The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1890-07-02
PRESIDENT SMALL'S INAUGURAL.
Reconmen datIons for the centI-
nuance Of CoIby's Prosperity.
Tho Trustees accept the Gift of An
other Fitting School.
Incidents of Glass oay at the College
at WateNiIIe.

l. WATERVILLE, July Glass day ex-
ercises at Colby were held today and werc
successful and enjoyable. In the forenoon
at the Baptist church, the grafton was de-
livered by Arthur j. Roberts and the poem
by Wilbur G. Wheelden. The exercises on
the campus began at 8 o'clock. This was
the programme:
History David w. Hall
Prophecy ............., Arthur B. Patten
Address to Uldergr .duates Jeremiah L. Burke
| Parting Address ............. Melvin A. Whltney
The alumni association at its meeting this
afternoon elected: President. non. A. II.
Briggs, '39. Boston; vice president, Larkin
Dunton, LID, Boston; secretary and treas
nrer, E. W. Hall, Waterville; necrologistt,
Rev. G. V. Hanson, Sknowhegan; conncil-
lors, Hon. Reuben Foster. L. ID. Carver,
| Lincoln Owen. The Waterville association
| nominated these candidates for trustees: II.
7. Lyford. ". Worcester. Mass Hon. Y.
Briggs, 80, Boston. Mrs. Edwin Stone gave
the association an oil painting OF the late
Hon. Timothy Boutelle.
The board of trustees at its meeting elect
ed Hon. Josiah II. Drummond vice president
| and Hon. Percival BOnney secretary and
treasurer. Rev. j. HI. Higgins of Charles
ton, Me-, and Rev. G. n Norcross of Somer-
| vile, Mass, offered to give the trustees of
Colby, Charleston Academy, with ample
| BAOuuQo Il dloU luuu buCIClUI VI p@O,OOO,
payable January 81, 1891, provided the trus-
tees would Immediately expend $1,000 in re-
pairs OF the premises and agree to raise $24, 900
| for fund of the same within ten years. The
board accepted the proposition and thus es-
| tablished the fourth fitting school for Colby
within the State of Maine. The matter of Sc
| curing additional teaching in the depart
| menus OF literature, rhetoric and modern Ian
| guages was referred TO committee to report
| at the next commencement. The board will
| o0nCln6a iTs labOrc in the mOrnnu
Tonight at the Baptist church. President
| A. w. Small delivered his inaugural to a
large audience. He spoke as follows:
PEsIDENT sMALL's ADDRESS.
In 1918 our fathers obtained from the leg
islature of Massachusetts permission to es-
tabltsh "a literary institution for the pur-
| pose of educating youth" Such literary
institution is station on the main circuit of
| the communicating system of the universe.
| You delegate some of us to remain and run
the station, while you go and make the
| world which we report. But our primary
| duty here is to listen and watch the develop
ments Of the broadest truths ana to use them
| within our sphere.
| propose to speak, then, Of the work of
| the denominational college, / shall speak of
| it not as it presented itself to the founders,
| but as time has developed it. Imust speak
in the concrete-COlby University. | think
| of the college then as a complex body, the
| whole and the parts of which have reciprocal
duties with added obligations toward the en-
| vlronment in which the organism works.
The college is that organism of which the
| corporation and the endowment are the
| skeleton; but its life is the Intervening of
| trustees, alumni, instructors, students, and
It's nutritlye. system of sustaining friends.
| The college has mission toward society ex-
| terror to itself, in which all its parts more or
| less directly join. General Walker well dis
| tlngulshes technical schools as those which
aim at power to Increase wealth, while col
| leges aim to secure the conditions in which
| wealth is worth possessing
| A college, therefore (and with the college
mean to include fer the purposes Of this
classification, all the prepara+"~'' ir"+--'"t'on
| specially Introductory
| is an Institution for
| power of indepent
| is more or less CO
major premise that
I method is hidden .y ~
| parently isolated w, 80 ~ COLLEGE ~ uudsso4.
