The stranger who enters the nave of St. Paul's Cathedral in London
cannot fail to notice the superb pulpit which stands at the angle of the
choir. It is composed of rare and costly marbles and other precious
stones. But, beautiful and fitting as it is, its greatest value lies in
the circumstance which placed it there. It is a memorial, the tribute of
affection. It was erected by his surviving comrades in arms to a noble
officer of the Indian army. Yet this, from its position a [Greek: ktêma
es aei], is only one among numberless like monuments which the traveller
in England meets at every turn. In public squares, in parish churches,
in stately cathedrals,--wherever the eye of the wayfarer can be
arrested, whereever the pride of country is most deeply stirred,
wherever the sentiment of loyalty is consecrated by religion,--the
Englishman loves to guard from oblivion the names of his honored dead.
There is in this both a cause and a consequence of that intense local
pride and affection by which the men of Great Britain are bound to the
scenes of their early lives.
"It will never do for us to be beaten," said the Duke at Waterloo;
"think what they will say of us at home!"--and this simple sentence went
straight to the heart of every man who heard. What they will say at home
is the prevailing thought in each young soldier's heart as he goes into
his first fight. And "home" does not mean for him so much broad England
as it does the little hamlet where he was born, the school where he was
trained, the county in which his forefathers were honored in times gone
by. He thinks of his name, henceforward linked with a glorious victory!
whispered around among the groups who linger in the church-yard after
the morning service. He trusts, that, if he fall nobly, there will be
for him the memorial window through whose blazoned panes the sunlight
will fall softly across the "squire's pew," where as a boy he knelt and
worshipped, or touch with a crimson and azure gleam the marble effigies
of his knightly sires recumbent on their tombs. Or he thinks of a place
among the lettered names high up on the old oaken wall of the
school-room at Winchester or Harrow or Westminster,--that future boys,
playing where he played, shall talk of him whom they never knew as "one
of ours." For he is well aware that he is making fame not for himself
alone, but to be prized where he himself has been most loved and
happiest.
We, in this new land of ours, have but a very faint experience of the
intense working of such influences upon a people in whom the local
association and sentiment are ingrained. We are but just beginning where
Englishmen began eight centuries and more ago. Hence our glorifying of
the past has been a little indiscriminate, and withal has sought to
commemorate events more than individuals. But the last two years have
taken us through one of those great periods which, in their concentrated
energy, compress the work of years into days, and which mark the
water-sheds of history. The United States of 1865 will be as unlike the
same land in 1855 as the youth is unlike the child. Life is measured by
action, not duration. The brilliant epoch of the first Persian invasion
was more to Greece than its slumbering centuries under Turkish rule, and
"fifty years of Europe" more "than a cycle of Cathay." We shall look
back upon a past. We shall have a truly national existence. It will be
but natural, as it will be most wise, that we take heed of those
elements which have ever been so potent in strengthening national
character. One of these has been briefly hinted at above. Yet it may be
undesirable to perpetuate the memory of events in which the whole
country cannot participate, which will not for the remainder of this
century be thought of by one section without shame and confusion of
face, and which will only tend to keep alive the sad old jealousies and
hates. We shall be very loath to place our monumental columns upon the
fields of Antietam and Gettysburg. We should not tolerate them upon the
slopes of Manassas or the bluffs of Edwards' Ferry. When the war is
ended, and the best guardian of our internal commerce is the loyalty of
the returning citizens to their old allegiance, we shall do wisely to
level the earthworks of Vicksburg and Port Hudson. In the city where
mob-violence is crushed under the force of armed law, no one cares to
keep for a day the crumbling walls and the shattered barricade, though
they may have witnessed heroism as splendid as Arcola or Wagram, for
they witness also to a wickedness and a terror which all would gladly
forget. The only memorial that a wise and high-souled nation _can_ erect
after this war will be the single monument which shall commemorate the
hour of peace restored.
But while we are debarred from thus recording upon tablets more lasting
than brass the story of our mournful triumphs over erring brethren, we
are doubly bound in gratitude to keep green the memory of the men who
have deserved well of their country in the hour of utmost need. We ought
to do this also in that temper which shall look most singly to the noble
end of forming heroic traditions for the youth of our future land. I
know no place where this can be more fitly carried out than in
New-England's foremost university. Coeval with the commonwealth itself,
the starry roll of its heroes links it with all the fortunes of our
history. Men who sat in the Long Parliament, and who may have seen the
Battles of Worcester and Dunbar, took their early degrees upon Harvard's
first Commencement-stage. Her sons fought against King Philip, were
colonels and captains in the "old French War," went forth in the days of
Wolfe and Amherst, and exchanged the lexicon for the musket in the eight
years' struggle which gave to the Thirteen Colonies their independence.
