to those who play it. Almost any frank mem- 
 ber of a college football team will tell you that in one 
 sense it is a punishment to play the game. He does not 
 play it because of the physical pleasure and zest he finds 
 in it, which is another way of saying that he does not 
 play it spontaneously and for its own sake. He plays it 
 for the sake of the college, and one of the things that 
 constitutes the best evidence of what we could make of 
 the college is the spirit in which men go into the foot- 
 ball game, because their comrades expect them to go in 
 and because they must advance the banner of their col- 
 lege at the cost of infinite sacrifice. Why does the aver- 
 age man play football? Because he is big, strong and 
 active, and his comrades expect it of him. They expect 
 him to make that use of his physical powers; they expect 
 him to represent them in an arena of considerable dig- 
 nity and of very great strategic significance. 
 
 But when we turn to the field of scholarship, all that 
 we say to the man is, "Make the most of yourself," and 
 the contrast makes scholarship mean as compared with 
 football. The football is for the sake of the college and 
 the scholarship is for the sake of the individual. When 
 shall we get the conception that a college is a brother- 
 hood in which every man is expected to do for the sake 
 of the college the thing which alone can make the col- 
 lege a distinguished and abiding force in the history 
 of men? When shall we bring it about that men shall 
 be ashamed to look their fellows in the face if it is known 
 that they have great faculties and do not use them for 
 the glory of their alma mater, when it is known that 
 they avoid those nights of self denial which are neces- 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 1*7 
 
 sary for intellectual mastery, deny themselves pleasure, 
 deny themselves leisure, deny themselves every natural 
 indulgence in order that in future years it may be said 
 that that place served the country by increasing its 
 power and enlightenment? 
 
 .But at present what do we do to accomplish that? 
 We very complacently separate the men who have that 
 passion from the men who have it not, — I don't mean in 
 the class room, but I mean in the life of the college 
 itself. 
 
 I was confessing to President Schurman tonight that, 
 as I looked back to my experience in the class rooms of 
 many eminent masters I remembered very little that I 
 had brought away from them. The contacts of knowl- 
 edge are not vital; the contacts of information are bar- 
 ren. If I tell you too many things that you don't know, 
 I merely make myself hateful to you. If I am con- 
 stantly in the attitude towards you of instructing you, 
 you may regard me as a very well informed and supe- 
 rior person, but you have no affection for me whatever; 
 whereas if I have the privilege of coming into your life, 
 if I live with you and can touch you with something of 
 the scorn that I feel for a man who does not use his fac- 
 ulties at their best, and can be touched by you with some 
 keen, inspiring touch of the energy that lies in you and 
 that I have not learned to imitate, then fire calls to fire 
 and real life begins, the lif e that generates, the life that 
 generates power, the life that generates those lasting 
 fires of friendship which in too many college connections 
 are lost altogether, for many college comradeships are 
 based upon taste and not upon community of intellec- 
 tual interests. 
 
148 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 The only lasting stuff for friendship is community 
 of conviction; the only lasting basis is that moral basis 
 to which President Lowell has referred, in which all 
 true intellectual life has its rootage and sustenance, and 
 those are the rootages of character, not the rootages of 
 knowledge. Knowledge is merely, in its uses, the evi- 
 dence of character, it does not produce character. Some 
 of the most learned of men have been among the mean- 
 est of men, and some of the noblest of men have been 
 illiterate, but have nevertheless shown their nobility by 
 using such powers as they had for high purposes. 
 
 We never shall succeed in creating this organic pas- 
 sion, this great use of the mind, which is fundamental, 
 until we have made real communities of our colleges 
 and have utterly destroyed the practice of a merely for- 
 mal contact, however intimate, between the teacher and 
 the pupil. Until we live together in a common com- 
 munity and expose each other to the general infection, 
 there will be no infection. You cannot make learned 
 men of undergraduates by associating them intimately 
 with each other, because they are too young to be 
 learned men yet themselves; but you can create the 
 infection of learning by associating undergraduates with 
 men who are learned. 
 
 How much do you know of the character of the aver- 
 age college professor whom you have heard lecture? 
 Of some professors, if you had known more you would 
 have believed less of what they said; of some professors, 
 if you had known more you would have believed more 
 of what they said. One of the dryest lecturers on Amer- 
 ican history I ever heard in my life was also a man more 
 learned than any other man I ever knew in American 
 history, and out of the class room, in conversation, one 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 149 
 
 of the juiciest, most delightful, most informing, most 
 stimulating men I ever had the pleasure of associating 
 with. The man in the class room was useless, out of the 
 class room he fertilized every mind that he touched. And 
 most of us are really found out in the informal contacts 
 of life. If you want to know what I know about a sub- 
 ject, don't set me up to make a speech about it, because I 
 have the floor and you cannot interrupt me, and I can 
 leave out the things I want to leave out and bring in 
 the things I want to bring in. If you really want to 
 know what I know, sit down and ask me questions, inter- 
 rupt me, contradict me, and see how I hold my ground. 
 Probably on some subjects you will not do it; but if 
 you want to find me out, that is the only way. If that 
 method were followed, the undergraduate might make 
 many a consoling discovery of how ignorant his pro- 
 fessor was, as well as many a stimulating discovery of 
 how well informed he was. 
 
