USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Framingham > Memorial of the bi-centennial celebration of the incorporation of the town of Framingham, Massachusetts, June, 1900 > Part 16
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But, Mr. Chairman, we cannot stop here. A nation is never safe that is standing still. The twentieth century will not be as good as the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries have been unless it is a good deal better than either of them. Not security alone but progress also must be an end and aim; and we are to seek this progress by every means whereby we can level mankind upward. There must be a fuller and richer development of every man in his intellectual and his moral character.
Now the distinctive note of modern civilization is the greater intensity and complexity of human life. A man is related to more facts today than he ever was before ; and men are finding themselves bound up with their fellowmen in more ways than they ever imagined before. To meet the duties of the coming age our children must be given an all- round education. We must send the whole boy, the whole girl to school. In days when life was simple and the range of human activities comparatively narrow our fathers did well to ground their children thoroughly in a few branches of study. Today the field of action is an ever widening field and new horizons of learning stretch invitingly before us. The common school must open paths to these " fresh woods and pastures new ! " The hand must be trained no less than the head. The child must learn something of the wonderful laws of the universe, so simple yet so grand, which Science discloses and illustrates. Art, too, must have a place in the broadening curriculum and the youthful mind be taught
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that, in this world as God has made it, the Beautiful is as much a part of the divine whole as is the True or the Good. And finally, we must discover the way whereby to cultivate in these young, impressible hearts the love of goodness, the enthusiasm of humanity, the passion for righteous living. Through the example and wise persuasion of their teachers and by a constant use for this purpose of the world's best literature the minds of our youth must be touched by the inspirations of a sound morality and a pure religion. To save our American schools from the corrupting influences of degrading politics and from the insidious spirit of worldly greed we must pay the price of " Eternal vigi- lance." Let us then be watchful, let us be public-spirited, let us be high minded and devoted citizens that the new Century may be more glorious than the past, even as morn- ing drinks the morning stars, or as the gray dawn of a June day is swallowed up in the refulgent summer noon.
THE TOASTMASTER. - The subject of our next toast is one which I approach with the utmost deference and it is a subject which every man claiming the title of gentleman should ever approach with the utmost deference and respect.
The subject of this toast is " The Ladies," and by the ladies we mean tonight the wives, the mothers, the daughters and sisters of Framingham. We are more than proud of them.
It has been well said, that "if you would look for sympathy turn to your sister ; if for unselfish devotion, turn to your daughter ; if for fidelity and assistance in affliction and trouble, turn to your wife; - and if you want to read the whole divine plan of salvation, look into your mother's eyes."
There is one gentleman here pre-eminently qualified to respond to this toast, and I ask Samuel J. Elder, Esq., of Winchester, to respond for "The Ladies."
SPEECH OF SAMUEL J. ELDER, ESQ.
Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen : - I am not going to take very much of your time. As I see the dwindling audience, and realize the kindliness of those who have remained and are remaining, - I call to mind that old
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Methodist who was preaching to a protracted meeting up in Vermont, and was called upon very late in the service for a few appropriate and closing remarks; and, as he arose, the great audience arose too, and started for the exits of the tent. He called out, " Brethen, I have been a travelling preacher all my days, but this is the first time I was ever called upon. to preach to a travelling congregation."
In response to the toast of " The Ladies," I am not going to say very much. In the first place the ladies don't require it. As a rule, they are far more able to say what is necessary for themselves. In the second place, my friend Mr. Olin has come here from the State House, bringing all the archives with him, and everything there was about women's dress, and the regulations of the early Colonies with regard to the ladies, and has addressed his whole speech to them, so that I am am completely anticipated.
I only want to say that I have been delighted to be here, and as I heard Mr. Olin's speech and some of the other speakers here tonight, I realize the abandon (Have I the French of it right?) which called to mind a Summer I passed outside of San Francisco. The President of the Union League Club of San Francisco telegraphed down to one of those small cities on the seashore, saying that seventy members of the Union League Club were coming down to spend Sunday there ; and the town of Framingham calls it to my mind as I have seen it during the day. The Mayor telegraphed back "Bring your paint, brushes, and buckets, and I'll provide the town."
