Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1908-06-06

| had passed. But General Grant recog-
nized bravery when he saw it and
standing beside the stretcher of the
wounded hero, he promoted Col. Cham
| berlain of Bowdoin $50 to brigader
| general, the only man who was ever
] so promoted on an American battle
| field. When he was asked years later
to what he attributed the honor which
he won in those great battles Of the
rebellion. Gen. Chamberlain said:
when L was called, l answered with
| the best there was in me-"
Ladies and gentlemen, that is Bow
doin Spirit! For a man to answer with
| the best there is in him. BOWdoin
teams have won many battle on the
athletic field because every man has
answered with the best there was in
him: Bowdon men have made the
name of Old Bowdoin famous on the
parchments of American history be-
cause they have been able to say that
when they We're called they answered
with the best there was in them.
Out in the West they are still talk
ing of how a Bowdoin man rode so
miles through the cold and snow of
Dakota blizzard, freezing both feet so
der that that great territory including
Montana might become the home of
liberty and freedom. The Sioux Falls
Register for Nov. 25, 1887, says that
Gov. Brookings in his famous February
ride, displayed pluck and endurance,
rarely if ever equalled on the frontier
And who can say that Judge Brook
ings Of the Glass of '55 did not answer
with the best there was in him.
1t will be many years to come be-
fore Mississippi forgets the infiu-
ence Of Sargent S. Prentiss of the
Glass of 1926. From a weak, sickly
looking lad when he reached Missis-
sippi, he developed into one of the
most eloquent and persuasive orators
of his day. 1t is said that during his
StumDing of the state for the senatori-
al election, he was continually in the
saddle, speaking three or four times
each day. His fame as an orator had
already preceded him to Washington,
so that on the day of his famous three
hour address before the Senate every
seat both in the galleries and on the
floor was taken. Daniel Webster, then
at the height of his power as a states
man, pronounced it the most eloquent
grafton that ever it had been his priv
ilcge to listen to.
1t is with pride that we point to
Commander Peary of the Glass of II,
as a man who seven times braVed in
nuerable dangers in the Arctic regions
and finally reached the farthest north
ever trod by human foot. A splendid
example of Bowdon spirit of what a
man can do who answers with the best
there Is in him.
And so long before the time Kellogg
was scaling the spires of the college
chapel, down through the days of Phi
Chi, when the great drill rebellion was
on, when they had "yagger" wars and
when they had buried Anna" to the
coronations in the present reign of
King Mike when canes are sprung and
cakes are cut under clasped hands,
Bowdoin has been sending forth her
Sons to be leaders of men.
1t is true that BoWdon has been
fortunate in her instructors. The
strength of the faculty does not lie so
much in the scholarly attachments of
it's members as in the strength of their
personalities. The first requisite of an
Instructor is that he be a. man in the
professors have always been men.
Forgetting themselves in their efforts
to bring out the best there is in every
man. they have in many cases builded
better than they knew. That the
Bowdoin spirit has not been lost sight
of during these years of external
changes is due partly to the fact that
these men have been untiring in their
efforts to sustain it.
1t is a beautiful relationship which
is suggested to us in the term alma
mater: the college as the mother and
| the college as the SON. One of the old
Hebrew laws was that a man should
| honor his father and his mother; In
| other words, that he should accom-
! plish a little more in the world than
either Of his parents. 1t is the key
note to progress and if it means any
| thing to Bowdoin undergraduates to-
day, it means that they have upon
| their shoulders as great a responsible
| ity as any college ever placed upon
her sons; that we should not only be
an honor to the college within the
common acceptation of the term but
adopting the spirit of the Hebrew
law and remembering the men who
| have made the name of Bowdoin ia
nous in the past, that we should strive
even to surpass the efforts which they
have extended. Yes, the responsibility
is great.
| 1t means that every man must en-
ter the battle of life with a determin-
| alton to win; that he must forget him.
self and think only of his goal; that
che must go on forever and fail and
1 go on again, and be mauled to the
earth and arise, and content for the
shade of the word and a thing not
seen with the eyes: with the half of
a broken hope for a pillow at night
that somehow the right is the right,
and the smooth shall bloom from the
| rough"