The Rutland daily globe. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1873-1877, 1875-07-22
MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE.
Inaugural Address Of Rev. Calvin B. Hubert,
President of Middlebury College, Delivered
Wednesday July 81, 1878.

Honorable and Reoerdnd Guardians 81 Me |
College Gentlemen Of The facutty; Gen
Hepen of tie Alumni d; undergraduates
of The col2eqe Fathers and Friends
speak to-day with the confidence of
man who is invited 10 do so but with the
falterlnc distrust of one who stands APP
pallcd at the magnitude of the task before
him. II any account it a presumption that
an alien from the commonwealth OF this
Israel and a stranger from her covenants OF
promise, should stand in this presence and
in this relation, my only apology is that
having been welcomed for series of years
as proselyte at her gates and then served
her according to the measure Of my ability,
yielded reluctantly though it may appear
to some of you with sn unseemly prompt
tude, to the pressure that has advanced me
to this service 1t ought not in deed to be
accounted by you III ng incredible that
having begun my professional life and
prosecuted it for decade of years, in this
immediate neighborhood | soou found my
self in friendly association with the facul-
ty of the college, with her supporters and
bepcfactois and tell at once into downright
sympathy with them in their endeavor to
augment her funds, multiply her students
and enhance her prosperity, her usefulness
and her renown. If 1t may be charged
against me that | have never been student
in the college, ought not the consideration
that nave been student of the college in
the sense that united with others, have
made her interests for well nigh score OF
years my dllegent study, to be accepted in
the judgement of liberal men as an ade-
ouate compensation for the defect. And
| il this apology suffice not, have yet this
acknowledgment to append that have
personally received from your alma mater
| in my prolonged residence almost within
| the covert of her classic shades Ill my con-
| tact and association with her accomplished
teachers in my living and breathing the
atmosphere of scholarly culture which she
has diifused abroad in and among the
| homes that adorn this beautiful valley; and
| in the inspirations which she has inbreath-
ed as annually have been wont to come
| up and sit with you at her feasts OF reason
| -iuspiratiOns which never tailed to send
me back to my study to prepare the better
| for the approaching Sabbath. have re-
ceived ! say, from your alma mater, in
| these forms of contact and by accretion, a
| deposit of good in the stores of my own
| being which my own mother and she is
| generous enough to pardon the utterance-
| found it impossible to make. So conscious
ly am | indebted to your college in the
stimulauts which she has given me that
were | required to point to-day to the seat
| of learning which has conferred upon mt
the highest good, / should point in truth
and without disparagenient 10 my own, Ia
| the college in which your intellectual life
received its beginning and its impressions
Nor can you demur in my according this
magnimity to your ther; for surely you
would be the last to maintain that the college
| that sent her angels down TO stir the waters
| in the fountain of your being and that girt
you about with bands of nights so un'
generous in her benefactiOns as to confine
them to the circle of her own alumni. 1t
is the occasion of your filal pride that the
ennobling inflences which she eXerts ani
diffuses through you, transcend immeasur
ably these narrow limits and travel likt
the sunbeams and with the equivalent, o
their prodigality and benefcence. Their,
is neither pulpit or law office there II
not a store or shop not hamlet or ,
home, nor school house nor public
thoroughfare nor a rood of ground, in thu
extended section of country around us, tina
has not felt the transforming touch o
Middlebury college. 1t is in this compre
hensive sense that your alma mater has ar
alumni more numerous than your eXclusiv,
trennial has been wont to allow; permi
me to add that it is in part in this yer,
sense of value received from her that
| promise to pay in fulfilling the duties her
assumed. IL there are any who demur a
this assertion of personal Indebtedness an,
accord not to me the grasp of fraterna
| greeting, let them speak, for them hav
offended.
| have spoken with this personal refer
ence and in apology, not because oppressed
by any sense of necessity to do so, bu
because find my most natural approach
to my theme through an avenue openin,
to 1t in my own experience with the col
ege. At first locker on, then guest, a
her entertainments and finally a counselo
in her service, Middlcbury college in he
later history has engaged my thoughtful
study and therefore very naturally breed
ing the imperious demand of the hour
make Her my themes to day; not to trac
the lines of her history and mark her vary
ing fortunes, that has been done in tn
baccalaureate which closed an adminisra
ton of golden worth to the college, reach
ing back in her history for a quarter of
century, and appropriately with the trium
plant challenge ''what of the might.
''The morning cometh'; not to dwell upo
the nature and scope of that educatlona
work, which it is the aim of the lnstitu
ton to accomplish that has been compasse
and set forth in the inaugural of my honor
ed predecessor with depth and reach O
Apprehension and felicity of phrase tina
leaves nothing to be added not to reca
geographically, the great names that impair
charm and illustration to her historic recor
though if any, the more might your aim
mater cXclaim in the pride of materns
| affection. | would not exchange my dea,
sons for all the living ones of Chrlstendon
for there may be already among you Gel
| tain excess of eXultatiOn over the account
lation of illustrious names on your roll c
honor. not to these specialiiies concernin
her do call attention, but 10 Middlebur
college as an adjective visible whole,
fact OF history systematiZed orb {
light shining in darkness-an instiutio
both the match and the peer of any NeN
| England college in the excellence of he
| work, having a "local habitation on tn
Otter Greek in the valley of the Chan
plain and name" that has passed beyOn
| ito Her do call attention-a theme nc
invested indeed in this presence and in thi
community with the charms Of novelt
and yet invested to our appreciative mindi
! with other charms and more entertaining
My plan embraces some note of tn
difficulties that have embarrasse her pre-
gress and the conditions of her success,
And wtile shall speak with difference t
, your own judgement and interogatively
you will not require me to speak wit
timidity as the treadlng upon ground wher
every foot fall may trouble some hidde
spring. or with that delicacy of handin
! which implies on any side lurking pride
, But as a plain blunt man, shall spea
right on what | do know, and wins
we all do know. AIddlebury colleg,
| like everything else in our world tbs