conference; that ni6lP e.. ~ov opment eeper)
station only as their minds know this imfflae
| nence, and are as familiar with the hierar-
chies Of relation in which the processes Of
the universe proceed, as the commander of
| an army IS with the ranks and subordina-
| tlons of his troops. The college attempts,
therefore, to open the windows of the soul,
that 1t may admit not merely the appearance
| but the reality of the objective world. The
| college attempts to bring th mind into direct
| contact with the truth of all thoughts and
| all things; to the perception of their essence;
TO the analysis OF their structure; to the
comprehension of their relations with all
| other things and thoughts to the discern
ment of their function in normal relations
and discovery Of their influence in disadjust-
| ment. The college aims to liberate the mind
| from every prepOssession which would him
der its movement back and forth over any
and every line of relation which the uni
verse Of things and thoughts contains.
| Inc OLD question which will doubtless be
repeated SO long as colleges pursue this aim:
| Will have any use for Greek and Latin and
| the Classics in the business Of life? is an
swered by the college: Yes, every time you
need to distinguish between thoughts that
dltleri every time you need to make propo-
| sltlon IN terms of force and decisiVeness:
| every time you need to think the confusion
| IN which practical affairs mostly present
| themselves into an order that makes pOssi-
bic plan of action every time you attempt
| to coin hard facts into profit or build them
| INTO progress; you VIII not use classic VOcab-
| ularY nor mathematical formula, perhaps,
| but the vigilaut insight and the inerrant
| Judgment which grew to be your mental
habit as you learned to weigh the imponder-
| able and measure the impalpable; as You
| learned to coDstrue the signs of an unknown
tongue, not into sentences that you would
thlnk, but into utteranceS which the An
clients did think; as you learned to grasp
ana group all conditions, to transform them
| terms OF their contents, until you had trav-
| ersed the wide space between near data and
| distant conclusion. The college does not
aim to make student universal cyclopa-
| dla, but this the college does propose: to
| put its students so en- rapport with this
| goodly but mysterious frame of things in
which they move that there will be no more
need OF remodelling their minds when they
pass from one region of thought experience
de2nother, than there is of change in the
| fhe N OF modern cruiser when she rounds
| co1Io%a-e from Atlantic to Pacific sea- The
facnIty, s not attempt to create mental
thing ont of ff9 e college cannot make some
snmetbing - frrootthing. But it tries to prevent
Ians ~ e. drQh. amounting to nothing; it
iaIs tr;oI 20 ~ ture nedgSng mental capacity into
Thn oor W 10 poWeIs and to direct its flight.
dent proposer of new classiftcat;one ~ cos coe
mOlOgleS or clues to nature, Cuvier n Lin
n2us or Galileo, but it aims so to revea1 70
every student those traits and habits which
we call laws, That ne will know whether anv
scheme of Interpretation is a narodv ana
trayesty. or translation Of nature. The
college does not anticipate that every str-
dent shall duplicate the mathematical expio-
thaCions ha Vi Ia !. race IN the Vastnesses of the
heavens, but 1t aims to put every student in
| possession of deductiye thinking which will
enable him, like DR.. Bowditch. to follow II
not to lead, and to understand the stages
OF the way The college does not Imagine
that it is to produce in every student a Kant
Sir William Hamilton or a Late bnf II
| expects to enable men to analyze the snbtIest
| phenomena and to scrutinize thought obiects
as steadily as though they were things of
| sense The college does not Imagine that
each mute and inglori0us student is. there.
fore, potential Milton, butit PROPOSES to
| strike the letters fIom the fancy Of every
| student, that he may follow Milton fnrther
| toward the skies than he could 20 withont
that liberation. When | say that the mis-
| sion OF the college is mission of ipstrnction
L mean with that it differs from the tecnni'
cal schools in teaching net so much facts a.
| the method of facts. = %
You will surely permit the hyperbole that
tne college cares comparatively little how
| ignorant stndent is when he leaves thesa
walls II he knows his ignorance and has
learned the way to remove ii aud il alive
with the spirit of both receptive and active
| wisdom. ' "O'i'o
The college, then, has toward its stndents
a mission of instruction which becomes sac.
ond, mission Of inspiration. The cnlIeoa
does not Intentionally depreciate any oo6d
industry or any result of honest labor II
| does not belittle the interests Of human Iifa
III knows that civilization is built on davs;
work. Crops and barns and roads ana c5al
and iron and gold and lumber and locomo.
tiYeS and ships and banks are as necessarv
TO the growth of the modern mind Al fond
and blood are to the human body. Dollars
| are just as divine as their owners make than
| Success is not crime, TO miss if. is All
this the college tries to teach. If the co1Iega
| ever makes men think a life rational th5t