ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT SMITH.
Rev. Asa D. Smith, D.D., of New York city, of the class of 1830, was
elected the seventh president of the college. His thorough
understanding of the field upon which he was to enter is indicated by
the following extracts from his inaugural address:
"There are four chief organic forces, by which, under the providence
of God, humanity has its normal development. These, generalizing
broadly, are the family, the school, the State, and the Church.
Wherever you find, even in its lowest measure, a true civilization,
these exist; and as it rises they rise, sustaining to it the relation
both of cause and effect. Concerning, as they do, one and the same
complex nature, they have, in different degrees and combinations, the
same underlying elements of power. In the family, we have, in its
rudimental form, both teaching and government. It is a patriarchate--a
little commonwealth; and to its head--a priest as well as a
patriarch--that Scripture should ever be relevant, 'the church that is
in thy house.' In the school, the simplest offshoot, perhaps, from a
congeries of families, we have, or ought to have, the parental
element; we have magistracy also, and a certain statehood; we have, or
should have, worship. The state, properly apprehended, is not only
governmental but didactic--it is a teaching power; and though not, at
this age of the world, theocratic, it should be, in a large view,
religious. In the church, having specially and predominantly the
last-named characteristic,--being of divine appointment, and as
ministering to our imperative needs, the foster-mother of
devotion,--we have, also, as essential to its purpose, both rule and
instruction. And in the influence they wield, these great moulding
agencies are perpetually interpenetrating and modifying each other.
"It is of the second of these, the school, that we are now called to
speak. The service we essay is connected with an educational
institution, using the term in the specific sense; a fact, it may be
said at the outset, which of itself dignifies the occasion. Not to
insist on those affinities and mutual influences just adverted to, and
of which there will be further occasion to speak, there is a view of
education, a large and comprehensive one, which gives to it the very
grandest elevation. It is the end, next to that which the good old
Catechism makes chief, and subordinate to that, of all the divine
provisions and arrangements. God is the great Educator of the
universe. More glorious in his didactic offices is He than even in
creation; nay, creation was for these. Earth is our training
place--time is our curriculum; eternity will but furnish to the true
pupil the higher forms of his limitless advancement. We have our
lessons in all providence, in all beings and things, God teaching us
in and through all. No mean vocation, then, is that of the earthly
educator; no unimportant theme that now in hand. Yet even of the
school in the more technical sense of the term, we cannot speak at
large, except as in touching on any one department we more or less
affect every other. Our thought may be fitly limited to that class of
institutions which these ancient halls of learning and these
inauguration solemnities naturally bring before us. The college is my
subject, considered in its proper functions and characteristics.
"I use the term college in the American sense. This, not for the poor
purpose of ministering to national vanity, but because we must needs
take things as they are; and for the further reason that there is much
to commend in the shape the institution here assumes. It has hardly
its prototype either in the Fatherland or on the Continent. It has but
a partial resemblance either to the German Gymnasia or to the English
preparatory schools, as of Eton and Rugby. As preliminary to
professional study, it is in some respects far in advance of these. It
differs materially, at once from the German and English University,
and from the college as embraced in the latter. University education
in Europe was once somewhat rigidly divided into two portions; the one
designed to form the mind for whatever sphere of life; the other, the
_Brodstudium_, as the Germans significantly term it, a course of
training for some particular profession. Long ago, however, this
division became mainly obsolete. 'On the continent,' said an eminent
English scholar, some years since, 'the preparatory education has been
dropped; among ourselves, the professional.' He speaks, of course,
comparatively. So far as England is concerned, the same testimony is
borne by a well-informed recent observer. This ancient and wise
division is by us still maintained; with this peculiarity, that the
'preparatory' education, so-called,--by which is meant the highest
form of it,--is the sole work of the colleges. Professional culture is
remitted to other and often separate schools. The undergraduate course
is for general training; it lays the foundation for whatever
superstructure. It has no particular reference to any one pursuit;
but, like the first part of the old University course, aims to fit the
whole man for a man's work in any specific line either of study or of
action.
