_An Address delivered before the Free Institute at Worcester,
Massachusetts, July 28, 1874._
Within a comparatively few years schools for the instruction of artisans
have become a prominent feature in the educational systems both of this
country and of Europe, and seem destined to supersede the old system of
apprenticeships. The establishment of these schools has been an
important step in human progress, not because any great advantage has
been gained in the cultivation of mechanical skill, but because here the
future mechanic acquires culture of the mind as well as skill of the
hand. Indeed, it may be doubted whether our utilitarian age can ever
successfully compete with those "elder days of art" when
"Builders wrought with greatest care
Each minute and unseen part."
But, if our industrial schools do not make better mechanics than the
workshops of the olden time, they certainly educate better men, and, by
adding to skill, knowledge, they are elevating the mechanic and
ennobling his calling.
If, therefore, these schools are the representatives in our age of the
workshops with their bands of apprentices in the days of yore, then that
by which the schools are distinguished, that which they have added to
the old system, is not art but mental culture; and therefore, when asked
to address you on this occasion, I could think of no more appropriate
subject than the Nobility of Knowledge.
Identified with an institution in which mental culture is the chief aim,
I felt that I was asked to address a body of cultivated working-men with
whom, though employed in the mechanic arts, the acquisition of knowledge
was also a privilege and a pride. I felt, moreover, that a proper
appreciation of the true dignity of knowledge, in itself considered, and
apart from all economical considerations, is one of the great wants of
our age and of our country.
"Knowledge is power." "Knowledge is wealth." These trite maxims are
sufficiently esteemed in our community, and need not that they be
enforced by any one. So far as knowledge will yield immediate
distinction or gain, it is sought and fostered by multitudes. But, when
the aim is low, the attainment is low, and too many of our students are
satisfied with superficiality, if it only glitters, and with
charlatanry, if it only brings gold.
Let me not be understood to depreciate the material advantages of
learning. I rejoice that in this world knowledge frequently yields
wealth and fame, and I should have little hope for human progress were
the prizes of scholarship less than they are. Power and wealth are noble
aims, and when rightly used may be the means of conferring unmeasured
blessings on mankind; but I desire at this time to impress upon you, my
friends, the fact that knowledge has nobler fruits than these, and that
the worth of your knowledge is to be measured not by the credits it will
add to your account in the ledger, or the position it may give you among
men, but by the extent to which it educates your higher nature, and
elevates you in the scale of manhood.
I address young men who are just entering on life, who are at an age
when the mystery of our being usually presses most closely upon the
soul, and whose aspirations for higher culture and clearer vision have
not been deadened by the sordid damps of the world. Trust no croakers
who tell you that your youthful visions are illusions, which a little
contact with the real business of the world will dispel.
It is only too true that these visions will become fainter and fainter,
if you allow the cares of the world to engross your thoughts; but,
unless your higher nature becomes wholly deadened, you will look back to
the time when the visions were brightest, as the golden period of your
life, and let me assure you that, if you only are true to the
aspirations of your youth, the visions will become clearer and clearer
to the last, and, as we firmly believe, will prove to be the dawn of the
perfect day.
My friends, if you have seen these visions, "the nobility of knowledge"
has been a reality of your experience. You know that there is a life
lived in communion with the thoughts of great men or with the thoughts
of God as we can read them in Nature and Revelation, which is purer and
nobler than a life of money-making or political intrigue, and I would
that I could so bring you to appreciate not only the nobility, but also
the happiness, of such a life as to induce you to try to live it.
Do you tell me that it is only granted to a few men to become scholars,
and that you have been educated for some industrial pursuit? Remember,
as I said before, that it is your special privilege to have been
educated, to have added knowledge to your handicraft, and that this very
knowledge, if kept alive so far as you are able, will ennoble your life.
Knowledge, like the fairy's wand, ennobles whatever it touches. The
humblest occupations are adorned by it, and without it the most exalted
positions appear to true men mean and low.
