The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1879-07-23
by TELEGRAPH.
COLBY COMMENCEMENT.
Annual Meeting of the Alumni
Association.
Grafton and Poem Before the Literary
Societies.

sity took place at Champlin Hall this morning
Hon. Abner Coburn was chairman. Percival
Bonney, ESQ.,, in the absence of Rev. S. P.
Merrill, acted as secretary. The forenoon was
occupied in listening to the reports of the
faculty and the ordinary business of the board
was transacted.
Adjourned till o'clock.
The Ivy Day exercises by the Juniors took
place at the College Chapel this afternoon
and were highly successful. The following
was the order of exercises:
Grafton. =. ............. James L. Cochrane
Poem ......... ....,.... -. ii. l.. koopman
Planting of the Ivy.
Class chronicles .................-.A. NJ InomaS
Presentation addresses. "..........J. I. Mcdonald
The award for handsome man "a mirror) was
made to Ingraham for praying man IA bottle of
laughing gas) Frye; weary man IAN easy chaiD
King; married man "a Ounce cap) Coehrane;
greatest dig IA spade) Page; best moustache
WAX Mason; ladies' man "a dolly Kelley
Music was furnished by the Waterville Band.
AT a meeting of the Alumni Association
this afternoon the following officers were
elected for the ensuing year.
A. X P. Small President
w. III. Mcclellan, Vice President.
Prof. Edward G. Hall, Secretary.
Prof. G. e. Hamlin, Harvard College,
Necrologist.
The neurology of the past year was then
read, after which the Association adjourned,
and met again at o'clock for a social reunion
and collation..
The neurology is as follows:
1S27-Isaac Redington born at Waterve March
13, 1S03 died in Skowhegan Oct. g. 1878.
mai ,fnhxr hNr,, ~. Ixrrfa1 Ii
Aug. %, 1904; died in Acton, Me-, Oct. II, 1878.
1S36-Jonathan G. Dickerson, born in New Chester
4 Hill, n. Il, Nov o. 1911; died in Belfast,
1S47-William Stanford. born in North Kingston,
R: l., April II, 1923; died in Providence, R. L.,
1853-George Bradley, born in Bangor, April 3,
1882; died in Minneapolis, Mimi, Feb. IL, 1879.
AT an adjourned meeting OF the board of
trustees all the business of public importance
was laid over until tomorrow.
The anniversary of the literary societies at
the Baptist church took place this evening.
The Grafton was delivered by Rev. G. w. Sam
son, d. D., late President of Columbia Univer-
sity. A poem was read by Hon. Chas. F. H.
Thurber, of Brooklyn. The following is an alb
stract of the grafton:
The un-worked mine of historic tradition in
the State of Maine, whose first settlement
DeSdu III IOUf, WHICH mas always Doon q
Chinese wall projecting northward, and shut
ting off first France then Great Britain from
the coast in front of their interior provinces
the proverbial pride of Universities in working
up such mines-was ma de the introduction to
the theme, "Ifddition."
A National and Theological prejudice units
the American for an impartial study of this
vital subject But Jesus condemnation of
tradition, which made ''the word of God of
none effect" speaks of the abuse of tradition,
while PauPs charge in his first inspired letter,
written before Matthew's first memoir of
Jesus was published, "Stand fast and hold the
traditions which We have been taught both by
word and our epistle''-this charge should
divest the theme of any pre-judgment. The
essential meaning of the word is found in
Blackstone's law precept-"A deed takes effect
only from its tradition or.delivery." A tradi-
ton, in the Latin and Roman meaning of the
original, and also in the cognate Greek as used
from Homer to Paul. is a record of sufficient
value to be called from unimportant reports or
records, and to be preserved for future genera
tiOns This important truth as to the nature
of traditions, opens up a practical and winning
view of the sources of human knowledge the
criteria of truth, the schools of philosophy,
which the reception oftradition compels every
thorough student to master; while it is a safe
guide to educated men in judging of scientific,
political and religious questions, discussed in
our own, as in every past age. Aristotle in an
cient, and Bacon in modern times, have
opened the pathway to this imperative demand
on the student. The one in his "Organon,' y
and the other in his "Novum Organum," in
dicates that the three powers OF the mind to be
analysed, if we would reach truth in tradition,
are Memory, Imagination and Reason.
The early sages, the chronicles, the his
torans, from such multifarious incidents as
journalists now roll up in their sheets, selected
those facts worthy to be held in memory and
repeated for coming ages. But the bard as
Homer n win apn1anSa and stir
wove into the web of fact guarded by memory
fctions of the imagination. 1t was the bust
ness Of the sage, the philosopher, by reason to
separate the one from the other; that actual
truth, valuable in science, politics and
religion, might De attained In this attempt,
sages of cool, practical turn, eontended that
the testimony of the senses was the only test
of truth. Thinkers of rejecting habit replied
that everything seen by the eye changes in an
hour, and it is the unseen principle that rules
those changes, attained by intuition which
constitutes real truth. Both these found flaws
in their opponents theories for the eye is de-
ceived by appearances i'll nature; and intuition
may be mere imagination, and so illusion on
the one hand and detuSioW on the other are to
be met. Hence arose in succession, as Cousin
shows, the four philosophic schools; those of
Materialists and Idealists; and then of sceptics
believing nothing and of mystics believing
anything. The true method of science amid
this conflict was shown by truly balanced
lnlluS. Mell 10 D0l6No III Gn6 testimony OF
their impartial fellows: and the jurist is first
and the scientist must be second in the
avowal that this is legitimate. Men are made
to see and speak the truth; it is the abnormal,
not the normal condition, when they do not.
Faith in man and in the powers that made
him; faith in the senses and in the intuitions
of reason and conscience-this is and has al
ways been the reliable guide to truth. The
careful tracing of this law of tradition is made
to unravel the intricacies into which Darwin
and Jevons, Huxley and Mills have led
many modern student in science. They
were unravelled i'll ancient times; they may
be now.
The thorough study of Burke, of Hume, of
Rousseau and of Volney, will reveal how the
use of reason in adhering to political tradition
saved the American Republic from anarchy
and wreck; while the diScarding of experience
in the past for fanciful theories, brought
Franco to suffer generations of failure. The
truly scientific survey of modern times leads to
the fact that while until 1880 the classic
treasures of Greece could not be verified in
Schliemann are connecting the hypothesis OF
Niebuhr. The cEinaactic result of this
thorough study of the law of tradition, is
found in the fact that modern explorations in
Palestine have made the mythic theory OF
Strauss give place among sceptics to the epic
theory Of Renan; the facts in Christ's life
becoming as authenic as those in Washington
After the exercises at the church the college
societies held their annual reunions.
Senator Hamlin was in town to-day. He
says that Postmaster General Key was unable
to accept his invitation to stop off at Water
vile to commencement but went straight
through to Halifax. On his return trip he viii
spend Sunday with the Senator at Bangor.
MAINE