over the Athenians, who fell in the first year of the Peloponnesian war, and which, in the second book of Thucydides his History, is ascribed, I know not if truly, to that famous popular chieftain,) may yet be restored. But, if the light of learning shall go out; if the study of God's word among us shall perish; if, as these pious fathers one by one are taken away, none shall rise up in their stead, it will bring a slowly creeping distemper upon the land, and will strike a wound into New England's heart which can never be healed. "On the other hand, let us found the college now, in the infancy of the colony; let no space, no, not for a day, be interposed, in which ignorance can gain a foothold; let sound human learning, and the study of the Scriptures of truth, go hand in hand with the growth of the state; and I tell you, men and brethren, the feeble plant will take root and flourish. Though sown in weakness, it shall be raised in power. A succession of the learned and pious, the great and the good, shall here be trained up, to make glad the cities and churches of the Lord. Prosperous times may follow, and your sons shall adorn and promote the prosperity of the land. Dark and adverse days may succeed, but the prudent counsellor and the eloquent orator shall not fail; and, so long as New England or America hath a name on the earth's surface, the fame and fruit of this day's work shall be blessed. Men, brethren, and fathers, I have done." Such, however presumptuous the attempt to embody them, were the motives and the principles on which the college was founded. It was an institution established by the people's means for the people's benefit. If, in any other quarter of the globe, it has been objected to seats of learning, that they nourish a spirit of dependence on power, such has never been the reproach of our alma mater. Owing much, at every period before the revolution, to the munificence of individuals in the mother country, it never was indebted to the crown for a dollar or a book. No court favor was ever bestowed, and no court lesson ever learned. Generation after generation went forth from her lecture-rooms, armed in all the pan oply of truth, to wage the battles of principle, alike under the old charter and the new; and, when the fulness of time was come, and the great contest approached, the first note of preparation was sounded from Harvard Hall. Yes, before the stamp act was passed; yes, before committees of correspondence were established throughout the colonies; before Otis had shaken the courts with his forensic thunders; before a breath of defiance had whispered along the arches of Faneuil Hall, a graduate of Harvard College announced in his thesis, on commencement day, the whole doctrine of the revolution. Yes, in the very dawn of independence, while the lions of the land yet lay slumbering in the long shadows of the throne, an eaglet, bred in the delicate air of freedom which fanned the academic groves, had, from his "coigne of vantage" on yonder tower, drunk the first rosy sparkle of the sun of liberty into his calm, undazzled eye, and whetted his talons for the conflict. Within the short space of twentythree years, there were graduated at Harvard College six men, who exercised an influence over the country's destinies, which no time shall outlive. Within that brief period, there went forth from yonder walls, James Otis, John Hancock, Joseph Warren, Josiah Quincy, - besides Samuel and John Adams, "geminos, duo fulmina belli." Yes, fellow-students, if our college had done nothing else than educate Samuel Adams, who, in 1743, on taking his second degree, maintained the thesis, that it is lawful to resist the chief magistrate, if the state cannot otherwise be preserved; or James Otis, who, by his argument on writs of assistance, in the words of one* well authorized to express an opinion, "first breathed the breath of life into the cause of American freedom;" or John Hancock, the patriot merchant, who offered his fortune as a sacrifice to the country, and placed his name first to the Declaration of her independence; or John Adams, the "colossus who sustained the Declaration" in debate; or Josiah Quincy, (your honored father, Mr President,) who, in 1774, wrote to his countrymen from London, "that they must seal their testimony with their blood;" or Warren, who, on yonder sacred heights, made haste to obey that awful injunction; - had Harvard College done no more than train up any one of these great men to the country's service, what title could it need to the world's gratitude and admiration? But not on one, or all of these, does the fame of our alma mater repose. A hundred kindred spirits in every calling, in every part of the land, in ancient and modern days, alike assert their claim to her spiritual lineage, and form the crown of her glory : "Felix prole virûm; qualis Berecynthia mater It is not, brethren, I own, without peculiar emotions that I join in this happy celebration. A quarter part of a century is this year closed, since my classmates and myself were dismissed from these venerable shades. In that period, one third part, nearly, of our number have closed their mortal career, and we have all passed that culminating period of life, from which its end becomes daily, and for the most part rapidly, more visible. During the whole of this period, with scarce an interval, it has been my good fortune to sustain some official connection, more or less intimate, with the university, and to receive the most signal proofs of its confidence. I deem myself eminently favored of Providence, on this illustrious anniversary, that I am permitted, before this great and enlightened concourse of her children, to lay the honors, with which the unmerited kindness of my fellow-citizens has crowned me, as an offering, at her venerable feet. May God prosper her in all aftertimes, as she has hitherto been prospered; and a century hence, when we, who now unite in these high festivities, shall long have passed away, - long after every tongue heard this day shall be hushed, and every eye that glistens around me shall be closed, then may our children's children come up with joy, and grateful honors, and still warmer devotion, to celebrate another jubilee ! I give you, fellow-students, as a toast, OUR ALMA MATER; MATURE IN YOUTH, VIGOROUS IN AGE, ILLUSTRIOUS ALWAYS: "In freta dum fluvii current, dum montibus umbræ Semper honos nomenque tuum, laudesque manebunt." THE SETTLEMENT OF DEDHAM.* MR PRESIDENT AND GENTLEMEN : I CANNOT but be sensibly affected by the kind notice you are pleased to take of me. The occasion is one which must interest every reflecting mind. No one can witness what we behold at this moment, or hear what we have heard this day, without being highly gratified; but the toast which has been announced must prepare you for my saying that, though personally a stranger to almost all present, I take more than a stranger's interest in the celebration. My ancestors, from the very first foundation of Dedham, in 1636, were established here, and, like the great majority of the people, in the unambitious condition of cultivators of the soil. The name of the first of them, who has been so kindly remembered by the orator of the day, in his most appropriate, eloquent, and instructive discourse, is found in the list of the original settlers of the place. In the second generation, I have just perceived in one of the interesting ancient parchments, which have passed around the table, that another of the name was one of the four commissioners who, in 1686, received a confirmation of the Indian title of the town from the grandson of Chickatawbut, of whom it was originally purchased. My own honored father was born and grew up to manhood here, in the same humble sphere; and as I came back to-day, fellow-citizens, to breathe among you the native air of my race, I must say that, with the greater experience I have of the cares and trials of public station, the more ready I am to Delivered at the public dinner, 21st September, 1836, the anniversary of the settlement of Dedham. |