Nor is it the extent of the knowledge alone which ennobles, but much
more the spirit and aim with which it is cultivated, and that spirit and
aim you may carry into any occupation, however engrossing, and into any
condition of life, however obscure.
And let me add that what I have said is true not only of the individual,
but also, and to an even greater degree, of the nation. Our people, for
the most part, look upon universities and other higher institutions of
learning as merely schools for recruiting the learned professions, and
estimate their efficiency solely by the amount of teaching work which
they perform. But, however important the teaching function of the
university may be, I need not tell you that this is not its only or
chief value to a community. The university should be the center of
scientific investigation and literary culture, the nursery of lofty
aspirations and noble thoughts, and thus should become the soul of the
higher life of the nation. For this and this chiefly it should be
sustained and honored, and no cost and no sacrifice can be too great
which are required to maintain its efficiency; and its success should be
measured by the amount of knowledge it produces rather than by the
amount of instruction it imparts.
Harvard College, by cherishing and honoring the great naturalist she
has recently lost, has done more for Massachusetts than by educating
hosts of commonplace professional men. The simple title of teacher,
which in his last will Louis Agassiz wrote after his name, was a nobler
distinction than any earthly authority could confer; but remember he was
a teacher not of boys, but of men, and his influence depended not on the
instruction in natural history which he gave in his lecture-room, but on
his great discoveries, his far-reaching generalization, and his noble
thoughts. Although that man died poor, as the world counts poverty, yet
the bequest which he left to this people can not be estimated in coin.
It is a sorry confession to make, but it is nevertheless the truth,
that, if we compare our American universities, in point of literary or
scientific productiveness, with those of the Old World, they will appear
lamentably deficient. Let me add, however, that this deficiency arises
not from any want of proper aims in our scholars, but simply from the
circumstance that our people do not sufficiently appreciate the value of
the higher forms of literary and scientific work to bear the burden
which the production necessary entails. Scholars must live, as well as
other men, and in a style which is in harmony with their surroundings
and cultivated tastes, and their best efforts can not be devoted to the
extension of knowledge unless they are relieved from anxiety in regard
to their daily bread.
In our colleges the professors are paid for teaching and for teaching
only, while in a foreign university the teaching is wholly secondary,
and the professor is expected to announce in his lectures the results of
his own study, and not the thoughts of other men. Until the whole status
of the professors in our chief universities can be changed, very little
original thought or investigation can be expected, and these
institutions can not become what they should be, the soul of the higher
life of the nation.
It is in your power, however, to bring about this change, but the reform
can be effected in only one way. You must give to your universities the
means of supporting fully and generously those men of genius who have
shown themselves capable of extending the boundaries of human knowledge,
and demand of them, only, that they devote their lives to study and
research, and let me assure you that no money can be spent which will
yield a larger or more valuable return.
If you do not look beyond your material interests, the higher life of
the nation, which you will thus serve to cherish and foster, will guard
your honor and protect your home; and, on the other hand, what can you
expect in a nation whose highest ideal is the dollar or what the dollar
will buy, but venality, corruption, and ultimate ruin?
But, rising at once to the noblest considerations, and regarding only
the welfare of your country and the education of your race, what higher
service can you render than by sustaining and cherishing the grandest
thought, the purest ideals, and the loftiest aspirations which humanity
has reached, and making your universities the altars where the holy fire
shall be kept ever burning bright and warm?
Do you think me an enthusiast? Look back through history, and see for
yourselves what has made the nations great and glorious. Why is it that,
after twenty centuries, the memory of ancient Greece is still enshrined
among the most cherished traditions of our race? Is it not because Homer
sang, Phidias wrought, and Plato, Aristotle, Demosthenes, Thucydides,
with a host of others, thought and wrote? Or, if for you the military
exploits of that classic age have the greater charm, do not forget that
were it not for Grecian literature, Thermopylae, Marathon, and Salamis
would have been long since forgotten, and that the bravery,
self-devotion, and patriotism which these names embalm were the direct
fruits of that higher life which those great thinkers illustrated and
sustained.