 The thing that it seems to me absolutely necessary we 
 should now address ourselves to is this — forget abso- 
 lutely all our troubles about what we ought to teach 
 and ask ourselves how we ought to live in college com- 
 munities, in order that the fire and infection may spread; 
 for the only conducting media of life are the social 
 media, and if you want to make a conducting medium 
 you have got to compound your elements in the college, 
 — not only ally them, not put them in mere diplomatic 
 relations with each other, not have a formal visiting sys- 
 tem among them, but unite them, merge them. The 
 teacher must live with the pupil and the pupil with the 
 teacher, and then there will begin to be a renaissance, a 
 new American college, and not until then. You may 
 have the most eminent teachers and may have the best 
 
150 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 pedagogical methods, and find that, after all, your 
 methods have been barren and your teachings futile, 
 unless these unions of life have been accomplished. 
 
 I think that one of the saddest things that has ever 
 happened to us is that we have studied pedagogical 
 methods. It is as if we had deliberately gone about to 
 make ourselves pedants. There is something offensive 
 in the word "pedagogy." (Applause.) A certain dis- 
 taste has always gone along with the word "pedagogue." 
 A man who is an eminent teacher feels insulted if he is 
 called a pedagogue ; and yet we make a science of being 
 a pedagogue, and in proportion as we make it a science 
 we separate ourselves from the vital processes of life. 
 
 I suppose a great many dull men must try to teach, 
 and if dull men have to teach, they have to teach by 
 method that dull men can follow. But they never teach 
 anybody anything. It is merely that the university, in 
 order to have a large corps, must go through the 
 motions; but the real vital processes are in spots, in 
 such circumstances, and only in spots, and you must 
 hope that the spots will spread. You must hope that 
 there will enter in or go out from these little nuclei the 
 real juices of life. 
 
 What we mean, then, by criticising the American 
 college is not to discredit what we are doing or have 
 done, but to cry ourselves awake with regard to the 
 proper processes. (Great applause.) 
 
 Mr. Mathewson. When with my young companions 
 I attended the winter term of a "district school" in the 
 neighboring state of Vermont, we were accustomed to 
 place our mince pie at the bottom of the lunch basket, in 
 order that it might be last reached and that its flavor 
 might linger longest on our palates. (Laughter.) We 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 151 
 
 believed and were confident that the supervening lay- 
 ers would be excellent, and I do not recall that we were 
 ever mistaken; but the quality of the mince pies that 
 our "mothers used to make," or at least of which they 
 supervised the making, had been so long, so thoroughly, 
 and so favorably known, that it was not subject to ques- 
 tion or debate. 
 
 The hour is such that I can introduce but one other 
 speaker. We have reached the bottom of our basket. 
 And who shall that speaker be? Can there be any doubt 
 in your minds as to his identity? Elected President of 
 Harvard University in 1869, the year of the celebration 
 of the centennial of the existence of this College, he has 
 just relinquished, after an administration which is part 
 of the history of his country, that high position, full of 
 honors, with all his powers and vigor unimpaired. He 
 is a member of every learned society in America, and has 
 been complimented by election to the Legion of Honor 
 and the Institute of France. He is the recipient of 
 the most distinguished ambassadorial appointment of 
 his country, if he would but accept it. He is both the 
 author and the exemplar of "The Happy Life." He is 
 President Emeritus of Harvard University, and either 
 active or emeritus in every other field of high endeavor. 
 He has often been referred to as "the first citizen of the 
 Republic," and well so designated. He is endeared to us 
 especially by his many and cordial references to the suc- 
 cess of Dr. Tucker in the line of "service" ; and he might 
 well be denominated in the field of education, as Tenny- 
 son (in another tense) described the great Wellington, 
 "That tower of strength that stands four-square to all 
 the winds that blow," — Dr. Charles William Eliot. 
 (Applause.) 
 
152 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT EMERITUS ELIOT 
 
 The material that lies between the upper and the 
 lower crust of a mince pie is a kind of hash (laughter) ; 
 and what I propose to say to you at the close of this 
 long and very interesting day is a kind of hash. 
 
