New Orleans daily crescent. [volume] ([New Orleans, La.]) 1851-1866, 1854-08-07

&
At the recent celebration at Harvard College,
Cambridge, by the Alumni, the following toast
was announced by the Chairman:
The health of the oldest graduate of Harvard
University, who is here present-He deserves
the title Of age, for
Wisdom is gray hairs in man
And an unspotted life is his old age.'i
This was received with unbounded applause,
and long continued cheers greeted Hon Josiah
Quincy, Senior, ex-President of the University,
as he rose to reply. #
Mr.. Quincy said that he had expected shot,
but not exactly from the quarter whence it
came. He found himself placed in a very awk-
ward position, as must be the case with all of
his age, in regard to ssYoung America 1t
was hard for such to say anything to men
whose heads were running so fast ahead that it
was very likely they would leave the bodies be-
hind. Yet, perhaps, he might be indulged in
few "reminiscences. Every thing had changed
from the oiden time. not only in the world at
large, but in collegiate education. 1t had
changed in physics, in literature, in science, in
morals in politics, and in religion-whether for
better or worse, he was not called upon to say
as to physics, that was a common place topic
In his youthful days, any one who had dreamed
Of practically etfecting railroads, the telegraph,
and the countless other inventions of the day,
would have been sent to the Insane Asylum
But with regard to literature he was
youth, knowledge was not thought to be the
spontaneous growth of the human mind, but
was drilled in by manual superimposition.
There were then three ways of addressing and
impressing the brain. Mr.. Quincy here gave
humorous description of these three modes
first, by flliping the forehead of a dull or re-
fractory pupil; next, by boxing his ears; and
third, by the instrumentality of the feruIe
He really believed, that if any one masteriat
the present day should employ the means then
used by all masters, he would be compelled to
take his choice between heavy fine, to be paid
to the parents Of the pupil, or to sojourn in
the House of Correction. Nay, should some
things now occur which then were common, his
excellent friend near him Chief Justice Shaw
mild and amiable as he was-would probably
send the master to the State Prison for an as
sault with intent to kill.
And IN science, young men were then tho
roughly instructed, beginning at the beginning
They learned the multiplication table then in
college; they don't do that now. Pixies Arith-
metic and Webber's Mathematics were the col
legiate class books in his early day; but where
were they? His hearers might not believe him,
but he himself, when in the senior class, was
assigned to mathematical part at one of the col
lege exhibitions, and had absolutely progressed
so far as to calculate an eclipse. Indeed, he was
induced to this by the hope of Immortality, for
it was told him that all such mathematical pro
ductions would be preserved as beacon lights
for the instruction and admiration of genera
tions then unborn. But it SO happened that in
the course of years, the Faculty, for want of a
better man, made him President of the College,
and, of course, his first thought was to look after
his eclipse. To his modification and astonish-
ment, it was nowhere to be found 1t had gone
like the lost Pleiad, and might only be discov-
cred, perhaps, by the observations of his astro-
nomical friends from Clover Den among the yet
unresolyed nebula But recently he had re
ceived from Prot. Pierce an address by him
| before the Smithsonian Institute, and, strange
as it might seem, notifying as it must be tc
| him. mathematician as he had been, he could
not understand two.thirds of it,
| Mr.. Quincy then passed to consideration O
the habit of referring to the age of men, Or
every occasion, whether in public or private, al
old man was sure to be reminded of his years
| Why was this Old age did not simply
in length of days, for as the President hao
| quoted