USA > Ohio > Delaware County > Delaware > Fifty years of history of the Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio : 1844-1894 > Part 13
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I walk about the campus and think of the days gone by. I rub my back against the walls of the buildings, and the trees and walks speak to me what others cannot understand, and I live again for a short interval in the days of thirty years ago. I especially remember with gratitude the oppor-
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tunities of the literary societies, with their debates, essays and so on, and if I were to live again through the period of a college education, I would devote more time and painstak- ing to such work. In spite of what Dr. McCabe has said, there is no accomplishment so useful everywhere and always as to be able to stand on one's own feet and speak in an interesting and instructive way. I did not do as much of that work as I should have done, but oh-I may say the same thing of almost every study I had.
Two thousand years ago, or so, if a man wanted to know anything, he drew on his seven league boots and went over to Africa, or to Babylon, in order to find a man who could tell him, but nowadays science has changed all that. See what has happened within the past fifty years ! In Locksley Hall, Tennyson wrote more than fifty years ago,
" Science moves but slowly, slowly, Creeping on from point to point."
And that was true, and had been true for all time up to then, but a new era then began. The telegraph was then in early infancy, and all the economic uses of electricity were then unknown. That grand generalization of science, conservation of energy, had not yet been discovered, and it has quite transformed all our thinking. Every science has been made over, and many new ones have been added that had 110 ex- istence until our era. Do we not have the new Astronomy, the new Chemistry, the new Physics, the new Physiology, the new Psychology? The list of sciences goes through the alphabet-Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Dynamics, Ener- gy, Force, Geology, Heat, and so on, from A to Izzard. When the class of '66 was in college, we heard nothing about Evolution, or Thermo Dynamics, but neither were they heard of in other colleges. I have some knowledge of how things were taught in other more pretentious institu-
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tions than the Ohio Wesleyan University in those days, and it is my opinion that I got as much, and as good, here, as I could have got anywhere in the country, for the most of what was taught as science in other institutions has been abandoned as inconsequential, or radically wrong. It is right for an educational institution to go slow, and there is not a little of what to-day is dubbed evolution which is cer- tain to become as obsolete as the philosophy of the impon- derables has become.
But science has really brought to us a new heaven and a new earth, tho' not the one wherein yet dwelleth righteous- ness, and the rate at which knowledge has lately grown shows the danger of reasoning from the past to the future without allowing a wide margin. As I have said, the rate of the growth of knowledge during the past fifty years is il- lustrated by a mechanical principle called acceleration, as distinguished from uniformity. Bishop Foster drew his con- clusion as to the hopefulness for the growth of Christianity, from the assumption of uniformity, but so far as there is any analogy between mechanics and religion, one may just as well assume acceleration as uniformity, and if we do that, the case is not so deplorable as the Bishop's figures would indi- cate. A century plant may stand for years and appear not to make any gain, but suddenly its rate of growth changes and a greater development may take place in one day than was observed in years before, which shows that though the plant was externally the same year after year, yet the mole- cules were ripening. It has been so in science, and there is no reason I know of why it should not be the same in other human affairs.
But science has been chided for what it has not done. Some lugubrious poet has written,
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" O Science, hast thou wandered there To bring us naught but tidings of despair ?"
Well, what was it expected to bring back ? It has traveled but a short time and on a new road. But what did it go out to find? The deity ! Verily if the deity is not to be found in a mountain, is it to be discovered in a molecule ? And if one does not discover it in either, is he to be scolded ? Some adventurous ones have crossed the first inorass and climbed the delectable mountains beyond, and have had a glimpse of things afar off, and oh, the value of a glimpse-sim- ply a glimpse! A glimpse inay be so new and brief and surprising, that one cannot tell what he has seen. He can stand no sort of an examination upon it, would make an ab- solute flunk, and yet after the vision his whole life may be transformed. And here is one of the possible advantages of a college course to every one. It gives him the possibility of glimpses which are invaluable, though there is no test by which an institution can discover that one has not had a transforming glimpse. I have never known of a college graduate who regretted his opportunity, but I have known many who regretted wasting their opportunity, and many who have wished they had paid more attention to Science. It is fast changing our modes of living and thinking, and institutions of learning must keep up with advancing knowledge. And now I am sure my time is up, though I should be pleased to speak at length on what Science has done for mankind, for this has been vast, though so recent, and much more is to be expected. Might I close by quoting, with a slight change, Tennyson's oft-quoted lines,
" Let knowledge grow from more to more,
And more of Science in us dwell."