"In this conception of the college, there are, it is believed,
important advantages. It is better for preparatory education; it is
better for professional. It felicitously discriminates. It keeps
things in their place. It defines and duly magnifies each of the two
great departments of the educational process. It is likelier to dig
deep, and build on broad and solid rock; it tends to symmetry and
finish in the superincumbent fabric.
"The college should be marked by a completeness. Rejecting the
fragmentary and the unfinished, the well constituted mind ever craves
this. Modern thought, especially, is passing from an excessive
nominalism to a more realistic habit; by many a broad induction, from
mere details to a rounded whole: And nowhere more persistently than in
relation to institutions. The college should be complete as to its
objective scheme. There may be onesidedness here. There may be, for
example, an excessive or ill-directed pressing of utilities, as in the
speculations of Mr. Herbert Spencer; or there may be an undue
exaltation of what he calls 'the decorative element.' The theoretic
maybe too exclusively pursued; or there may be a practicalness which
has too little of theory, like a cone required to stand firm on its
apex. There should be completeness, also, as touching the subjective
aim. It should embrace, in a word, the whole man, and that not in his
Edenic aspects alone, but as a fallen being. You may not overlook even
the physical; the casket not merely, holding all the mental and moral
treasures--the frame-work rather, to which by subtile ties the
invisible machinery is linked, and which upholds it as it works. The
world has yet to learn fully how dependent is the inner upon the outer
man, and how greatly the highest achievements of scholarship are
facilitated by proper hygienic conditions. As you pass to the
intellectual, it matters little what classification you adopt, whether
with the author of the '_Novum Organum_,' in his 'Advancement of
Learning,' you resolve all the powers into those of memory,
imagination, and reason, or whether the minuter divisions of a more
recent philosophy are preferred; only be sure that not a single
faculty is overlooked or disparaged. Be it presentative, conservative,
reproductive, representative, elaborative, regulative, or whatever the
fine Hamiltonian analysis may suggest, give it its proper place and
its proper scope.
"The college should be distinctly and eminently Christian. Not in the
narrow, sectarian sense--that be far from us--but in the broadest
evangelical view. Our course of thought culminates here; and here does
all else that has been affirmed find its proper centre and unity.
Christianity is the great unity. In it, as was intimated at the
outset, are all the chief elements of organic influence. It is itself
the very acme of completeness, and it tends to all symmetry and
finish. It is at once conservative and progressive, balancing
perfectly the impelling and restraining forces; by a felicitous
adjustment of the centripetal and centrifugal, ensuring to human
nature its proper orbit. It is the golden girdle wherewith every
institution like this should bind her garments of strength and beauty
about her.
"Were it needful to argue this point, we might put it on the most
absolute grounds. All things are Christ's; all dominions, dignities,
potences; it is especially meet that we say, to-day, all institutions.
It is the grossest wrong practically to hold otherwise. It is loss,
too, and nowhere more palpably than in the educational sphere. It is
no cant saying to affirm, and that in a more than merely spiritual
sense, that in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge.' At his throne the lines of all science terminate; above
all, the science that has man for its subject. Of all history, for
example, rightly read, how is He the burden and the glory! Otherwise
taken, it is a more than Cretan labyrinth. The Christian spirit,
besides, raising the soul to the loftiest planes of thought, giving it
the highest communions, bringing before it the grandest objects, and
securing to all its machinery the most harmonious action, is eminently
conducive to intellectual achievement. We have already said something
like this as touching moral culture; but that, be it ever remembered,
takes its proper form and direction only as it is vitally linked with
Christianity. What God has joined together let not man put asunder.
