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THIE IRELI,ATIONS OF IHIGHER EDUCATION TO NATIONAL
PROSPERITY.
ORATION
I)ELIVERED BEFORE THE
PHI BETA KAPPA SOCIETY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT,
JUNE 27, i876.
By CIIARLES KENDALL_~DAMS,
Professor of History in the University of Michigan.
PUBLISIIED B'  THE SO CIE T.
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BUR L I NGTON:
FREE PLESS PRINT.
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ORATION.
Mr. President; Brothers in Phi Beta Kappa:
I purpose to speak to you to-day on the Relations of
Higher Education to National Prosperity. I deem this subject appropriate to the season and the occasion, inasmuch as at
the present time, as perhaps never before, thoughtful men and
women are reviewing the history of our nation, and scrutinizing
with somewhat more than usual care the foundations on which
our governmental structure  has been reared.  It is fitting,
moreover, that on such an anniversary as this we should look to
the future as well as to the past. It is as true as it is commonplace to say that in a few years the country with all its precious
interests will be in the hands of those who are now leaving
the schools. There is constantly going on a silent revolution
which is taking the political power out of the hands of those who
held it yesterday, and placing it in the hands of those who are
to wield it to-morrow. In scarcely more than a score of years,
all those who are now in active life will have been gently
crowded from the scene and a new generation will have taken
their places. This mighty change, ever going on, like one of the
great processes of nature, "silently, effectually, inevitably," is
rolling the accumulated weight of all the knowledge  and
civilization of the world upon the rising generation, asking it to
carry it on a little way, and then to hand it over to its successors.  It is not yet half  a generation since the outbreak of
the great civil war, and  yet the  men  who  then  controlled
public opinion are passed away.    Lincoln  and  Douglas,
Seward and Stanton, Breckenridge and Sumner, Stevens and
*es 
4
Greeley are all gone. He whom the people have twice placed
gratefully at the head of the nation, was then struggling for a
precarious existence in a western city, and the best of the
present governors in the South was then a student in college.
The,honored and the powerful of to-day were then the obscure
and the unknown.
But interesting as this silent revolution is of itself, its real
importance springs from another cause. It comes rather from
the momentous fact that, while we inherit the political duties
and responsibilities of our fathers, we cannot inherit their skill
and their knowledge. It is doubtless a benign, as it certainly
is an impressive, provision of divine economy, that learning and
skill cannot be transmitted from father to son. We may inherit
intellectual appetites,  but not intellectual possessions.  All
the knowledge, the art, the refinement in existence, must either
be acquired by those who are assuming the active duties of
life, or must perish with those who are putting off those duties,
and be lost forever.
It is for these reasons that in every civilized community
the cautise of educati)n is a subject of momentous importance.
It is for these reasons that it is impossible to preserve-not to
say to augment-the general stock of intelligence without large
and increasing expenditures for the education-of the young. It
is for these reasons that, the moment the zeal of the public in
this direction begins to flag, the average intelligence of the
community begins to decline.
In our own country the cause of elementary education has
ficourished as almost nowhere else in the world. Combined influences have contributed to this result.   The cause  has  had
many and eloquent advocates. Horace Mann, devoting the
rare powers of his nld, the indomitable energy of his character,
and the best years of his life to his favorite work;  Edward
Everett, pleading eloquently "The Importance of Education in
I 
5
a Republic," are but representatives of a great host of distinguished men who are entitled to the gratitude of the nation.
And the nation honors them. Till the Republic is forgotten,
they will be revered as among its greatest benefactors.
Then in accord with this advoqacy, has been the influence
of our material prosperity. Every intelligent lad sees something of the glittering prizes that are offered to industrious
effort. Fortunes rapidly accumulated have displayed, in our
own country as nowhere else, their alluring and often irresistible
charms.   The professions, seemingly over crowded, and  yet
never full, keep up an importunate voice of appeal alike to the
ambitious and the indolent.
Now the result of these apparently diverse influences upon
society has been precisely what a priori might have been anticipated.   The voice of our educators has  been simply reinforced by the voice of our materialism in demanding a
thorough and comprehensive system of common school education. There is not a boy, there is not a laborer with a spark of
parental desire for the prosperity of his child, who does not see
that at least a common school education is the first condition of
an ability to profit by the opportunities of life.
But as soon as we pass beyond the domain of instruction
purely eleimentary, we find that these two forces no longer act
in harmony.    The  calls of  ambition are now, not toward
the schools, but toward the forum and the market; and
consequently, whether these voices are simply discordant,
or whether the voice of the educators is drowned and
silenced amid the hoarse jargon of affairs, the result is the same,
-that while our common schools flourish and are the just pride
of our country, our higher institutions of learning have been
left, for the most part, either to perish, or to subsist upon the
precarious favors of private benevolence.
