who have been blessed with
opulence have expended with the largest and most lavish hand in
supplying the government with the sinews of war and sustaining
everywhere the distrest upon whom the woes of war fell; that those less
large in means altho not in heart have not failed to pour out most
tenderly of time and care, of affection and love, in the thousand
channels that have been opened; that the statesmen and legislators
whose wise counsels and determined spirit have brought us thus far in
safety and honor are here,--would that their task were as completely
done as ours!--yet sure I am that in their hands "the pen will not lose
by writing what the sword has won by fighting;" that the poets whose
fiery lyrics roused us as when

"Tyrtaeus called aloud to arms,"

and who have animated the living and celebrated the dead in the noblest
strains are here; that our orators whose burning words have so cheered
the gloom of the long controversy are here, altho withal we lament that
one voice so often heard through the long night of gloom was not
permitted to greet with us the morning. Surrounded by memories such as
his, surrounded by men such as these, we may well feel at receiving this
noble testimonial of your regard that it is rather you who are generous
in bestowing than we who are rich in deserving. Nor do we forget the
guests who honor us by their presence to-day, chief among whom we
recognize his Excellency the Governor of Massachusetts, who altho he
wears the civilian's coat bears as stout a heart as beats under any
soldier's jacket, and who has sent his men by the thousands and tens of
thousands to fight in this great battle; and the late commanding general
of the Army of the Potomac under whom so many of us have fought. If the
whole and comprehensive plans of our great lieutenant-general have
marked him as the Ulysses of a holier and mightier epic than Homer ever
dreamed, in the presence of the great captain who fairly turned the tide
of the rebellion on the hills above Gettysburg, we shall not have to
look far for its Achilles.

Yet, sir, speaking always of others as you have called on me to speak
for them, it seems to me that the record of the sons of the university
who have served in the war is not unworthy of her. In any capacity where
service was honorable or useful they have rendered it. In the
departments of science they have been conspicuous and the skill of the
engineer upon whom we so often depend