and logarithms,
and with whom the computation of values is itself the chief value in
life. The College should accommodate either bias, to the top of its
bent, but should not enforce either with compulsory twist. It should not
insist on making every alumnus a linguist or a mathematician. If mastery
of dead languages is not an indispensable part of polite education,
mathematical learning is still less so. Excessive requirements in that
department have not even the excuse of intellectual discipline. More
important than mathematics to the general scholar is the knowledge of
history, in which American scholars are so commonly deficient. More
important is the knowledge of modern languages and of English
literature. More important the knowledge of Nature and Art. May the
science of sciences never want representatives as able as the learned
gentlemen who now preside over that department in the mathematical and
presidential chairs. Happy will it be for the University if they can
inspire a love for the science in the pupils committed to their charge.
But where inspiration fails, coercion can never supply its place. If the
mathematics shall continue to reign at Harvard, may their empire become
a law of liberty.

I have ventured, fellow-graduates, to throw out these hints of
University Reform, well aware of the opposition such views must
encounter in deep-rooted prejudice and fixed routine; aware also of the
rashness of attempting, within the limits of such an occasion, to
grapple with such a theme; but strong in my conviction of the pressing
need of a more emancipated scheme of instruction and discipline, based
on the facts of the present and the real wants of American life. It is
time that the oldest college in the land should lay off the _praetexta_
of its long minority, and take its place among the universities,
properly so called, of modern time.

* * * * *

One thing more I have to say while standing in this presence. The
College has a duty beyond its literary and scientific functions,--a duty
to the nation,--a patriotic, I do not scruple to say a political duty.

Time was when universities were joint estates of the realms they
enlightened. The University of Paris was, in its best days, an
association possessing authority second only to that of the Church. The
faithful ally of the sovereigns of France against the ambition of the
nobles and against the usurpations of Papal Rome, she bore the