,'
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I am not so unjust as to attribute what seems to me to
have been the languishing condition of American colleges
during the past twenty-five years exclusively to the cause which
I have assigned. There is, as it seems to me, another cause, and
possibly one that is still more important. I refer to the fact
that a more or less radical change had taken place in public
opinion concerning the relations of higher education to the state
at large.  It was the doctrine of the Puritan fathers-and it is
of great importance to note the fact-a doctrine continued for a
hundred and fifty years, through all the dark periods of our
colonial and provincial history, that the encouragement of
higher education was one of the great interests of the state.  It
was no doctrine of theirs, that the colleges were not, equally
with the lower schools, entitled to the fostering care of the commonwealth. It seems never to have entered their imaginations,
that university education, less than) common school education,
was the interest of the entire people. Two years before John
Harvard gave his name together with half of his estate and the
whole of his library to the college at Cambridge, the General
Court of Massachusetts had voted for the same purpose a sum
equal to "a years rate of the whole  colony."  President
Quincy, in his History of Harvard University, declares that
during the whole of the first seventy years of its existence, "its
officers were dependent for daily bread upon the bounty of the
General Court." Eloquent praises have been bestowed, and
doubtless justly bestowed, upon the noble generosity of individual colonists for their sacrifices in order to establish "for
learning, a resting place, and for science, a fixed habitation on
the borders of the wilderness;" but it ought not to be forgotten
that this noble generosity was but the smallest source of income
to the University.  At was to the more substantial gifts of the
Legislature, that the prosperity of the college was chiefly due.
Nor did this dependence upon the General Court cease with the
colonial days of Massachusetts. When a State constitution 
7
came to be adopted, that instrument devoted one entire chapter
to the interests of the only college under its jurisdiction.   "It
shall be the duty," so runs the constitution,  "it shall be the
duty of all legislatures and magistrates, in all future periods
of this commonwealth, to cherish the interests of literature and science, and all seminaries of them, especially the
University at Cambridge, public schools and grammar schools
in the towns." Thus it will be seen that Massachusetts considered the University as preeminently a part of her school
system.
The history of Yale is, in this respect, not unlike that
of IHarvard. President Dwight, in his sketch of the college, assures us that "the beginning of this seminary" was at the
General Court, held at Guilford in Juneof 1652. At that time
it was decided after a full consideration of the question, that New
England could not support two colleges, and, therefore, in
order that they might not, by founding a new college, embarrass Harvard, the matter was indefinitely postponed. It was
not until fifty years later that the college was actually founded.
The same high authority which I have already quoted says,
"the princ pal benefactor, both during this period and all
which have succeeded, was the Legislature." In illustration of
the method pursued it may be said that the General Court in
its first charter provided {or an annual grant to the college-a
grant which was continued until 1755. In 1750 Connecticut
Hall was reared from money chiefly contributed by the Legislature. In 1792 the Legislature granted money with which four
new buildings were erected, a handsome addition was made to
the library, "a complete philosophical and chemical apparatus
was procured," and  finallyo three new  professorships were
established. Thus dowr to the beginning of the present century
Yale, no less than Harvard, was chiefly indebted to the State
Legislature for the means of its,prosperity and its advancement. 
8
Nor was this method of supporting the higher schools of
learning confined to New England. The college of William
and Mary, in the order of its establishment second only to
Harvard, was founded by an endowment from the royal domain,
and was supported, for thenmost part, by the income of " a tax
of a penny a pound on tobacco exported to other plantations."
In Maryland, South Carolina and Georgia, the same provident
care of the colleges by the State was inaugurated. And if in
those states the cause of higher education was less prosperous
than at the North, the fact was largely, if not chiefly, due to
the earlier adoption of that policy of the multiplicltion of colleges which in the present century has spread over the whole
country.  Maryland,  as early as 1723,  provided  for High
Schools in all the counties of the State.   The early efforts of
the State in the cause of education, as President Sparks has
said, were "liberal, honorable, and worthy of the highest
praise." But the Legislature made one fittal mistake. Instead
of concentrating its resources on a single college or university,
it divided its means, and raised three of its high schools to the
rank of colleges. Jealousies ensued. In the course of a few
years, it came to be seen that schools which, as academies, had
been admirable, as colleges, were insignificant. So universal, indeed, became the dissatisfaction, that in 1805 the State withdrew it said altogether: and thus, notwithstanding the munificent
efforts of the State in its early history, its colleges at the
beginning of the present century had dwindled into abject
feebleness.
In South Carolina, a wiser course was pursued, and, therefore, the cause of higher education escaped, though it barely
escaped, the fate which befell it in Maryland. Although the
State committed tht error of establishing four colleges where
but a single one could be supported the nature of the mistake
came to be seen and the-proper remedy was applied. In 1 801
the Legislature estabfished the College of South Carolina on so 
9
liberal a basis that the other colleges at once descended to the
rank of preparatory schools. Within a few years the State
gave to the college at Columbia some $300 000, an amount
which at the beginning of this century  was truly magnificent.
But no state ever made a better iivestment.  During the first
half of the present century the scholastic accomplishments and
the political ability of the statesmen of South Carolina were the
just pride of the State, as they would have been of any State.
