the landing of the pilgrims. Mr. Peirce, the historian of the
University, writes: "Upon this novel and auspicious occasion, the
venerable fathers of the land, the governor, magistrates, and ministers
from all parts, with others in great numbers, repaired to Cambridge, and
attended with delight to refined displays of European learning, on a
spot which but just before was the abode of savages. It was a day which
on many accounts must have been singularly interesting." In attending
the commencement of 1835 I felt that I was present at an antique
ceremonial.
We had so arranged our movements as to arrive at Cambridge just in time
for the celebration, which always takes place on the last Wednesday in
August. We were the guests of the Natural Philosophy professor and his
lady, and we arrived at their house before noon on Monday the 24th. Next
to the hearty greeting we received came the pleasure of taking
possession of my apartment, it looked so full of luxury. Besides the
comfort of complete furniture of the English kind, and a pretty view
from the windows, there was a table covered with books and flowers, and
on it a programme of the engagements of the week. On looking at the
books I found among them a History and some Reports of the University;
so that it was my own fault if I plunged into the business of the week
without knowing the whence and the wherefore of its observances.
The aspect of Cambridge is charming. The college buildings have no
beauty to boast of, it is true; but the professors' houses, dropped
around, each in its garden, give an aristocratic air to the place, which
I saw in no other place of the size, and which has the grace of novelty.
The greensward, the white palings, and the gravel-walks are all well
kept, and nowhere is the New-England elm more flourishing. The noble old
elm under which Washington first drew his sword spreads a wide shade
over the ground.
After refreshing ourselves with lemonade we set out for the Botanic
Garden, which is very prettily situated and well taken care of. Here I
saw for the first time red water-lilies. None are so beautiful to my
eyes as the white; but the red mix in well with these and the yellow in
a large pond. There were some splendid South American plants; but the
head gardener seemed more proud of his dahlias than of any other
individual of his charge. From a small cottage on the terrace at the
upper end of the garden came forth Mr. Sparks, the editor of
Washington's Correspondence. While engaged in his great work, he lives
in this delightful spot. He took me into his study, and showed me his
parchment-bound collection of Washington's papers, so fearful in amount
that I almost wondered at the intrepidity of any editor who could
undertake to go through them. When one looks at the shelf above shelf of
thick folio volumes, it seems as if Washington could have done nothing
but write all his life. I believe Mr. Sparks has now finished his
arduous task, and given to the world the last of his twelve ample
volumes. It is interesting to know that he received orders for the book
from the remotest corners of the Union. A friend writes to me, "Two
hundred copies have recently gone to the Red River; and in Georgia,
South Carolina, and Alabama, the work is generously patronised. Can the
dead letter of such a man's mind be scattered through the land without
carrying with it something of his spirit?"
From the Botanic Garden we proceeded to the College, where we visited a
student's room or two, the Museum, our host's lecture-room and
apparatus, and the library.
The Harvard library was, in 1764, destroyed by fire (as everything in
America seems to be, sooner or later). The immediate occasion of the
disaster was the General Court having sat in the library, and (it being
the month of January) had a large fire lighted there. One of the most
munificent contributors to the lost library was the benevolent Thomas
Hollis. He afterward assisted to repair the loss, writing, "I am
preparing and going on with my mite to Harvard College, and lament the
loss it has suffered exceedingly; but hope a public library will no more
be turned into a council room." On this occasion there was a great
mourning. The governor sent a message of condolence to the
representatives; the newspapers bewailed it as a "ruinous loss;" and the
mother-country and the colonies were stirred up to repair the mischief.
Yet now, when the library consists of 40,000 volumes, some of them
precious treasures, there seems as much carelessness as ever about fire.
This is vehemently complained of on the spot, one honest reviewer
declaring that he cannot sleep on windy nights for thinking of the risk
arising from the library being within six feet of a building where
thirty fires are burning, day and night, under the care of students
only, who are required by their avocations to be absent three times a
day. It is to be wished that the Cambridge scholars would take warning
by the fate of the statue of Washington by Canova. This statue was the
property of the State of North Carolina, and was deposited at Raleigh,
the ornament and glory of that poor state. A citizen expressed his
uneasiness at such a work of art being housed under a roof of wood, and
urged that a stone chapel should be built for it. He was only laughed
at. Not long after the statue was utterly destroyed by fire, and there
was a general repentance that the citizen's advice had not been attended
to.