Alumni still survive who did military duty in the second war with
England. The men of Harvard were with Taylor at Buena Vista, and helped
Scott in his victorious march upon the Aztec capital. Of these the only
record is in the annual necrology and the quaint Latin of the
"Triennial."
For the young heroes who dropped the oar and took up the sword, who laid
aside the gown for the sash and shoulder-strap, who, first in the
bloodless triumphs of the regatta and in "capital training" for the
great race of life where literary and professional fame are the prizes,
went forth to venture all for honor and country, the Alma Mater surely
should have a special commemoration. For her own sake, because of her
high responsibility in the education of "ingenuous youth," she can do no
less. I will venture to say that not a Harvard man, among all the loyal
thousands of her surviving Alumni, but feels his heart beat quicker as
he reads the story of her children amid their "baptism of fire." There
is a notable peculiarity about this the most purely New-England of our
colleges,--the continual recurrence of familiar patronymics. I take up
the last semi-annual catalogue, and there among the five hundred names I
can almost make out my own classmates of twenty years ago. Abbots,
Bigelows, Lawrences, Masons, Russells,--they come with every
Commencement-season. Some families have had for every generation in a
hundred and fifty years a representative in her halls. There is a patent
of nobility in this, such peerage as a republic can rightly confer, the
coronet which marks the union of birth and worth. We cannot, we, the
Alumni, suffer these our brothers to sleep unhonored. Those who shall
come after us, who shall fill our places in dear Old Harvard, shall
occupy our ancient rooms in Hollis and Massachusetts and Stoughton and
Holworthy, have a right not only to count the academic wreaths which
have been won in past days by their namesakes, but also to be taught the
inspiring lesson of holy love of country, of highest courage and truth
and soldierly virtue.
And how shall this be done? Let these few remaining lines suggest at
least one plan. Harvard's chief want is a hall for her Alumni, one
worthy, in architecture and convenience, of her children's fame, which
Harvard Hall is not. That long, awkward room, very hot and cramped to
dine in at midsummer, hotter and more cramped still for the Class-day
dances, is just fit for one purpose,--the declamation-exercises of the
Sophomore year. Let us have a hall fit for Commencements, for Alumni and
Phi-Beta orations, for our annual dinners, worthy of the "Doctor's"
poems and the "General's" speeches, with a wainscot, not of vulgar
plaster, but of noble oak, against which Copley's pictures and Story's
busts may properly be placed.
Then let its windows be filled, as in the glorious halls and chapels of
England, with memorial glass. Let one of these, if no more, be formed,
of the costliest and most perfect workmanship our art can compass, to
the memory of the Heroes of Harvard. It shall be the gift of every class
which counts among its members one of these. There, amid the gorgeous
emblazonry, shall be read their names, their academic year, their
battles.
Or, if this may not be, because our Alma Mater is still too poor or too
humble to offer to her returning children such banqueting-place,--if
there is no Wykcham or Waynflete or Wolsey to arch for us the
high-embowed roof, let us place our memorial in the Library, along its
shaded alcoves and above its broad portals. There the bright shadows
shall sleep and pass with the sliding day, where the young scholars
mused and studied. There the future student, as he walks, shall read as
noble a lesson as he can glean from any of the groaning shelves and
dusty tomes. There shall be for Harvard her _Libro d'Oro_ wherein she
has written the names of her best-beloved.
Some token let us have that they are unforgotten. It was no quarrel of
vulgar ambition in which they fell. It was the sacred strife for which
the mother armed them when she sent them forth. For her they fought, for
culture, generous learning, noble arts, for all that makes a land great
and glorious, against the barbarism of anarchy and the baseness of a
system founded upon wrong and oppression. We cannot, indeed, forget them
while we live to come up to our annual gathering, and see the vacant
places amid familiar ranks. There will then be question and reply,
saddening, but proud. "He fell at Port Hudson, cheering on the forlorn
hope." "He lies beneath the forest-trees of Chancellorsville." "He was
slain upon the glacis of Fredericksburg." "He died in the foul prisons
of Richmond." We cannot forget them, and we would fain leave the
memorial of them to future generations. Their fame belongs to Harvard;
for what they learned there could not be other than noble, inspiring,
manly. Let Harvard make the plan, and give the call, and all of us, from
our distant homes and according to our ability, will offer our gifts
with gladness. Let the graduates who have leisure and taste and means,
and who are still dwelling under the pleasant shades of the Cambridge
elms, come together and take up the matter while love and gratitude and
pride are fresh.