Thus, wherever we look, whether among the Puritans of
New England, the Catholics of Maryland, or the Episcopalians
of Virginia and South Carolina, we everywhere, down to the
beginning of this century, behold the same general educational
conditions. the same general habit of supporting the higher
schools as well as the lower at the expense of the state.
It is moreover  interesting to note that  it was in schools
thus endorsed and thus supported that the master minds which
framed this republic were developed. If, as we go to the
"Mecca of this patriotic year,' we  see reason to rejoice in a
national greatness or a national prosperity, it is because of the
spirit and the wisdom of the men who were trained in schools
thus established and thus endowed. It was from inspiration
gained from such sources that Thomas Jefferson, the man
whom Lord Brougham pronounced the greatest champion of
the political rights and interests of the common people that
ever lived, could write in 1800, the very year of his election to
the Presidency, and at the age of fifty-five, those words to Dr.
Priestley, which can never fail to be a delight to every classical
scholar who reads them:-'I enjoy Homer in his own language
infinitely better than Pope's translation of him. I thank on my
knees Him who directed my early education, for having put
into my possession this rich source of delight;  and  I would
not exchange it for anything which I could then have acquired,
and have not sinice acquired.'%
ifi
I 
But we have now to note that as time advanced, new
elements arose to complicate the educational problem. Local
demands and local jealousies began to find expression, and ere
long came to be importunate, if not indeed imperious. A still
more potent influence wasthe fact that the various religious
denominations, as they came to be spread over the country, felt
the need of educational support. They understood well that
whether or not a state can thrive without educated statesmen,
no religious denomination can push its way in the nineteenth
century without an educat( d clergy. Accordingly, in the course
of half a century, colleges, for these combined reasons, were
planted by the score in localities where no more than a single
one could be adequately supported.
Now it is of the first importance to note the immediate
effect of this policy, which was nothing less than to paralyze all
efforts to secure appropriations for higher education from the
state legislatures.  The Reasoning which led to this paralysis
was of the simplest nature possible. The state could not support all, and, therefore no course was open, but for it to withdraw its support altogether, and to turn over the interests of
the colleges to the various religious denominations and to the
localities in whose interest they had been individually established. Then began the system of private appeal; or rather, I
should say, the system of private appeal already inaugurated
in the numerous new colleges, came to be universally adopted
in those that had already acquired renown State support was
now either withdrawn altogether, or was meted out with a
sparing hand.
Then, a second consequence followed hard upon the first,
-indeed sprang dkectly out of the first. The fierce competition for students of such a superfluity of colleges kept down the
educational standard; and often the still fiercer struggle for life
made it necessary tlit the best talent of the college, as one of
the victims of the system once sadly but somewhat facetiously
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i —-- 
it
described it, should be devoted to the work of exhorting the
brethren and of expectantly waiting at the death-bed of the
childless and the widow. Such a system could not but be pro ductive of deplorable results. It was impossible for men, how ever scholarly and learned they might be,-and many of them
were scholarly and learned,-to beget and disseminate in the
community either a high respect for collegiate honors or an
ardent desire to obtain them.
It is perhaps worthy of note, in passing, that it was at this
stage of our educational progress, that the discovery was made
that it is unsafe to send young men to institutions receiving the
patronage of the state. As we have already seen, the Episco palians of Virginia, the Catholics of Maryland, and even the
stern Puritans of New England. did not imagine for more than a
hundred and fifty years that there was any dividing line be tween the methods by which the lower schools and the higher
were to be supported. But now for the first time, the doctrine
came to be entertained, that the youth of the land would be in
danger in any other schools than in those directly or indirectly
under the control of the churches. Fond parents who did not
scruple to commit their tender and impressible children to the
uncertain influences of unknown teachers and unknown schoolmates in the common schools, now strangely discovered, that, as
soon as the child emerges from the impressible age and begins
to assert an independence of thought and action, to send him to
any other than a distinctively religious school, would be, at least,
to imperil his faith and to jeopard his morals.
Such, as it seems to me, are some of the influences that
have been at work to embarrass and enfeeble the cause of
higher education. I endeavor to present nothing more than the
plainest picture in the plainest possible colors.  If any one
suspects that I have overdrawn it, I ask him candidly to look at
the result. I ask him,-if he is'familiar with what a great
university ought to be and is, -to look over the magnificent 
12
array of States admitted to the Union since the Revolutioiary
war, and tell me how many colleges and universities there are
that can be called worthy of the wealth and the enterprise and
the general intelligence of this country.  And if some one replies that time is necessary to develop our system, I answer
that the Universities of Bohn and Munich and Berlin have all
been-founded since the beginning of this century, and that not
one of them had been in existence a score of years before it had
acquired world-wide renown through the labors of its teachers
and scholars.  It is a fact, I think, of the greatest significance
to us Americans, that Niebuhr the father of modern history,
and Liebig, the founder of organic chernistry, and Heg,el the
author of the most influential school of modern philosophy, all
acquired their imperishable renown in universities less than a
quarter of a century old. The youngest of' the German universities, with the exception of the one founded in the territory
acquired in the war of 1870, will this very year celebrate the
semi-centennial anniversary of its organization, and can boast
of some two hundred professors and scarcely less than two
thousand students.  This is the answer to the declaration that
our colleges must be venerable before they can'oe great.