Thomas Hollis was the donor of a fine Polyglott Bible which I saw in the
library, inscribed with his hand, he describing himself a "citizen of
the world." With his contributions made before the fire he had taken
great pains, lavishing his care, first on the selection of the books,
which were of great value, and next on their bindings. He had
emblematical devices cut, such as the Caduceus of Mercury, the Wand of
Æsculapius, the Owl, the Cap of Liberty, &c.; and, when a work was
patriotic in its character, it had the cap of liberty on the back; when
the book was of solid wisdom (I suppose on philosophy or morals), there
was the owl; when on eloquence, the caduceus; when on medicine, the
Æsculapian wand, and so forth. All this ingenuity is lost except in
tradition. Five-and-thirty years ago, Fisher Ames observed that Gibbon
could not have written his history at Cambridge for want of works of
reference. The library then consisted of less than 20,000 volumes. Seven
years ago there was no copy of Kepler's Works in the library. Much has
been done since that time. The most obvious deficiencies have been
supplied, and the number of volumes has risen to upward of 40,000. There
is great zeal on the spot for a further enlargement of this treasure;
and the prevailing opinion is, that whenever a proper building is
erected, the munificence of individuals will leave nothing to be
complained of and little to be desired. The names of donors of books are
painted up in the alcoves of the library, but the books are now assorted
by their subjects. There are portraits of some of the patrons of the
institution, two of which, by Copley, are good.
The rest of our first day at Cambridge was spent in society. This was
the first time of my meeting Professor Norton, who, of all the
theologians of America, impressed me, as I believe he has impressed the
Unitarians of England generally, and certain other theologians, with the
most respect. In reach of mind, in reasoning power, in deep devotional
feeling, and, according to the universal testimony of better judges than
myself, in biblical learning, he has no superior among the American
divines, and, in some of these respects, no peer. He is regarded with
grateful veneration by the worthiest of his pupils for the invaluable
guidance he afforded them, while professor, in their biblical studies;
though they cannot but grieve that his philosophical prejudices, and his
extreme dread and dislike of opposition to his own opinions, should
betray him into a tone of arrogance, and excite in him a spirit of
persecution, which, but for ages of proof to the contrary, would seem to
be incompatible with so large a knowledge, and so humble and genuine a
faith as his. His being duly reverenced is the reason of his having been
hitherto unduly feared. His services to theological science and to
religion are gratefully appreciated; and, naturally, more weight has, at
least till lately, been allowed to his opinions of persons and affairs
than should ever be accorded to those of a man among men. But this is a
temporary disadvantage. When the friends of free inquiry and the
champions of equal intellectual rights have gone on a little longer in
the assertion of their liberty, Professor Norton's peculiarities will
have lost their power to injure, and his great qualities,
accomplishments, and services will receive a more ready and unmixed
homage than ever.
On the Tuesday several friends arrived to breakfast; and we filled up
the morning with visiting the admirably-conducted Lunatic Asylum at
Charlestown, and with a drive to Fresh Pond, one of the pretty meres
which abound in Massachusetts. We dined at the house of another
professor close at hand. The house was full in every corner with family
connexions arrived for commencement. I remember there were eleven
children in the house. We were a cheerful party at the long
dinner-table, and a host of guests filled the rooms in the evening. The
ladies sat out on the piazza in the afternoon, and saw the smoke of a
fire far off. Presently the firebells rang, and the smoke and glow
increased; and by dark it was a tremendous sight. It was the great
Charlestown fire which burned sixty houses. Some of us mounted to the
garrets, whence we could see a whole street burning on both sides,
stack after stack of chimneys falling into the flames. It is thought
that the frequency of fires in America is owing partly to the practice
of carrying woodashes from room to room; perhaps from general
carelessness about woodashes; and partly to the houses being too hastily
built, so that cracks ensue, sometimes in the chimneys, and beams are
exposed.
The important morning rose dark and dull, and soon deepened into rain.
It was rather vexatious that, in a region where, at this time of year,
one may, except in the valleys, put by one's umbrella for three or four
months, this particular morning should be a rainy one. Friend after
friend drove up to the house, popped in, shook hands, and popped out
again, till an hour after breakfast, when it was time to be setting out
for the church. I was fortunate enough to be placed in a projecting seat
at a corner of the gallery, over a flank of the platform, where I saw
everything and heard most of the exercises. The church is large, and was
completely filled. The galleries and half the area were crowded with
ladies, all gayly dressed; some without either cap or bonnet, which had
a singular effect. We were sufficiently amused with observing the
varieties of countenance and costume which are congregated on such
occasions, and in recognising old acquaintances from distant places till
ten o'clock, when music was heard, the bar was taken down from the
centre door of the church, and students and strangers poured in at the
side-entrances, immediately filling all the unoccupied pews. A student
from Maryland was marshal, and he ushered in the president, and attended
him up the middle aisle and the steps of the platform. The governor of
the state and his aids, the corporation and officers of the college, and
several distinguished visiters, took their seats on either hand of the
president. The venerable head of Dr. Bowditch was seen on the one side,
and Judge Story's animated countenance on the other. The most eminent of
the Unitarian clergy of Massachusetts were there, and some of its
leading politicians. Mr. Webster stole in from behind when the
proceedings were half over, and retired before they were finished. A
great variety of exercises were gone through by the young men: orations
were delivered, and poems, and dialogues, and addresses. Some of these
appeared to me to have a good deal of merit; two or three were delivered
by students who relied on their reputation at college, with a manner
mixed up of pomposity and effrontery, which contrasted amusingly with
the modesty of some of their companions, who did things much more worthy
of honour. I discovered that many, if not most of the compositions,
contained allusions to mob-law; of course, reprobating it. This was very
satisfactory, particularly if the reprobation was accompanied with a
knowledge of the causes and a recognition of the real perpetrators of
the recent illegal violences; a knowledge that they have invariably
sprung out of a conflict of selfish interests with eternal principles;
and a recognition that their perpetrators have universally been, at
first or second hand, aristocratic members of American society.