And, coming down to modern times, what are the shrines in our mother
country which we chiefly venerate, and to which the transatlantic
pilgrim oftenest directs his steps? Is it her battlefields, her castles
and baronial halls, or such spots as Stratford-on-Avon, Abbotsford, and
Rydal Mount? Why, then, will we not learn the lesson which history so
plainly teaches, and strive for those achievements in knowledge and
mental culture which will be remembered with gratitude when all local
distinctions and political differences shall have passed away and been
forgotten?
While I was considering the line of discourse which I should follow on
this occasion, an incident occurred suggesting an historical parallel,
which will illustrate, better than any reflections of mine, the truth I
would enforce. The ship Faraday arrived on our coast after laying over
the bed of the Atlantic another of those electric nerves through which
pulsate the thoughts of two continents, and as I read the description of
that noble ship, fitted out with all the appliances which modern science
had created to insure the successful accomplishment of the enterprise, I
remembered that not a century had elapsed since the first obscure
phenomena were observed, whose conscientious study, pursued with the
unselfish spirit of the scientific investigator, had led to these
momentous results, and my imagination carried me back to an autumn day
of the year 1786, in the old city of Bologna, in Italy, and I seemed to
assist at the memorable experiment which has associated the name of
Aloysius Galvani with that mode of electrical energy which flashes
through the wire cords that now unite the four quarters of the globe.
Galvani is Professor of Anatomy in the University of Bologna, and there
is hanging from the iron balcony of his house a small animal
preparation, which is not an unfamiliar sight in Southern Europe, where
it is regarded as a delicacy of the table. It is the hind-legs of a
frog, from which the skin had been removed, and the great nerve of the
back exposed. Six years before, his attention had been called to the
fact that the muscles of the frog were convulsed by the indirect action
of an electrical machine, under conditions which he had found very
difficult to interpret. He had connected the phenomenon with a theory of
his own: that electricity--that is, common friction electricity, the
only mode of electrical action then known--was the medium of all nervous
action; and this had led him into a protracted investigation of the
subject, during which he had varied the original experiment in a
thousand ways, and he had now suspended the frog's legs to the iron
balcony, in order to discover if atmospheric electricity would have any
effect on the muscles of the animal.
Galvani has spent a long day in fruitless watching, when, while holding
in his hand a brass wire, connected with the muscles of the frog, he
rubs the end, apparently listlessly, against the iron railing, when,
lo! the frog's legs are convulsed.
The patient waiting had been rewarded, for this observation was the
beginning of a line of discovery which was ere long to revolutionize the
world. But Galvani was not destined to follow far the new path he had
thus opened. The remarkable fact observed was this: The convulsions of
the frog's legs could be produced without the intervention of
electricity, or, at least, of the one kind of electricity then known,
and Galvani soon found out that the only condition necessary to produce
the result was, that the nerve of the frog should be connected with the
muscle of the leg by some good electrical conductor.
But, although Galvani followed up this observation with the greatest
zeal, and showed remarkable sagacity throughout his whole investigation,
yet he was too strongly wedded to his own theory to interpret correctly
the facts he observed. He supposed, to the end of his life, that the
whole effect was caused by animal electricity flowing through the
conductor from the nerve to the muscle, and his experiments were chiefly
interesting to himself and to his contemporaries from the light they
were supposed to throw on the mysterious principle of life. We now know
that animal electricity played only a small part in the phenomena he
observed, and that the chief effects were due to a cause of which he
was wholly ignorant.
Galvani published his observations in 1791, in a monograph entitled "The
Action of Electricity in Muscular Motion." This publication excited the
most marked attention, and, within a year, all Europe was experimenting
on frogs' legs. The phenomena were everywhere reproduced, but Galvani's
explanation of the phenomena was by no means so universally accepted.
His theory was controverted in many quarters, and by no one more
successfully than by Alexander Volta, Professor of Physics in the
neighboring University of Pavia.
