and strenuous life of modern times that
men should have a liberal education. For be sure that there is no trait
in that education that entitles it to the name of liberal more sure and
more valuable than this education in the literature, in the history, in
the language of the great men of the ages past. If any boy is put
through what is called a liberal education, and finds when he goes out
from it, that he is not on a level with those who understand and cherish
the Greek language and literature, he will find that he is mistaken in
wishing to dispense with that distinguishing trait.

I am able to give you a very interesting anecdote, as it seems to me, of
this very point, of how a great man, great in his power, great in his
fame, yet of an ingenuous and simple nature, may look at this
accomplishment. On my return from Europe, when I first visited it, upon
a public errand, while President Lincoln was at the height of his fame
from the assured although not completed success and triumph in the war,
and from the great transaction that had made him one of the famous men
for all ages--the emancipation of the slaves--I had occasion, in a
friendly meeting with him, to express a hope that he would find it in
his power after the cares of State were laid aside to visit Europe and
see the statesmen and great men there whose mouths were full of plaudits
for his assured accomplished fame. Said he: "You are very kind in
thinking I should meet with a reception so gratifying as you have
proposed, and I certainly should enjoy as much as any one the
acquisition and the observation that such a visit would give; but,"
added he, "as you know very well my early education was of the
narrowest, and in the society in which I should move I should be
constantly exposed in conversation to have a scrap of Greek or Latin
spoken that I should know nothing about." Certainly that was a very
peculiar statement to be made by this wonderful man, but it struck me at
the moment that his clear mind, his self-poised nature, recognized the
fact that his greatness and his fame did not lie in the direction of an
association with what he regarded as the accomplished men of society and
of public life brought.

I believe, therefore, that we will stand by the college while it stands
by the Greek and the Latin, and certainly as representatives of the
great mass of graduates we can now talk more of Greek and Latin as a
common accomplishment than the greatest genius and