Delaware Township (part 4 of 6)

Let me recount the men of my day, who, bidding their "beautiful mother" farewell, entered the lists, and gained glory as great lawyers - looking at the classes of '46 and '47, the preacher and the teacher, Dr. Godman and Dr. McFarland, in their lines of life gained distinction. The members of the classes of '48 and '49 were all my familiar friends, though all my seniors in age. Through the receding years I see as clearly now as in '47-48-49 the faces and forms of Jeddiah Allen, Homer McKendree Carper, Guovion Goldson Griswold, Clinton Wayne Lee, Oliver Morris Spencer, James D. and Joseph T. Webb, and Samuel W. Williams, of '48 ; and George W. Brush, L. J. Critchfield, Henry J. Eaton, Benjamin Glasscock, Asa H. Guy, John W. Hoyt, Lewis W. Little, Edwin A. Parrott and Joseph Henry VanDeman, of '49. Some entered the ministry, some the profession of the healing art, some mounted the tripod of the journalist, some sat in the chair of the professor, and two, possibly more, gained wealth in trade and manufacturing and mercantile life ; but Carper of '48 and Critchfield of '49, the law, and Ohio recognizes in each a masterly man, mastering his profession, and among the few in Ohio or elsewhere who stand on the upper round of the ladder, at the very top. Of all these, my chosen companion was Lewis W. Little, a genial spirit ; but more than a quarter of a century' ago, when life was young and hope was bright, he passed into the shadows, and earlier than he, Clinton Wayne Lee, a most cultivated Christian gentleman, even before the years of his greatest usefulness had come, mounted to the skies. Coming to my own class of 1850, it was less in number than the two preceding it. Its roll I call : W. Blanton Chrisler, George W. Harris, John F. Hume, Owen T. Reeves, and youngest and least, Henry Clay Hedges. Chrisler and Harris were missionaries of the Cross, great and good men. Harris was my especial friend. I was his best man when he took unto himself a wife. He died in 1862, but lived long enough, if his years be measured by the good he did. Chrisler was from the South, of Southern birth, a Mississippian, not a " fire-eater," went back to his home, taught, preached, then married a Western girl and gave offense to the chivalry of the South ; discarded by his parents, disinherited by his father, his noblest heritage was the love of his wife, and the memories of the better civilization of the Northland, where men were free, black or white. And so it happened when the weak, wanton, wicked rebellion was on, Chrisler became a chaplain in the Union army, and thereafter, as the revered minister, the honored, gallant Moody did, buckled on his sword as Lieutenant Colonel of his regiment, and with Moody, and like Moody, fought for freedom and gained the victory.

Hume - a quiet man in college, a good thinker, a splendid writer, a fair lawyer, served Ohio as a legislator, later was a distinguished editor in Missouri, and later still, with wealth and wisdom gathered, is living on the banks of the classic Hudson, enjoying "Otium, cum dignitate in senectute." The last time I met him was in a national convention, that of 1864 in Baltimore, a delegate from Missouri, when he and I, one from Missouri, one from Ohio, of the class of '50, did something to make it possible for the immortal Lincoln for a second time to become the successor of Washington.

Then Owen Reeves, teacher, sometime preacher, then lawyer, sits on the bench at Bloomington, 111., and has long adorned, as David Davis before Reeves, honored the same bench. Of my class was one other up to the time of our final examinations ; the gleesomeness of youth, and the gladness of the approaching Commencement, afforded some occasion for the postponement of the delivery of his sheepskin, until '51. His name stands at the head of 1851, James Heaton Baker, a "son of thunder" of varied gifts, of great accomplishments, lawyer, editor. Secretary of State, in turn, in two States, Ohio and Minnesota, soldier, Commissioner of Pensions under Grant, Surveyor General of Minnesota, a man of resources, a man of methods, a master of men, a sweet singer, a graceful talker, a good friend. But I must not trespass; I might follow the fortunes of the classes of '51 and '52 and '53 ; I knew them all, knew them well ; in each were presidents and professors of colleges, preachers, teachers, doctors and lawyers. Of 1853 "^^^ ^^^ ^Y boon friend, he who was afterward Dr. Milton Mitchell, the playmate of my childhood, the companion of my young manhood, the friend of all my years. His was so white a soul that early in his life, it may be, I think it was so, the angels needed his companionship, and so on April 7th, 1864, God crowned him.

The Graduate In Journalism

The physical man is born. The graduate is trained, or supposed to be. Brains are inherited, and " education " " brings out " that which was already in the child's curly head when he was lord of the cradle and of his mother's heart. Colleges which train the moral as well as the mental can do more for a young man's heart sometimes than for his head. In schools where religion thrives, conversions actually revolutionize and reorganize human hearts, and plant truth where perhaps truth had not been. I am not aware of any Scripture that warrants prayer for new heads and an increase of brains. The college, undertakes only to train and make the most of that which a boy brings with him from home, though indeed a consecrated and devoted head immediately begins to outwork and outrun the one that rebels against truth and loyalty. Trained brains dominate the world, whether in journalism or elsewhere. The central figure in American newspaperdom still is Horace Greeley. In another degree and in a varying moral sphere was James

Gordon Bennett. Neither was a " graduate," but both were trained. While the best way, perhaps, the process implied in " graduating " is certainly but one way for training. College-life teaches the use of tools; and the graduate, other things being equal, is worth more than he was, even if you could conceive that he does not carry out of a college a single fact or one item of specific information. He has been " trained " and taught how to work.

The ideal editor certainly needs training. He must have been taught to be willing to work, to work genuinely^ to work economically, to work in harmony with others, to work when work is hard, and to continue to work after the six-o'clock bells of the world have released the multitudes, who for hours may have waited for the six-o'clock permission to rest. The old saying is :

No man more than the journalist should become a woman in honest devotion, and in his love to labor on while others dream. In human competitions, he who succeeds, first distinguishes himself from others after six-o'clock bells have rung, and his alleged competitors have apparently abandoned the race. If one would identify his real and most dangerous rivals in life's race, he must listen to the sounds of post-six-o'clock hammers, and note the glimmer of study-lamps that forget to go out.

I do not mean that a man must work himself to death, or has a right to do so. The best workers know how to recreate themselves ; and if a man knows not how to play, he may yet be rested even while he labors. We sometimes wonder why hearts do not burst when woeful seas of trouble roll over them, and God is not their refuge. I often wonder likewise why men do not fall lifeless amid their labors when they love not work, and do not get rested by their work, and during their work, through the high supporting motives that immortalize strength and vigor. We never hear of tired angels or fatigued seraphim. He who as an editor records the daily pilgrimages, sorrows, crimes, catastrophes, and hopes, victories, and glories of humanity, certainly ought to be fortified, rested in advance, and made almost literally indefatigable, through his love for men and faith in the Divine Lover of men, I believe in a " call to preach." Presently all good men and women will be called to all work. Perhaps they now are. God pity the poor fellow who has merely blundered into his life-work ! Of course, then, I hold that a man may be called to editing, far and above the fact that he gets a General Conference majority - to give a Methodist illustration. I hold, too, that a call to preach includes the call to prepare to preach. An editorial call to edit, whether a secular or religious paper - for in this I believe in the priesthood of the people - includes the item of preparation to edit.

As to preparation - let me say that I am amused by alleged "schools of journalism." Somebody advertises those schemes who want a "job." I am fogy enough to hold that before " graduation," there should be no schools for any profession, trades, or callings. We are hurrying and overdoing the " elective " theory. He who enters for the race in law, medicine, or theology, should graduate about as he would if he proposed to enter no particular profession. He should study and plan simply for that day of days in student-life known as " Commencement." Passing that, he may well begin to specify and specialize in study, even though he may have moderately courted his real calling right up to his professional wedding-day. If journalism is chosen, I should not be unhappy if my graduated young friend should give him- self for a year or two to law and history of law and economics to aid him in secular-paper work, or to theology if for Church-paper work. Be that as it may, I hold to the general college training that helps a man to be a disciple as to his work and a brother to all workers. I know of no better kind of technical ante-graduate training than to prepare the soil for whatever training may point more directly to newspaper-office work after graduating.

Being trained, and having chosen, and having begun, the next step is to " stick to it.'''' Why should a man vibrate from pulpit to teacher's chair, or from both to church editing, or from either or more of the four to some other form of secular or church labor? Time modifies Methodist itinerancies ; why should it not modify also the wanderings of our itinerants? Methodist education began to see daylight and a channel to deep water when teaching became specialized, and teachers were professionalized and called blessed. I am more than ever convinced that no bishopric should lure a man from Church journalism or Church professorships. Every prominent place in the Church has been robbed by losing its best incumbents by these quadrennial Sabine raids to reinforce our episcopacy. That has come to pass heretofore because such prominent men have been made known to the Church through the notoriousness that was begotten of his prominence. In these days of Advocates^ fast mails, and telegraphs, faithful pastors are better and more widely known, and are among the select and elect.

