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WILLIAM PRESTON JOHNSTON.
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INTRODUCTORY ADDR~&&
JUDGE CHAlllE& E. FENNEll
MEMOIlIAL OIlATION
8. M. PALM Ell. O. O.
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T HE audience being assembled in Tulane Hall on the
evening of December 20th, 1899, the services were opened by the Rt. Rev. Davis Sessums, D. D., who offered the following
PRAYER:
Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be always acceptable in Thy sight, 0 Lord, my strength and my redeemer.
So teach us to number our days, that we may apply ollr hearts uuto wisdom.
o God, the Sovereign Lord and King, who hast given Ilnto men the administration of government upon earth, we make our supplications unto Thee, for all those who have that trllst committed to their hands. Euable them, we pray Thee, to fulfil the same to Thy houor aud the welfare of the natious among whom they rule. Especially we implore Thy favor on Thy servants, the President of the United States, the Governor of this State, and all who have the making or executing of law in the land. Endue them with uprightness and wisdom, with firmness and clemency, remembering whose ministers they
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are, and the account which they must render at Thy throne. To the people of all ranks and conditions among us, give the spirit of obedience to government, and of contentment under its protection, in leading peaceable and honest lives.
Let the righteousness prevail which exalteth a nation, and throughout our land let the name of Thy Son be acknowledged as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, to Thy honor and glory, who art God over all, blessed for evermore. Amen.
Almighty God, the fountain of all wisdom, the true light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, we beseech Thee, regard with Thy favor and visit with Thy blessing the colleges and schools in our land, and especially that institution whose representatives are here assembled. Assist all who are guardians of their interests, and secure to them the means of their usefulness. Endue all those who are teachers with a serious sense of their charge, and wisdom and strength for its fulfilment.
Teach the students, we pray Thee, to choose their path so as to keep it according to Thy word. Inspire them with high hopes and worthy purposes, and so prepare them to fulfil their course with honor, that they may attain the I!"lorious destiny to which Thou dost call them in the life to come; through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Almighty God, with whom do live the spirits of those who depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the spirits of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burdens of the flesh, are in joy and felicity; we give Thee hearty thanks for the good examples of all those Thy servants, who having
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finished their course in faith, do now rest from their laborsand especially for the good example of Him whose life we
now commemorate.
And we beseech Thee, that we, with all those who are departed in the true faith of Thy Holy Name, may have our perfect consummation aud bliss, both in body and soul, in Thy etemal and everlasting glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Ghost, be with us all evermore. Amen.
Hon. Charles E. Fenner, President of the Board of Administrators, then made the following introductory address:
GetJIlemen tifTulane University ofLouisiana:
The Faculty of all the departments of Tulane, the students in all of its various branches, together with this large and representative audience,have assembled here to-night to pay a feeble tribute to the memory of William. Preston Johnston, the first President of the University. His life was adomed by every public and private virtue, and by various and illustrious achievements In many branches. As a patriot, as a scholar, as a man of Letters, as a poet, as a soldier and as a Christian, his whole life was devoted to the building np ot a character wanting no element calculated to attract the love and admiration of his fellows. And this life he had the pleasure of crowning by the successful performance of that task to which its later years were devoted; the building up of this great University, in the annals of which his name, as its first President, will always be asmiated with those of Paul Tulane and
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Randall Lee Gibson, the latter the first President of the Board of Administrators.
He was my friend from my early youth to the very moment of his death, and in that death life lost for me, as for many, many others, a charm which nothing can ever replace. If I should attempt to speak of him as I feel, my feeble tongue would fail to find words in which to voice the sentiments of love and admiration which my heart has ever felt for him. But that pleasure has been confided to a far abler one than myself. I well remember that at the grand anti-lottery meeting, which was held in the Grand Opera House at the inauguration of that memorable campaign, the presiding officer, who was Col. Johnston, in introducing to that audience the great orator to whom you are to listen to-night, spoke of him as "the most illustrious citizen of Louisiana," and I feel that all of you will join with me in paying the same tribute to him, whose virtues as a citizen, whose eminence as a Christian, whose enldition as a scholar, and whose eloquence as an orator, have made his name one of the brightest in our State, and it is with pleasure that I now present to you the Rev. Dr. B. 1\1. Palmer.
