The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1884-07-10
President EIiot on the st,,mn

President Eliot of Harvard University is
an earnest and able man; but for one who
is rated as partisan of the scientific, rather
than the classical, system of education he is
apt to make rash ventures in defamation.
Ii the scientific education has any parteu-
lar claim TO pre-eminence it is because it is
supposed to train the mind to dealing with
things as they are, to close study of facts,
and to careful habits of generalization; but
President Eliots excursions in politics do
not illustrate any superior excellence of this
kind His speeches abound in assumptions
without proof and in hasty, unwarranted
CONGRATULATIONS. They come dangerously
near the mere defamation which the world
has been assured it is the business of high
culture to correct.
He made speech at Cambride the other
night in which this fault was unusually glar-
ing. He set out in the first place to con-
denim tie Republican platform, and this of
course is easy if one shirks the work of
showing why the condemnation is deserved.
1t is easy to say platform is mot clear and
unambiguous," and that it is Immoral In
in the highest sense" and that it is ga mon
strons humbug;" but person of President
Eliots experience in affairs ought not to ex-
pect hat such deuunciaton will be accept
ed because it is spoken. 1t is not argument,
1t IS not reasoning, it is not, at least we hope
it is not, the scientific method.
But the climax of the speech was reached
in the declaration that 1--WE have not had
for many yesrs'-the context implies that
he means since the war-"that political ac-
ton which is high education full OF moral
principle" This is very sad. Whose fault
is it? Nothing has prevented the faculty
and students of Harvard college from taking
that political action which is a high educa-
ton full Of moral principle. If others did
not join them they could go it alone, and up
to the date of President Eliot's speech we
supposed they had on sundry occasions in
dulged in what they thought to be precisely
that kind of action. They have certainly as
sisted in defeating several nominations of
the Republican party which they pro-
nounced to be unfit. And what pity it is,
when one stops to think of it, that the po-
litical work done in this country since the
war has been SO Insignificant and uninspir.
ingl
We are disposed to think however that 1t
has not appeared so to the people of the
country generally, or to statesmen of broad
views, or to the nations which have watched
our struggle with, aud successful settlement
of, some of the most embarrassing and mo-
mentoas political problems that have ever
been presented to any people at any time.
If President Eliot will drop into Harvard
College library one of these Summer morn
ings when he is at leisure and ask the accom-
odating librarian for pamphlet published
by the City of Worcester containing the ora
ton on Pre- sdent Garfield which was deliv-
cred by Hon. George F. Hoar, a Harvard
alumnus, by invitation of the authorities of
that city, he will find in it a passage of re-
markable force and beauty setting forth the
the great ACHIEVEMENTS of American political
action in the period since the war, ia all of
which General Garfield had done honorable
service. We commend to him that page of
just and noble eloquence both as lesson in
politics and an example in speech-making.
1t is hardly possible that any man, even a
President of Harvard College, can read that
catalogue of great questions brayely met and
righteously settled and then repeat to any au-
dience on any occasion lament that" we have
not had for many years that political action
which is high education full of moral prin-
cipe'