Time fails me to speak in detail of the able men whom this University has trained and sent into all kinds of journalism, or even of those who have served God and the Church as editors of Methodist papers. Bryce, in his American Commonwealth^ remarks: "Of the class of papers not primarily or professedly political are the religious weeklies, to whose number and influence few parallels can be discovered in Europe. It is on some great occasions, when some question involving moral issues comes up, that they discuss current politics at length. When they do, great is their power." Then is the Methodist editor's opportunity, and I hold that he should be alert for the duty and privilege. Just as all good men should be called of God to work, so do I believe a Church editor should know about ever}' issue that lifts its arm among men. It is generally thought that our Church papers should almost wait for permission to speak on themes not theological or religious. On the contrary, I hold that our papers should wait for special permission to omit their voices in human struggle. When silence is sin, I hold that our editors should not be on the defensive, and that their blades should shine in the air from skirmish line to battle end.

I have quoted Bryce. I hope you will read what he says about our numerous smaller colleges, and of our Church schools and their beneficent influence.

Our Church schools should train men, convert men, and, in a word, go right on to do what this college has done from the beginning. It trains men thoroughly, and yet does not neglect the converting and revolutionizing word which, as among individuals, is just that which will presently bring the world back to its rightful Master.

I rejoice in my Delaware memories,, and glory in the Church-work from which I bring you greetings to-day. I first put my fingers in printer's ink in the office of the Delaware Standard and the Olentangy Gazette. I doubt much that I shall ever get all the ink off", before I report to the managing editor of the universe.

The Graduate In Literature

When President Bashford invited me to respond to a toast, I was glad. Glad for myself, glad for you. I appreciated the honor, and I believed that you would appreciate my speech ! That was not on personal grounds, but on the score of sex. After-dinner speeches from men are matters of almost every-day occurrence, but after-dinner speeches from women are uncommon. We know that the men can speak, and speak well, but a woman's speech is still regarded with the curiosity that is due to an experiment. In the beginning, she is pretty apt to be nervous, and frightened, which makes her audience at once attentive to see if she will be able to get through. I have read that the finest Greek orators, when they began an oration, assumed an air of timidity in order to ingratiate themselves with their hearers. With a woman, all this is natural ; she does not have to assume. But tie ^i^s of the times indicate that women's speeches must become more frequent; it seems that we are about to have publicity thrust upon us, and we must prepare ourselves for our responsibilities. The prospect need not appall us. When women find that they must or ought to do a thing, they soon accomplish it with success. Many of you have heard the Rev. Anna Shaw. The first time she tried to make a speech she fainted, and had to be carried from the room ! But now she has quite a manly air of self-confidence. Frances Willard, in the beginning of her career, was invited to make a Commencement address to a class of young ladies. She only half complied ; she wrote the address and had a g:entleman read it. A few weeks ago, I read of a mass-meeting in London, England. Its purpose was to bid farewell to Miss Willard before her return to America. On that occasion there were many brilliant speakers, among them Canon Wilberforce ; Miss Willard spoke also, and Miss WillarcVs was the best speech ! " But I have been told to talk about the Graduate in Literature. At the word Literature, my mind flies to my favorite authors. Mrs. Browning : She was not a graduate ; her education was acquired in the tedium of a sick-room between intervals of suffering, but, she said, " I .was a very Napoleon in ambition." George Eliot : She was sent to a young woman's boarding-school, she was a voracious reader and an indefatigable student, but when she became celebrated as the author of "Adam Bede," she was described as "a selfeducated farmer's daughter." Louise Alcott : At sixteen, she was teaching school, taking in sewing, and writing little stories at five dollars apiece. Mrs. Frances Hodgson Burnett: She never received a diploma; at the time girls nowa-days are leaving school, she was reading Dickens and saying, " I, too, will be a writer." Helen Hunt Jackson: Neither was she a graduate. From this list, it would seem that the graduate has not been in literature. But the cause is not far to seek. These are women's names, and, forty years ago, there were no women graduates. A list of men-writers of the same time would show most of them to be alutnni^ with one brilliant exception, viz., Washington Irving.

Ever since the invention of letters, the world has experienced periodic literary revivals. There was one at the time of Solomon, for he said, " Of making many books, there is no end." There was one at the time of Shakspeare ; within fifty-two years in the little country of England - scarcely larger than the State of Ohio - there were two hundred and thirty-three poets who published their works in volumes.

Persons go into literature professionally, or to make it merely an avocation. The professional writer, unless he has an independent fortune, would better secure a salary on a newspaper. This is the gala-age of journalism. When I graduated - in 1872 (for I was one of the girls of the Ohio Wesleyan Female College), the subject of my essay was "Magazine Literature," and I expatiated on its facility and luxuriance, but I had no conception of the magazine literature of to-day. Then there were no newspaper syndicates. An illustrated daily paper was unknown. Now the newspaper reporter governs public opinion. No one dares to offend him. He ought to be a good and conscientious man. A few weeks ago, Sir Isaac Pittman, the inventor of stenography, was knighted by Queen Victoria. The newspaper is a splendid opening for women. An editor said to me, " I need both men and women on my staff. To fly around and get the news, I want the men. For the embellishments, I prefer the women."

I have a weakness for books written by persons who made literature merely an avocation. You remember that Charles Lamb spent his life as clerk in a commercial house. When his Essays were published and advertised as "The Works of Charles Lamb," he made a joke about it. He said, " My works, my works! They ought to be called my play, my recreation." The trouble about this kind of writing is to find the time. I am sorry that in America there is no chance of honorable imprisonment. Some of the best books extant would never have been written if their authors had not been cast into solitary confinement. But, since no one else will imprison us, we must imprison ourselves. We must say No to dissipations. We must determine to write a fixed time each day. However, if that is impossible, it is still no excuse. Mrs. Browning wrote her masterpiece, "Aurora Leigh," in the intervals of social and domestic affairs. She had her pencil and paper at hand ; she would write a few lines ; if any person came in, she thrust them out of sight ; no one suspected she was writing an immortal poem. I am ambitious for our business men and our professional men. When I look at a successful business man and try to imagine all that he knows about life, I exclaim, "Oh, what a glorious book it would make if I could see the world through this man's eyes ! " I should like to see Mr. Day, or Mr. DeCamp, or Mr. Fairbanks write a great poem, a fine novel, or a dignified history. In England, it is not uncommon for members of Parliament to distinguish themselves in literature. Bulwer, with all his affairs, wrote two hours every day. D'lsraeli wrote novels, not very good ones, but they extended his reputation. Lord Macaulay is a brilliant instance. Justin Mc- Carthy wrote a good history and good novels. Mr. Gladstone is an author. Such has not been the case with our senators and congressmen. Henry Cabot Lodge has written a few biographies - I can think of no other. Mr. Blaine wrote his "Twenty Years in Congress," and Mr. Grant his "Memoirs," but both after they had retired from public life. Theological graduates have acquitted themselves more creditably. They have their prototype in John Wesley. There never was a busier man, yet he found time to write instructive books for his people, he wrote hymns, he wrote at least one good love-poem, when he was disappointed in love (a man writes poetry then if he never does again), and he wrote a delightful Journal. All our Methodist bishops have been industrious men. Bishop Thomson, for whom this Hall is named ; his Travels and Essays are as fresh and delightl'ul to-day as when they were written. Here is Bishop

Walden, who is always contributing articles to our fine periodicals. At the saddest time of my life I was consoled by reading Bishop Foster's beautiful book, " Beyond the Grave." Dr. Payne has given us grand plans for " Character Building." I am deeply indebted to Dr. McCabe. His explanation of "The Foreknowledge of God" straightened out my theological difficulties. All our Church papers are ably edited by theological graduates, and theological graduates write most of the articles in them. One of my class-mates, Mrs. May Alden Ward, has written two delightful books, Biographies of Dante and Petrarch. Mrs. Ward is not a theological graduate, but her husband is. And here I wish to thank and praise Mrs. Donelson. She inspired her pupils with an enthusiasm for literature, she instilled correct literary taste, and when she bade us good-bye, she said, "Girls, don't give up your writing." That reminds me, to ask what shall the women write, the women who make literature merely an avocation ? Let them write letters, and beautiful stories, and journasls. Sainte Beuve, a delightful French critic, said, "Any moderately gifted and sensitive soul, who dares to write unaffectedly, possesses the material for a good romance."