The exercises were relieved by music four times during the morning; and
then everybody talked, and many changed places, and the intervals were
made as refreshing as possible. Yet the routine must be wearisome to
persons who are compelled to attend it every year. From my high seat I
looked down upon the top of a friend's head--one of the reverend
professors--and was amused by watching the progress of his _ennui_. It
would not do for a professor to look wearied or careless; so my friend
had recourse to an occupation which gave him a sufficiently sage air
while furnishing him with entertainment. He covered his copy of the
programme with an infinite number of drawings. I saw stars,
laurel-sprigs, and a variety of other pretty devices gradually spreading
over the paper as the hours rolled on. I tried afterward to persuade him
to give me his handiwork as a memorial of commencement, but he would
not. At length, a clever valedictory address in Latin, drolly delivered
by a departing student, caused the large church to re-echo with laughter
and applause.
The president then got into the antique chair from which the honours of
the University are dispensed, and delivered their diplomas to the
students. During this process we departed, at half past four o'clock,
the business being concluded except the final blessing, given by the
oldest clerical professor.
At home we assembled, a party of ladies, without any gentlemen. The
gentlemen were all to dine in the College-hall. Our hostess had happened
to collect round her table a company of ladies more or less
distinguished in literature, and all, on the present occasion at least,
as merry as children; or, which is saying as much, as merry as
Americans usually are. We had, therefore, a pleasant dining enough,
during which one of these clever ladies agreed to go with us to the
White Mountains on our return from Dr. Channing's in Rhode Island. It
was just the kind of day for planning enterprises.
After dinner several of the gentlemen came in to tell us what had been
done and said at the hall. Their departure was a signal that it was time
to be dressing for the president's levee. It was the most tremendous
squeeze I encountered in America, for it is an indispensable civility to
the president and the University to be seen at the levee. The band which
had refreshed us in the morning was playing in the hall, and in the
drawing-rooms there was a splendid choice of good company. I believe
almost every eminent person in the state, for official rank or
scientific and literary accomplishment, was there. I was presented with
flowers as usual, and was favoured with some delightful introductions,
so that I much enjoyed the brief hour of our stay. We were home by eight
o'clock, and felt ourselves quite at rest again in our hostess's cool
drawing-room, where the family party sat refreshing themselves with
Champagne and conversation till the fatigues of commencement were
forgotten. My curiosity had been so roused by the spectacles of this
showy day, that I could not go to rest till I had run over the history
of the University which lay on my table. On such occasions I found it
best to defer till the early morning the making notes of what I had
seen. Many things which appear confused when looked at so near are, like
the objects of the external world, bright and distinct at sunrise; but,
then, the journal should be written before the events of a new day
begin.
Mr. Sparks breakfasted with us on the morning of the 27th. He brought
with him the pass given by Arnold to André, and the papers found in
André's boots. He possesses also the Reports of the West Point
fortifications in Arnold's undisguised handwriting. The effect is
singular of going from André's monument in Westminster Abbey to the
shores of the Hudson, where the treachery was transacted, and to Mr.
Sparks's study, where the evidence lies clear and complete.
After breakfast we proceeded once more to the church, in which were to
be performed the rites of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. This society
consists of the élite of the scholars who owe their education to
Harvard, and of distinguished professional men. Its general object is to
keep alive the spirit, and perpetuate the history of scholarship. Every
member is understood to owe his election to some evidence of distinction
in letters, though the number of members is so great as to prove that no
such supposition has become a rule. The society holds an annual
celebration in Cambridge the day after commencement, when public
exercises take place in the church, and the members dine together in the
College-hall.
We saw the society march in to music, and take possession of the
platform as on the preceding day. They were, on the whole, a
fine-looking set of men, and interesting to a stranger as being the
élite of the lettered society of the republic. A traveller could not be
expected to understand why they were so numerous, nor what were the
claims of the greater number.
