received their brothers and sisters with the most marked tokens of good
cheer, waving their handkerchiefs and vocally expressing the kindly
feeling of the seniors of the year agone.
At precisely 10:20 the “C. L. S. C. Glee Club,” Prof. W. F. Sherwin,
conductor, led the classes (which filled the Hall to repletion), as
they sang
“A sound is thrilling thro’ the trees
And vibrant thro’ the air.”
After the reading of the responsive services came the “Recognition,” by
the Superintendent of Instruction, Dr. J. H. Vincent, as follows:
_Fellow Students of the Chautauqua Literary and
Scientific Circle of the Class of 1883_:
DEARLY BELOVED—You have finished the appointed and accepted course
of reading. You have been admitted to this sacred Grove. You have
passed the Arches dedicated to “Faith,” “Science,” “Literature” and
“Art.” You have entered in due form this Hall, the center of the
Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle; and now, as Superintendent
of Instruction, in behalf of my associates, the counselors, who are
this day absent, I greet you, and hereby announce that you, and your
brothers and sisters absent from us this day, who have completed
with you the prescribed course of reading, are accepted and approved
graduates of the “Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle,” and that
you are entitled to membership in the “Society of the Hall in the
Grove.” The Lord bless and keep thee; the Lord make his face to shine
upon thee and be gracious unto thee; the Lord lift up his countenance
upon thee, and give thee peace.
I may say on behalf of the only counselor who is on the ground, Dr.
Lyman Abbott, that his indisposition renders it unsafe for him to be
here, but at my cottage he will join the procession, and go with you to
the Amphitheater. We will now unite in singing
“Bright gleams again Chautauqua’s wave,
And green her forest arches.”
During the singing of the ode, according to the direction of the
Superintendent of Instruction, the class of 1882, under the marshalship
of W. A. Duncan, quietly marched from the Hall in double column,
taking their position on Haven, Clark, and Cookman avenues, that the
graduating class might pass through their ranks at the close of the
service of recognition.
The Superintendent of Instruction, Dr. Vincent, Lewis Miller, the
Messenger, the Secretary of the C. L. S. C., preceded by the children
(flower bearers) and the Banner of the C. L. S. C., headed the
procession, which passed out of the south side of the Hall, around
Clark to Cookman Avenue, and passed down through the opened ranks of
the classes of the C. L. S. C., from whom they received constant marks
of recognition and affection, the classes in some cases waving their
Chautauqua salute to the Chief as he passed by.
When the head of the procession reached the cottage of Dr. Vincent, a
halt was made for a few moments, during which Dr. Lyman Abbott, one of
the counselors of the C. L. S. C., and the orator of the day, took his
place in the ranks.
As the procession marched up the long walk to the north door of the
Amphitheater, immense throngs filled all the available standing room
on the slopes of the ravine, and the “Blooming of the Lilies” (the
Chautauqua salute) was given by all the opened ranks of the classes as
the head of the procession passed through.
The Chautauqua Band, stationed at the entrance of the north gate,
discoursed sweet music during the passage of the long _cortege_.
All the officers, invited guests, members of the board of Chautauqua
trustees, officers and members of the Chautauqua School of Languages,
the Normal Alumni, and the various classes of the C. L. S. C., passed
into the great Amphitheater, when the ropes were dropped, and sooner
than we write it, all the remaining seating space was filled to
overflowing.
The platform was filled with distinguished Chautauquans and others; the
organ gave forth its sweet harmonies under the manipulation of Prof.
Andrews; the Chautauqua Banner of the C. L. S. C. was stationed in full
view of the vast throng; and after the devotional exercises Dr. Vincent
introduced Dr. Lyman Abbott, who delivered the Commencement oration, as
follows:
THE DEMOCRACY OF LEARNING.
_Fellow Chautauquans_:—I see in some of your eyes triumph. You have
run in four years a race with uncertainty whether you could ever
reach the goal. You have carried on your work under difficulties and
discouragements, such as are never known to him who has perfect and
continual leisure for the pursuit of studies; but in the midst of
employments which were incessant and imperative in their demands upon
you; and your courage, your patience, your hope, have vanquished the
obstacles, and you are here to-day to receive the outward sign and
symbol of your inward victory. In other eyes I see expectation. You
have commenced a course and you are hopeful of achieving a result,
which has been made possible to you within the last few years, that
the fruits and results of study might be yours though you could not
give yourself to a life of study, still less to the persistent and
professional pursuit of scholarship. In other eyes I see desire dimmed
by fear and doubt; you do not know whether this great realm is open to
you or not; you wish that you could be assured that it is. Is this all
a mistake? Is your triumph a false one, your expectation a delusive
one, your hope and your desire one impossible of attainment? This is
so asserted. There are not a few in our times who are of the opinion
that learning is of necessity only for the few, or at all events if the
many can enter a little upon the realm, they must always live upon the
border and never can enter into the heart of the country.
