tread,
laying low the hills but exalting the valleys. Here Colonel Ephraim
Williams still executes his will, still disposes of his patrimony, still
leads the soldiers of the free to an enduring victory, and with a power
greater than the sword stands guard on the frontier marches of the
Commonwealth.

Honor compels that honor be recognized. In compliance with that
requirement this day has been set apart by this institution of letters
in testimony of the merit of her sons. Nearly one half of her living
alumni were under the direct service of the Nation in the great war.
Into all branches of the service, civil and military, they went from the
alumni, from the class rooms, from the faculty, up to President Garfield
himself, who served as Director of the Fuel Administration. From America
and her allies has come the highest of recognition, conferred by
citation, awards, and decorations. Their individual deeds of valor I
shall not relate. They are known to all. Advisedly I say that they have
not been surpassed among men. Their heroism was no less heroic because
it was unconscious there or because of befitting modesty it is
unostentatious here. There was yet a courage unequaled by the most
momentous dangers which were met by those now marked with fame and a
capacity in the others which would have matched equal events with equal
fortitude. In the most grateful recognition of all this, to the living
and the dead, by their Alma Mater the Commonwealth of Massachusetts
reverently joins.

But this day, if it is truly to represent the spirit of this college,
means more than a glorification of the past. It was by a stern
determination to discharge the duties of the present that Ephraim
Williams provided for a future filled with a glory that must not yet be
termed complete. His thoughts were not on himself nor on material
things. Had he chosen to inscribe his name upon a monument of granite or
of bronze it would have gone the way of all the earth. Enlightening the
soul of his fellow man he made his mark which all eternity cannot erase.
A soldier, he did not

"put his trust
In reeking tube and iron shard"

to save his countrymen, but like Solomon chose first knowledge and
wisdom and to his choice has likewise been added a splendor of material
prosperity.

Earth's great lesson is written here. In it all men may read the
interpretation of the founder of this college, of the meaning of
America, of the motive high and tr