There has been one delightful thing I have observed. I never was at all clear about the geography of this place, and I have not been at all clear since I have been here. Friend Adams met me in South Framingham, takes me in a carriage over to Framingham, and there I hear Brother Hurd talking a great deal about the different parts of Framingham, but there seems to be perfect unity here today ; there may not have been all these two hundred years, but now you are absolutely united. You know I thought there would be some sign of a row, and I took from my top shelf a story - a pretty old story - that I thought would be appropriate to
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the situation ; but, though I find there has been no kicking, I am going to tell the story just the same.
A musician was employed to present some music at a lady's house, and as it grew very late, he finally desisted from his attack on the piano. And the lady said," My dear Professor, why do you stop?" "Well," he said, "I thought I might disturb the neighbors." "Oh" she replied "They poisoned our dog last week, and we do not care what happens to them."
As we stop to think of it, Mr. President, -- and I do not mean that you or I can remember back through these two hundred years, but what we know of history is what we have read, or have heard today, the thing that strikes one's mind is that you constantly hear stories of the past told in the names of the men. We start with Gov. Winthrop, and we hear the story of the early settlers, the men who first came to the different towns, the men who taught the schools, the men who held the offices, the men who went out to fight the Indians, who went to the State House, the men who dictated the policy, and very little of our story, very little of our history tells the story of what the women did during those times. And yet I believe that when you stop to think of it carefully, you will believe not only that the women bore the harder share in those early Colonial days, but they did more for the great development of this country and its principles than did the men.
Someone has said, speaking of the Pilgrim Fathers, that somebody ought to speak of the Pilgrim Mothers, and to say in the first place that they had to live with the Pilgrim Fathers ; and when I heard those things read by Mr. Olin, I thought of this.
But when it comes to courage, where has there been in the whole history of the world, courage brighter, finer, clearer, truer than that which the early settlers' wives and daughters showed all through those terrible times. The man takes his gun and goes out to fight; he has the excitement of the going, he has the pursuit, he has all the scheming there is to it. He joins his troops and goes forward with them, and the woman sits at home in those
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lonely log houses, or brought together in a desolate company into the log block forts, all those desolate days, waiting hour after hour, day after day, week after week, doing nothing but listening for the news of the life or death or captivity of husband or lover. Is not that the greater of the two hardships ?
Col. Higginson, you will remember, speaking of the courage of woman, tells of the sea captain, after a disaster, who had told him the story of a mother with three children. Everything was in confusion on deck; everybody was running about wildly, and the Captain said to her "Sit in the cabin with your children, and I will tell you when it is time to come to the boat." He didn't believe she could do it; but when the time came, and they were ready, rushing back to the cabin, there he found the mother with the three children about her, telling them stories in low, soothing tones, every child dressed in its warmest, little provisions made for the days they might be in the boat; revealing, I think you will agree with me, all that Kipling said of the " Soldier and Sailor too" where he tells us
"They stood, an' was still at the Birkenhead drill.
But they done it, the Jollies, 'er Majesty's Jollies, Soldier and Sailor too."
The Poet of the Empire could find nothing to write about women, and yet that has been the standard of courage which women have held during two hundred years of your life. And haven't they done work besides? What has there been done by the men in your community or any community that has not had back of it the inspiration of women? The early praise of the mother, the early words of encouragement as the child toddled to school and came back proud of the credit that it got ; for the praise and helpfulness the boy got from the sister, when the girl said the boy should go to college while the woman worked. That was the sacrifice that carried him through and finally was the stimulus of his work in those rough times, as it would be of the more complex days of the present time.
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You remember what Dr. Holmes said - " That love is not easily soluble in the words of a man, and for that reason, a man uses more words of love." But a single word of a woman will dissolve more than a man's heart can stand in a lifetime.