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Ohio Wesleyan University : THE GRADUATE IN LAW.
HON. HENRY C. HEDGES, Class of '50, Mansfield.
[Mr. Hedges was detained at the last moment by professional business. He sent the following note of apology and regret.]
Were it iny privilege to be present and make a brief re- sponse to the sentiment, "The Graduate in Law," I might stumble very much in the effort to tell you all, my brothers of the O. W. U., how bright was the prospect in 1850, when with my parchments I came away from the then young Uni- versity, believing myself to be an " A. B.," and the prospect had not dimmed when on the suggestion of Dr. McCabe three years later I transmitted a "V" and in return was decorated and adorned by receiving another parchment des- ignating me as a Master of Liberal Arts, and it may be well for me if the arrow be not sped, and the words be not spoken, for, thereby I may save my reputation and yet be considered capable of thought and expression, for I feel an assurance that if in the body present with you, the sombre side of life would quickly obscure the brighter, in any talk I might ınake.
When I bade good-bye to Delaware in 1850, it was my pur- pose to engage in teaching ; in fact, through the kindly office of Elmore Yocum, well known in all the homes of North- ern Ohio as a preacher of power and a man of great worth, but who shortly prior to 1850 removed to Wisconsin and there was welcomed, and was highly regarded by the " Badg- ers" of Wisconsin as he had been by the "Buckeyes" of Ohio, an engagement had been made by which I was to take charge of an Academy at Janesville, Wis. I had no thought that I ever would have an ambition to enter the legal pro- fession.
I was young, and the law of the land declared I owed fil-
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ial obedience to my loved and honored father, and on my arrival home, when I informed my parents of my purpose to go to the wilds of Wisconsin, I was met with a persuasive refusal, and so my lot was cast in the home, in the little city of my nativity, among the fond friends of my boyhood; and entering the law office of my father's friend, the late Charles T. Sherman, and his brother, John Sherman, my course in life was deflected, and reaching my majority in time entered on the practice of the law, associated with my preceptors, and so have been a plodder in my profession, gaining no sig- nal victories, and making slight mark in the march of time.
I would not have my brothers believe that I do not great- ly regard the dignity of my profession. None other is inore honorable in itself or more helpful to the weary sons and daughters of men. If he who enters it properly appreciates his responsibilities, he will magnify his calling.
It is not the province of the lawyer to stir up strife among neighbors, or ever to sever marital relations save under the conditions of the Mosaic code. It is his highest duty, his great glory to cool and calm heads and hearts heated by passion, to save, not waste the increments of toil, preserve, not dissipate and scatter the accumulations of inen, fortify and not loosen the obligations of laws human and divine, -in brief, both to counsel and do right and fear not. And his greatest glory if it is given him to protect the virtue of woman, the reputation of the innocent reviled, and to estab- lish the rights of the weak as against the wrongs of the wicked.