We graduates are intellectually equipped for literature. But something else is necessary. Besides the head, there must be a heart. Besides knowledge, there must be wisdom. The writer needs a high and enthusiastic faith. The soul must not remain void. Talent will never flourish in an empty soul.

Then let us believe that in this world things gradually work together for good. Let us believe in a glorified condition of things hereafter.

I toast The Graduate in Literature ! May he have a clear brain, keen and healthy senses, and may his creed be, optimism now, optimis7n forever.

The Graduate In Medicine

The man who has received a college or university degree has a place in Medicine as well as in other callings. It is no mean place in these latter days, and within a few years the probability is that unless a man is a college graduate, he will have no place at all in this learned profession. Medicine is the art of preventing, curing or alleviating disease, and of remedying as far as possible the results of violence and accident.

Perhaps no question is of more interest to man than the one of life ; for what will a man not give for his life ? Theology claims to be the profession of the world, because it has to deal with the moral nature - the soul - which is eternal and hence of far greater import to man than life and his temporal aflfairs. The Christian physician ministers to both body and soul, and is the superior of his brother in theology or in the other walks of life.

May I pause long enough just here to impress upon each young man who will enter Medicine, the unequalled opportunities for doing the work of our Master in this grandest of callings - for it is a calling.

Pleasant as it would be to contemplate the many thoughts springing out of this subject - the graduate in medicine - such as the position he holds in the medical teaching of the day, the social position he fills, the effect his presence and influence in the profession have upon the standard of the medical colleges of the world, etc., time will not permit. I must pause, however, to make the following statement : Whether Dr. A., who is a college graduate, will succeed better in the practice of medicine than will Dr. B., who is not, cannot be answered now because several things other than education are factors of success in medicine. It is beyond donbt, however, that Dr. A., with a college education, will succeed better than Dr. B. without one.

Equally agreeable would it be to discuss the question of the time required to complete a collegiate and a medical course, and whether it pays to wait so long before entering actively one's life work. I can stop only long enough to say that it more than pays to wait. Far better a few years of thorough, progressive, successful, effective work in the profession that leaves its impress on the age, than many years of ordinary, indifferent effort that sends the worker into oblivion " unwept, unhonored and unsung." No surer truth has ere been said than that by Tennyson, " better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay."

How delightful an employment would it be to stand in this inspiring presence and briefly sketch the careers of the Mitchells, the Riggses, the Frys, the Kreiders, the Withrows, who have gone from these halls to grace the ranks of Medicine. But I must forego that delight. Our mother need not be ashamed of them. So nobly indeed have they done that not only do they greatly honor their beloved wife - medicine - but even add to the brilliancy of their mother and to the lustre of their charming sisters and brothers.

Pleasant as are these contemplations, I must pass them by to consider briefly but one question, the higher medical education and the necessity of a preliminary college training.

" I cannot understand," says Hoppe-Seyler, " how at the present day a physician can recognize, follow in their course and suitably treat diseases of the stomach and alimentary tract, of the blood, liver, kidneys and urinary passages, and the different forms of poisoning; how he can regulate the diet in these and constitutional diseases without knowledge of the methods of physiological chemistry and of its

To this we may add, how can any intelligent, conscientious man be willing to enter this great field of medicine, dealing as it does with human life, unless he has a thorough knowledge of man, of his diseases and of all measures useful for their relief or cure ?

No intelligent architect will construct a great and massive building upon a poor foundation ; that must be deep - even down to the rock ; it must be broad and well cemented, or it will fail to support the superstructure. Many medical men cannot build large and magnificently, because their foundation will not support the structure. They feel their limitations and strive against them ; but despite all efforts they are compelled to fall behind and to see other and younger men with more thoroughly trained minds pass on before.

The candidate for medical honors should have in addition to a good general education a reading knowledge of German, French, Latin and Greek. He should have a mind well trained to habits of thought, with its memory and reasoning powers thoroughly developed. In addition to these things, before entering a medical college he should be familiar with the vegetable and animal world, with preventive medicine, legal medicine, hygiene and medical history. How can he better obtain this knowledge and attain these qualities than by a classical or scientific course in a university ? Following this, he should become familiar with anatomy, physiology, physiological chemistry, pathology, bacteriology and pharmacology. This familiarity should be obtained not only by text-book and lecture, but by laboratory practice and study. Having completed the above-named courses, he is prepared to take up the practical branches, such as general medicine, surgery, obstetrics, gynaecology, and the several specialities.

most of which can be best learned by clinical instruction. What better preparation can a man have for properlygrasping these important truths and obtaining these broad views of medicine than by a regular college course? Indeed, I might say that it is well-nigh impossible for anyone not a college or university graduate to thoroughly master this higher medical curriculum.

These are not imaginary demands, but are the requirements the great medical schools of the world have established for graduation. The universities of the old world, and Harvard, Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins, and some of the other schools of this coimtry, have taken the stand for higher medical education. Some of the States have enacted laws in accord with this broad and thorough basis of medical culture. The other States will follow their example. The tide has turned. Soon will it be said : " Old things have passed away ; behold, all things have become new."

The art of medicine is of such import to the human race, is so intricate in its phases and so fraught with responsibilities, that no man can be too well prepared to practice it. It is urged that medicine is not an exact science ; that it depends so much on experiment that scientific attainments are unnecessary ; that the ability a physician possesses is shown by the length of time he practices the art, and not by the amount of knowledge and by the well-trained mind he brings with him at the time of his entrance into the profession. This has perhaps been true to a considerable degree in the past, and it contains some little truth at the present time ; but each year medicine becomes more and more an exact science. To-day, thorough training and knowledge count for more than years of practice. The world at large is coming to learn this, and ignorant men and quacks will soon be no more. They will cease to be, because no demand will exist for them.

The colleges and universities of the world are digging the sepulcher of empiricism. The graduates of these institutions are even now wrapping its grave clothes about it, and soon will they so firmly cement and seal the entrance to this tomb that no Christ will ever arise with power enough to call this Lazarus forth. It is a burial from which there will be no resurrection.

We who are in medicine feel that our Alma Mater, so dear to the heart of each son and daughter, which stands to-day not with the hoary hair, the fading vision, the trembling limbs of age - though fifty years of life have passed - but with the raven locks, the flashing eye, the firm step, the noble bearing of youth, must have a part in this work. She must send her graduates into the medical colleges and universities of the world so well prepared in mind and heart that they can stand beside the best, and, having finished their professional studies and entered this grandest of all callings, can, in terrific strife for place, show to the gazing multitude the beautiful colors of the O. W. U., flying, as they do to-day, above the front column of the advance guard without a single stain of ignorance or dishonor upon them.

The Graduate In The College

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : I heartily thank you, sir, for the honor of participating in this memorable occasion, and the kind compliments of your introduction. But any honor that may seem to point to me, more surely points to our dear Alma Mater, whom we all most gratefully salute to-day. " Salve ^ magna Parens ! " of the trustees of a sister institution I have been permitted to share her fortunes for over a third of a century, I am led to suspect that I have been invited from the young and modest West to prove by post-prandial speech that I am not wholly a reminiscence - a capacity which some of my anxious class-mates and cotemporaries may for prudential reasons doubt my qualification to fill, but unfortunately for them and for me, my antiquity may be demonstrated before I sit down, for this overpowering occasion may put me in the condition of an old friend of mine at a recent World's Fair dinner. He was a most remarkable old gentleman, for before dinner he remembered George Washington, but after dinner he remembered Christopher Columbus.

In speaking of Columbus, I am reminded that it was most benefiting that our fair Columbia should have invited all the world to the celebration of her four-hundredth birthday in a grand exhibition of human progress. So to-day, with equal propriety, our beloved Cornelia is hostess of guests numerous and worthy, drawn from the various provinces of the Republic of Letters. And as she lovingly points to them as her jewels, they unitedly shout her plaudits. To become one of these jewels was the early aspiration of every alumnus, and no title or emolument has come to any of us since equal to " Son of Alma Mater." And as we gather from afar to greet our loving mother on her fiftieth anniversary, it is an inexpressible pleasure to find her fifty times fairer and strongei* and more beloved than when we first sat at her feet. This pleasure is intensified when we walk about our Zion, telling her towers, marking her bulwarks, and counting her places and the hosts of her elect Israel, and still more when we catch a glimpse of Monnett Hall and learn that our young mother has consented to break the spell of old tradition which compelled her to bring forth only male

But the keener and more luminous vision of our day and our land demands for men and women alike the strength and the refinements of scholarship.

We come to this high festival with tender recollections and hopeful anticipations, with thanksgivings for the past and aspirations for the future ; we

In this bright jubilee, no congratulations for our fair hostess are more hearty than those which we bring from sister colleges which are glad to recognize their obligations to this elder sister whose example they have emulated, and at whose shrine so many have kindled their lamps. We greatly appreciate the far-reaching light of this noble Pharos, built upon the rock of truth by wiser than we, to warn from the reefs and shallows of pernicious doctrines.