Volta, while admitting, with Galvani, that the muscular contractions
were caused by electricity, explained the origin of the electricity in a
wholly different way. According to Volta, the electricity originated not
in the animal, but in the contact of the dissimilar metals or other
materials used in the experiment. This difference of opinion led to one
of the most remarkable controversies in the history of science, and for
six years, until his death in 1798, Galvani was occupied in defending
his theory of animal electricity against the assaults of his
distinguished countryman.
This discussion created the liveliest interest throughout Europe. Every
scholar of science took sides with one or the other of these eminent
Italian philosophers, and the scientific world became divided into the
school of Galvani and the school of Volta. Yet, so far at least as the
fundamental experiment was concerned, both were wrong. The electricity
came neither from the body of the frog nor from the contact of
dissimilar kinds of matter, but was the result of chemical action, which
both had equally overlooked.
But, nevertheless, the controversy led to the most important results:
for Volta, while endeavoring to sustain his false theory by experimental
proofs, was led to the discovery of the Voltaic pile, or, as we now call
it, the Voltaic battery, an instrument whose influence on civilization
can be compared only with the printing-press and the steam-engine. Yet,
although the whole action of the battery was in direct contradiction to
his pet theory, still, to the last, Volta persistently defended the
erroneous doctrine he had espoused in his controversy with Galvani
thirty years before, and he died in 1827, without realizing how great a
boon he had been instrumental in conferring on mankind; so true it is
that Providence works out his bright designs even through the blindness
and mistakes of man.
But there is another lesson to be learned from this history, which can
not be too often rehearsed in this self-sufficient age, which boasts so
proudly of its practical wisdom. There were, doubtless, many practical
men in that city of Bologna to smile at their sage professor, who had
spent ten long years in studying, to little apparent purpose, the
twitchings of frogs' hind-legs, and there was many a jest among the
courtiers of Europe at the expense of the learned philosophers who
"wasted" so much time in discussing the cause of such trivial phenomena.
But how is it now?
Less than a century has passed since Galvani's death, and in a small hut
on the shores of Valentia Bay may be seen one of the most skillful of a
new class of practical men, representing a profession which owes its
origin to Galvani and Volta. The _electrician_ is watching a spot of
light on the scale of an instrument which is called a _galvanometer_.
Since the fathers fell asleep, the field of knowledge which they first
entered has spread out wider and wider before the untiring explorers who
have succeeded them. Oersted and Seebeck, Arago and Ampere, Faraday and
our own Henry, have made wonderful discoveries in that field; and other
great men, like Steinheil, Wheatstone, Morse, and Thomson, have invented
ingenious instruments and appliances, by which these discoveries might
be made to yield great practical results.
The spot of light, which the electrician is watching, is reflected from
one of the latest of these inventions, the reflecting galvanometer of
Thomson. He and his assistants had been watching by turns the same spot
for several days, since the Great Eastern had steamed from the bay,
paying out a cable of insulated wire. These electricians had no anxiety
as to the result, for daily signals had been exchanged between the ship
and the shore, as hundreds after hundreds of miles of this electrical
conductor had been laid on the bed of the broad ocean. The coast of
Newfoundland had already been reached, and they were only waiting for
the landing of the cable at the now far-distant end.
At length the light quivers, and the spot begins to move. It answers to
concerted signals. And soon the operator spells out the joyful message.
The ocean has been spanned with an electric nerve, and the New World
responds to the greetings of the Old.
Here is something practical, which all can appreciate, and all are ready
to honor. We honor the courage which conceived, the skill which
executed, and, above all, the success which crowned the undertaking. But
do we not forget that professor of Bologna, with his frogs' legs, who
sowed the seed from which all this has sprung? He labored without hope
of temporal reward, stimulated by the pure love of truth, and the grain
which he planted has brought forth this abundant harvest. Do we not
forget, also, that succession of equally noble men, Volta, and Oersted,
and Faraday, with many other not less devoted investigators of
electrical science, without whose unselfish labors the great result
never could have been achieved? Such men, of course, need no recognition
at our hands, and I ask the question not for their sakes, but for ours.