Prayers were said by the chaplain of the society, and then a member
delivered an address. This address was and is to me a matter of great
surprise. I do not know what was thought of it by the members generally;
but if its doctrine and sentiments are at all sanctioned by them, I must
regard this as another evidence, in addition to many, that the minority
in America are, with regard to social principles, eminently in the
wrong. The traveller is met everywhere among the aristocracy of the
country with what seems to him the error of concluding that letters are
wisdom, and that scholarship is education. Among a people whose
profession is social equality, and whose rule of association is
universal self-government, he is surprised to behold the assumptions of
a class, and the contempt which the few express for the many, with as
much assurance as if they lived in Russia or England. Much of this is
doubtless owing to the minds of the lettered class having been nourished
upon the literature of the Old World, so that their ideas have grown
into a conformity with those of the subjects of feudal institutions, and
the least strong-minded and original indiscriminately adopt, not merely
the language, but the hopes and apprehensions, the notions of good and
evil which have been generated amid the antiquated arrangements of
European society; but, making allowance for this, as quite to be
expected of all but very strong and original minds, it is still
surprising that, within the bounds of the republic, the insolence should
be so very complacent, the contempt of the majority so ludicrously
decisive as it is. Self-satisfied, oracular ignorance and error are
always as absurd as they are mournful; but when they are seen in full
display among a body whose very ground of association is superiority of
knowledge and of the love of it, the inconsistency affords a most
striking lesson to the observer. Of course I am not passing a general
censure on the association now under notice; for I know no more of it
than what I could learn from the public exercises of this day, and a few
printed addresses and poems. I am speaking of the tone and doctrine of
the orator of the day, who might be no faithful organ of the society,
but whose ways of thinking and expressing himself were but too like
those of many literary and professional men whom I met in New-England
society.
The subject of the address was the "Duties of Educated men in a
Republic;" a noble subject, of which the orator seemed to be aware at
the beginning of his exercise. He well explained that whereas, in all
the nominal republics of the Old World, men had still been under
subjection to arbitrary human will, the new republic was established on
the principle that men might live in allegiance to truth under the form
of law. He told that the primary social duty of educated men was to
enlighten public sentiment as to what truth is, and what law ought,
therefore, to be. But here he diverged into a set of monstrous
suppositions, expressed or assumed: that men of letters are the educated
men of society in regard not only to literature and speculative truth,
but to morals, politics, and the conduct of all social affairs; that
power and property were made to go eternally together; that the "masses"
are ignorant; that the ignorant masses naturally form a party against
the enlightened few; that the masses desire to wrest power from the
wealthy few; that, therefore, the masses wage war against property; that
industry is to be the possession of the many, and property of the few;
that the masses naturally desire to make the right instead of to find
it; that they are, consequently, opposed to law; and that a struggle was
impending in which the whole power of mind must be arrayed against brute
force. This extraordinary collection of fallacies was not given in the
form of an array of propositions, but they were all taken for granted
when not announced. The orator made large reference to recent outrages
in the country; but, happily for the truth and for the reputation of
"the masses," the facts of the year supplied as complete a contradiction
as could be desired to the orator of the hour. The violences were not
perpetrated by industry against property, but by property against
principle. The violators of law were, almost without an exception,
members of the wealthy and "educated" class, while the victorious
upholders of the law were the "industrious" masses. The rapid series of
victories since gained by principle over the opposition of property, and
without injury to property--holy and harmless victories--the failure of
the law-breakers in all their objects, and their virtual surrender to
the sense and principle of the majority, are sufficient, one would hope,
to enlighten the "enlightened;" to indicate to the lettered class of
American society, that while it is truly their duty to extend all the
benefits of education which it is in their power to dispense to "the
masses," it is highly necessary that the benefit should be reciprocated,
and that the few should be also receiving an education from the many.
There are a thousand mechanics' shops, a thousand loghouses where
certain members of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the orator of the day for
one, might learn new and useful lessons on morals and politics, on the
first principles of human relations.
I have had the pleasure of seeing the address delivered before the Phi
Beta Kappa Society at its last celebration, an address differing most
honourably from the one I was present at. The address of last August was
by Mr. R. Waldo Emerson, a name which is a sufficient warrant on the
spot for the absence from his production of all aristocratic insolence,
all contempt of man or men, in any form and under any combination. His
address breathes a truly philosophical reverence for humanity, and
exhibits an elevated conception of what are the right aims and the
reasonable discipline of the mind of a scholar and thinker. Whatever the
reader may conclude as to the philosophical doctrine of the address and
the mode in which it is conveyed--whether he accuse it of mysticism or
hail it as insight--he cannot but be touched by the spirit of
devotedness, and roused by the tone of moral independence which breathe
through the whole. The society may be considered as having amply atoned,
by this last address, for the insult rendered by its organ (however
unconsciously) to republican morals by that of 1835.