 I will comment on some things that I have heard here 
 and on others that we have all seen. I will point out, 
 in the first place, what an interesting sight you have seen 
 here this evening, — Mr. Bryce sitting at this table with 
 Mr. Lowell. Mr. Bryce, the Scotchman, trained at 
 Glasgow University and at Balliol College, Oxford, has 
 written the best book about the American Common- 
 wealth that has ever been written; and Mr. Lowell, the 
 American, trained at Harvard, has written a better book 
 about the government of England than it has ever 
 entered into the mind of any Englishman to write. 
 (Applause.) That sight illustrates in a striking way 
 what we may look for with regard to the interchange of 
 the results of scholarship between England and Amer- 
 ica and indeed between all the nations of Europe and 
 our own people. It is going to be a great comfort for 
 those of us who have lived through a long period when 
 Europe seemed to give everything in the way of scholar- 
 ship and art to us, while we were unable to make any 
 adequate return, that our colleges and universities have 
 now come to such a condition that in the future we are 
 going to be able to return to Europe as good as we get. 
 
 It is quite true that colleges and universities represent 
 better than any other institutions of a nation its condi- 
 tion of civilization; and we therefore rejoice together 
 that the last fifty years have seen a prodigious rise in the 
 American colleges and universities, a rise in acquired 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 153 
 
 power, in popular influence, in wealth, and in public 
 appreciation and honor. This spectacle that we have 
 seen here today and the spectacle that many of us saw at 
 Cambridge last week illustrate this remarkable gain 
 which the American colleges and universities have made 
 within the last fifty years. It is an inspiring, hopeful, 
 delightful fact. Let us never forget it, when we 
 endeavor to describe what further progress we imagine 
 for the American colleges and universities. 
 
 But now, we have heard repeatedly today, as also in 
 the discussions at various college meetings during the 
 last year, that our colleges and universities lack the 
 right spirit in scholarship, lack the highest motives 
 towards intellectual exertion, towards personal success 
 in college and university men. I want to testify, gentle- 
 men, that that is precisely contrary to my experience 
 and observation during the last forty years. I believe — 
 I think I know — that the colleges and universities of 
 this country are just full of one noble spirit, of a moral 
 and spiritual motive. It is the spirit of service to coun- 
 try and mankind. 
 
 I do not agree at all, gentlemen, with the proposition 
 that we have got to the right motive, whether in foot- 
 ball or in scholarship, when we induce young men to act 
 for the honor of their college. That is better than seek- 
 ing personal glory, but that is not the true motive in any 
 man's intellectual and spiritual life. The true motive 
 burns in American youth, the American educated youth 
 of today, and for the last fifty years it has burned hotly. 
 The true motive is service, — service to society, to the 
 community into which the man is thrown, service to 
 the nation, service to mankind. (Applause.) That is a 
 noble motive, that is the true motive, and that is the 
 
154 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 motive that actually burns in the hearts of American 
 youth. But how is this service to be rendered? In just 
 the way in which it has always been rendered, — by the 
 acquirement of personal, individual power to think, to 
 act, to do. 
 
 We sometimes think of the curriculum of four hun- 
 dred or five hundred years ago in Europe — the curric- 
 ulum of Latin and Greek, with little bits of mathe- 
 matics and philosophy — as if it were not an education 
 directed to service, as if it were what we nowadays call 
 "general culture," as if it had no vocational object. 
 Gentlemen, that is an extraordinary delusion. What we 
 now call the classical education was a vocational educa- 
 tion in the most intense degree. It was a preparation 
 for the only learned professions of the time; it gave 
 access to the only treasures of human thought at that 
 time. The training in Latin, the common speech of 
 scholarship and the common language for civilized man, 
 in Greek, the language in which the chief treasures of 
 human thought were locked up, and in mathematics, 
 philosophy, and ancient history, was, at the period, the 
 most vocational training that has ever been set before 
 youth. It was directed straight to the practice of a 
 profession. 
 
 There has just left us tonight a man whose education 
 was obtained at Glasgow and at Oxford in what we now 
 sometimes call the old-fashioned subjects — these abso- 
 lutely vocational subjects of the Renaissance, Latin, 
 Greek, and history. I refer to my old friend, James 
 Bryce. No man ever received a more strictly vocational 
 training than he did. His first book was the issue of a 
 competition for a college prize; the "Holy Roman 
 Empire" was just the product of his college training, 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 155 
 
 and that book prophesied his entire career. Let us get 
 firm hold of the fact that the so-called classical educa- 
 tion was a strictly vocational education. 
 