I desire, if I may this morning, to meet and to answer this objection
of skepticism, and to show that learning is within the possible reach
to-day of the great body of industrious, hard-working, perplexed, and
driven people of America; that it is not the privilege of the few; that
it is the prerogative of the many. I desire to show you that we are
entering into an epoch which I may call the “Democracy of Learning.”
We have already entered into the epoch of democracy in religion. The
time has gone by, at least for all Protestant people, of believing that
religion is for the few, or that even the higher and larger privileges
of religious life are for the few. It has been established for all
those who believe in an open Bible and in the universal religion of
Jesus Christ that the innermost sanctuary of the temple is for every
one. The great wall that before separated the court of Israel from the
court of the priests has been broken down; there is but one court. The
great veil that hung between the holy of holies and the court of the
priests has been torn asunder, and every one of us is not only priest
but high-priest, free to enter into the very holy of holies. And we
have entered into the epoch of democracy in public affairs. The time
has gone by when political power belonged to the few, and political
intelligence was believed to be the prerogative of the few. We have
come into an epoch in which political power is lodged in the hands
of the great masses of the people; and it is lodged there because
we believe that, on the whole, political intelligence is lodged in
the hands of the great masses of the people. I desire to show you
this morning that we are entering upon an epoch of the Democracy of
Learning, in which the highest and best fruits of scholarship are also
the privilege and the prerogative of the many. When we have entered
upon that land, then we shall be ready to enter upon the last and
the completest phase of the triumphant democracy, the Democracy of
Industry. Then, when intelligence shall be universally diffused, and
when all men shall have the power at least of acquiring the largest and
the best and the ripest fruits of knowledge and of intelligence, we
shall come into that epoch in which no longer the few will control the
industries of the many, but in which industry will be the controlling
power, and wealth will be its servant.
I have a three-fold object this morning—I desire in the first place to
show you that the fruits of learning are fruits which hang on the lower
boughs of the tree where we may all pluck them; to show you not only
that, but that the ripest and the best fruits of learning hang there. I
desire to show you that it is not necessary that men should go through
a college course and should have four years of leisure and of quiet for
college study in order to reap the best fruits of a college education.
The _process_ of investigation must always be carried on by the few.
The _results_ of education may be, yea! are already becoming the
property of the many. Only a few explorers can bear the perils of the
Arctic Sea and investigate the mystery of the North Pole; but we can
all have the fruits of their investigation. Only a few men can labor
and toil in the great libraries searching out the course and progress
of history and its sacred events, but we can all have the garnered
fruits of their toil and their industry. Not only may we pluck a single
blossom, and here and there a single half-ripened fruit from this
tree; but the ripest, the best, that which has hung the longest in the
sun-light, that whose cheeks are painted the most rosy red, and whose
heart has in it the most saccharine juice, that is ready to-day to fall
into our open palm if we will but extend it.
In endeavoring to show you this, I shall also necessarily ask you to
consider with me what are the ripest and best fruits of learning. What
is the object of education? It is not an end, it is a means to an end.
It is a great pity that our colleges do not understand this better; for
if they did better comprehend that education is a means, and that the
end lies behind, fewer students would come out with empty diplomas when
the college course is ended.
And incidentally I shall hope also to answer one argument which is
sometimes used, and oftener, I think, lies secretly in the minds of
people, against a popular and universal education. Some satirist has
said that “Ignorance is the mother of devotion.” If that were true,
we might well doubt whether universal education is worth the price we
should have to pay for it. If it were true that God held out in one
hand devotion to us and in the other hand education, and said, “You
must choose between these two; if you become educated you must be
skeptical, if you would be devoted you must remain ignorant”—it would
be a difficult question for most of us to decide whether we would have
intelligence without piety or piety without intelligence. I shall show
you that it is not learning, but a little learning which is a dangerous
thing; and that if our work is thorough, the broader the culture, the
profounder the piety.
For our purpose this morning, learning may be divided into four
provinces: literature, history, science and philosophy, to which must
be added in any complete topography of the realm, pure mathematics. By
pure mathematics I mean arithmetic, algebra, geometry, logarithms, the
calculus and the like. But pure mathematics is simply an instrument
by which the scientific mind reaches certain results. I shall not
therefore consider this department at all; it is not necessary for our
purpose. Some one must look through the telescope, some one must know
how to use the spectroscope in order to tell us what is the size of
the sun and its constituent elements; but we do not need to examine
the telescope or the spectroscope. Some one must be skilled in pure
mathematics in order to tell us how many miles the sun is distant
from our own earth, but we may take the result without going through
the process. This instrument must always be left in the hand of the
specialist. I wish to show you that all that is best, highest and most
important in literature, history, science and philosophy lies within
the power of your acquisition. I wish to show you the spirit with which
you must study, and the purpose with which you must acquire it; and
I wish to show you that if you acquire in that spirit and with that
purpose you can not but gain in your religious nature.
