The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-02-05

are so foolish as to be on the other
 side. But as we get older and make
 firm friendships with men of many
 different colleges, as we meet them
 in business, at the club in society and
 many other ways we reach truer perspective; we find that beneath the
 superficial differences of college life
 there are deep sympathies, common
 purposes and high ideals. And while
 there may be and are different tones of
 character in the graduates of the sev-
 eral universities, the fundamental notes
 are the same; and culture, refinement
 and high sense of honor are sounded
 in every true college man.
 One more word by way of intrcduc-
 ton.
 have suggested a large subject tempted thereto no doubt by the fact
 that I know so little about 1t as an expert. do not speak to you as one skilled In the technicalities of univer- sity development; but I have had the privilege of living for number of years in the shadow of Harvard uni versity.
 Friendship with college students, con fidence in young men (which I count as
 one of my best inheritances) and rev
 erence for the devotion of college off cers are my pleas for approaching the subject 1 am simply citizen a col 1 lege graduate, with a certain amount of | general experience in life, throwing out a few thoughts which have come to me. l I have used the title, the American university, as if that were simple, well | defined institutions; whereas we all l know how varied the definitions are. An American university may be an in- stitution where mature scholars and deep students are lost in the mysteries of original research; or it may be an 1 institution where few boys and more l girls are dreaming over the Odes of Horace and singing sweet glees together as college songs.
 There was very little of the gilt edge to our New England ancestors. They called a spade a spade; and though some of them had an English university education (aye probably because they had a university education), when they founded a college they dubbed it not a university" but a school or college. It was what it pretended to be, You are familiar with the fact that the early New England colleges were founded in order to prepare men for the ministry. The need of an educated ministry is what created Harvard and Yale It may not be known to you that rather less than two centuries ago liar yard was getting to be considered by some of the more ancient Calvinistic brethren as rather "off color in her theology, a reputation which has clung to her ever since. So prone is the col lege in it's childhood to become the fath- CT of the man.
 So distressed was the Rev. Cotton Mather of Boston at the chilly atmos- phere of the theology at Harvard that on one wintry morning, the 2d of Jan uary 1718, he turned with hope to the | college at New Haven, which, only | eighteen years old, was as solid in the 1 Fundamentals of Calvinism as any such l stripling could be; and transferring his | affections away from Cambridge, he writes in his diary; What shall l do for the welfare of the college of | New Haven? I am inclinable to l write to a wealthy East India merchant | at London, who may be disposed on | several accounts to do for that society | and colony"
 A few days later tine letter was writ | ten, folded and appropriately sealed, 1 and by the next sailing packet was on | its way to England addressed to "Mr, l Elihu Yale, London, England" Within l was written as follows: sir: Though | you have your felicities in your family, l which, I pray God, continue and multi ply, yet certainly if what is forming at I New Haven might wear the name of Yale college, 1t would be better than a name of sons and daughters. And your munificence might easily obtain from you such commemoration."
 Elihu fortunately saw 1t in the same 1 light, little dreaming how much better than name of sons and daughters his munif1cence was; and we must add it, little suspecting how Justify his name would be roared from thousands of his young sons from the bIeachers at Springfield. Who knows but that the donation would have been withheld and another name given to the new college had he known in what light and un- seemly ways his name, that of digni- fled East India merchant of London, with periwig and buckles, was to be sung as well as spoken.
 How different from that modest be- ginning of our New England's schools and colleges was the movement of fifty years ago when the small educational institutions called universities sprung all over the land, especially in the west. The bureau of education of 1890 gave 400 institutions in the United States to do university work. (N. A. Rev. 151) Am I unjust to our western friends If I suggest that sometimes they begin l , at the wrong end? remember that in my boyhood a western missionary, who i was telling an eastern congregation of his work mentioned that he lived in a | e city of some 400 inhabitants. Seeing a i smile pass along the pews he added, q Tn the west we find it best to begin our | villages by calling them cities; that at- 4 tracts the people, and in time we hope f to rise to the situation where we can s without risking our regulations and , finances begin to call them towns" s To call an institution a university \ loes not make it one. May it not be a part of the tendency which we find in V