Let the studies which we call moral, have all a Christian baptism;
and, with all our getting, let us not stop short of the cardinal
points of our most holy faith. Let the Will be still investigated, not
as a brute force, or in a merely intellectual light, but in those high
spiritual aspects in which our great New England metaphysician
delighted to present it. Let Butler, with his curious trestle-work of
analogy, bridge, to the forming mind, the chasm between natural and
revealed religion. Let the Christian Evidences be fully unfolded. We
can hardly dispense with them in an age, when by means of 'Westminster
Reviews,' and other subtle organs of infidelity, the old mode of
assault being abandoned, a sapping and mining process is continually
going forward. Let Ethical Science,--embracing in its wide sweep the
Economy of Private Life, the Philosophy of Government, and Law, which
'hath its seat in the bosom of God,'--be all bathed in the light of
Calvary. That light is its life. 'Let us with caution indulge the
supposition,' said the Father of our country, 'that morality can be
maintained without religion.' Let the Bible be included among our
text-books as the sun is included in the solar system; and let all the
rest revolve in planetary subjection about it. Let it be studied, not
in a professional, much less in a partisan way; but with the
conviction that it is indispensable to the broadest culture; that
without theology we have but a straitened anthropology; that we see
not nature aright, but as we look up through it to Nature's God. Be
ours, in its largest significance, the sentiment so devoutly uttered
by the old Hebrew bard: 'In Thy light shall we see light.' And let the
discipline of college, so intimately connected with its prosperity, be
fashioned on the model of the Gospel. Let it copy, in its way and
measure, the wondrous harmonies of the redemptive scheme, in which
'mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed
each other.' So shall it bless our halls with some faint reflection of
the Divine fatherhood, and give to our society some happy resemblance
to a Christian family."
A prominent feature of President Smith's administration was a greater
utilization of the libraries, and the opening of a reading-room. The
librarian says:
"The late Professor Alphaeus Crosby contributed considerably to the
increase of the classical books, and Hon. Nathan Crosby has recently
furnished the means for commencing a collection of the works of
Dartmouth alumni. It is intended to gather all books and pamphlets
which have been written by graduates. The collection will also include
matter relating to them and to the work of the college.
"In reviewing the history of the library their number is so great that
it is impossible to mention even a small part of the benefactors;
their best record is in the well filled shelves and the large amount
of reading done in connection with the studies of the college course.
"One of the departments of the library consists of the books given by
the late General Sylvanus Thayer, founder of the school of
engineering, numbering 2,000 volumes.
"Early in its history the members of the Chandler Scientific
Department founded the 'Philotechnic Society,' the library of which,
together with some books belonging to the department, contains 1,700
volumes.
"The three society libraries continued under separate management until
1874, although the societies, as far as literary work is concerned,
had for some time given way to the secret societies, and the interest
in them was so slight that only with great difficulty could a quorum
be obtained for ordinary business. During that year an arrangement was
made by which the three society libraries were placed under the same
management as the library of the college, the latter receiving the
society taxes which were slightly reduced, assuming all expenses
including the support of the reading-room, and providing for the
increase of the library by books to be annually selected by the Senior
class. Under this arrangement the different libraries have been
brought together and considered as departments of one, the hours for
drawing and consulting books have been increased from three hours per
week in the society libraries and six in the college, to twenty-one
hours per week, and in many respects the facilities for use have been
greatly increased. Since 1870, the yearly additions for all the
libraries have averaged 700 volumes, and they at present contain
exclusive of pamphlets about 45,000 volumes, besides nearly 5,000
books which are either duplicates or worthless. These figures are
independent of the Astronomical library located at the Observatory,
the library of the 'Society of Inquiry,' and of the libraries of the
Medical and Agricultural departments, which will probably be connected
with the main library. The library as it is now constituted is well
adapted to the work of the college, and is especially so in some of
the departments of instruction, in connection with which a large
amount of reading is done. There are in use at present three printed
catalogues: one of the college library, printed in 1868; one of the
'Social Friends' library, dated 1859; and one of the 'United
Fraternity' library, issued in 1861. These are supplemented by a card
catalogue arranged under title, author, and subject."