I. In the first place, then, what is literature, and why do we study
it? Literature is the expression of human life, in its innermost
experiences, and in its outward forms. Sometimes it is the expression
of social life, sometimes of the intellectual life, sometimes of the
emotional life; but always and everywhere literature is a mirror held
up either before society or before the human heart; no, not a mirror,
but the sensitized plate in a photographic apparatus; and the picture,
now of society, now of the brain, now of the palpitating heart with
its fears, hopes, joys and experiences, is given upon the plate; and
literature is the picture brought out for us to examine. To study
literature is not to study language. Language is merely the instrument
which we use for the study of literature. To study literature is
to study life—life in its outward semblance or life in its inward
experiences. It is to study the life of the community and of society as
we study it in Thackeray; or it is to study the life of the brain and
the thought as we study it in Plato and Bacon; or it is to study the
life of the inward emotions as we study it in Tennyson or Wordsworth.
Now, in order to study life as it is portrayed in literature it is
not necessary to know the original language in which that life was
portrayed. Some one must have studied the Greek language in order to
bring Homer to our intelligence; some one must have studied Latin and
brought Horace within our horizon; some one must have studied French
and brought Molière within our knowledge; some one must have studied
Italian in order to introduce Dante to our acquaintance; but it is
not necessary for us to do so. Some one must have taken the negative
and printed the picture on the paper for us; but we need not all be
photographers in order to get the picture for our own enlightenment. I
hold a silver dollar in my hand. Some one must have gone to the mines
and dug out the ore with a pick; some one must have put it under the
great stampers and beaten it out in the stamping mill; some one must
have put it in the sieve and shaken it and shaken it until the grosser
dross was washed away; some one must have put it into the furnace and
heated it until the finer dross was eliminated; some one must have
carried it to the mint and put the stamp of the United States authority
upon it; but we need not all be miners digging in the mines; we need
not all be workers in the stamping mill; we need not all be toilers in
the furnace room; we need not all be masters or mechanics in the mint.
The money was coined by those who have wrought for us, and to whom our
gratitude is due, but the coin is ours; it is not merely for those who
worked in producing it.
I hold in my hand an extract from Taine which expresses that which I
desire to express better than I can perhaps express it myself. Let me
read it: “What is your first remark on turning over the great leaves
of a folio, the yellow sheets of a manuscript, a poem, a code of laws,
a confession of faith? This, you say, did not come into existence all
alone, it is but a mould like a fossil-shell, an imprint, like one of
the shapes embossed in stone by an animal which lived and perished.
Under the shell there was an animal; and behind the document there
was a man. Why do you study the shell, except to bring before you the
animal? So you study the document only to know the man. The shell and
the document are lifeless wrecks, valuable only as a clue to the entire
and living existence. We must get hold of this existence and endeavor
to re-create it. It is a mistake to study the document as if it were
isolated. This were to treat things as a simple scholar, to fall into
the error of the bibliomaniac.”
You do not need to have traversed the ocean beach or climbed the
mountain-top and gathered the shells; you may go into the museum where
they have already been gathered, and study their history there. You do
not need, with dictionary and grammar, to work out the secrets of the
language; you may take the products of those who have thus wrought, and
learn the man that lies behind the document.
Not only is it not necessary that a man should study language in order
to study literature; in innumerable cases the study of the language has
absolutely interfered with the study of the literature. In innumerable
cases, men at college have ground away, day after day, and month after
month, and year after year, over cases and nouns and parts of speech,
and rules of syntax and rules of grammar—working only at the grammar,
and utterly oblivious of the great light that lay behind it. Mr.
Adams, of Massachusetts, has recently told us how hard a man may study
Greek and how little he may know of it after he gets through with it,
for he assures us that he does not know the Greek alphabet to-day,
although he studied Greek six years, four years before college and
two in it. I confess I should not have thought it possible for a man
to have studied so much and yet know so little when he got through;
but I am very certain of this, that my own experience reflects the
experience of many college students. I learned more of Homer—of his
life, of his character, of the lessons he has to teach, of the man
himself—from reading in the “Ancient Classics for English Readers,”
the Iliad and the Odyssey, and from reading Bryant’s translation, than
I ever received from reading Homer himself in the original Greek in
my college class. That which is highest, and supremest, and best in
literature, you may obtain without a college education. You may learn
the life, you may learn the man, you may learn the sacred truth; and
you can not do that without broadening your sympathies and developing
your charity. When you have read Homer and Virgil and Horace; when you
have read Dante and Milton; when you have read Molière and Shakspere;
when you have read Wordsworth and Tennyson, and when, out of all this
reading, you have gathered their fruits, you will find this to be true,
that, though you have one picture of Greek life, one of Italian life,
one of French life, one of English life, one portraying the life of
four centuries before Christ, and one portraying the life of eighteen
centuries after; yet in all these languages, in all these epochs, in
all these civilizations the great heart of hope and joy and love and
fear and reverence and faith was one. And you will learn to know that
humanity, in all its nationalities, in all its epochs, in all its
civilizations,—aye, and under all the varied forms of its religions,
true and false—that humanity is one in all its brotherhood, and one in
its great Father in heaven.
