President Eliot next delivered a Congratulatory Address in which he
said:
"The oldest University of the country cordially greets the youngest, and
welcomes a worthy ally--an ally strong in material resources and in high
purpose.
"I congratulate you, gentlemen, Trustees of the Johns Hopkins
University, upon the noble work which is before you. A great property,
an important part of the fruit of a long life devoted with energy and
sagacity to the accumulation of riches, has been placed in your hands,
upon conditions as magnanimous as they are wise, to be used for the
public benefit in providing for coming generations the precious means of
liberal culture. Your Board has great powers. It must hold and manage
the property of the University, make all appointments, fix all salaries,
and, while leaving both legislative and administrative details to the
several faculties which it will create, it must also prescribe the
general laws of the University. Your cares and labor will grow heavy as
time goes on; but in accordance with an admirable usage, fortunately
established in this country, you will serve without other compensation
than the public consideration which will justly attach to your office,
and the happy sense of being useful. The actuating spirit of your Board
will be a spirit of scrupulous fidelity to every trust reposed in you,
and of untiring zeal in promoting the welfare of the University and the
advancement of learning. Judged by its disinterestedness, its
beneficence and its permanence, your function is as pure and high as any
that the world knows, or in all time has known. May the work which you
do in the discharge of your sacred trust be regarded with sympathetic
and expectant forbearance by the present generation, and with admiration
and gratitude by posterity.
"The University which is to take its rise in the splendid benefaction of
Johns Hopkins must be unsectarian. None other could as appropriately be
established in the city named for the Catholic founder of a colony to
which all Christian sects were welcomed, or in the State in which
religious toleration was expressly declared in the name of the
Government for the first time in the history of the Christian world.
There is a too common opinion that a college or university which is not
denominational must therefore be irreligious; but the absence of
sectarian control should not be confounded with lack of piety. A
university whose officers and students are divided among many sects
need no more be irreverent and irreligious than the community which in
respect to diversity of creeds it resembles. It would be a fearful
portent if thorough study of nature and of man in all his attributes and
works, such as befits a university, led scholars to impiety. But it does
not; on the contrary, such study fills men with humility and awe, by
bringing them on every hand face to face with inscrutable mystery and
infinite power. The whole work of a university is uplifting, refining
and spiritualizing: it embraces
whatsoever touches life
With upward impulse; be He nowhere else,
God is in all that liberates and lifts;
In all that humbles, sweetens and consoles.
"A university cannot be built upon a sect, unless, indeed, it be a sect
which includes the whole of the educated portion of the nation. This
University will not demand of its officers and students the creed, or
press upon them the doctrine of any particular religious organization;
but none the less--I should better say, all the more--it can exert
through high-minded teachers a strong moral and religious influence. It
can implant in the young breasts of its students exalted sentiments and
a worthy ambition; it can infuse into their hearts the sense of honor,
of duty, and of responsibility.
"I congratulate the city of Baltimore, Mr. Mayor, that in a few
generations she will be the seat of a rich and powerful university. To
her citizens its grounds and buildings will in time become objects of
interest and pride. The libraries and other collections of a university
are storehouses of the knowledge already acquired by mankind, from which
further invention and improvement proceed. They are great possessions
for any intelligent community. The tone of society will be sensibly
affected by the presence of a considerable number of highly educated
men, whose quiet and simple lives are devoted to philosophy and
teaching, to the exclusion of the common objects of human pursuit. The
University will hold high the standards of public duty and public
spirit, and will enlarge that cultivated class which is distinguished,
not by wealth merely, but by refinement and spirituality.
"I felicitate the State of Maryland, whose Chief Magistrate honors this
assembly with his presence, upon the establishment within her borders of
an independent institution of the highest education. The elementary
school is not more necessary to the existence of a free State than the
University. The public school system depends upon the institutions of
higher education, and could not be maintained in real efficiency without
them. The function of colleges, universities, and professional schools
is largely a public function; their work is done primarily, indeed, upon
individuals, but ultimately for the public good. They help powerfully to
form and mould aright the public character; and that public character is
the foundation of everything which is precious in the State, including
even its material prosperity. In training men thoroughly for the learned
professions of law and medicine, this University will be of great
service to Maryland and the neighboring States. During the past forty
years the rules which governed admission to these honorable and
confidential professions have been carelessly relaxed in most of the
States of the Union, and we are now suffering great losses and injuries,
both material and moral, in consequence of thus thoughtlessly abandoning
the safer ways of our fathers. It is for the strong universities of the
country to provide adequate means of training young men well for the
learned professions, and to set a high standard for professional
degrees.
"President Gilman, this distinguished assembly has come together to give
you God-speed. I welcome you to arduous duties and grave
responsibilities. In the natural course of life you will not see any
large part of the real fruits of your labors; for to build a university
needs not years only, but generations; but though 'deeds unfinished will
weigh on the doer,' and anxieties will sometimes oppress you, great
privileges are nevertheless attached to your office. It is a precious
privilege that in your ordinary work you will have to do only with men
of refinement and honor; it is a glad and animating sight to see
successive ranks of young men pressing year by year into the battle of
life, full of hope and courage, and each year better armed and equipped
for the strife; it is a privilege to serve society and the country by
increasing the means of culture; but, above all, you will have the great
happiness of devoting yourself for life to a noble public work without
reserve, or stint, or thought of self, looking for no advancement,
'hoping for nothing again,' Knowing well by experience the nature of the
charge which you this day publicly assume, familiar with its cares and
labors, its hopes and fears, its trials and its triumphs, I give you joy
of the work to which you are called, and welcome you to a service which
will task your every power.
"The true greatness of States lies not in territory, revenue,
population, commerce, crops or manufactures, but in immaterial or
spiritual tilings; in the purity, fortitude and uprightness of their
people, in the poetry, literature, science and art which they give birth
to, in the moral worth of their history and life. With nations, as with
individuals, none but moral supremacy is immutable and forever
beneficent. Universities, wisely directed, store up the intellectual
capital of the race, and become fountains of spiritual and moral power.
Therefore our whole country may well rejoice with you, that you are
auspiciously founding here a worthy seat of learning and piety. Here may
young feet, shunning the sordid paths of low desire and worldly
ambition, walk humbly in the steps of the illustrious dead--the poets,
artists, philosophers and statesmen of the past; here may fresh minds
explore new fields and increase the sum of knowledge; here from time to
time may great men be trained up to be leaders of the people; here may
the irradiating light of genius sometimes flash out to rejoice mankind;
above all, here may many generations of manly youth learn
righteousness."