The "Centennial" celebration of the founding of the college, at the
Commencement of 1869, was a season of rare interest and profit to the
very large number of alumni and friends of the college assembled from
nearly every quarter of the globe.
The following is the substance of the address of Chief Justice Chase,
who presided on the occasion, as given by Mr. William H. Duncan:
"He began by alluding to the fact that the college received its
charter from 'our right trusty and well beloved John Wentworth,
Governor of the Province of New Hampshire,' and said that the
venerable name was 'borne, to-day, by an honored citizen of
Illinois,[36] who, like his ancestor, towered head and shoulders above
his fellow men. He also happily referred to the descendants of the
other founders of the college. 'When the college was organized the
third George was heir to the British throne. Under the great Empress
Catherine, Russia was prosecuting that career of aggrandizement then
begun which is even now menacing British empire in the East. Under the
fifteenth Louis, in France, that wonderful literary movement was in
progress, which prepared a sympathetic enthusiasm for liberty in
America, at length overthrowing, for a time, monarchy in France. China
and Japan were wholly outside the modern community of nations. A
hundred years have passed, and what a new order has arisen! Great
Britain has lost an empire, has gained other empires in Asia and
Australia, and extends her dominion around the globe. France, so great
in arts and arms, has seen an empire rise and fall and another empire
arise, in which a wise and skillful ruler is seeking to reconcile
personal supremacy with democratic ideas. Russia, our old friend,
seems to withdraw, for the present, at least, her eager gaze from
Constantinople and seeks to establish herself on the Pacific Ocean and
in Central Asia. China sends one of our own citizens, Mr. Burlingame,
on an embassy throughout the world to establish peaceful, commercial,
and industrial relations with all the civilized nations. Japan, too,
awakes to the necessity of a more liberal policy, and looks toward a
partnership in modern civilization. Who, seeing this, and reflecting
on the manifold agencies at work in the old world and the prodigious
movements in the new, which I cannot even glance at, can help
exclaiming, in the language of the first telegraphic message which was
sent to America, 'What hath God wrought?' How great a part has this
college, antedating the Republic, played in all the enterprises of
America! It has been well said of it that three quarters of the globe
know the graduates of Dartmouth. Every State in the Union, certainly,
is familiar with their names and their works, and the influence which
they exert is the influence of this college. What an insignificant
beginning was that which has been described, to-day;--what splendid
progress! How great the present, and who can predict the future?
Ninety-eight classes of young men have already gone forth from this
institution. Who can measure the religious, the moral, the
intellectual, the political influence, which they have exerted? Great
names like Webster and Choate rise at once to memory, but I refer more
particularly to the mighty influence exerted by the vast numbers,
unrecognized upon the theatre of national reputation, which the
college has sent into all the spheres of activity and duty. When I
think of the vast momentum for good which has originated here, and is
now in unchecked progress, and must extend beyond all the limits of
conception, I cannot help feeling that it is a great and precious
privilege to be in some way identified as a member of this college. It
does not diminish my satisfaction that other graduates of other
American colleges can say the same thing. It rather increases the
satisfaction. Glad and thankful that my name is in the list of those
who have been educated here, and have endeavored to do something for
their country and their kind, I rejoice that, under our beneficent
institutions, legions of Americans have the same or greater cause for
gladness.'
[36] Hon. John Wentworth, LL. D.
"After some remarks to the graduating class, the Chief Justice said:
'And let me add, my brethren of the alumni, a practical word to you.
We celebrate to-day the founding of our college. We come hither to
testify our veneration and our affection for our benign Alma Mater. We
can hardly think she is a hundred years old, she looks so fresh and so
fair. We are sure that many, many blessed days are before her, but a
mother's days are made happy and delightful by the love and
faithfulness of her children. Much has been done for this institution,
recently, much which makes our hearts glad. The names of the
benefactors of the institution, mentioned here to-day, dwell freshly
in the hearts of every graduate, and will live forever; but let us
remember, that while much has been done, much also remains to be done.