II. What is the object of studying history? What is history? It is not
a mere record of dates, not the mere annals of actions, not merely
the account of what men have performed or what nations have wrought.
A man does not know history because he can recite glibly, beginning
with Alfred the Great and coming down to the present time, the dates
of the chief events and the chief epochs in English history. History
is the record of God’s dealing with the human race. History is the
account of the great laws under which this human race has been evolved
from its lowest condition to its highest condition. As the tree grows
from the seed planted in the ground—first the little bud peering above
the surface, then the stalk, and then the branches, and by and by the
completed oak; as the child grows from the babe in the cradle, taking
on one new faculty and one power after another till he comes into as
yet incompleted manhood—for the completion of manhood lies afar off in
the dim, distant and invisible future—so the nations of the earth, and
so the whole race of man has been developed from the seed to the oak
and from the babe in the cradle to manhood in its maturity; and to read
history is to read the process of this development.
What, for example, is English history? To know English history is to
know that in the Bible, way back years and years before the birth
of Christ—fourteen centuries before—were planted all the seeds of a
free representative government; to know that in the Mosaic statutes
is to be found the outline of a perfect political economy; to know
that the Mosaic commonwealth had in it all the elements of those
institutions which have made America a free nation; popular suffrage,
representative assemblies, political government divided into three
departments, executive, legislative, and judicial; a carefully framed
system of laws, with a carefully framed system of penalties, a
universal system of education, and a religion that was national. To
know history is to know that Alfred the Great was a devout believer
in the Bible as the word of God, that he studied it and found in this
Old Testament, fourteen centuries before the birth of Christ, these
seeds of a free government buried and forgotten. It is to know that
he gathered them out of this old book, as men have gathered wheat
seeds out of old mummies in the tombs of Egypt, and planted them in
the more fertile soil of an Anglo-Saxon community. It is to know how
the Anglo-Saxon Witenagemote grew to be an English Parliament; it is
to know how the people came to be represented in it under Simon de
Montfort; and how they came to be supreme in it under Charles the
First, and Cromwell. It is to know how the nation was at first a
congeries of conflicting tribes, partially brought together by Alfred
the Great, and consolidated together under one national sovereignty by
William the Conqueror, and growing thence into unity under successive
statesmen, until these latter days, when William Gladstone, the
greatest statesman of them all, is perfecting the Christian unity of
the empire by Christian justice and equity. It is to know how, in the
earlier history of this nation, the Pope of Rome assumed authority and
control over the nations. It is to know how, through the centuries,
the war went on between the Anglo-Saxon love of liberty and this claim
of the Church of Rome; how it was begun under Augustine, continued
under Thomas à Becket, brought to the beginning of the end under King
Henry the Eighth, until finally under Elizabeth the bonds that bound
England to Rome were severed forever, and England was made free from
every foreign prince and potentate. It is to know how this seed—the
sovereignty of the people in the nation, the sovereignty of the nation
against the anarchy of feudalism, and the liberty of the nation
against the Pope—grew into a tree, as yet but a young sapling; it is
to know how then God carefully dug this sapling up, and transported it
three thousand miles across the ocean and planted it in the yet more
fertile soil of America. It is to know that because of the battle and
bloodshed, and the long suffering endured on that soil, to-day there
floats over us the banner of liberty and justice. The seeds were there
in that old Bible, the culture was there in that English history; the
fruit we rejoice in here to-day.
One does not need to work in the Spanish libraries with Prescott, nor
in the Dutch libraries with Motley, nor among the old manuscripts of
the British museum with Froude, nor among the pamphlets of English
literature with Macaulay, in order to gather for himself these
highest and supremest fruits of historical learning. The processes
of historical research must always be carried on by the few; we must
always have in this country some men who have leisure to pursue
them. Alas for us, if the time ever comes when we grow careless or
indifferent respecting our colleges or universities, and the kind of
culture which they give; but they give culture that the cultured may
give us fruit. The few garner; the heaviest are for all.
Nor is it possible for one thus to study the history of the human race,
to see how, little by little, liberty has grown, education has grown,
humanity has grown, and not grow himself in faith in an overruling
Providence, and in hope in the Supreme God.