That, my friends, is true of women everywhere, and of women in all times, and under all conditions. The worship we pay to the times that are past is never half paid until we have paid the obligations we owe to the wives and sisters and daughters of the settlers and the residents of this and every town of this country.
THE TOASTMASTER .- The last toast of the evening is "The Spirit of Religious Liberty." It has been truly said of the founders of New England that "they left unstained what here they found, - Freedom to worship God." That religious liberty which they sought for themselves has been freely accorded to all others so fully and so absolutely that different forms and phases of religions belief and practice prevail to an extent almost confusing ; yet, this is but the result of that consummate loyalty to conscience and honest conviction which characterized our ancestors. Walk through our streets on a Sunday, and listen to the bells of the many churches, each calling to our respective places of worship, and you are perhaps led to think of them as indications of vain differences and dissensions, and to feel that in religions as elsewhere there are ever wars and rumors of wars. But on reflection, you will, perhaps, feel that these very conditions and distinctions are part and parcel of a divine plan, and that the poet of New England is right when he says :-
"While yet I muse, the bells clash out Upon the Sabbath air, Each seems a hostile faith to shout, A selfish form of prayer. It may be so, and yet who knows But in that heaven so near, These discords find harmonious close, In God's attuning ear."
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The Chairman of the Selectmen has spoken of the barn-like structure which constituted the meeting house of the first settlers of this town. Cold and barren and bleak, forbidding and uncomfortable it must have been ; for the first minister of this town in his diary, still extant, says that " by reason of the cold on Communion Sundays the bread froze and rattled in the plate." Yet it is the logical result of the development of the doctrines there preached, although they seem hard and narrow to us, that tonight as we listen here to the revered and beloved Pastor of Grace Church asking the Divine blessing upon this assembly, we hear also from the neighboring spire of St. Stephen's mingling with the accents of his voice, the tones of the evening Angelus of that mighty and sublime church whose daily devotions, " following the Sun and keep- ing company with the hours, circle the earth with one continuous and unbroken strain of prayer and praise " - the prayers of the Saints and Martyrs, and the songs and praises of the Apostles and Prophets and all the glorious company of Heaven.
It was hoped by your committee that the Rev. John S. Cullen formerly Rector of St. Stephen's Church in this place, might be here to respond to this toast, but, unfortunately, he is not able to be present this evening.
Now you all know him; you know his eighteen years of work in this place; you know his interest in all that was for the benefit and good of this town; you know his service to the Hospital, on the board of trustees of the Town Library, and as Chairman of the School Committee. You are all familiar with his face, and his figure on the streets ; you know his learning, his ability, and his perfect charity for all men. Those of us who were admitted to his personal friendship know that that friendship was a blessing and that his presence was ever and always a benediction; and it is greatly to be regretted that he is not here to speak tonight.
I do not propose to let this toast go without a response, and as his successor, the present Rector of St. Stephen's is here, I ask the Rev. John F. Heffernan to respond for "Religious Liberty transmitted to us by our ancestors - may it ever be transmitted unimpaired to our posterity."
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ADDRESS OF REV. J. F. HEFFERNAN.
Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen : - I feel very much as if I were in the boy's place of whom the Hon. Secretary spoke - that I would take the licking ; because at this late hour it must be tedious to listen to such a trite subject as Religious Liberty.
I wish the gentleman were here to whom this toast was assigned ; his voice would be certainly familiar to many of those who can trace back their ancestry to the founders of this community ; at least, he would be very familiar to those identified with the growth and progress of South Framingham. At the same time, I am quite sure that this spectacle that has been referred to by the Toastmaster of the evening is one of peculiar significance. I do not think there can be a town in all New England where the spirit of Religious Liberty so exemplifies itself as here in our town. I think the sentiment of this toast is much in evidence here, and has been for a long time. So much the better, then, for the community itself, and so much the better for the progress of Religious Liberty everywhere.