 What a prodigious change has come over the civilized 
 world in respect to the number of learned professions. 
 There used to be but two beside the Army and Navy, 
 and now we have at least a dozen well marked, different 
 professions. For the purposes of the nation, for the 
 purposes of civilized society, all those professions are to 
 be prepared for in college and university by an appro- 
 priate vocational education, just as the traditional pro- 
 fessions used to be prepared for by a strictly vocational 
 education. This does not mean that the learned men of 
 the new times are going to be too strictly specialists. 
 They will be no more specialists than the men who were 
 educated by the Jesuit program of studies for the 
 learned professions of that day. 
 
 We have got to enlarge our definition of culture. We 
 have got to recognize that there are other activities of 
 the human imagination, which are just as high, pure and 
 strong as the literary imagination, as the imagination of 
 the poet or the artist. The scientific imagination is 
 exactly as high a type of mental operation, as high a 
 type of spiritual vision, as the imagination of the poet. 
 
 This great variety of vocations has got to be prepared 
 for in our colleges and universities. Fortunately all 
 learned men will be bound together, no matter what 
 their professions, because in all study, in all intellectual 
 achievement which means progress and new discovery, 
 there is but one method, the method of modern science. 
 
 You have chosen here at Dartmouth a man trained 
 in science to be your leader. He does not hold one 
 degree in arts, — no, not one — although he has long been 
 
156 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 a student and a teacher. One of my colleagues seemed 
 tonight to forget that such a selection was not an abso- 
 lute novelty in New England. (Laughter.) I seem to 
 recall a similar selection forty years ago (laughter) ; 
 but you will never believe that your new president is a 
 narrower man than any of his predecessors. He is as 
 broad, as liberal, as cultivated, as any of his prede- 
 cessors. 
 
 We witness in the selection of college presidents 
 another interesting phenomenon. Plenty of scientific 
 men have now been appointed to the presidencies of 
 American colleges and universities, and some of them 
 long ago. But we are now witnessing another striking 
 phenomenon, which illustrates the new necessities of 
 society in regard to university training and university 
 teaching. Have you not noticed how many men brought 
 up in political science have lately been made presidents 
 of colleges and universities? I need name only a few 
 striking instances, — Hadley, at Yale ; Garfield, at Wil- 
 liams; Houston, first in the University of Texas and 
 now in Washington University at St. Louis ; Lowell, at 
 Harvard. All these men, and many more chosen college 
 presidents have procured their training in the study of 
 economics, political science, and government. These 
 selections reflect the strong interest of the American 
 people in these great subjects; they indicate that new 
 bodies of classified knowledge have been acquired in 
 those subjects, and that many people recognize that the 
 welfare of the nation is bound up with the diffusion 
 among our people of a sound comprehension of their 
 elements. 
 
 Let these facts remind us that colleges and universi- 
 ties not only represent the highest state of civilization 
 
INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 157 
 
 attained, but ought always to represent, also, the hopes, 
 aspirations, and new purposes of a nation, cherished 
 sometimes long in advance by the pioneers of new learn- 
 ing, but ultimately expressed by the thronging youth 
 who come into the colleges and universities. 
 
 At Harvard, of late years, what are the subjects that 
 everybody studies? Economics, history, government, — 
 those are the studies that every student chooses. This 
 fact indicates what the future development is to be. The 
 development has begun; it is already well advanced. 
 New vocational studies! 
 
 Lastly, another great vocation of men has come into 
 the university field and must be prepared for, and all its 
 lines must be run and marked by men of learning and 
 singular penetrative capacity. I refer to the new intel- 
 lectual vocation called business, or business administra- 
 tion. That is a great new field for our universities, and 
 in that field the leading colleges and universities of the 
 country are already at work. Vocational studies these, 
 but no more vocational than Latin, Greek, and mathe- 
 matics were five hundred years ago. 
 
 Let us never be daunted, gentlemen, by that word 
 "vocational." It is training, early training, to the voca- 
 tion, which gives power in the vocation when reached; 
 and that power means capacity for service, the attain- 
 ment of the object which the American youth puts 
 before himself. Teach individual youth what will enable 
 him best to serve country, mankind, and God. (Ap- 
 plause.) 
 
 Mr. Mathewson. In behalf of the trustees, and I am 
 sure in behalf of every listener, I extend our heartfelt 
 thanks to the speakers of the evening, each and all of 
 whom have so delighted and instructed us. Again, in 
 
158 INAUGURATION OF PRESIDENT NICHOLS 
 
 behalf of the College, I extend our thanks to the dele- 
 gates who have honored us by their presence, and bid 
 them God-speed upon their homeward journey, after 
 they shall have tarried with us as long as they will. 
 
 And finally, I declare this banquet and the exercises 
 in connection with the installation of President Nichols 
 concluded. (Applause.) 
 
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