All learning is cosmopolitan and reciprocally helpful. It has no petty rivalries. Every noble benefactor and every true teacher is an inspiration to all the rest. There is no gratitude better worth having than that felt by successive generations towards those to whom they owe their education. These higher institutions of learning, when wisely founded, are the best and most permanent of human institutions. They become hallowed spots in the eyes of the people. Pupils retain a warm attachment for them, wars spare them, and international law throws its protection over them. They outlive constitutions and dynasties. The twelve great schools of England were all founded over three centuries

From the first, great attention was given in this institution to the development of pure and noble character. Whole-some precept was reinforced by the example of pure and magnetic lives. The old celebrated Sabbath afternoon lectures had a literary and spiritual power beyond computation. I doubt if any university in the country has ever had their equal. These and other human agencies crowned by divine favor have made this one of the strongest christianizing forces in the land.

There was also early developed a broad love of letters, rather than the niceties of scholarship. The student was helped to assimilate the thoughts and sentiments of authors and teachers, rather than to magnify the technicalities of scholarship. The marrow was regarded as of more value than the bone that encased it. They believed with Montaigne that man should be " taught to love virtue instead of learning to decline virtus."

The Humanities and those arts rightly called liberal have here continued to claim their ancient right and to yield their fruitage of culture and character. Science, too, under the stimulus of the new education, has had an increasing share of attention, helping the mind to organize whatever is learned and bringing it into true relations to other knowledge, thus making life noble and generous. But is there not ground to fear that all the colleges are under temptation to unduly force university forms into college methods too narrow for them ? Are we not, in the college grade, in danger of pushing too far or too fast the elective system, and the lecture system, and the work of original research ? While these systems have great value within moderate limits in a college course, yet it is easy to carry them beyond the age and capacities of college students and the scope of college equipments. The same tendency to extremes is observed in the popular athletics of the day which brings together 2,000 weaklings who need exercise to witness the extraordinary efforts of a few nines who do not need it.

If it is still demanded of the college to inspire and maintain high ideals of life; if it is expected to continue fitting its pupils to cope with as many exigencies of the day as possible, then it must continue to give an all-round education, and to turn out Aristotle's four-square men, capable of holding their own in whatever field cast, rather than lop-sided ones abnormally developed in one direction. I have not much admiration for those specialists who know only one thing, and though they know very little about that one thing, are supposed to know all about it, because they know nothing of anything else. Special aptitudes are likely to take care of themselves, but latent possibilities can best be discovered by experimenting in different directions. Lowell happily hits the mark when he says the " manysidedness of culture makes our vision clearer and keener in particulars,"

When I recall my personal debt to our dear University, the high ideal which I formed under the inspiration of these classic shades, and when I look into the beaming faces of my dear old teachers, Doctors McCabe and Williams, whose minds and souls are still blooming in immortal youth ; and still more, when I recall the precious memories of the forceful Harris, the seraphic Thomson and the sainted Merrick, I am led to exclaim, how wide-armed is the teacher's calling, gathering its material from every side, going the grand round of human endowment to select what it will enrich and bless, making all interests of society in some measure its debtors, all achievements of body, mind and character in some sense its outcome, never adequately appreciated till it is lain down, never realizing its own elastic ideal but by what it makes of man, giving him his first dim vision of what he may become, and setting his face rightly towards his present, which is housed in the material, and toward his future which shall be without house, spiritual and eternal.

The last session of the "Jubilee" was held in Gray Chapel, on Thursday afternoon, June 21, with Hon. D. S. Gray, President of the Board of Trustees, in the chair.

Governor Wm. McKinley, who was present, made a delightful oflf-hand speech while thanking the trustees and faculty for conferring upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. All the friends of the University are deeply indebted to the Governor for his warm interest in the building of University Hall.

The Christian College A Necessity To The Church And The State

Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen : During the progress of these festive days we have all heard so many eulogistic words concerning the institution whose semi-centennial we now celebrate that I have felt somewhat apprehensive lest those who are not connected with the Ohio Wesleyan University might begin to feel it were better for them had- they never been born. I am, however, fearful that my address will not bring them much relief.

Fifty years of noble history have more than justified the eloquent prophecy of the fervid Elliott when, in language that seemed to tax hyperbole, he pictured the future of the institution to be planted beside the ever-gushing spring. A half century has passed, and for far-reaching and beneficent influence we may well challenge any institution in Church or State, within the same period of time, to produce a parallel. In answer to the question, " What has the Ohio Wesleyan University accomplished ? " we stand dazed and smitten with wonder by the very embarrassment of riches at hand. Figures, indeed, march before us in startling array, grand and imposing, but wholly inadequate to represent reality.

Two thousand two hundred graduates have passed from its halls bearing its honored parchment, while probably 20,000 students have for a longer or a shorter period felt its molding touch. To tell what this army of men and women, marching with brave hearts and noble purposes to the world's work and the world's battle, have done, would be a task like that of calculating the influence of the sun upon the earth. Suffice it to say, that humanity has been so greatly enriched by the direct products of this institution of learning that could you by some fell stroke eliminate all its work and quench all its light, the wide world would feel the darkness and impoverishment. This college has been singularly successful in helping to make men ; - manly men and womanly women. Men and women in whom highest culture has been crowned with highest character, and whose lives have been devoted to useful service. Men and women who have made Society, the Church and the State, better by their salutary influence. We proudly place its 2,200 graduates beside an equal number from any other college in the land. It is doubtless the highest glory of this institution that for fifty years it has been pre-eminently a religious college. Its all pervasive and ever-continuing religious spirit, its oft-repeated and phenomenal religious revivals, beyond all question constitute the brightest gem that sparkles in the coronet of this Chris- tian College. Genuine scholarsliip has always been at a premium, and graduates of high scholastic attainments have from the first gone forth from its halls into all the honorable vocations of life, while through its entire history the large proportion of ministers which have received their training here has been a marked feature ; and it is not a little gratifying to recall the fact that in the proportion of its male graduates who are intending to enter the Christian ministry, it still leads the colleges of Methodism and the colleges of the land, thirty-five per cent, of the gentlemen of the class of '93 having the ministry in view. If all the money ever expended by American Methodism produced no greater results than are seen in this institution, it would be a hundred fold reward.

Why Maintain Denominational Colleges

If the question should be asked, " Why in our time should the Christian Church support its own colleges?" the answer may be promptly and emphatically given ; because the highest interests of the individual and of the nation and of the Church demand the maintenance of such colleges. Because the Christian Church cannot fulfill its mission without the use of this right arm of power, the Christian College. Never was the Christian College more imperatively demanded than to-day.

What is the chief aim in all true higher education ? To make the mathematician, the biologist, the linguist ? Rather to make the man; the man prepared for complete living, the symmetrical man, the ideal man. And where shall we find the true standard of ideal manhood ? To that question there is but one answer. God's ideal of a man is given us in Jesus of Nazareth. The nearer we approach to this matchless standard, the nearer perfection shall we attain. Need we add that the institution of learning that pays homage to this lofty ideal, that enthrones this incomparable Teacher and conducts all its educational work under His supremacy and in accordance with the principles of His Kingdom, will do the noblest work, will produce the loftiest types of character. Amid so much that is confusing and misleading in our modern education, there is need that the Christian College should speak with the prophet's voice to the youth of our land, and in all the work of character building should repeat with emphasis the words of inspiration, " See that thou make all things according to the pattern shown thee in the mount." Some voices are now being heard speaking with an emphasis that it is refreshing to hear. Recently an educator and social leader who is rapidly coming to the front, has affirmed, " The worth or permanence of any man's life is just according to the measure of the Christlife he receives. Character, individual, social, or political, without Christ, is a vain and destructive imagination. There is no genuine morality that is not the output of the ingrowing Christ-life. Self-righteousness is atheism in the soul, in the market, in the Church, in the State." If this be true, and who dares challenge its truth, it is quite time that this supreme truth were proclaimed with even more courage than has marked the utterances of the Church in previous years ; and being proclaimed, it smite with destructive hand all Christless systems of education. There is no more delusive teaching of modern times than that which holds a man educated whose best and noblest nature is left an uncultivated waste. As well claim that the brutal champions of the prize ring are educated because their muscles have been so trained that they can beat and pommel each other with fearful force. So may a man's mental nature be trained to no higher purposes, and practically with no higher results. We want colleges that will produce not a Sullivan in physique, nor a Mephistopheles in intellect, nor a Lilliputian in faith and morals, but manly. Christian men.