But it is time to enquire what has been the influence of
our so-called " system of higher education," upon  the real
educational condition of the country. W hat has been done in
the way of encouraging young men to seek a collegiate education
by this long array of two hundred and eighty-five colleges and
universities, all of them entitled, so far as municipal law can
bestow it, to the right of ranking themselves as schools of the
highest learning? We are not left in doubt as to what the
answer of this question must be.
It would be esy to show a priori that this undue multiplication of colleges would diminish the esteem in which colleges
and universities are held, But we are not left to the unsatisfactory conclusions ofapriori reasoning.  Statistics have been 
accumulated which show conclusively what the tendency has
been in different portions of the country. And what is this
tendency? It is that, ever since the earliest period for which
statistics have been preserved, the proportionate number of
students seeking a collegiate education has steadily diminished.
Nor is this diminution confined to any single portion of the
country. In New England as a whole, for example, the proportion of students in college in 1826 was one in 1513; in
1855 it was only one in 1689; in 1869 the ratio had declined
so that there were only at the rate of one in 1927. In the
country as a whole, according to the carefully prepared statistics
of President Barnard, the number of students in college in proportion to the population was, in 1840, one in 1549; in 1860,
one in 2012; in 1869, one in 2546.
Thus it is obvious that the number of undergraduate
students for thirty or forty years previous to 1870 was in our
country not only diminishing, but that the diminution during
the last ten years of the period, was especially remarkable. In
all parts of the country, the sad fact stares us in the face that
the training which has long been considered essential to
finished scholarship has been losing ground from year to year
in the favor of the people.
Now to this result it is probable that a number of causes
have contributed. The prevailing mercenary spirit has doubtless exerted an influence. It is possible, moreover, that something has been lost from the fact that courses of study have not
conformed to the public demand But there is another cause
which is probably far more important than these. It is the fact
that the modern college has lost something of its former significance in the popular imagination. Ambitious young men who
aspire to professional and political honors are not less numerous
than were the same clais fifty years ago. We cannot but believe
that these young men would resort to the same means of he]ping themselves forward, if those means were to present to their
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ambition the same attractions.   But the same attractions  do
not exist.  A  single one of our Western States has no  less
than nine universities and thirty-three colleges. Forty-two
universities and colleges in a single state are not only sure to
be insignificant, but, what is only less unfortunate, are sure to
be thought insignificant. When the popular imagination attaches
to the college but little importance, the ambitious youth is likely
to eschew the college, and betake himself at once to the more
attractive experience of the bar and the political arena.
Now this is not a mere picture of the fancy; it is a representation which is seen from such statistics as have been accumulated to be absolutely true to the life.  In the professions
(with the possible exception ol the clerical) and in positions of
high political trust, the proportion of college bred men is considerably less than it was in the early years of this century.   Of
the signers of the Declaration, thirty out of fifty-six were college
bred. Of the Senate of the First Congress, fifteen out of
twenty-six; while of the Forty-first Congress, the latest of
which information is accessible, the proportion was only seven
out of twenty-six.  If the investigation were to be carried to
the House of Representatives, the proportion would probably be
still more unfavorable. It is thus obvious that college graduates are politically less conspicious than they were formerly,
just as we have seen them to be less numerous.
But there is another question to be asked. If, under the
system which has prevailed, the number of students going to
college has diminished, what has been the effect of the system
on the scholarship of those who graduate? On this point it is
of course difficult to speak with positive assurance. But this
may be said.  The same public -minion which tends by its indifference to prevent~oys from going to college will at least be
easily reconciled to a low standard of scholarship.   Moreover
it must be remembered that where indifference concerning high
scholarship prevails, the fierce competition of small colleges 
15
must tend to depress rather than to elevate the standard. The
struggle is often a struggle for life, and life too frequently
depends not so much upon scholarship, as upon scholars.
Every educator is aware that the greatest obstacle in the
way of elevating the standard of scholarship is the difficulty of
raising the preparatory schools; and this difficulty arises very
largely, if not chiefly, from the fact that the necessities of the
smaller colleges require them to accept of whatever preparation
comes to their hand. If in those states which have a college
in almost every county, the condition of the colleges is deplorable, the condition of the preparatory schools is scarcely better.
Hence it is that, whenever the standard of scholarship is raised,
it has to be done both in reliance upon the exceptional excellence of a few tried schools, and in expectation that the size of
the classes in college will be materially diminished. No college
or university can prosper unless it is in some sense en rapport
with the preparatory schools, and therefore it is that the work
of raising the standard of scholarship is both slow and difficult,
-little less than the fabled work of Sisyphus:
* * adverso nixantem trudere monte
Saxum.