Notwithstanding what we say of the sentiments we hear expressed, we know that sometimes there exists that spirit of opposition and criticism of people's opinions, and that there are those sometimes among us who would not tolerate any change of opinion other than that which they lay down for themselves. Their code and their gospel is not always that of the Master but of themselves. That opposition of opinion is sometimes of a serious character, and reflects seriously upon those among whom we live.
That spirit sometimes gets abroad which would not allow us to believe differently from other people, but we believe now and we realize it, that the old sentiment of absolutism is dying out, if not already dead ; that there are times when we can lay aside our peculiar opinions and individual ideas and mingle together at the social board in independence and in good cheer; that there is a social life, that there is a citizen's life as well as a religious life; that while religion is the foundation and basis of all morality, virtue and goodness,
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at the same time there is another life which we can enjoy together.
This, then, is the manifest spirit of this occasion, as it strikes me, and as the sentiment has been expressed so frequently, and has been so much amplified in our services during this jubilee week.
It certainly is a pleasure to me to feel that I, although in a humble position, have been chosen as a substitute for Father Cullen whose face was so familiar to the citizens of Framingham for many years. He was not identified with the foundation of the town, but with the building up of the parish of which I am the Rector today. He was my predecessor in this beautiful work, and as you know, he builded well; he laid well the foundation of that church which is now so progressive, strong and flourishing. That work which he did has made itself felt undoubtedly in the homes of many people of Framingham besides those of the faith I represent, and in all our walks of life, in all our business pursuits, in all our social relations, I find but one common accord, one welcoming word, one in- spiring, encouraging thought from all classes of people in this town.
And that is one reason, I say, that perhaps the expression of opinion, and the manifestation of good will that is so general here in our community today is peculiar, and it is so on account of the varying conditions exhibited here in all the duties of life. Take it in this community, the people I represent and the race from which I have the pride and honor to descend, that people, denied freedom of worship in their own land, their conscience restricted in every way, fleeing by thousands to these hospitable shores, have come here to mingle with the religious and civil life and have done much to build up our institutions ; and in all our strifes and struggles their life blood has been freely given. For what ? - for the freedom of this Grand Republic.
And today we know no nationalism. We have but one flag. We have but one aspiration, and that is the aspiration of freemen. We are united for the purpose of preserving and of saving this Country.
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We have today a united country, and liberty everywhere extended, and all we ask is the birthright of freemen-liberty of conscience.
THE TOASTMASTER .- I would ask the audience to kindly rise while the Rev. Franklin Hutchinson pronounces a word of prayer and asks for benediction.
PRAYER AND BENEDICTION.
Our heavenly Father we thank thee and bless thy holy name for all the joy and blessing and inspiration that has come to us during these days of celebration.
The backward look through our history reveals in clearest light thy gracious care, thy loving protection, and thy guidance all the way. O, thou God of our fathers, be thou with us, we beseech thee, in the future; with our children, and our children's children unto the latest gen- eration ; and may the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God our Father, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with us all and unite our hearts in a common service for man, and for thy glory, now and evermore, Amen.
During the evening the following telegram was received by Chairman S. A. Phillips of the Committee on Invitations, but through an unfortunate and much to be regretted misunder- standing, the Toastmaster did not receive knowledge of the fact so as to have it read at the time when it would have received due recognition, as coming from the honored Chief Magistrate of our Nation.
EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D.C., June 13, 1900.
MR. SIDNEY A. PHILLIPS, CHAIRMAN, ETC.,
Framingham, Mass.
Please extend to those who will participate in today's exercises at Framingham my congratulations upon the occasion of the two hundredth anniversary of the incorpora- tion of the town and my best wishes for the success of the celebration.
WILLIAM MCKINLEY.