The intellectual elevation of the lives they led was their
all-sufficient reward.
It is, however, of the utmost importance for us, citizens of a country
with almost unlimited resources, that we should recognize what are the
real springs of true national greatness and enduring influence. In this
age of material interests, the hand is too ready to say to the head, "I
have no need of thee"; and, amid the ephemeral applause which follows
the realization of some triumph over matter, we are apt to be deceived,
and not observe whence the power came. We associate the great invention
with some man of affairs man who overcame the last material obstacle,
and who, although worthy of all praise, probably added very little to
the total wealth of knowledge of which the invention was an immediate
consequence; and, not seeing the antecedents, we are apt to underrate
the part which the student or scientific investigator may have
contributed to the result.
It is idle, for example, to speak of the electric telegraph as invented
by any single man. It was a growth of time, and many of the men who
contributed to win this great victory of mind over space "builded far
better than they knew." As I view the subject, that invention is as
much a gift of Providence as if the details had been supernaturally
revealed. But, whatever may be our speculative views, it is of the
utmost importance to the welfare of our community that we should realize
the fact that purely theoretical scientific study, pursued for truth's
sake, is the essential prerequisite for such inventions. Knowledge is
the condition of invention. The old Latin word _invenio_ signifies _to
meet with_, as well as to _find_, and these great gifts of God are _met
with_ along the pathway of civilization; but the throng of the world
passes them unnoticed, for only those can recognize the treasure whose
minds have been stored with the knowledge which the scholar has
discovered and made known.
If, then, as no one will deny, science and scholarship are the powers by
which improvements in the useful arts are made, I might appeal to your
self-interest to support and cherish them. But I should despise myself
for appealing to such a motive, and you for requiring it. The supreme
importance of science and scholarship to a nation does not depend in the
least on the circumstance that important practical results may follow.
When, as in the case of Galvani's frogs, they come in the order of
Providence, let us thank God for them as a gift which we had no right
either to expect or demand. Science, if studied successfully, must be
studied for the pure love of truth; and, if we serve her solely for
mercenary ends, her truths, the only gold she offers, will turn to dross
in our hands, and we shall degrade ourselves in proportion as we
dishonor her.
Galvani, and Volta, and Oersted, who discovered the truths of which the
electric telegraph is a simple application, sure to be made as soon as
the time was ripe, are not the less to be honored because they died
before the fullness of that time had come. We honor them for the truths
they discovered, and the lustre of their consecrated lives could be
neither enhanced nor impaired by subsequent events; and it is because I
am persuaded that such lives are the salt of the world, the saviours of
society, that I would lead you to cherish and sustain them; and, that I
may enforce this conclusion, allow me to ask your attention to another
historical incident, which presents a striking parallelism to the last.
I must take you back to a period which we, of a nation born but
yesterday, regard as distant, but which was one of the most noted epochs
of modern history--the age of Luther and the Reformation. I must ask you
to accompany me to the small town of Allenstein, near Frauenberg, in
Eastern Prussia, where, on May 23, 1543, there lay dying one of the
great benefactors of mankind.
This man, old at seventy years, "bent and furrowed with labor, but in
whose eye the fire of genius was still glowing," was then known as one
of the most learned men of his time. Doctor of medicine as well as of
theology, Canon of Frauenberg, Honorary Professor of Bologna and Rome,
while devoting his leisure to study, he had passed a life of active
benevolence in administering to the bodily as well as the spiritual
wants of the ignorant people among whom his lot had been cast. He was
also a great mechanical genius, and, by various labor-saving machines,
of his own invention, he had contributed greatly to the welfare of the
surrounding country.