But notwithstanding all these facts. interesting and significant as they are of themselves, the most important question has
not yet been reached.   The question of transcendent importance is this: What has been the effect of our system upon the
standards of attainment held up before the public? Are our
professional men better fitted,or worse fitted, for their work
than were men of the same class fifty years ago? Are our
mneclantics better, or are they worse? Are our statesmen and
politicians men of broader culture, of more comprehensive
views and of greater integrity; or are they inferior to the
same class of men of a hundredcyears ago 9 
16.*
Now I would not answer these questions of so vital importance in any pessimistic spirit. I desire to avoid exaggeration;  and I concede that there  is always a tendency  to
disparage the present in comparison with the past. I remember
that Hesiod deplored the degeneracy of his own age and sang
the glories of the days of his fathers. The Sophists of Greece
were little but an organized body of quacks and complainers of
the condition of their own time. Cicero mourned over the degenerate poetry of Bavius and Mpevius; and the critics and
grammarians of Alexandria in ridiculing the men of their
time only succeeded in setting up "a kingdom of learned dullness and empty profession." England in the days of Walpole
was openly governed by the belief that every man had his
price; and even at the beginning of the present century, seats
in parliament were openly sold to the highest bidder. I admit
then, without reserve, that there have always been corrupt men
in politics, and pretenders in literature and science. Greece had
her Alcibiades, Rome had her Verres, and even our own
revolutionary age had its Arnold and its Aaron Burr. All
this I concede. I admit that no age has been exempt from the
affliction of pretense and dishonesty.
Nor do I esteem it a reproach that the statesmen of to-day
fall below the political stature of those who frammed the consttution; for who can read the political writings of Jefferson,
and Adams, and Hamiltonr, and Madison, and not count them as
worthy to rank with the foremost men of all time,-almost indeed with those intellectual giants who, according to the figure
of Machiavelli, rise far above the level of their fellow men, and,
stretching out their hands to each other across the interval of
the ages, transmitsto succeeding generations the torch of art
and poetry aidd political science? In these days, so redolent of
sweet memories of great men and great deeds, it is no disparagement, but an exaltation rather, to be allowed to sit at their
feet and acknowledge their superior virtues.
t, 
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But though all these considerations have their weight, we
ought not to be deterred by them from a rational examination of
our own age; and after all concessions are made to that tend ency of human nature of which I have spoken, I fear it will
have to be admitted, that we are liong in all age of low stand ards and of cheap fame.
Now I have no purpose to ring the mournful changes on
the trite topic of political corruption and of pretentious and aspir ing ignorance.   It may be, as has been said, that this is not so
much an age of frauds as an age of the exposure of frau(ds; but
whether this dictum be true or not, it is certain that there is
throughout the country a growing tendency among thoughtful
persons to take melancholy views of our political methods and
our political tendencies.   In regard to this political malaise I
shall pause only to say, that, in every age and among every
people, there have been corrupt men and ignorant men, who
have aspired to place and pelf; and furthermore, that always
their aspirations have been ardent just in proportion to their
prospects  of success.  If  in  our  time, or  in  any time,
therefore, there is especial thrift of ignoranc3 and dishonesty, the remedy is not in merely cominplaining of it,
but in the slow and arduous work of so changing public opinion
as to make its thrift impossible.  It is coming to be a practical
question whether we do not often exhaust our strength in attempting to reform bad men, when we should be devoting our
energies to the work of selecting and using good men.
It was a saying of Kant, that out of wood so crooked as
that of which man is made nothing absolutely straight can ever
be  formed.   The  saying is but an amplification of a far
higher authority, and is doubtless true.  But even Kant would
admit that there are degrees of crookedness and perversity, and
it therefore becomes a practical question to know how far the
energies of the country ought tQ be exerted in correcting the 
perversity of perverse men.   Surely the master mechanic does
not expend his energies in trying to straighten the crooked
wood with which the forests abound; and may it not be possible
— I ask the question simply as a query-may it not be possible
that the present age is using much of its strength in straightening crooked material when it should be devoting its energies to
producing and making the best use of the best material? Shall
I be thought quite wrong in suggesting that the business of
straightening crooked wood, or, to drop the figure. of correcting
perversity has become almost a profession?   Ah,  but how
difficult is the work! It has been well said, that tendencies
are stronger than men; and yet how often are specific remedies
sought when only constitutional renovation would be efficient?
How general is the must-do-something impulse whenever an
evil is detected! A desire to discover evils and a desire to correct them, ought not, of course, to incur our censure; but are
not these desires through ignorance often utterly misdirected?
One of the profoundest thinkers of the present generation
has called attention to the fact that we always find among people. in proportion as they are ignorant, a belief in specifics and a
confidence in pressing the adoption of them. The Bushman
believes that every death is occasioned by a witch, a,.d that
when the witch is killed, a countless num~'er of deaths is prevented.   But a belief in specifics is not confined to the heart of
Africa. It prevails in Europe and America as well.
