The Middlebury register. [volume] (Middlebury, Vt.) 1850-1882, 1881-07-15
,f the sciences here illustrated.


lent and conspicuous places for all
specimens of zoology and works of art,
which can as well and appropriately be
above reach. When thus arranged and
filled IL will be room of great and at
tractive interest and will inspire every
receptive mind with zeal and enthusi-
asm in those studies.
And now brethren of the faculty, of
the trustees, of the alumni, and brethren
and sisters of all friends of learning,
we appeal to you to help us In this great
work of filling, to its utmost capacity,
this beautiful room 80 providentially
offered to ms.
Under suitable engineering it will
prove to have large capacity to receive
without confusion your most generous
gifts in specimens of all tho classified
sciences. Especially should the natural
history of this state be well represented.
Further on | will tell you what we shall
do when the room shall be full, for it
is not unlimited ,and our united resolves
@re, that day must come, and may it
come speedily.
have detained you so long upon this
department of the natural sciences be-
cause it imperatively demands and
justifies all the attention yon are now
giving It.
A fourth department in the curricu-
lum of study of very high importance
is English Literature, with Rhetoric,
Logic and History.
In these studies the student tempers,
sharpens and polishes the weapons he
is to use. 1t is department upon which
much depends in the final results of a
college course. Ably and faithfully fill
ed it gives value to every other study.
have less need to express my convic-
tion of its supreme Importance because
this college has always held high re-
putation in that department and 1t only
needs to go on unto perfection.
A fifth department is that of Psyche
logy aud Ethics, now the battle ground
of two widely divergent schools of
modern thought, the materialistic and
the spiritualistic, or iniuitional.
The materialistic school, led by such
men as Spencer, Balm, Huxly, Tyndall,
claims to be, par excellence, scientific.
II is really speculative and theological.
Denying all intuition of truth, or truth
as necessary and Interchangeable, and
making the mind complex of sensa-
tioDs, it enters at once upon theological
warfare in order to relegate all religion
TO the unknown and the unknowable.
They kindly and piously permit God
possibly to exist, if you please, but
deny that he can be known or that he
can reveal hiWselfto the finite. Theism,
Atheism and Pantheism are declared to
be, when vigorously analysed, alike un-
and unthinkable (Herb. Spen-
Ger First Principles, page 43). A di-
vine revelations "a supernatural religion,
prayer, and all that, are held
to be absurdities and whoever defends
them is unscientifc. Thus, leaving the
true domain of science, they rush direct
ly into theology and speculation and
claim to rule the whole region of theolo-
gic thought. Instead of being called
scientists they should rather be called
speculative theologians. This unsci-
epfific iusolcnoc ~ r--L-Iiy .~-.h~l 4
W elimination in our colleges and in
stitutions of learning and is now OH the
wane. All who profess allegiance to
this school are neither pantheists nor
but its influence has ALWAYS an
atheistic trend.
If this college, or any other college,
should tolerate this teaching il would
so far cease TO be christian college, and
would so far become theological SEM
mary of the narrowest and bitterest
kind, scoffing at all theology but agnosti-
cism or the religion of beastly ignor-
ance.
Its theory of man and mind takes
n oil nnoothslstxr Af
therefore of self-directive personality !;
Of true responsibility, therefore of merit
and demerit, of vice and virtue. This
Is rarely acknowledged, and when one
of the apostles OF this new theology
frankly and couragously avowed it, the
avowal was met with such an outcry of
that it has not been re-
peated.
i can say boldly that this college be-
lieves in the existence of mind as dis
tinct from matter, in personality, in
human freedom and responsibility, in
the intuitions of unchangeable and
eternal truth, in universe, in the reign
of law and design, and in the existence
OF a law-giver and designer who is "God
over all blessed forever"
While the opposite errors will get
possession of some youthful minds the
science of psychology and of ethics
will, so far as possible in their sphere,
apply the remedy, and hold fast to
truth, to manhood and to God.
Ii as trustees you allow other teach
ing You will undermine the foundations
of the college. Should swerve from
this philosophy, which makes man per-
son mot thing which makes him beside
his bodily organism spiritual intelli-
gence and not mere complex of sem
sations; which makes him free and self
self-directed, and not a
machine driven by the present motive
which makes him responsible to God
and destined to Immortality, it will be
your most solemn duty to displace me
at once as false to my covenant with you
and base subverter of the designs of the
founders of this college.
5thly. We have a choice selection of
other spheres of life and thought which
have deservedly won high place in the
curriculum of learned institutions.
They are chiefly International Law,
The History of Civilization, Political
Economy and the History of Science
aud Philosophy. These all tend to widen
the sphere of thought and of observation
The student graduate, whatever is to
be his profession, derives from these
studies certain well-fxed guiding prin-
ciples which lift him into conscious
dignity, responsibility and power as {
citizen of the republic. He compre-
hends the share he may have in guiding
hnt. 1aofinu tha WhAth
er taught by text book or lectures, or O
combination of both, these studies mus
never be allowed to lose their place oi
to be undervalued in comparison
They contribute TO the fulness and com
pleteness of a college course.
Another department which has occu
pied tho attention of the faculty anl
prudential committee the past year, an,
also your attention as trustees, is th
library. The old library was beautiiu
4 a.. l. a l. ~