The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1898-01-04
UNITY AND PROGRESS.
These the WatehWOFds Of Divine
Guidance.
SPEAKER REEDS GRAFTON BE.
FORE STUDENTS OF GIRARD.

On Occasion of Tiftieth Anniversary Of
the College-Tribute to this Great
Phiianthropist Who Founded the
| Institution.
| Philadelphia, January 3.-Girard COL
lege celebrated its fiftieth anniversary to.
day with an elaborate programme of ex.
ercises. Addresses were made this even
ing by Mayor Warwick, Congressman
Hrosius and officials Of the institution,
and there was number of vocal and in.
strumental selections by pupils.
/ The event of the celebration was the
grafton delivered by Speaker Thomas 3.
| Reed.
| Six hundred and fifty or seventy years
ago England which during the following
! period of nearly seven centuries has been
| the richest nation on the face of the globe
| began to establish the two great uniyer-
stiles which from the banks of the Cam
and the Isis have sent forth great scholars
and priests and statesmen whose fame liz
the history of their own country and
| whose deeds have been part of the history
of every land and sea. During all that
| long period reaching back two hundred
y
that this great hemisphere existed; before
the world knew that it was swinging in
the air and rolling about the sun; kings
| and cardinals, mobiles and great church.
men. the learned and the pious began te-
stow ing upon these abodes of scholars
| their gifts of lands and money, and have
continued their bonefactions down to our
time. What these universities with all
their colleges and hall, teeming with
J scholars for six hundred years have done
/ for the progress of civilization and the
good of man this whole evening could
not begin to tell. Even your iinagina-
tions cannot at this moment create the
| surprising picture. Nevertheless the in
| situation at which most of you are OF
have been pupils Is OF the beginning of
| q career with which those great universe
ties and their great history may struggle
in vain for the palm OF the greatest USE
| fulness to the race of man.
! One single fact will make evident that
! this possibility is not in the creation If
imagination or the product of that boast
| fulness which America will some day feel
herself too great TO cherish, but simple
and plain possibility which has the
sanction of mathematics as well as of
| hope.
! Although more than six centuries of
| regal; princely and pious donation have
! been poured into the purses of these ven
cradle aids to learning the inunifcence, of
one American citizen today affords an
endowment income equal to that of each
university and when the full century is
completed his work will afford an income
superior to the income of both. When
time has done his perfect work Stephen
Glrard mariner and merchant may he
found to have come nearer Immortality
than the long procession of kings and
cardinals, mobiles and statesmen whose
power was mighty in their own days, but
who are only on their way to oblivion. I
am well aware that this college of
orphans wherein the wisdom of the found
er requires facts and things to be taught
rather than words and signs can as yet
make no claim to that higher learning
so essential to the ultimate progress of
the world, but it has q mission as great
and as high and one which connects itself
more nearly with the practical elevation
of mankind.
Whether the Overruling Providence Eof
which we talk so much and know 80 lit
tie has each of us in his kindly care and
keeping we shall better know when our
minds have the broader scope which i'm
mortality will make possible. But how
ever men may dispute over individual
care His care over the race as whole
Ills all the pages of human history.
Unity and progress are the watchwords
&
harsh.h been the treatment of one
man or OF thousands of men every great
event or series of events has been for the
good Of the race. We're this the proper
time could show that wars-and vars
ought to be banished forever from the
face OF the earth-that Northumberland
the time is coming when they too will be
no more-that prosecutions and inuuisi-
rions-and liberty of thought is the rich
est pearl CT life-that all these wars, pes
tilences, and prosecutions were but helps
to the unity of mankind. All things in
Guiding our own natures bind us togeth-
er Tor deep and unrelenting purpose.
IhiIk what we should be who are un-
learned and british if the wise, the
learned and the good could separate
themselves from us, were free from our
superstitions and vague and foolish fears
and stood loftily by Themselves wrapped
IN their own superior wisdom? Therefore
has 1t been wisely ordained that no set of
men of our race shall get so far above us
that we shall be hey ond- 1.-THE reach of their
helping hand; so lofty that they will not
fear reproaches or so mighty as to be be-
yond our reach. If the lofty and the
learned do not lift us up, we drag them
down. But unity is not the only watch
word, there must Ge progress also.
Since by law we cannot evade. we are
to keep together and since we are to pro-
gress we must DO it all together and
nobody must be left behind. This is not
q matter of philosophy. 1t is a matter of
fact. No progress which did not lift all,
ever lifted any. Ii we let the poison of
filth diseases percolate through the novels
Of thespoorsdeath knocks at the palace