In Austria a great evil was thought to be the number of
improvident marriages. When the Concordat made improvident marriages impossible, the reformers said: The evil is corrected.   But straightway it was found that the principal result
of the change was to increase enormously the number of illegitimate children: and when, to mitigate the misery of the foundlings, the government provided hospitals, the result again was
to increase greatly the number of infants abandoned.
t
is 
In England the Building Act was passed in answer to a
demand that something should be done to prevent the over crowding, of small houses and tenements. This Act together
with the Lodging-House Act accomplished its purpose; but it
drove the vagrants into the streets aud compelled them to sleep
under bridges, or in the parks, or even, for warmth's sake, on the
dunghills.  It was confidently thought by Mr. Bradlaughli and
others that the deplorable condition of the English peasant ry, could be relieved by the formation of Leagues and Unions
and the organization of strikes,  but Mr. Brassey, in his book
on Work and Wages, has conclusively shown that the influence
of agitation among the laborers has been to frighten capital and
to withdraw it from the active industries ol agriculture and
manufacture, and to place it in foreign bonds;-tlithus in fact
lowering the price of labor by just so much as it has diminished
the industrial pursuits. In France, during much of this century a belief in the omnipotence of specific remedies has been
almost universal. Many of the people believed in the existence
of a universal panacea for all their political ills, if only they
could contrive to find it. In the time of the Revolution, SaintJust declared that all the evils under which the country labored
were caused by an abandonment of agricultural life; and his
remedy; seriously proposed, was that all the people should be
made to become farmers, and that the condition of voting should
be the raising, of four sheep per annum. A little later Foarier
invented another method  of curing the national ills; and
demonstrated, apparently to the satisfaction of a large number
of followers, that, if his mode of organizing society could only
be generally adopted, "Zebras would soon come to be as much
used as horses, men would live three or four hundred years
instead of seventy, and, whatvould be still better, the globe
would soon have thirty-seven millions of poets equal to Homer,
thirty-seven millions of philosophers equal to Newton, and
thirty-seven millions of dramatists equal to Moliere."
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In Wisco,nsin the mass of the people believed that by 6ontrolling the price of freight irrespectively of charter obligations
an immense advantage would be gained by the farmers, and
therefore in spite of the warnings of all political economists the
"Potter Law" was passed.   The result was that feeble railroads
were stopped, even the stronger ones could not negotiate a bond
in En,gland or elsewhere, cons ruction ceased, and a subsequent
Legislature had to hasten to repeal the law; but it was not until hundreds of thousands of dollars had been sacrificed.
In the time of the civil war men were perplexed to know
how to keep down the premium on gold, as though the premium
could be kept down, while millions of irredeemable paper were
issuing monthly from the press and were called money. Congress even, as it will be remembered, took the matter in hand,
and like the English King, commanded the tide to retire; but
the only effect was to increase the violence of the mocking
surges, and Congress itself had to withdraw.
Perhaps I might say that the same reformatory spirit
grappled with the tremendous evil of intemperance. Societies
were formed for the purpose of combating it.  The evil, prodigious of itself, by the natural accumulation of zeal, came to be
greatly magnified. The impression began to prevail that in temperance was enormously increasing, and that, too, in face of
the fact that but a few generations ago sobriety was the exception, and that evenso late as the days of our great grand-fathers
the man who had never been intoxicated was a rarity. Let us
abolish intoxication altogether, cried men. Let us simply make
intoxication impossible by prohibiting the manufacture and sale
of all that can intoxicate. The cry carried the day; with
what result we all know. Alas! in spite of all law, and all
officers of the law, 4temperance continued, and it is even now a
question whether in one single state the evil has been diminished
by prohibition. Whatever may be the answer to this question, it
is certain that prohibitory laws are everywhere failing, and that
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men are everywhere beginning to realize that the appetite for
strong drink is the most energetic and persistent perversity of
human nature,-has been certainly since the days of Noah, and
will be probably until the milennium.
So in regard to the matter of pure administration of government. We cry out for honest men at the head of our government, and we do well. God forbid that I should say aught
against such a demand. But, my friends. let us not be deluded
into the belief that honesty can work miracles.   Ever since the
days of President Jackson, there has been lurking in our political system a poison, now torpid, nowactive, but ever increasing in virulence until at the present time it has permeated to
the utmost extremity of the body politic. To put honest men in
office so long as the virus is still working in the system, is
merely to apply soothing and palliating lotions. It is well so
far as it goes, but it goes only a little way.   So long  as there
are forty thousand and more civil offices in the United States,
subject to the irresponsible will of the chief magistrate, and so
long as the maxim "to the victor belong the spoils" is practically in full force, there can be no assurance that government
will be pure. England has passed through every stage of an
experience not essentially unlike that to which we are now subjected, and it was not until the nation adopted a system of
thorough civil reform that the era of pure administration was
inaugurated. It is not for us to hope for a return of administrative purity until we are ourselves willing to profit by the examples of other nations. We have to return to our fathers'
methods, if we would have our fathers' pure government return
to us.