Since, then, symmetrical character and high manhood are the prime object of all genuine education, it is of prime importance to every individual, whatever may be his intended vocation, that he secure his education in an institution of learning in which these high ideals are dominant. It is certain that one's education, its quality and its value, will be largely determined by his Christian principles and by his environment. His very conception of culture is thus determined as well as all its processes, its aims and its ends. With the right conception of education at the start, a con- . ception that seeks a preparation for life in order to compass life's highest end, unselfish living, the student seeks a culture that is genuine and deep and abiding rather than the superficial and the ephemeral. He has then from the beginning the immense benefit of high aims, high ideals, high inspirations, and a favoring environment, that seldom fail in producing best results. A man lacking these high moral and manly qualities lacks the crown of manhood, lacks genuine greatness. John Stuart Blackie, the sturdy, genial old Scotchman, says, "A great genius is not necessarily a great man. He may be a Beethoven in the lordship of sweet sounds, a Raphael in the cunning handling of brush and pencil, a Napoleon in the well-ordered sweep of ambitious war, but not therefore a great man. Jove is not Jove merely as a strong launcher of the thunderbolt, but as the asserter of justice, the avenger of perjury and the protector of innocence." That is the kind. of man which the times demand. It is the kind of man which all our institutions should seek to produce. It is, however, let us sadly confess, a question of great seriousness whether a certain class of colleges, not difficult to name, are to-day graduating from their halls a very large proportion of men of that type, men who possess genuine scholarship and genuine manhood built after the Christian pattern. There is pre-eminent need of the Christian College to give the world the type of men it sadly needs - men who are not content to leave Society as they find it, but carry it forward to nobler issues and higher attainments. Herbert Spencer says, " By no political alchemy can you get golden conduct from leaden instincts." No, by some process, the " leaden instincts " must be made golden. But how ? By no alchemy that science can command ; only by that higher alchemy with which the Christian teacher is quite familiar, the alchemy of the new birth. And the teacher or the school that ignores that higher alchemy of Heaven, will toil away hopelessly at the impossible task of trying to make "leaden instincts" produce "golden conduct."

The Nation

The Christian College is necessary to the nation's perpetuity and safety. National prosperity and honor are all involved in the maintenance of thoroughly Christian institutions of learning. Goethe said, " The destiny of any nation at any given time depends on the opinions of the young men who are under twenty-five years of age." If this be even approximately true of its young men in general, it is a hundred-fold more true of its young men who are gathered within college and university halls. Would you cast the horoscope of Europe ? Make careful analysis of its universities, the Sorbonne, Berlin, Oxford.

And nowhere else is the connection between the college and the State so close, so direct and so vital as in our own Republic. Republican institutions are unquestionably glorious, but unquestionably perilous. No other institutions feel the touch of youthful hands so quickly and respond to that touch so readily. Believing as we do and must in the Divine Book, we must also firmly hold that no nation can permanently stand the stress of years that is not upheld by the pillars of righteousness. And to keep those pillars firm and erect requires the strong hand of Christian statesmen. And Christian statesmen, for the most part, are the product of the Christian College. Few perils of our nation are greater than the greed of power ; partisanship runs mad in its wild, unprincipled race for power. The statesman asks what the nation needs, and seeks to provide for it. The demagogue asks how he can lift his petty self to position, or place his party, right or wrong, in the seat of power. But what makes statesmen ? High and righteous principle applied to the character building from the cradle through the university ; education conducted with unwavering fidelity to the development of the whole being; symmetrical education that would as soon neglect the mind in any other of its varied functions as the conscience, which is the regal power of the mind. Banish from our colleges religious teaching, and they will quickly become nurseries of socialism and anarchy, as many universities of Europe can emphatically testify. Nor can we deny that our own system of government presents special temptations to the ambitious young man. Political preferment is easily within reach, and naturally sought. The young men of America need all the restraints of a stalwart Christian faith, all the helps of a firm disciplinary regime, and all the accessories of healthful environment, to protect them from the insidious influence of an unworthy ambition, and to hold them to the steady path of the statesman, rather than leave them to tread the perilous ways of the demagogue.

The next fifty or even twenty-five years in our nation's history will be critical years. It must be wisely and firmly held to its Christian traditions and its practical Christian character. The seeds of political atheism have been too widely sown, and we cannot deny that their poisonous fruit is beginning to appear. It ought not to be possible, it must not remain possible, for a senator unrebuked to repeat a pitiable piece of recent history and declare that the application of Christian principles to politics, such principles as are taught in the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, is an " iridescent dream." It ought not to be possible for a man in our national Congress to utter such words as have startled the ears of the nation within the last few months, when a representative of a Christian commonwealth affirmed that bodies of Christian people have no right of petition to our national Congress, with the plain implication that they should attend to their own peculiar business, whatever that may be, and leave the grave matters that affect the State and the social interests of the people to the demagogues and the devil. That is a species of political atheism that means political anarchy, and political anarchy means national destruction. It is quite time that the Christian sentiment of this Christian nation asserted itself, and relegated to deserved obscurity the men who utter such dangerous sentiments. No wild-eyed anarchist, with his uncurbed tongue, is doing half as much harm as these unprincipled men who stand inside the halls of Congress. Every interest demands that we should listen reverently to the inspired words that have not yet lost their force, " The nation and the kingdom that will not serve me shall perish." Wrong is wrong, and right is right, irrespective of the foolish utterance of the partisan and the demagogue ; and whatever would be wrong in any Christian man, is equally wrong in the State. And this high doctrine of a standard of righteousness applicable alike to men and to states, to individuals, to corporations, and to nations, must be faithfully applied. It needs no argument to show that this class of men who will be of real service to the nation will come almost entirely from the Christian College. Nothing is so much needed in our country as to enthrone conscience and intelligence in the high seats of power and influence. Conscience and intelligence in the President's chair, in the Senate Chamber, in the National House of Representatives, in magisterial and legislative seats, in every commonwealth of the Union ; and nowhere else is it more needed than in that most potent agency of our times, the daily press. The Christian College never had so great a work to do ; never was demanded by such imperative voices as now summon it to the work of training a class of conscientious and cultured men, who, rising above self-interest and party preferment, will march forward as leaders of a conquering host, whose watchword and battle cry shall be, " For God and native land."

" The riches of the commonwealth Are free, strong minds and hearts of health ; And better far than gold and grain, The cunning hand, the cultured brain."

The Church

The interests of the Church demand the Christian College as never before. Never did the task set before the Church so imperatively require the highest cultitre, combined with Christly love. With the increasing complexity of our civilization comes increased difficulty in attaining success in any vocation in life. Nor must the Church expect that in any of her varied fields of endeavor she can win success without reaching the high standard of requirements demanded in other fields. The pulpit is still a throne of power, but it is a throne which the weak man will occupy at his peril and the peril of the Church he represents. A throne of power indeed, but only for a man of power. For while strength was never so potent, weakness was never so puerile. The great problem before all Christian denominations to-day is the problem of demand and supply ; the demand for the right kind of ministers and missionaries and Christian leaders far exceeding the supply. There is and there will be no substitute for the Christian College in yielding this much-needed supply. Methodism is rich in its resources, rich in its magnificent armies of young men and women that have in them the possibilities of high service to the Church. It must not fail to see that these thousands of aspiring youth find their way to its highest institutions of learning; nor must it fail to provide such institutions, unsurpassed for excellence by any in the land. The greatest Church in Christendom demands the greatest and best-equipped army in Christendom ; and that necessitates the noblest and best endowed institutions of learning in Christendom. Methodism will be derelict to its duty if it does not provide, nor linger long in making the provision, the needed millions to put upon a firm foundation our struggling colleges and universities.

Never before has there been such expansion of views, such breadth of aims in the Christian Church as to-day. A new era is dawning. Glorious as the past has been, still more glorious will be the future. All signs point to a coming conflict in which the Church is to bear aloft her banners and lead to greater victories than have marked her history in the past. Society is not only feeling the pulsations of evolution, but is in the very throes of revolution. The air is tremulous with the gathering forces. Everywhere there is unrest, discontent and strife. Nothing is more apparent than the fu- tility of all other agencies and orgaaizations to adjust the relations between man and man, to place Society upon a firm because a righteous basis, and to lead its contending forces to higher and better uses. Plainly, the Church of Christ is Society's true and only Savior. And there is no aspect of our times that bears the stamp of God's providence upon it as does the great awakening which is evidently coming to the Church of Christ respecting its duty to Society. Prophetic voices, touched with Divine fire, are calling to the Church to move forward to the salvation of Society as it has never yet undertaken to do. Far be it from me to chide or criminate the Church for what she has not done in the past, or has done so imperfectly. Enough to say that times change and wider prospects open to the advancing Church ; new opportunities are presented, new duties summon her to what she has not hitherto undertaken. The duty of the hour is to marshal her forces, to unify and mass them, and to undertake by direct efforts the mighty task of overthrowing iniquity, organized, legalized, respectably patronized, buttressed and supported by whatever prop of respectability or law or custom, and to make Society tlwroiighly Christian in all its organizations and forms. That the Church will undertake this sublime work, that it will succeed in it beyond what the most hopeful prophet dares to foretell, I cherish no doubt.