Let me recount the inen of my day, who, bidding their "beautiful mother" farewell, entered the lists, and gained glory as great lawyers-looking at the classes of '46 and '47, tlie preacher and the teacher, Dr. Godman and Dr. McFar- land, in their lines of life gained distinction. The members
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of the classes of '48 and '49 were all my familiar friends, though all my seniors in age. Through the receding years I see as clearly now as in '47-48-49 the faces and forms of Jeddiah Allen, Homer McKendree Carper, Guovion Goldson Griswold, Clinton Wayne Lee, Oliver Morris Spencer, James D. and Joseph T. Webb, and Samuel W. Williams, of '48; and George W. Brush, L. J. Critchfield, Henry J. Eaton, Benjamin Glasscock, Asa H. Guy, John W. Hoyt, Lewis W. Little, Edwin A. Parrott and Joseph Henry VanDeman, of '49. Some entered the ministry, some the profession of the healing art, some mounted the tripod of the journalist, some sat in the chair of the professor, and two, possibly more, gained wealth in trade and manufacturing and mer- cantile life ; but Carper of '48 and Critchfield of '49, the law, and Ohio recognizes in each a masterly man, mastering his profession, and among the few in Ohio or elsewhere who stand on the upper round of the ladder, at the very top. Of all these, my chosen companion was Lewis W. Little, a genial spirit ; but more than a quarter of a century ago, when life was young and hope was bright, he passed into the shadows, and earlier than he, Clinton Wayne Lee, a most cultivated Christian gentleman, even before the years of his greatest usefulness had come, mounted to the skies. Coming to my own class of 1850, it was less in number than the two preceding it. Its roll I call: W. Blanton Chrisler, George W. Harris, John F. Hume, Owen T. Reeves, and youngest and least, Henry Clay Hedges. Chrisler and Har- ris were missionaries of the Cross, great and good men. Harris was my especial friend. I was his best man when he took unto himself a wife. He died in 1862, but lived long enough, if his years be measured by the good he did. Chris- ler was from the South, of Southern birth, a Mississippian, not a " fire-eater," went back to his home, taught, preached,
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then married a Western girl and gave offense to the chivalry of the South ; discarded by his parents, disinherited by his father, his noblest heritage was the love of his wife, and the imemories of the better civilization of the Northland, where men were free, black or white. And so it happened when the weak, wanton, wicked rebellion was on, Chrisler became a chaplain in the Union army, and thereafter, as the revered minister, the honored, gallant Moody did, buckled on his sword as Lieutenant Colonel of his regiment, and with Moody, and like Moody, fought for freedom and gained the victory.
Hume-a quiet man in college, a good thinker, a splendid writer, a fair lawyer, served Ohio as a legislator, later was a distinguished editor in Missouri, and later still, with wealth and wisdom gathered, is living on the banks of the classic Hudson, enjoying "Otium, cum dignitate in senectute." The last time I met him was in a national convention, that of 1864 in Baltimore, a delegate from Missouri, when he and I, one from Missouri, one from Ohio, of the class of '50, did something to make it possible for the immortal Lincoln for a second time to become the successor of Washington.
Then Owen Reeves, teacher, sometime preacher, then lawyer, sits on the bench at Bloomington, Ill., and has long adorned, as David Davis before Reeves, honored the same bench. Of my class was one other up to the time of our final examinations ; the gleesomeness of youth, and the glad- ness of the approaching Commencement, afforded some oc- casion for the postponement of the delivery of his sheepskin, until '51. His name stands at the head of 1851, James Hea- ton Baker, a "son of thunder " of varied gifts, of great ac- complishments, lawyer, editor, Secretary of State, in turn, in two States, Ohio and Minnesota, soldier, Commissioner of Pensions under Grant, Surveyor General of Minnesota, a man
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of resources, a man of methods, a master of inen, a sweet singer, a graceful talker, a good friend. But I must not tres- pass ; I might follow the fortunes of the classes of '51 and '52 and '53; I knew them all, knew them well; in each were presidents and professors of colleges, preachers, teachers, doctors and lawyers. Of 1853 was one my boon friend, he who was afterward Dr. Milton Mitchell, the playmate of my childhood, the companion of my young manhood, the friend of all my years. His was so white a soul that early in his life, it may be, I think it was so, the angels needed his com- panionship, and so on April 7th, 1864, God crowned him.
THE GRADUATE IN JOURNALISM.
ARTHUR EDWARDS, M. A., D. D., Class '58, Editor Northwestern Christian Advocate.
The physical man is born. The graduate is trained, or supposed to be. Brains are inherited, and "education " " brings out " that which was already in the child's curly head when he was lord of the cradle and of his mother's heart. Colleges which train the moral as well as the mental can do more for a young man's heart sometimes than for his head. In schools where religion thrives, conversions actu- ally revolutionize and reorganize human hearts, and plant truth where perhaps truth had not been. I am not aware of any Scripture that warrants prayer for new heads and an in- crease of brains. The college undertakes only to train and make the most of that which a boy brings with him from home, though indeed a consecrated and devoted head im- mediately begins to outwork and outrun the one that rebels against truth and loyalty. Trained brains dominate the world, whether in journalism or elsewhere. The central figure in American newspaperdom still is Horace Greeley. In another degree and in a varying moral sphere was James
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Gordon Bennett. Neither was a "graduate," but both were trained. While the best way, perhaps, the process implied in "graduating " is certainly but one way for training. Col- lege-life teaches the use of tools; and the graduate, other things being equal, is worth more than he was, even if you could conceive that he does not carry out of a college a sin- gle fact or one iten of specific information. He has been " trained " and taught how to work.