The greatest man of modern science said that he knew not
how it might seem to others,6ut that it seemed to himself that
he had merely walked upon the shores of time gathering here
and there doubtfully a pebble, while the great world of science
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lay beyond his knowledge. This was the declaration of a true
sage,-of a man whose judgment in all matters to which he
gave his attention was scarcely inferior to his genius. The
nineteenth century has inherited the fruits of Sir Isaac Newton's
genius, but I fear it can hardly claim to have inherited his
spirit. The American who has not yet made up his mind on
every question of the day is almost a curiosity, and a genuine
wonder is the man who reserves his judgment until he has
completed his thinking.
It became a legal maxim as early as the days of Tacitus
that the more corrupt thee state the more numerous the lawscorruptissima republica, plurimae leges,-and yet every winter spreads thousands of laws upon our statute books, so crudely
framed and so ill digested, that no inconsiderable portion of the
work of the next winter is to undo them. The pregnant words
with which Pliny describes the young Italy of his generation,
seem almost to have been written for the young America of
ours:-  Statiin sapiuuit, slatir  sciunlt  omnia, nemibiem
veren,tur, imita?itur ner.inenz, atque ipsi sibi exempla sunt.
Now if these tendencies and habits, of which I have spoken
somewhat at length, are evils, and I think you will all concede
them to be such, how are they to be successfully combated?
Surely not by the application of any such meres" specific" as
those to which I have alluded. The first thing to be done is
to acquire a complete understanding of the nature of the difficulty to be removed or remedied.  It must be understood first
of all that in the vast majority of instances, the evils, both
political and social, which confront us, are not diseases, but are
mere signs of diseases, not accidental effects, but inevitable
results, of the habit of thought and the material condition of
society.   The histoy of the race unquestionably teaches this
fact with the most unmistakable distinctness-and I would that
it were emblazoned upon every university and indeed upon every
church-a fact well formulated by Lecky, that "the beliefs aid 
23
the habits of a given age or people are mainly determined, not
by specific and assignable reasons and arguments and actions,
but by the general intellectual conditions of society,-conditions
which cannot be suddenly created, but which can only be
slowly brought about and materially changed by the combined
influence of all the forces of civilization."  This, if I have not
read history in yain, is one of its most important lessons. If it
be true, as Emerson has said, that every man is a quotation
from all his ancestors, it is no less true that every nation is a
quotation from all its antecedents.  And yet in the very face
of this lesson men expect republics built on the traditions and
habits of despotism to flourish, and await miraculous changes as
the result of their impotent legislation on some of the most fixed
relations of society   Let us not hope that anything can effect
a change in this respect excepting that more enlightened public
opinion which domes from a more thorough and comprehensive
knowledge of the history and experience of mankind.
And for effecting, this change the hope of the country is in
its higher education. Lord Bacon affirmed that'"a knowledge
of the speculative opinions of the men between twenty and
thirty years of age, is the great source of political prophecy."
The great source of political prophecy,-ah then, of what con sumate importance is it. that our young men between twenty
and-thirty should think aright! If the saying of Lord Bacon
is true,-and who  can gainsay it?-the hope of our country
is not solely, not even chiefly in our common schools, but large ly in our colleges and universities. In every country truly free
it is, after all, the cultivated mind, that is the controlling in fluence and motor of affairs. Its operation may not be obvious,
we may not see it, we mV not feel it. we may not weigh it,
but like one of the ferces of nature, though it works silently,
its potent influence is everywhere present.    The  force  of
gravity is so gentle that weeant scarcely perceive it; and yet
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its millions of gossamer threads bind the earth together and
even keep the planets in their places.
Such is the influence of cultivated mind on society. Though
Martin Luther began by begging his bread for a "pious
canticle" in the streets of Risenach, and though he was opposed
by the opinions and the corruptions of his time;  yet, by his
studious toil of days and nights, he became able, as Lord Bacon
said of him. "to summon all learning and all antiquity to his
succor," and hence "was not only sustained by conquering
armies and countenanced by princes, but, what was a thousand
times better, was revered as a benefactor and a spiritual parent
by  millions of  his grateful  countrymen."   I  hold it to
be the ditty, I do not hesitate to use the strong old Saxon
word,- the duly, of every educator and of every semlinary of
higher learning to do what it can to modify the material tendencies of the age both by precept and by example. I am
persuaded that what the age needs, and what our nation is sighing for, is not so much a wider diffusion of the ability to read
and write, as a higher standard of excellence in morals, and in
intelligence, and in learning, on the part of that class which
creates, and inspires, and controls public opinion. A little
learning may be better than no learning, but we must not forget
that it becomes the "dangerous thing" of the proverb, when it
only enables its possessor to lift himself into places of responsibility and power. Better lawyers, better physicians, better
clergymen, better editors, better teachers, better legislatorsthese are the need of the republic, and it is only by producing
these that we can make it certain that the republic will be
better directed.