I do not appeal to you for charity. I wish that every graduate may
feel that the college is, in a most true and noble sense, his mother,
and to remind you of your filial obligations.'"
Addresses having been made by Hon. Ira Perley, LL. D., Hon. Daniel
Clark, and Richard B. Kimball, Esq., Mr. Duncan says:
"Judge Chase called upon Judge Barrett, Vice President of the
Association of the Alumni, to read a poem, which had been furnished
for the occasion by George Kent, Esq., of the Class of 1814. He had
read but a few stanzas when the rumbling of distant thunder was heard.
Then came a few scattering drops of water pattering upon the roof of
the tent, but soon the winds blew, and the rain descended and fell
upon the roof, as if the very windows of heaven had been opened. There
followed such a scene as no tongue, nor pen, nor pencil can
describe,--it baffles all description. Judge Barrett, with the true
pluck of an Ethan Allen, stood by his colors, and the more the wind
blew and the storm raged, the louder he read his poetry. But he was
obliged at length to cease, and with his slouched hat and dripping
garments left the stage.
"But he was not alone in his misery. The manly and stately form of the
Chief Justice, the president of the college, reverend doctors of
divinity, were all in the same condition--they all stood drenched and
dripping, like fountains, in the rain. Even General Sherman had to
succumb, once in his life, and seek the protection of an umbrella.
Some huddled under umbrellas, some held benches over their heads, and
some crept beneath the platform.
"The storm passed over, and Judge Barrett came forward and finished
reading the poem.
"Hon. James W. Patterson, of the Class of 1848, was then called upon,
and spoke with force and eloquence, receiving the greatest compliment
that could be paid him,--the undivided attention of the audience."
Addresses were also made by Dr. Jabez B. Upham, Samuel H. Taylor, LL.
D., Rev. Samuel C. Bartlett, D.D., and others.
We quote some of the closing passages of the "Historical Address" by
President Brown, of Hamilton College.
"There is not much time to speak of the general policy of the
college through these hundred years of its life, but I may say in
brief, that it has been sound and earnest, conservative and
aggressive at the same time. As the motto on its seal,--_vox clamantis
in deserto_,--indicated and expressed the religious purpose of its
founders, so this purpose has never been lost sight of. Through
lustrum after lustrum, and generation after generation, while classes
have succeeded classes, while one corps of instructors have passed
away and others have taken their places, this high purpose of
presenting and enforcing the vital and essential truths of the
Christian religion, has never been forgotten or neglected. The power
of Christianity in modifying, inspiring, and directing the energies of
modern civilization,--its art, its literature, its commerce, its laws,
its government, has been profoundly felt. Nor has it for a moment been
forgotten that education, to be truly and in the largest degree
beneficent, must also be religious,--must affect that which is deepest
in man,--must lead him, if it can, to the contemplation of truths most
personal, central, and essential, must open to him some of those
depths where the soul swings almost helplessly in the midst of
experiences and powers unfathomable and infinite,--where the intellect
falters and hesitates and finds no solution of its perplexities till
it yields to faith. Within later years there have been those who have
advocated the doctrine that education should be entirely
secular,--that the college should have nothing to do with religious
counsels or advice. Now while I do not think that this would be easy,
as our colleges are organized, without leaving or even inciting the
mind to dangerous skepticism, nor possible but by omitting the most
powerful means of moral and intellectual discipline, nor without
depriving the soul of that food which it specially craves, and
destitute of which it will grow lean, hungry, and unsatisfied,--as a
matter of history, no such theory of education has found favorable
response among the guardians of Dartmouth. At the same time while the
general religious character of the college has been well ascertained
and widely recognized, while the great truths of our common
Christianity have been fully and frankly and earnestly brought to the
notice of intelligent and inquiring minds, it has not been with a
narrow, illiberal, and proselyting spirit, not so as rudely to violate
traditionary beliefs, not so as to wound and repel any sincere and
truth loving mind. And this is the consistent and sound position for
the college to hold.