The ideal editor certainly needs training. He must have been taught to be willing to work, to work genuinely, to work economically, to work in harmony with others, to work when work is hard, and to continue to work after the six-o'clock bells of the world have released the multitudes, who for hours may have waited for the six-o'clock permission to rest. The old saying is :
"Man works from sun to sun ; Woman's work is never done."
No man more than the journalist should become a woman in honest devotion, and in his love to labor on while others dream. In human competitions, he who suc- ceeds, first distinguishes himself from others after six-o'clock bells have rung, and his alleged competitors have apparent- ly abandoned the race. If one would identify his real and most dangerous rivals in life's race, he must listen to the sounds of post-six-o'clock hammers, and note the glimmer of study-lamps that forget to go out.
I do not mean that a man must work himself to death, or has a right to do so. The best workers know how to recreate themselves; and if a man knows not how to play, he may yet be rested even while he labors. We sometimes wonder why hearts do not burst when woeful seas of trouble roll over them, and God is not their refuge. I often wonder likewise why men do not fall lifeless amid their labors when
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they love not work, and do not get rested by their work, and during their work, through the high supporting motives that immortalize strength and vigor. We never hear of tired angels or fatigued seraphim. He who as an editor re- cords the daily pilgrimages, sorrows, crimes, catastrophes, and hopes, victories, and glories of humanity, certainly ought to be fortified, rested in advance, and made almost literally indefatigable, through his love for inen and faith in the Divine Lover of men. I believe in a " call to preach." Presently all good men and women will be called to all work. Perhaps they now are. God pity the poor fellow who has merely blundered into his life-work! Of course, then, I hold that a man may be called to editing, far and above the fact that he gets a General Conference majority-to give a Methodist illustration. I hold, too, that a call to preach in- cludes the call to prepare to preach. An editorial call to edit, whether a secular or religious paper-for in this I be- lieve in the priesthood of the people-includes the item of preparation to edit.
As to preparation-let me say that I am amused by alleged "schools of journalismn." Somebody advertises those schemes who want a "job." I am fogy enough to hold that before " graduation," there should be no schools for any profession, trades, or callings. We are hurrying and overdoing the " elective " theory. He who enters for the race in law, med- icine, or theology, should graduate about as he would if he proposed to enter no particular profession. He should study and plan simply for that day of days in student-life known as " Commencement." Passing that, he may well begin to specify and specialize in study, even though he may have moderately courted his real calling right up to his profes- sional wedding-day. If journalism is chosen, I should not be unhappy if my graduated young friend should give him-
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self for a year or two to law and history of law and econom- ics to aid him in secular-paper work, or to theology if for Church-paper work. Be that as it may, I hold to the gen- eral college training that helps a man to be a disciple as to his work and a brother to all workers. I know of no better kind of technical ante-graduate training than to prepare the soil for whatever training may point more directly to news- paper-office work after graduating.
Being trained, and having chosen, and having begun, the next step is to " stick to it." Why should a man vibrate from pulpit to teacher's chair, or from both to church edit- ing, or from either or more of the four to some other forin of secular or church labor? Time modifies Methodist itin- erancies ; why should it not modify also the wanderings of our itinerants? Methodist education began to see daylight and a channel to deep water when teaching became special- ized, and teachers were professionalized and called blessed. I am more than ever convinced that no bishopric should lure a man from Church journalism or Church professorships. Every prominent place in the Church has been robbed by losing its best incumbents by these quadrennial Sabine raids to reinforce our episcopacy. That has come to pass hereto- fore because such prominent men have been made known to the Church through the notoriousness that was begotten of his prominence. In these days of Advocates, fast mails, and telegraphs, faithful pastors are better and more widely known, and are among the select and elect.