Within the past ten years the world has seen unrolled before its astonished vision a political panorama of most extraordinary and surprising interest; and yet how many have thought
that it is chiefly remarkable7 as an example of the value of 
25
higher education upon national prosperity? - At the beginning
of the century Prussia was torn, bleeding, impoverished, stripped
of half her territory, by a foreign foe, and crushed under the
cruel heel of a feudal nobility at home.  But this feeble nationality fell under the immediate and the dominant influence of a
great mnn and a great idea. The great thllought of the Freiherr
von Stein was, that, if Prussia ever could be built up into a
strong nitionLlity, it would  be, not by devoting the chief
energies of the country to the development of material resources,
but to the development ofmen. And the whole nation was inspired with the idea, that whatever they might want a man for,
the way to make the most of him, and get the most out of him
for the nation, was by giving him the most thorough general
training,, and  then the  most  thorough  technical  training.
Roy;lty vac;ated its palaces at Berliii and at Bonn  and  universities were instaLlled in its place.   The dominant idea of the
nation became this, that for every vocation in life, men must
receive the best training which the nation coul(l afford.
And we of this decade hLve seen the result.  The little
nation of two generations ago has not only become  in higher
learning the educator of the world, but has become the strongest
power of Europe. When put to the test, its generals could
plan a campaign which for comprehensiveness and unfailing
certainty of result exceeded everything done under the great
Napoleon. and the sol,diers, after defeating the proudest legions
of the world, could recreate themselves by writing and singing
the Klttserhke Lied in thirty-two languages.
I hope I shall be pardoned for speaking a single word in
conclusion to those who are about to graduate.   The pride of a
university is her children.  The great work of a university in
influencing public opinion is chiefly through those whom she
sends out with lher honors.   Do not, I charge you, do not
go out with the impression that sour education is completed.
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The young man who goes out from a university and  straithtway throws aside his books is unworthy ever to have been within
a university.  Remember, moreover, that the life of a scholar is
a life of prodigious work. The Bishop of Exeter once said, and
probably said truly, that of all work of permanent value, nine
tenths is drudgery.  A generation  ago when Mr.  Choate was
recognized as the great light of the American bar, the impression
was rife that his genius was so colossa-l that hlie held but to stand
upon his feet and perhaps with his long fingers shake up his
tangled locks, in order to produce an oration that would carry
sure conviction to an audience or ajury. But after his death it
was revealed that no lawyer of his time pipared his cases with
so minute care, and, what is of still greater interest, that during
the most busy portion of his professional career, it was his rule
to get at least an hour every day-rescued fromn sleep or society
or recreation, for Latin or Greek or some other favorite study.
Mr. Gowans wrote to the New York Times, that Mr. Choate,
some ten years before his death. unexpectedly detained a day in
New York, came into his store about ten o'clock in the morning
and enquired for the department of the classics.   On being
directed to them the great lawyer began his researches and so
eager was he, that MIr. Gowans had to interupt him in order to
close the store at seven in the evening.  Thus for ninehours
Choate with neither food nor drink had pored 6ver his work
and when asked what he had found, responded that he had been
greatly excited over several Greek books that he had never
read, and especially over a seven volume edition of the famous
commentary on Homer by the Greek bishop Eustathius of the
twelfth century. This was the scholarship of the man who was
popularly supposed to convince juries by a kind of inspiration.
When the old tan eloquent, whose culture was the consummate fruitof that earlier school of training of which I have
spoken, was in the presidential chair, he "found time amidst the
incessant calls and interruptions of his office to address a series of 
27
letters to his youngfest son-some of them written in the busiest
portion of the session-containing an elaborate analysis of tile
orations of Cicero, designed to aid the young man in the perusal
of this, his favorite author.   Some of these letters," Mr. Everett
Aeclares  "would be thought a good day's work for a scholar by
profession "  and yet, at the close of one of them, he adds that
he is reading Evelyn's Sylva with great delight.
The greatest lawyer of antiquity boasted that his philoso phlical studies had never interfered with his services to his clients
and to the republic. and that he had only dedicated to them the
hours which others give to their walks, their repasts and their
pleasures.   Looking on those voluminous works which have been
thedelight of all subsequent time, we cannot but be surprised at
the observation. But the very fact that his philosophical works
bear the names of the different villas he possessed, indicates that
he composed them as the recreation of their respective retire ments.   They were all the result of that magic art in the employment of our leisure, which is said to multiply our days.
Thus it is that the exhortation of Goethe,                         WNie daw Gestirn
Ohlne Hast, a)er ohne Rast,
Drehe sich jeder urn die eigene Last,unhastin,g but unrestingas the stars,-is the condition and the
accompaniment  of every great excellence.  lHe assured then,
gentlemen, that no mere longings and sighings for the rewards
of greatness will bring either greatness or its rewards. Only
after a life of earnest. and honest, and persistent striving may it
be said of you
For country and humanity he wrought,
And, which is best and happiest yet, all this
With God not parted from him           But favoring and assisting to the end.
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