Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1894-06-29

the death of his apcient friend and colleague
DR.. Nathan Smith, whose nam. is INSOFAR
ably connected with the institution
The school, President Allen says, assumet
"at once rank and character among tb;
best institutions of the kind in America,
and this it has always sustained
| That discourse is a characteristic one
and DIR. Allen makes it perfectly plain tina
bis views of the nature and merits of tn,
celebrated controversy, from which he haG
30 recently emerged, remained unchanged
Considering the distinguished statesmen
and jurists who graduated under his regime
such men as William Pitt Fessenden
John z. Hale, Franklin Pierce, Sargent S
Prentiss, Chief Justice Appleton, Thoma,
Drummond, AMI others-more, in proper.
ton, than have ever passed the protals oi
any college in this country, at given time
his remarks on the various professions
and occupations of men are extremely in.
teresting. He assigns the first rank to the
teacher of divine truth. the next to the
skilful and faithful physician, and then
says that the ministers of justice, includ-
ing the expounders of the law as well as
those 'who argue on opposite sides of every
question, may be useful especially
in q contentious community, main
taiaing the rights of property and
of character 1.-THE race of states
men," he continues, ''may be of some ad-
vantage, although it is understood by the in
telligent, that their wisest measures are such
as interfere the least with individual enter
prise or, in other words that they are wisest.
when they make the fewest enactments
wisest, generally, when they do nothing
And after some observations upon govern
ment in the spirit of Mr.. Jeffersons first
inaugural, he adds: besides, great
statesman is very apt to seize upon great
project, and great project is usually full
of mischief"
President Woods was a man of differ
ent temperament and of different
methods. He came to the presidency
though young in years, in sage experience
old;" and his profound scholarship; his ex-
quisite culture; his wonderful colloquial
powers; the breadth of his views; his love
for all that was old, which, nevertheless,
did not lessen his deep sympathy with all
that was progressive, at least progressive
along the ancient ways, carried the reputa-
ton Of the college to the highest point and
endeared him to all who sat under his in
struction. The chapel commentaries not
only his love of art in connection with re-
ligion, but the facility with which he ap-
piled the analytical capacity, which had
served him so well in threading the mazes
of theology, to the mastery of the law of
by some as poet, and he was certainly a
born orator in that the highest exercise of
his powers was called forth by the audience
LoN T. % Il: I,
thought of Gladstone, and to receive the in
fiuence of the minds of his hearers in vapor
and pour it back upon them in flood. He
never swerved in his allegiance to the
church of his fathers, but his mind dwelt
on the points in which ecclesiastical organi-
cations agreed rather than those in which
they differed, and he hoped the time might
come when they might cooperate "as parts
of one common church," hope significant
of the sweetness and light of his character.
The discipline he believed in and exer-
cised was based upon personal influence
and the invocation of the principles of
honor, and the reverence and affection of
those upon whom it operated were paid him
in life and follow him now that he rests
from his labors. And yet how little in per-
manent form remains to us of this eminent
man! A Phi Beta Kappa Grafton; eulogies
on Professor Cleaveland and Daniel Web
ster the address ON the opening of the new
medical college-all perfect in their kind
a translation with an introduction, equal, if
not superior, to the text; few review ar
ticles; and while these demonstrate that
half his strength he put not forth, they are
not enough for that enduring fame that
should have been his. Why was it so? Was
it because aspiration filled hi, mind with
ideal visions to which he despaired of Civ
ing adj quate expression, while he lacked
the ambition to leave visible monuments to
posterity on his own account? Or was he
content with that influence on minds which
by transmission will move the undercurrs nts
for unnumbered years, though the original
source of impulse be forgotten? In that
sense. great teacher may rest satisfied
with the work which he has accomplished,
though the remembrance of his personality
may be chiefly perpetuated in the long sur
vival of regret that he had not so embodied
the results of his Intellectual toll that
hither, as to fountain, "oher suns" might
return, "and in their urns, draw golden
light
The college is not, and has never claim
ed to be, university, in the sense of
place of universal instruction. or of an ex-
amining rather than teaching body. Nor
Is it school of science or of professional
training, but it is school whose scheme of
discipline aud culture aims to fitthe student
for the pursuits of practical life or to adj
vance in any line of further development,
whether in the professions, in letters, or in
science. True, the medical school is under
its charge and joins to it one of the great
faculties belonging to universities, and the
expectation is reason ,ble that in due time
there may be others, including that of the
ology, when that foolish virgin, as Presi-
dent Woods remarked, has replenished her
lamp with the oil of her sister sciences;
but thus far the college has wisely been con-
tented with its position as school for funda-
mental liberal education, afforded at a cost
that places it within the reach of the hum
best, and has lie fit larger institutions to occupy
their own fields without being tempted into
perilous competition. Nor is it likely to
change its essential characteristics when all
the professional schools are grouped about
it, The storm in respect to classical cul-
ture passed over its head undisturbed, and
it has adhered to the mathematical and
classical curriculum from the first; but
broadened to embrace every department,
whether in the cultivation of hum antics or
of the phenomens and laws of nature, or of
economics, according to the advancing