Time fails me to speak in detail of the able men whom this University has trained and sent into all kinds of journal- ism, or even of those who have served God and the Church as editors of Methodist papers. Bryce, in his American Commonwealth, remarks: "Of the class of papers not pri- marily or professedly political are the religious weeklies,
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to whose number and influence few parallels can be discov- ered in Europe. It is on some great occasions, when some question involving moral issues comes up, that they discuss current politics at length. When they do, great is their power." Then is the Methodist editor's opportunity, and I hold that he should be alert for the duty and privilege. Just as all good men should be called of God to work, so do I believe a Church editor should know about every issue that lifts its arm among mnen. It is generally thought that our Church papers should almost wait for permission to speak on themes not theological or religious. On the contrary, I hold that our papers should wait for special permission to omit their voices in human struggle. When silence is sin, I hold that our editors should not be on the defensive, and that their blades should shine in the air from skirmish line to battle end.
I have quoted Bryce. I hope you will read what he says about our numerous smaller colleges, and of our Church schools and their beneficent influence.
Our Church schools should train men, convert men, and, in a word, go right on to do what this college has done from the beginning. It trains men thoroughly, and yet does not neglect the converting and revolutionizing word which, as among individuals, is just that which will presently bring the world back to its rightful Master.
I rejoice in my Delaware memories, and glory in the Church-work from which I bring you greetings to-day. I first put my fingers in printer's ink in the office of the " aware Standard and the Olentangy Gazette. I douk' that I shall ever get all the ink of managing editor of the universe.
At any rate, I do not care to.
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THE GRADUATE IN LITERATURE.
KATE KAUFFMAN, Class of '72, of Springfield.
MR. TOASTMASTER; LADIES AND GENTLEMEN; ALUMNI OF THE O. W. U .; FRIENDS, AND FORMER CLASSMATES :-
When President Bashford invited ine to respond to a toast, I was glad. Glad for myself, glad for you. I appreciated the honor, and I believed that you would appreciate my speech! That was not on personal grounds, but on the score of sex. After-dinner speeches from men are matters of almost every-day occurrence, but after-dinner speeches from women are uncommon. We know that the men can speak, and speak well, but a woman's speech is still regarded with the curiosity that is due to an experiment. In the beginning, she is pretty apt to be nervous, and fright- ened, which makes her audience at once attentive to see if she will be able to get through. I have read that the finest Greek orators, when they began an oration, assumed an air of timidity in order to ingratiate themselves with their hearers. With a woman, all this is natural ; she does not have to assume. But the signs of the times indicate that women's speeches must become more frequent; it seems that we are about to have publicity thrust upon us, and we must prepare ourselves for our responsibilities. The prospect need not appall us. When women find that they must or ought to do a thing, they soon accomplish it with success. Many of you have heard the Rev. Anna Shaw. The first time she tried to make a speech she fainted, and had to be carried froin the room! But now she has quite a manly air of self-confidence. Frances Willard, in the begin- ning of her career, was invited to make a Commencement address to a class of young ladies. She only half complied ; she wrote the address and had a gentleman read it. A few
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weeks ago, I read of a mass-meeting in London, England. Its purpose was to bid farewell to Miss Willard before her return to America. On that occasion there were many brill- iant speakers, among them Canon Wilberforce ; Miss Wil- lard spoke also, and Miss Willard's was the best speech !
But I have been told to talk about the Graduate in Litera- ture. At the word Literature, my mind flies to my favorite authors. Mrs. Browning: She was not a graduate; her edu- cation was acquired in the tedium of a sick-room between intervals of suffering, but, she said, " I was a very Napoleon in ambition." George Eliot: She was sent to a young woman's boarding-school, she was a voracious reader and an indefatigable student, but when she became celebrated as the author of " Adam Bede," she was described as "a self- educated farmer's daughter." Louise Alcott: At sixteen, she was teaching school, taking in sewing, and writing little stories at five dollars apiece. Mrs. Frances Hodgson Bur- nett : She never received a diploma; at the time girls now- a-days are leaving school, she was reading Dickens and say- ing, "I, too, will be a writer." Helen Hunt Jackson: Neither was she a graduate. From this list, it would seem that the graduate has not been in literature. But the cause is not far to seek. These are women's names, and, forty years ago, there were no women graduates. A list of men-writers of the same time would show most of them to be alumni, with one brilliant exception, viz., Washington Irving.
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