I foresee a future for the Church of Christ big with promise, glorious in its unequalled victories. And this new era, sure to come, may already be dawning, and hurrying our waiting feet forward to its tremendous issues calls for distinguished leadership. The one imperative, comprehensive demand of the Christian Church to-day is high, inspiring, commanding leadership. Give to the Church of Christ in Christian America that leadership to-day, and no forces of evil can stand before it. And where shall we look for such leadership but to the Christian College? Not colleges that question the wisdom and greatness of Moses, but that magnify his statesmanship and sound in the ears of the coming leaders of these marshaling forces the Commandments of God written by Moses on the tables of stone amid Sinaitic thunders. Not colleges that insinuate skeptical questionings as to the truth of Christianity, but colleges that enthrone Christ and hail him as the world's great deliverer. Colleges that emphasize and teach applied Christianity that has the Sermon on the Mount for its supreme, practical guide ; that do not deem that incomparable charter of the Church an impracticable, ideal dream, but a veritable constitution, by which the Church, the State and Society are to be governed, and through which the Kingdom of Heaven is to be set up on earth. Colleges that, while free from bigotry and sectarianism, as the Church must and will be free, will make no apology for lifting high the Cross of Calvary and pointing the thousands of them that flock to their halls to that supreme symbol of power while they teach with an emphasis that cannot be misunderstood the never-to-be-forgotten legend, " By this sign conquer! " Colleges that hold the body of students kindly but firmly up to this high standard of Christian manliness and Christian purity, that will not tolerate any practice, however innocent in name, or respectable in precedent, that is inconsistent with the teachings of the manly Christ. And this means that the college itself must be thoroughly and uncompromisingly Christian; not half Christian and half pagan. And this type of a Christian College alone will meet the stress of the twentieth century. If a denominational college is not Christian through and through, and cannot present better products of character, better specimens of its work than schools that make no claim to Christianity, the raison d'etre^ the right of existence for such a college has ceased. And in these new and stirring times that are just before us, when the trumpet of God is sounding among men as never before, and prophetic voices are calling the Church to a higher service and to greater victories, no man, no Church, no institution, no State, can bear the stamp of Christianity that is not in very truth, and in the eyes of men, actually and practically following the Lord Jesus Christ. Following Him in the surrender of personal ease and will, and in consecration to the high service of manhood; following Him by putting into concrete form in daily deed the Sermon on the Mount.

In Gov. McKinley's address, delivered upon the platform a year ago, he related an instance connected, I think, with the battle of Cedar Mountain, where a part of the brigade had gotten quite in advance of their comrades in a seemingly perilous position, and the Division Commander, seeing the situation, commanded that the colors should be brought back. The Brigade Commander, with better knowledge of the real condition of affairs, and unwilling to beat a retreat, called out in tones that thrilled the hearts of the men, " Bring the men up to the colors ! " The man who uttered those memorable words was once President of the United States, three times Governor of the State of Ohio, and - honor equal to that of any other position - a trustee of Ohio Wesley an University. That man was Rutherford B. Hayes. The Ohio Wesleyan University has carried its colors with courage and hope to the most advanced position held by any American college. We can, by no means, beat a retreat. Turning to the millions of Methodist people in this great country, and to the two hundred and fifty thousand Methodists in the great State of Ohio, to-day she sends out her ringing appeal, " Bring the men up to the colors ! " elected President of the Ohio Wesleyan University. A year later I was inaugurated. The first year we had three hundred and twenty-three students - all men. In my dreams for its future, I started a battle cry that was echoed throughout this great central State. That battle cry was, let there be a thousand students within its halls and a million dollars within its treasury ! When I resigned the Presidency of the Institution, six years ago, having held it for twelve years, I was permitted to see almost the full realization of that dream ; a thousand students, minus but seventeen, were then enrolled in its student body, and a large portion of the million dollars had been fully pledged, while the remainder was in clear sight. And now I start another battle cry : long before the Ohio Wesleyan University shall have accomplished its next fifty years of history and completed its full rounded century, there must be five thousand students within its halls and five millions of dollars in its treasury !

Ex-Governor Charles Foster

Mr. President, and Ladies and Gentlemen : As this is the Jubilee year - the Semi-Centennial of the Ohio Wesleyan University, - it is entirely appropriate to refer to its early founders. In fact, the ceremonies will not be complete without reference to the early labors of Thomson, Merrick, McCabe, Williams, and others, who laid broad and deep the foundation stones upon which rest the magnificent, as well as beneficent, results which are now conspicuously apparent on every hand.

No other man or set of men could have been found who possessed the attributes of good sense, self-denial and fervent piety, and all the qualities necessary for a successful beginning of such an enterprise. While all honor and glory are due these men, we must not forget that behind them was an organization just then assuming gigantic proportions in the religious world, which, after all, has been the strong right arm of support, and without which it is probable that the brave efforts of the founders would have come to naught.

Here the thought suggests itself that, inasmuch as the great and powerful M. E. Church has not hesitated to conform itself to the advancing civilization of the age, so must the management of the University also conform to the times in which we live. This, I am glad to note, she is doing.

Your President was pleased to refer to me as a tow-headed boy, whom he first knew in our school days at Norwalk, O. I think he is mistaken as to the color of my hair, but, be that as it may, I was born in Northwestern Ohio. The first preacher I ever saw or heard was a Methodist, and my only academic education was received at Norwalk, under the presidency of Dr. Thomson, whom I most affectionately remember.

When complimentary diplomas were bestowed on several gentlemen to-day, I felt that, as my schooling had taken place in the academy that was the predecessor of Delaware, that my service ante-dated theirs, and that, like them, I did not graduate, I was being neglected. Perhaps the faculty will be more considerate in the future.

I remember well how those old-fashioned preachers made the woods resound with their fervid eloquence. Among them was Father Gray, whose picture adorns the walls of this chapel - the gift of his son, our honored President.

With all due deference to the eloquence of Dr. Payne and other preachers of the present day, I cannot resist the feeling that, in the matter of eloquently portraying the horrible condition of the sinner, and in describing the beauties and glories of Heaven, these old preachers excelled.

beg your indulgence to relate an incident in which a present resident of Delaware and myself took part. I refer to Chaplain Collier. There were two villages in Northwestern Ohio, in one of which I resided. These villages were very small, and only a mile apart. In each of them was a Methodist Church, and both weak. If combined, they would make one good, strong station. But the brethren in these churches partook of the rivalries of the two towns, and when meetings were held to eflfect a consolidation, it was found that both were willing, on condition that one would unconditionally surrender. Methodists as they were, and shouting ones at that, they would invariably quarrel when they met, and it finally reached the point that neither church would have anything to do with the other - a most deplorable state of affairs, - and a solution must be had, for neither church was doing any good. Their mission seemed to be to quarrel.

In this state of affairs. Rev. Disbro, who was Presiding Elder, selected a young preacher of good address and pleasant manners, whose principal mission was to get these two churches together. He came on to his charge. Among the first he met after his arrival was myself. He frankly told me his mission, and asked my help. I gave him a fair estimate of the general character of the principal combatants. They were all good men, but were of the moss-back type.

He called the principal men of each church together, and suggested his desire to unite the two churches, and to build a new church half way between the two old ones. The brethren would commence the discussion, but soon were in a quarrel, but before many hard words, Collier would say: " Let us pray." Down on their knees they went ; then he would call on the most belligerent to pray. He kept this up for about three weeks, when they came together, built the new church, and since that date the church at Fostoria has been one of the most prosperous, with one of the best church edifices in the conference. Here was one of the best illustrations of the power of prayer I ever knew.

I assume that many of the graduates of to-day, like those in the past, are looking to the political field to gratify their ambitions. I do not suppose you can go into any legislative body, west or south of Ohio, but what you will find among its members students of this University. They seem to have invaded the National House ; I am not certain as to the Senate, but if not represented there now, they soon will be by the presence of our friend Fairbanks, who sits behind me. They are Governors of States, and, in short, there is no place in the political world that they are not aspirants for.

It is thought by many that the highest rewards for human effort lie in the political field. I am inclined to think this is true ; the scientific and literary fields next, and the financial last. Who would exchange the name of Garfield for Gould, or Sam Randall for Vanderbilt ?

