To say that the most fully developed human character is yet very far from being perfect, is only to assert a truism, which is plainly written upon every page of that great record of life, which reaches back through six thousand eventful years. And to say that the best intended and best arranged human institutions are very incomplete in their forma tions and very imperfect in their workings, is none the less a sober fact.

Having premised thus much as a platform upon which we can all meet as upon common ground, it is but fair to tell you that I am not about to lead you into the enchanting regions of poetry or fiction, nor have I been gifted with any power to lift back the heavy curtains that hide from our view the work-chamber of those sisters three, where they weave and cut for us all, with remorseless hands, the web of fate. But since you and I have been together conning our parts, and together preparing to act upon that stage where we shall be " merely players," nothing more, let us pause a moment behind the curtain, which, a hand as inexorable as that of Atropos, will very soon raise, and let us, for once at least, be sincere and honest in talking with, and of ourselves. Let us for once divest ourselves of that garb of self-complacency, which, by long continued habit, has come to rest so easily upon us, and no longer try to conceal from ourselves faults which are plainly visible to all beside.

Above the entrance of the famous Temple at Delphi, where polished Grecians resorted to pay their vows to the "god of the silver bow," was inscribed a motto, than which neither ancient nor modern times has presented one more important. Century after century, as it has passed away and sunk quietly beneath the horizon of time, has reflected back, with its parting rays, that Delphian inscription," Know Thyself." There have been philosophers and sages who have forgotten all else except the obedience of this one command, but, in obeying this, have found that they had gained all things.

The simplicity of its diction has been lost in the grandeur of its meaning, and it has become a living creed, broad enough to embrace the whole catalogue of human needs, and neither the gropings of unenlightened heathen, nor the speculations of civilized Christians, have ever been able to fathom its depth. To know one's self thoroughly and well, if at all attainable by human wisdom, is indeed its highest possible attainment, and they, who come even within hailing distance of this goal, which yields better than Olympian garlands, are very few.

I have somewhere read of a young German artist, who, while he was engaged in copying a celebrated Madonna, was so impressed with its beauty and with the depth of conception it revealed, that, in distrust of his own artistic powers, he fell into sadness, then into melancholy, and finally into madness, and died just as he had completed his matchless work, upon which he had labored for eight weary years. Sad as is the story, it shows us how entirely a great and absorbing purpose may enter into and control one's human nature, and shows us also why it is, that they who know the most of themselves, always fancy that they know the least. The spanning of a stream which seems but a trifle to one who stands on either bank, seems almost a measureless distance to him who is already struggling with its angry waves.

Self-knowledge, then, is not a sounding phrase and meaningless abstraction, but a practical and living lesson, which all must try to learn, however few accomplish it. To study the external mechanism of the most perfect work of Infinite Wisdom, is no boyish task; and to seek to know the needs and wants of the human soul, which, far away from its Father's side, has almost lost itself in perplexities and wanderings, is a work to engage our highest efforts. But be self-knowledge whatever it may, even the humblest of us may rest assured of this, that life is a reality, education not a sham, and duty something more than a poetic fiction; and that he who believes and lives the first, really acquires the second, and faithfully obeys the third, has done much toward practically applying the comprehensive command, "Know Thyself."

There is no place where such a command ought to receive more obedience; no place where the world has a right to expect that it will receive more obedience, than in an American College. Founded, as the College was, in subordination to the State, it is its business, not to raise men above the duties and responsibilities of citizens, but the better to qualify them for their successful discharge, and self-knowledge should, therefore, be the Alpha and Omega of every College education. Every man is his own greatest mystery, and there are many who are termed learned and wise, who have no intelligent knowledge of themselves. There are few if any deliberately made wrecks in life, and the vast majority of human ruins must acknowledge a common The practical question, then, which comes to us, as we stand here behind the curtain, is simply this: are we ready now to act the parts we have so long been studying or dreaming over; and if not, rests the fault with ourselves, or with some power beyond our control?

cause.

If, as they tell us, human nature has always been much as we find it among ourselves, what a collection of men have left this their Alma Mater, vainly trying to shake the dust from off their feet, and to lay the blame of all their imperfections upon the system of education under which they have lived. If they have been enabled to persuade themselves that they were blameless, and were erred against by the "powers that be," happy for them, for otherwise they would be destitute of both followers and sympathy.

I am not the one to yield a blind and meaningless adulation to any human institution, for I believe most heartily in the fallibility of all men, and imperfection of all things. There is no Divine Being for me save He who reigns above. There are no angels save those who walk the golden streets; and I can find no perfection of knowledge save what results from Infinite Wisdom. But for all that, I have neither patience nor sympathy with that extreme radicalism, which tries to ⚫ cloak itself under the guise of a spirit of reform, while it really aims at change rather than improvement. All of us remember well the story of the Jewish king, who was guided in his policy by the radical rather than the conservative part of his subjects, and thus lost a firmly established kingdom. That they only are worthy to command others who are enabled to command themselves, is a maxim which has come down to us with the sanction of classical antiquity, and it is an equally true and important one, that they only are fit to project and carry on great reforms, who can first apply them in their own lives. Humanity always takes infinite pleasure in trying to overstep its prescribed limits, and I suppose that those ancestors of ours, who left us an ex