"With respect to its curriculum of studies the position of the college
has been equally wise. She has endeavored to make her course as broad,
generous, and thorough as possible; equal to the best in the land; so
that her students could feel that no privilege has been denied them
which any means at her disposal could provide. She has endeavored
wisely to apportion the elements of instruction and discipline. She
has provided as liberally as possible, by libraries, apparatus,
laboratories, and cabinets for increase in positive knowledge. She has
equally insisted on those exact studies which compel subtleness and
precision of thought, which habituate the mind to long trains of
controlled reasoning, which discipline alike the attention and the
will, the conservative and the elaborative powers. She has given full
honor to the masterpieces of human language and human thought, through
which, while we come to a more complete knowledge of peoples and
nations, of poetry and eloquence, we feel more profoundly the life of
history, and comprehend the changes of custom and thought, while the
finer and more subtle powers of fancy and imagination stir within the
sensitive mind, and gradually by constant and imperceptible
inspiration lift the soul to regions of larger beauty and freedom.
"So may she ever hold on her way, undeluded by specious promises of
easier methods, inuring her students to toil as the price of success;
not rigid and motionless, but plastic and adapting herself to the
necessities of different minds; yet never confounding things that
differ, nor vainly hoping on a narrow basis of culture to rear the
superstructure of the broadest attainment and character, but ever
determined to make her instructions the most truly liberal and noble.
"With no purpose of personal advantage, but with the deepest filial
love and gratitude have we assembled this day. Of all professions and
callings, from many States, from public business and from engrossing
private pursuits,--you, my young friend who have just come, with
hesitation and ingenuous fear, to add your name if you may, to the
honored rolls of the college, and you Sir,[37] whose memory runs back
to the beginning of the century, the oldest or nearly the oldest
living alumnus of the college, the contemporary of Chapman and Harvey,
and Fletcher, and Parris, and Weston, and Webster,--you who came from
beyond the 'Father of Waters,' and you who have retreated for a moment
from the shore of the dark Atlantic--you Sir,[38] our brother by
hearty and affectionate adoption, who led our armies in that memorable
march from the mountain to the sea, which shall be remembered as long
as the march of the Ten Thousand, and repeated in story and song as
long as history and romance shall be written, and you, Sir, who hold
the even scales of justice in that august tribunal, from which
Marshall proclaimed the law which insured to us our ancient name and
rights and privileges, unchanged, untarnished, unharmed,--all of us,
my brothers, with one purpose have come up to lay our trophies at the
feet of our common mother, to deck her with fresh garlands, to rejoice
in her prosperity, and to promise her our perpetual homage and love.
Let no word of ours ever give her pain or sorrow. Loyal to our heart
of hearts, may we minister so far as we can, to her wants, may we be
jealous of her honor, and solicitous for her prosperity. May no
ruthless hand ever hereafter be lifted against her. May no unholy
jealousies rend the fair fabric of her seamless garment. May no narrow
or unworthy spirit mar the harmony of her wise counsels. May she stand
to the end as she ever has stood, for the Church and State, a glory
and a defense. And above all and in order to all, may the spirit of
God in full measure rest upon her; 'the spirit of wisdom and
understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of
knowledge and of the fear of the Lord.'"
[37] Job Lyman, Esq., of the class of 1804.
[38] General Sherman received the highest honorary degree of the
college in 1866.
President Smith, whose character was a rare union of energy and
gentleness, was pre-eminently a man of affairs.
The results of his untiring efforts to promote the welfare of the
college, in various directions, will be more fully developed upon
subsequent pages. Having performed valuable service for thirteen
years, he resigned his office, on account of failing health, March 1,
1877, and died on the sixteenth of August following, his wife, Mrs.
Sarah Ann (Adams) Smith, surviving him.