Worcester daily spy. [volume] (Worcester [Mass.]) 1850-1888, 1871-07-14
Hon. A. II. Bullock's Address,
AZ the Amherst Semi-Centennial Celc-
braIiOn, "wednesday, July 18th.

the threshold of one of the notable hstori
stages you are here to witness and commemo
rate and everything you please is in order
except silence. Nor is it within my authorit.
to impose any limitations upon the strings o
your harpsichords. Your strain may be Doric
Holian, robust, tender, serious, comic, as yol
| prefer; remindlul of a student-lamp, or o
| moonlight among the fields and groves, of
| four years wrestle for college honor, or o
dalance with the purest carnation in the pures
cheeks of the village-all as you please, saw
only that is of Amherst you are to speak. lie
us then hail this hour without any reserve. Thu
| weighter duties of the day have already beer
| performed by the historian in the delivery o
| his comprehensive and elaborate address. HI
has won the battle for the college by his heavy
| artillery, and we may vote ourselves sor
| of light horse squadron, whose part it is tC
appropriate the victory and carry away the
| plumber.
For myself, it is but few words l would say.
| have no passion to tear to tatters in behalf Of
| the occasion, no conception beyond my little
| capacity of utterance, no historical sweep which
overcomes or confuses me. / am here only tC
utter the testimony OF witness, the experience
| of a son and the prophecy of one who foreseeS
the glory of the coming day. | came here a
freshman of sixteen, thirty-nine years ago, ex-
ercising my own volition in coming, and l can
now look you in the face and declare that from
that day to this have never for one moment
regretted the choice made / have grown up
with this college. never having seen any reason
to abate my respect or attachment, and could
live thousand years there would be one son
who should make the periodical visit of filial
piety to her halls. But, though cannot add
to the length of my days, rejoice that the
duration of hers is assured. The types Of her
Immortality are impressed upon our sight
This institution was planted amid the grandeurs
and beauties of our own Switzerland, which
cannot pass away save with the globe it.
1o1f 1a1 IN fhn
broad beliefs of the Christian world, which
are impershable. This institution has de-
veloped and will continue to develop in the
light Of those humanlties which survive indi-
vidualties and generations, and belong to the
eternal years of God. 1t holds place among
the certanties of our land. 1t is in fraternal
accord with all the colleges of every state and
of every faith; it takes as magnet to every
improvement, from whatever quarter it may
come, and is receptive to every inspiration OF
science or art, as the world is to-day and shall
be afterwards; it seats the rich and the poor
at the same table of common study and
love; il estimates every man coming within
its influence by the dignity of his divine rea-
tions, and espouses the duty of his education
as trust TO be executed in the highest respon-
Sibility of which human nature is capable.
Around such an institution endowmentS and
supports will rally with increasing measure,
still augmenting numbers of young men will
seek its benefits and its expansion and embel-
lishment are among the sure events of the future.
1t is a result of the laborS of the builders that
cannot decay, because they builded on the chief
corner stone.
doubt if any other of the American colleges
in its first fifty years has educated so many men,
or contributed so largely to the culture and
manliness of the people, TO the grace and de-
fence of the state. Its infancy was brief one,
and it rose at once TO the proportions OF vigor
GUS manhood. When | came here, only eleven
years after it had conferred its first degrees,
found in my own class rising of seventy, and
in the institution more than two hundred mem
bers. 1t was even then growth, past the
gristle and hardening into the BONE" When
cast q look backward TO those who thronged
the lecture rooms of that day, in whose ranks q
discerning teacher might well think he saw
A little bench of needless bishops here,
And there chancellor in embryo:-
for we now know that such were here,-and
when | now look abroad upon what they have
accomplished in all the fields of the public SER
vice, of original thought and useful art, of lib
erty and law, of religion and justice, of elo-
quence and mercy in all lands, and summon
their faces before me, some now present but
more absent the living and the dead, and count
up their names and their fame / feel justified
in pronouncing that period, which was the
youth of the college, good as the golden age of
any college. During these last fifty years the
students here have had both the advantage and
disadvantage of a new and young institution
for in such a condition there is undoubtedly
both gain and loss. The loss is of the long
and gentle train of associated traditions which
in an ancient university passes from one gener-
alton of students to another, bearing the influ-
ence of accumulated fellowship, examples and
cultures, and enriching the atmosphere of the
modern time with the mellow light of the old.