But the superstitious peasants, although they had hitherto reverenced
the great man as their best friend and benefactor, had been recently
incited by his enemies and rivals in the church to curse him as a
heretic and a wizard. A few days back he had been the unwilling witness
of one of those out-of-door spectacles, so common at that time, in which
his scientific opinions had been travestied, his charities ridiculed,
and his devoted life made the object of slander and reproach. This
ingratitude of his flock had broken his heart, and he could not recover
from the blow.
The occasion of this outburst of fanaticism was the approaching
publication of a work in which he had dared to question the received
opinions of theologians and schoolmen, in regard to cosmogony. He had,
forsooth, denied that the visible firmament was a solid azure-colored
shell, to which the sun and planets were fastened, and through whose
opened doors the rain descended. He had proved that the sun was the
center of the system, around which the earth and planets revolved, and,
with his clear scientific vision, he had been able to gain glimpses, at
least, of the grand conceptions of modern astronomy: For this man was
Nicolas Copernicus, and the expected book was his great work--"De Orbium
Coelestium Revolutionibus"--destined to form the broad basis of
astronomical science.
The work was printing at Nuremberg, and the last proofs had been
returned; but reports had come that a similar outburst of fanaticism was
raging at that place, that a mob had burned the manuscript on the public
square, and had threatened to break the press should the printing
proceed. But, thanks to God! the old man was not to die before the hour
of triumph came. While still conscious, a horse, covered with foam,
gallops to the door of his humble dwelling, and an armed messenger
enters the chamber, who, breathless with haste, places in the hands of
the dying man a volume still wet from the press. He has only strength to
return a smile of recognition, and murmur the last words:
"Nunc dimittis servum tuum, Domine."
Grand close of a noble life! The seed has been sown--what could we
desire more?
Again the centuries roll on--not one, but three--while the seed grows to
a great tree, which overshadows the nations. Great minds have never been
wanting to cherish and prime it, like Tycho Brahe and Kepler, Galileo
and Newton, Laplace and Lagrange; and although at times some, while
lingering in the deep shade of the foliage, may have lost sight of the
summit, the noble tree has ever pointed upward to direct aspiration and
encourage hope.
On the evening of the 24th of September, 1846, in the Observatory of
Berlin, a trained astronomical observer was carefully measuring the
position of a faint star in the constellation Capricorn. Only the day
before, he had received from Le Verrier a letter announcing the result
of that remarkable investigation which has made the name of this
distinguished French astronomer so justly celebrated. By the studies of
the great men who succeeded Copernicus, his system had become so
perfected as to enable the astronomer to predict, with unerring
certainty, the paths of the planets through the heavens. But there was
one failing case. The planet Uranus, then supposed to be the outer
planet of the solar system, wandered from the path which theory assigned
to it; and although the deviations were but small, yet any discrepancy
between theory and observation in so accurate a science as astronomy
could not be overlooked.
Long before this, the hypothesis had been advanced that the deviations
were caused by the attractive force of an unseen and still more distant
planet; but, as no such planet had been discovered, the hypothesis had
remained until now wholly barren. The hypothesis, however, was
reasonable, and furnished the only conceivable explanation of the facts;
and, moreover, if true, the received system of astronomy ought to be
able to assign the position and magnitude of the disturbing body, the
magnitude and direction of the displacements being given.
This possibility was generally appreciated by astronomers, and the very
great length and difficulty of the mathematical calculation which the
investigation involved was probably the reason that no one had hitherto
undertaken it. Le Verrier, however, had both the courage and the
youthful strength required for the work. And now the great work had been
done; and, on the 18th of September, Le Verrier had sent to the
Observatory of Berlin his communication announcing the final result,
namely, that the planet would be found about 5 deg. to the east of the star
Delta of Capricorn.
The letter containing this announcement was received by Galle, at
Berlin, on the 23d, and it was Galle whom we left measuring the position
of that faint star on the evening of the 24th. It so happened that a
chart of that portion of the heavens had recently been prepared by the
Berlin Observatory, and was on the eve of publication; and, on the very
evening he received the letter, Galle had found, near the position
assigned by Le Verrier, a faint star, which was not marked on this
chart. The object differed in appearance from the surrounding stars, but
still it was perfectly possible that it might be a fixed star which had
escaped previous observation.