I have this, however, to suggest : that the first duty in any man's career is to secure a competency for himself and family - to lay broad and deep the foundations of good character and of success in the line you have chosen. Do not be in a hurry to enter upon official life. It is, however, the bounden duty of every man, no matter how exalted or exclusive his position may be, to be a politician, notwithstanding the hard knocks they have just received from Brother Payne.

No man is a good citizen that is not a politician. It is every man's duty not only to vote, but under our system of government, where parties are necessary, to also attend the caucuses and conventions. It is the duty of President Payne, President Bashford and Bishop Walden to attend the caucus. They have no right to complain of the character of candi- dates when they have neglected their duty as a citizen. Bad nominations come when the bad element of a party is permitted, by the non-action of the better element, to control its caucus and convention.

Notwithstanding what has been said by Brother Payne as to the bad character of public men in Congress and in other high places, I challenge him to get together 400 men who can excel in character, in integrity, real piety and intelligence, the 400 men who compose the Congress of the United States. They are the picked men of the country, and fully equal to the people who sent them to Congress.

We know what the glorious past of the University has been. We are confident that the coming years will witness a greater prosperity and still more glorious results.

Letters From Universities And Colleges

It is not within the range of the space allotted to this chapter to give in full all the many kind words which were received from the official heads of the various institutions to which invitations were sent to attend the Anniversary.

President Seth Low, of Columbia College, N. Y., wrote : " It gives me great pleasure to express to you the greetings of Columbia College on the occasion of your semi-centennial. The recent years have brought to us a number of students from your University. -^ ^ ^ \ am glad to say that all of them have done you credit, one in the Law School taking the third prize. They have shown good preparation and have been excellent students. May you turn out many more such men in the coming years."

" Cornell sends greetings to its older sister, Ohio Wesleyan University, now celebrating its semi-centennial anniversary. In this country and time, when institutions of the higher learning are springing with full-born powers from the wealth of modern civilization, it is a distinction for a university to celebrate its fiftieth birthday. A leading college of Ohio and of American Methodism, the Alma Mater of many useful citizens of the republic, your institution well deserves the congratulations of its sister universities at this time upon its good work in the past, and its excellent prospects for future usefulness."

" Allow me to congratulate the Ohio Wesleyan University upon the celebration of its semi-centennial. Surely the founders of the institution, if any of them are alive to-day, must regard with great satisfaction the work which has been accomplished in these fifty years. It seems to me that those who are engaged in the educational work of our country have much for which to be thankful. * * * We need not fear that our ideal will be too lofty."

" We rejoice in the growth and widening power of your institution, and we wish for it during the next fifty years a growth and power which shall far outmeasure all that it has hitherto achieved. * * * q^^^ of the strongest and most inspiring influences in my youthful life came from the addresses of President Thomson as they appeared in the Ladies' Repository after they had been delivered before the students of the University. * * * Xo have been the centre from which that shining and quickening influence

" Please accept sincere congratulations of Buchtel College on the completion of the fifty successful years of Ohio Wesleyan University. =5^ * ^ We join with many thousands in wishing the University continuous growth, usefulness and honor."

President Thompson, of Miami University, wrote : " Miami University, completing her seventieth year, joins with the great multitude in congratulating her junior sister upon attaining the honorable age of fifty. * * =*= The fifty years have been a splendid prophecy. May the Jubilee year be the beginning of a realization of that prophecy in which the Holy Spirit may descend in large measure, baptizing the institution, and consecrating her students to the cause of higher Christian education."

President Jordan, of Leland Stanford University, Cal. : " The Leland Stanford, Jr., University, three years old,, sends greeting to the Ohio Wesleyan University, which is fifty years old - old enough to be the grandmother of the promising infant who now sends its message. ^ May the Leland Stanford, Jr., University grow old enouglj to be a grandmother and still find the Ohio Wesleyan ^fty years ahead of it in age and vigor - in everything that makes a university strong."

" I rejoice with you on account of the history your institution has made for herself. I am glad that she is a denominational school, that she stands positively for the great principles of evangelical amity and is one of the mighty

" Fifty years of age is only youth to an educational institution. During this brief time, Ohio Wesleyan has attained a giant growth, and added a lustre to both the names Ohio and Wesleyan. * * * \ye join you in devout thanksgiving to the Master of all Degrees, who has so richly honored Ohio Wesleyan University. May the bright past be but the promise of a more radiant future."

" I beg leave to send you and the officers of your University the congratulations of our institution, as well as my own, on the successful ending of the first half century of your history. * * * The good wishes of the older institutions of learning in this eastern region will go with you into the future. The fraternity of educated men and of university men is a fraternity united by common purposes and common inspirations and common hopes. * * * May the spirit of our universities ever be a pure and noble spirit. May the great brotherhood of their graduates be always noble men."

President McDowell, of Denver University : " The University of Denver sends greetings to Ohio Wesleyan. You are in possession of a history of fifty splendid years. We are in our youth, but we salute you with love and congratulations. May the Ohio Wesleyan have the blessings of men and of God for untold ages. She has the love of her children, one of whom I am."

Wesleyan University, her most cordial congratulations and best wishes on this happy occasion. Founded in the same spirit, cherishing the same high ideals, built up in the same way by sacrifices, labors, tears and prayers, Delaware and Oberlin can never be other than firm allies in the great work of Christian education. They represent the belief that in the training of the young, the culture of the mind by learning and the culture of the heart by religion must proceed together."

Chancellor Day, of Syracuse University, N. Y. : * * * " The ' wheel ' rolled with such force that it threw you off, and, flying away on a tangent, you struck that eminence in Delaware with force enough to stick. The world owes much to the Methodist wheel. Ohio Wesleyan is debtor to it in the past and in the present. I had thought of you back in those New England days, when you were pastor of my old church in Portland, as one born for many things ; but what would be the supreme thing did not then appear. * * * But you have demonstrated it. Your summit is the college presidency. * * * You have a great University - next to Syracuse - in the line of Methodist institutions ! Modesty forbids me to say on which side of Syracuse you are in the ascending scale."

President Goucher, of the Woman's College, Baltimore : " I congratulate you and the many friends of the Ohio Wesleyan University upon the approach of its semi-centennial anniversary. * * * There is no mind sufficiently comprehensive in its thinking or discriminative in its perceptions to properly estimate the benefit to humanity coming from the impressions which the Ohio Wesleyan has made upon the fifteen thousand young men and women who, in the most formative period of their development, were under your care."

" President Gates requests me to acknowledge with thanks the invitation of the trustees and faculty of the Ohio Wesleyan University to be present at the public exercises and celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the University. He regrets that his professional duties will deprive him of the pleasure of attending, and he sends the hearty congratulations of Amherst College to the University upon the completion of a half century of useful work and most honorable history."

President Crawford, of Allegheny College, Pa. : " The oldest Methodist College west of the Allegheny Mountains sends greetings to-day to one of her fairest sisters. The noble record of Ohio Wesleyan University during the past fifty years is one of which Methodism may be justly proud. You have been foremost in bringing the advantages of highest education within the reach of all. The name and fame of your heroic builders ought never to be forgotten. There has been something in the surroundings of your institution which has stimulated to noble living. You have insisted on big heart as well as big brain. May the mention of your name always suggest high ideals of education and nobility of character."

" What a splendid record you have in the fifty years of your history ! You have grown great in wealth, in numbers, and in intellectual and spiritual power during these years. The names of your eminent scholars and teachers rise before me as I think of you - the name of Thomson, a man of international fame 5 * * * the name of Merrick, who has just been raised to a place among the immortals, but whose spiritual power is still among you, working toward the great consummation, and the names of many living scholars whom we might mention. Your opportunity, both because of your location and of your achievements in the past and equipment in the present, is full of promise."

President Quayle, Baker University, Kansas : " Baker University, the oldest college of Western Kansas, sends greetings to the Ohio Wesleyan University. The Ohio Wesleyan University is to be congratulated specially for two reasons : First, it has shown what phenomenal results may be achieved by a college adhering strictly to academic work ; second, it has demonstrated in a remarkable way that scholarship and a profound spiritual life may be contemporaneous."

" As a friend of higher education and a citizen of Ohio, I take pride in the work that you have done and in the honorable position to which you have attained. May each succeeding year of your history be characterized by an ever increasing measure of success."

President Sproull, of University of Cincinnati : " The successful completion of the semi-centennial of the Ohio Wesleyan University is a cause of rejoicing to me, not so much on account of its past as it is an earnest of its future prosperity. "^ * * It is the college only that can bridge the chasm between the rich and the poor. I rejoice in the prosperity of any college that makes for righteousness, but more especially when it is the representative of a religious body that is in a marked degree the friend of the poor and humble."

