The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-05-24

University. The sum OF $150.oO0 as an
nounced in dispatches, was completed
several days ago, and though the build
ing will still be greatly improved for its
purposes If an additional $4,000 can be
raised, the work on it is to begin very
shortly. The building Will stand be-
tween Sever Hall and Quincy street,
opposite the new Architectural build
ing. Prof. Shaler's house will move
along towards President Eliot's to make
room for it..
Within the hall will stand a bronze
statue of Emerson by Frank Duveneck,
of Cincinnati. This, curiously enough,
will be the first memorial statue that
has as yet been erected to Emerson
anywhere in the Boston community.
though it is reported that one by DAN
lei Chester French, sculptor of the
celebrated Minute Man" of Concord.
may some day be placed in the court
yard of the Boston Public Library.
However that may be, it is probably
true that Emerson himself would have
wished for no more fitting tribute than
that of having his sculptured likeness
in such school of philosophy as Har-
ward Is now erecting in his honor.
Harvard's interest in Emerson is nat
urally keen. for, though it is a curious
fact that the future scholar did not
think enough of his bachelors degree
to take it and pay the customary fee,
his life after 1921, the year his class
was graduated, was closely associated
in many ways with the College in Cam
bridge. Indeed, after his fame as a
thinker had once gone abroad, he was
probably the most talked-of Harvard
alumnus-admired by most, disliked by
a few as a supposedly dangerous radi-
cal, but with a dislike that became
steadily less as his personality and
teachings became better understood.
Beyond doubt the two most famous
orations ever delivered at Harvard
were by Emerson; one, his magnificent
grafton before the Phi Beta Kappa
Harvards literary society par excel
lence-delivered Aug. 81, 1897; and the
other given before the graduating class
of the Harvard Divinity School the
year following. 1t is difficult at the
present day to appreciate the impor-
lance in the eyes Of contemporaries of
these two expressions of New England
protestantism-if one may so denomi-
nate Emerson's vigorous individualism.
Quite possibly neither of them, except
for the admirable and monumental
form in which they are cast, would ex-
cite especial enthusiasm If spoken at
Harvard commencement this year. The
thought in the one that American
scholarship ought to be set free from
servile dependence upon European in
stitutions and in the other that religion
should be freed from servile depend
ence upon dogma, has, of course, be-
come commonplace and indeed 50 gen.
orally accepted that the up-to-date ten
dency in at least one American church
and in some American educational in
stitutions is distinctly reactionary and
against such individualism as Emerson
advocated. But in 1887 his special
pleading was startlingly fresh and
striking. Let me admonish you first
of ALL" he said in his Divinity School
address, Ito go alone; to refuse good
models, even those most sacred to the
imagination of men and to dare love
God without mediator or veil"
Other features of the Emerson cele-