But, if a fixed star, its position in the constellation would not vary,
while, if a planet, a single night would show a perceptible change of
place. Hence, you may conceive of the interest with which Galle was
measuring anew its position on the evening of the 24th.
The star had moved, and in the direction which theory indicated; and for
once, at least, the world rang with applause at a brilliant scientific
conquest from which there was not one cent of money to be made. Yet, was
that conquest any less important to the world? What had it secured? It
had confirmed the theory of astronomy which Copernicus and his
successors had built up, and it had clinched the last nail in the proof
that those grand conceptions of modern astronomy, now household
thoughts, are realities, and not dreams. Certainly no military conquest
can compare with this.
Do not smile at the enthusiasm which rates so high a purely intellectual
achievement? Go out with me under the heavens, in some starlight night,
and, looking up into the depths of space, recall the truths you have
learned in regard to that immensity, and allow the imagination free
scope as it stretches out into the infinitudes of time, space, and
power, carrying the mind on, bound by bound, through the limitless
expanse, until even the imagination refuses to follow, and fairly quails
before the mighty form of the Infinite, which rises to confront it!
Remember now that your forefathers, of only a few centuries back, saw
there nothing but a solid dome hemming in the earth and skies, and that
you are able to look upon this grand spectacle only because great minds
have lived who have opened your intellectual eyes; and then answer me,
is not this result worth all the labor, all the sacrifice, all the
treasure it has cost?
Every educated man, who has not sold his birthright for a mess of
pottage, lives a grander and nobler life, because the great astronomers
have thought and taught, and this elevation of human life is the
greatest achievement of which man can boast. Before it all material
conquests appear of little worth, and the lustre of all military or
civil glory grows dim. Cherish this intellectual life; foster it;
sustain it; do what you can by your own spirit and influence, and, if
you are blessed with riches, give of your abundance to support and
encourage those who, by genius, talent, and devotion, will widen the
intellectual kingdom. Be assured you will thus help to confer an
inestimable boon on your race and on your country; and the influence for
good will not be felt by the intellectual life of the nation only. That
corruption which is now festering at the heart of our body politic, and
threatening its destruction, can in no way be fought and conquered so
effectually as by keeping constantly before the nation noble and high
ideals; for, where the higher life is cherished and honored, the
mercenary and sensual motives of action, which both invite and shield
corruption, lose much of their force and power.
But you may tell me that there is a life higher than the intellectual
life, and that I have ascribed to science and scholarship influences
which come only from a source which I have forgotten, or left out of
view. My friends, all truth is one and inseparable, and I have therefore
made no distinction in this address between the truths of science and
truths of religion. The grand old word knowledge, as I have used it,
includes both, and, in just the proportion that you reverence religion,
you must reverence also true science. All truth is God's truth, and, in
praying for the coming of his kingdom, you certainly do not expect that
Nature will be divorced from Grace. If the truths of religion required a
special revelation, it must be expected that they would transcend human
intelligence. These very conditions imply conflict, but the conflict
comes not from the knowledge, but from the ignorance and conceit of men;
and the only proper attitude for the devout scholar is "to labor and to
wait." And what more wonderful confirmation could we have of the
essential unity of the two phases of truth than is to be found in the
fact that the characteristic of science, which I have been endeavoring
to illustrate in this address, is the great prominent feature of
Christianity? Christianity was revealed in a life, and ever abides a
life in the soul of man, to purify, ennoble, and redeem humanity.
"And so the Word had breath, and wrought,
With human hands, the creed of creeds,
In loveliness of perfect deeds,
More strong than all poetic thought--
"Which he may read that binds the sheaf,
Or builds the house, or digs the grave,
And those wild eyes that watch the wave,
In roarings round the coral reef."