COMMENT LHEDEN ca 1900
WEDGWOOD ETRURIA ENGLAND
LIBRARY BUILDING, KNOWN AS MEMORIAL HALL TO COMMEMORATE THE SOLDIERS WHO DIED IN THE WAR OF 1861-65 WAS ERECTED IN 1872 FRAMINGHAM ACADEMY BUILT IN 1837 TOWN SEAL
:100
en
SOUVENIR PLATE
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In closing the chapter on the events of Wednesday, it is due to the Committee on Literary Exercises, that special recognition be made of the long continued and arduous services rendered by Chairman Rev. Franklin Hutchinson, Secretary Fred L. Oaks and other members of the Committee, who by faithful work contributed to the success of the Lit- erary Exercises, both at Mount Wayte in the afternoon and at the Banquet in the evening. To serve successfully on such a committee, one needs to be more than a prophet and mind reader. He must not only foresee what topics will be timely and appropriate and select those whom he thinks best adapted to speak acceptably on these lines of thought, but he must have an infinite amount of patience and tact, to accept the failure of the most carefully laid plans cheerfully, and try to harmonize varying opinions about matters of detail. This is in a measure true of all the more important Committee work, but more especially so of a committee whose duty it is to arrange two programs of public events for the same day. This our Committee did and did admirably, as must appear to the careful readers of this volume.
MISCELLANEOUS
HISTORICAL EXHIBIT.
RECEPTION AND EXHIBIT BY FRAMINGHAM CHAPTER OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. BI-CENTENNIAL MUSIC.
FIREWORKS AT SAXONVILLE. HOSPITALITY. NEW TOWN SEAL. TREASURER'S REPORT.
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CHAPTER VI. MISCELLANEOUS. .
HISTORICAL EXHIBIT.
The Historical Exhibit was one of the most successful features of the Bi-Centennial celebration. Here were gath- ered the relics of the past, portraits of the fathers and mothers, the handiwork of those who had laid the foundation of the superstructure of our liberties, the utensils with which they labored, the evidence of that thrift that characterized them. Here, at a glance, the visitor could see the marvel- lous strides that had been made in the last two hundred years in lightening the burdens of the housewife and the husbandman. Here, too, could be seen the changes that fickle fashion had wrought in the costumes of men as well as women.
Many of the improvements were a revelation to a large body of the visitors who had never realized that men and women could successfully labor with such crude implements, or feed and clothe themselves with such scanty means.
The committee having this department of the celebration in charge were peculiarly fortunate in securing, for a month, the large gymnasium hall of the Young Men's Christian Association, which proved none too large for the exhibit. The nearly one hundred linear feet of show cases and sixty feet of tables were crowded, while the walls were well covered with articles that could best be displayed there.
Six months before the celebration, the committee met and organized with Charles W. Coolidge as chairman and Edgar Potter as secretary and treasurer. From that time until the last article had been returned to its owner, these two gentle- men were indefatigable in their efforts to gather a collection
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worthy of the occasion and see that every article loaned was returned to its rightful owner. In this work they were loyally supported by a part of their associates on the Com- mittee, especially George H. Eames, Charles A. Eames, Frank G. Stearns and John F. Videto.
As the Bi-Centennial celebration had its inception in the Framingham Historical and Natural History Society, so was this exhibit largely the work of this organization. The active members of the committee were all members of the Society and its collection of relics of by-gone days was largely drawn upon for filling the cases and tables of the exhibit.
We would not, however, fail to acknowledge the deep obligation of the committee to Mr. and Mr. F. X. Bardwell of Sherborn, Mr. and Mrs. Peter Parker, Mr. and Mrs. Comer A. Belknap, Mr. and Mrs. Francis Hosmer, Mr. H. W. Gardner of Sherborn and many others who so generously contributed of their fine collections and many of whom aided so materially in arranging things to the best advantage. The generous enthusiasm manifested by the many contrib- utors materially diminished the labor of the committee.
At the beginning of their work the committee resolved to exclude from their exhibit all mere curiosities and confine it exclusively to articles of historic merit. This idea was strictly adhered to and while it disappointed a few who had much prized curiosities they would have been glad to exhibit and which in their place would have been of much interest, yet not being what was desired in an exhibit of this kind their absence gave much needed room for other and more appropriate articles.
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