At Elton, at Oxford, at Cambridge on both sides
of the ocean, these are sources of inspiration to
the successive throngs OF student life. So the
nations of the old world have inspiring histories
of a thousand years to guide and elevate the
later generations by inherited lessons and adj
monitions. But as a new nation strikes bold
" out in the marches of civilization free of
the superstitions and errors of the former, and
bears onward the standard of progress and hui
mainly to higher elevations than had been at
tained blythe preceding, in somewhat similar
manner and spirit the younger schools of learn
ing may perhaps mount upward with steps
lightened of the shackleS of prescriptive custom,
abuse and fallacy, and reach forward toward the
prizes with less of the obstruction of r0te and
bias and prejudice. A young college is apt to
be earnest in its work. So we have found ours
to be. Our corps of professors have been men
of hard work, and the classes in every year of
the course have received from them in person di-
rect and constant instruction, Iehallenge your
concurrence in the declaration that there has
been as little nonsense and folly taught here as
in any seminary of all our American Zion. We
have sought to retain the classical inspirations
of the past and to make them tributary to the
necessities of the solemn living world. And now
at the close of such first half-century we are
willing that our college should be judged. BY
her origin and life by her motive and purpose,
by her efforts and achievement, by her sons who
have borne her name into every part of the
globe, such as they all have been, and such as
they are who survive to speak her praise, we are
willing that our alma mater should be Judged
You will agree with me in a moment of indul-
genee in pleasing personal memories. There is
to many of you as there is to me, the grateful
recollection of having enjoyed the familiar con-
fdence of the second and the third president OF
Amherst, both not long since assembled to their
rest. The names of Heman Humphrey and Ed
ward Hitchcock have an enduring place in the
public annals, but their shrine is in the hearts OF
nearly two thousand students they taught. Oi
| the former Of these l desire to say as a simple
! act of Justice to his memory, that he filled the
most important office in the most critical stage
| of the institution, with judgment and discre-
| ton that warrants me in calling him our fore.
| most benefactor. A remarkably good teacher he
| was, also, philosopher of profound thought, an
| orator sometimes attaining brilliant eloquence
| Another good he conferred. Out of this college
| he gave his own sons to the country who have
| impressed the pulpit, the forum, the national
| councils, with a culture even broader than his
| own. | shall revere his memory through life
| OF President Hitchcock still less need be said to-
| day, as the trumpet of fame has blown more wide
| ly his name. In him there was singular genius
| How exquistely his sensitive organization was
| strung, how delicate his perception was of all
| poetic and beautiful things, how he rose from
| the details of his science, of which he was mas
| ter, into generalization and rhapsody upon its
| universal relations, how simple and modest in
every sphere ever self-distrustful and never
self-satsfied how kind, obliging, defferential tC
| young men, we all remember, as we remember
| in equal degree of no one beside. He is cen
trial figure in any grouping which our magma
| ton may array under this canopy-standinl
among us in that imperial form so long and Sc
| well known to all persons here, so Disgusting thu
| benevoence and gentlenesS of his nature behinC
those glasses of intense green that he seemed
| inaccessible, "but to those men that sought him
| sweet as summer" His name carried that o.
the college to the remotest part of the Union
The trustees of Amherst, the inhabitants of thit
village, are incapable of a just and full appre
| citation of the common debt they owe tC
him. And of the living-not even the
great delicacy of such speech shall deter mt
from selecting, for special mention to your ears
Professors Smell and Tyler, who have been con
nected with duty here through the lapse O
forty years. They have made their mark upor
| the age which neither forgetfulness CT pupil!
| nor length of time shall ever erase. Every
| generous impulse of my youth had dried away
from my heart, if had forgotten to ask you t
bestow upon them your grateful plaudts. No
/ wOuld any DersOnal illusions be ADEQUATE O