" That the influence of the Ohio Wesleyan University has always been thrown strongly in the right direction, every one knows who knows anything of its history. * * * gy prestige, the O. W. U. stands at the head of the Methodist institutions of the State and must always be the leading institution. Would it not be a good thing for Methodism - for all Methodist educational institutions, by whatever name called - and for the cause of higher education in general, if the current of students could be turned toward Delaware as the highest educational point in the State, for in this age currents flow upward as well as downward?"

" This University sends greetings and congratulations to the Ohio Wesleyan University on the occasion of its semicentennial celebration. We rejoice to know of the continued growth and prosperity of our sister institution. Its progress has been such as to rejoice all its friends. May it continue to prosper in the future as it has done in the past."

" I believe that the salvation of the country depends on the education of the people in Christian faith and morals, and that every Christian church has a duty to perform in the higher education of the people, for in the long run the education of the masses is based and depends on the higher education of the few. In this great work the Methodist Church is doing her full share, and has set an example which other churches would do well to follow."

" Fifty years ago the Ohio Wesleyan University entered upon its beneficent career. Twenty-five years ago this very summer, Boston University received its charter and initial organization. You have the advantage of us by quarter of a century's experience ; but to us both the beauty and joy of this advantage is that by virtue of it power is given you to take us with you into the field of your illustrious achievements, and to bestow upon us a share in all the fruits of your ampler life. * * « Through all generations may the Ohio Wesleyan retain its power of molding men to highest ideals, and through these may it mightily hasten the inbringing of that kingdom for which humanity in all its better moments has ever longed and labored."

" Otterbein University sends to her neighbor, the Ohio Wesleyan University, Christian greeting and hearty congratulations upon the auspicious completion of her first half century. We bid you Godspeed and pray that this may be but the stepping-stone to grander things."

" A half century of admirable work has laid the foundation for many centuries of building of character and inspiration for noble living. Education divorced from Christianity is a power dangerous to the individual and the public, and a spiritual life without the education of the intellect, the proper guidance of thought, fails to develop the whole man. * * * May a beneficent Providence smile upon this great school of learning, and the coming years crown her with abundant honors."

" I pay my tribute to the Ohio Wesleyan as an institution that is emphatically Christian and evangelical in her spirit and influence. Therefore no State institution can fill her place. She deserves the largest endowment and most generous support from the Church. These should come, must come, will come. On this glad anniversary I join you with grateful heart in rejoicing over the achievements and prospects of our University."

" President Eliot regrets that imperative engagements make it impossible for him to attend the exercises in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Ohio Wesleyan University."

President Scott, of Bareilly Theological School, India : "And now may I send my jubilee salam ( peace ) far over the sea with the prayer that the past fifty years may be but the earnest of a brilliant fifty years to come, such years as may make our University famous throughout the world."

" It grieves me beyond words to find that I must disappoint myself about being present at the exercises of commencement week. * * * As for Alma Mater, every cheer for her past, every plan for her future, every prayer to her God."

President Scovel, of Wooster University, O. : " It was in my heart to say all I could pack in a sentence or two. I regard the success of the Ohio Wesleyan Univer- sity as showing the way to enlarged usefulness in all our denominational colleges in which, in turn, I think lies largely Ohio's glory and safety. And I know its success to be consequent upon faithful adherence to religious principles. Better material of congratulation does not exist for any institution of learning."

" She stands forth among her sister colleges as a bright Pharos to warn against all forms of error and to guide to the haven of truth. May she have increasing prosperity and usefulness in saecula saeculorumy

President Peters, of Heidelberg University, O. : " We congratulate the Ohio Wesleyan University upon the glorious record of her history, and upon the position of influence which she has attained among the literary institutions of our country. May the Christ continue to bless her with rich effusions of His Spirit, so that as she moves forward in her glorious work of Christian education she may continue to be a fountain of sound knowledge and wisdom from which shall issue streams that '* shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the Most High."

" During the checkered half century since yOur portals were opened for students, you have achieved results which, considering all the difficulties of the situation, form a just occasion for wonder and rejoicing."

Striking Statistics Alumni Day

In 1844, there were thirteen colleges in the State of Ohio, and also just thirteen under the fostering care of our then united Methodism. It has been claimed that the Ohio Wesleyan University was founded to break the spell of that magic number.

From a business standpoint, another college in the State was perhaps uncalled for. The entire population was one and a half millions. Columbus was a straggling town of the Western type, with a population of 6,048, according to a census just completed. Cleveland was her equal with 6,070. Dayton was a town of 4,268 people, while Delaware was compelled to count in the entire township in order to reach her first thousand. The thirteen existing colleges averaged only one hundred students each, while not less than two of them did not ha.ve at the time a student in the collegiate department. And yet, the founding of the Ohio Wesleyan was demanded alike by the Church and the State. Methodism was represented by two annual conferences - the Ohio and the North Ohio - having a combined membership of 95,322, including Negroes and Indians, and a force of 262 efiective preachers. The Baptists had their college at Granville ; the Episcopalians, one at Gambler ; the Congregationalists had their Oberlin, and the Presbyterians had their hands on no less than three - Marietta, the Western Reserve at Hudson, and Oxford, a State institution. It seemed to our fathers

The State demanded this new college, as it has all that have followed it, for the reason that institutions of culture, like concretions in the earth, grow most from the particles nearest at hand.

Fifty years ago, Methodism had an uneducated ministry and an uneducated membership. It has been estimated that not more than one in twenty of its ministers had even an academic education. How could it be otherwise, when our Church had not a single theological school within all of its boundaries, and when her institutions of learning, of whatever grade, were few in number, feeble in resources and influence, and widely scattered ? Wesleyan in Connecticut, the mother of all Wesleyans, had graduated only no persons up to the year 1844 ; Augusta, of Kentucky, 125 ; Indiana Asbury, now DePauw, 27 ; in all, 262 for Northern and Western Methodism. Wesleyan had given to Ohio but one minister - James Oilman Blair, who joined the Ohio Conference ; two teachers - Wilbur, of Cincinnati, and Dwight, of Berea ; two lawyers - Lincoln, of Cincinnati, and Converse, of Sandusky ; one business man - Van Valkenburg, of Cincinnati, and facile princeps our own Merrick, a student but not a graduate. Indiana Asbury had not loaned a single one of its graduates, lay or clerical, to the State of Ohio. Augusta, smallest but kindest of the three, had given us a basketful of giants, destined to become leaders among us. No wonder that we have adopted the orphans of Augusta, and given them a place at our tables and in our hearts.

These statistics show that Ohio Methodism could not depend upon institutions of learning in distant States, nor after the division of 1844, upon one on Southern soil. There was a place for the Ohio Wesleyan University.

During the fifty years of our history, we have given to the churches, to schools and colleges, to law, to medicine, to business, to the farm, to the American home, an army of educated, cultured, and for the most part, of consecrated Christian men and women, now numbering two thousand one hundred and eighty-seven. In this statement we make no mention of a still larger host, estimated at twenty thousand of young people who thronged our halls for a longer or shorter period, but who did not graduate.

Mere cold figures can never truly represent history, especially when that history concerns even the earthly side of an endless life. What does it mean to us to be told that four hundred and ten of the Alumni of the Ohio Wesleyan University have entered the ministry of some Christian faith, and that already more than six thousand five hundred years of service stand to their credit - a year of service for each year in the history of the world since the birth of Adam. The results of such service are known only by Him to whom all history is an open book.

The Methodist Episcopal Church, as is to be expected, has gained most largely from this institution, but it is a matter for profound gratitude that our Alumni, many of whom were converted while in attendance at the University, have entered the ministry of sister denominations. The exact figures are as follows :

The Missionary record of the Ohio Wesleyan is one of which we may be justly proud, and which compares most favorably with that of other institutions of Methodism. It is a matter of some interest to determine who was our first Missionary. Was it Sheldon of '51, who, a few months after graduation, was sent by the Church to California, then a field as wild and uninviting as any in the world ? Was it our first preceptress, Minnie Rockwell, who, April 12, 1859, sailed out of the harbor of New York bound for India and Heaven ? Was it *Sites of '59, who, in June, 1861, sailed out of New York for China, which he reached after a voyage of 10 1 days ? Or w^as it Scott of '61, who, in the same year, set out for India to fulfill a vow made long before ? This is no time for fine distinctions. We honor alike these pioneers and the sixty-one other graduates who have followed them on this heroic crusade. Nor shall we forget the fifteen under-graduates who went with them and equaled them in consecration. Our roll of Missionaries contains the names of eighty persons. They have gone into India and China, to Japan and Korea, to Mexico and Costa Rica, to Chili, Brazil and the Argentine Republic, to Armenia, Turkey and Bulgaria - every Mission field of our Church, with the exception of Africa.