Dr. Palmer then delivered the following
Mr. President and Gentlemen 0/ the l1Joard of.Administration; Members of the Faculty of the Various !f)epartments of Tulan. upon this platform; Students of the slVeral Colleges, professional and academic; Fellow-Citizens of .New Orleans:
Tulane Uuiversity institutes to-night her third Lodge of Sorrow. The first was upon the occasion of the death of Mr. Paul Tulane, the benefactor and, within certain limits, the founder as well of this University i a man who came from abroad, amassed in this city his wealth, and, having bound himself by no family ties, was pleased at the last to make the people of Louisiana, and the citizens of New Orleans especiall y, his heirs. The secoud occasion was on the death of the first President of the Board of Adjninistration, General Randall L. Gibson, the gallant soldier and wise Senator, bound in close association with others in devising this bequest of Mr. Tulane, and whose guiding hand did so much for the institution which, in the providence of God, he was permitted to live only just long enough to see emerge from its condition of chrysalis into the full proportions of an expanded University. To-night we gather around the tomb of the first President of the University itself, William. Preston Johnston, L.L. D.
Col. Johnston was born in 1831, and traced his origin back to a noble stock. It is vain to pour contempt upon the pride which traces one's history back to a noble heritage. It
"And is successively. from blood to blood, The right of birth."
It is a just ambition which inspires men in their several gen
erations,
"To draw forth a noble ancestry
From the corrnption of abusillg time,
The family history of the Johnstons emerges first into light in the person of Captain Archibald Johnston, of Salisbury, Connecticut, who, from a document bearing the date of
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'17', was evidently born in a little strip of territory called Oblong, just between the borders of New York on the one side and Connecticut on the other. In,175 he was commissioned as a captain in the Revolutionary army of patriots, and fought throughout the entire American war, dying at last in '789. He is described as a large landholder and a man of extensive influence, being a leader of men in his generation. Bold and daring in character, frank, without concealment; possessing all the hereditary traits of his Scotch descent, from a family which at an earlier colonial period had settled in Duchess county, New York. His son, John Johnston, the second link in this line of descent, after graduation at Yale, studied medicine at Litchfield, Connecticut, and became, in his day, an eminent practitioner. He settled later in the State of Kentucky, which thenceforward became the domicile of the Johnstons. He inherited all the qualities of his Scotch birth-a people, as you all know, famed in history for the strength of their convictions and the rugged determination of their will; and, who like the massive mountains of their own country, have endured through centuries of tempest and storm. He is represented as frank, even to bluntness, and was a conspicuous leader in his age. He was twice married; first in the family of the Stoddards, and, at a later period, contracting marriage with a Miss Abigail Harris, daughter of a certain Edward Harris, who had the reputation in his day of being an exceedingly pious Puritan. Thus we find the heroic qualities which adorned our friend, and which we are assembled here to-night to commemorate, came to him from two confluent streamsScotch upon the one hand and Puritan upon the other. Of
the Scotch I have already spoken, and of those peculiar characteristics which even from ancient times found embodiment in the expression of the " mens perfervida scotorum." Of the Puritans, however they may be subjected to ridicule because of the fantastic garb which only concealed heroic qualities, the verdict of history has long since been pronounced, that to them England, and America as weU, owe to this day aU their chartered liberties. It was fitting, therefore, that our friend should feel the pride of birth in tracing it back to such an ancestry.
Of tbis second marriage, the youngest son, forming the third link in this line of descent of our friend, was General Albert Sydney Johnston. Surely nothing more is needed in this presence to-night than the mention of his name-the consummate Confederate General whose early faU in the battle of Shiloh cast the first gloom upon the Confederate arms, deepening soon afterwards in the death of the lamented Jackson; the two events forming almost a prophecy of the failing fortunes of the cause which was nearest to the hearts of both. It is wonderful how greatness of soul sometimes expresses itself in a single aphorism. You, sir, and many others on this platform and in this audience to-night, remember the spasm of remorse which passed throngh this Southland when the news came back from Tennessee that Albert Sydney Johnston had faUen in the very hour of victory, and when he was leading his troops on to triumph. Certain nnjust criticisms, growing out of the failure of a few maneuvers in the field, having been made, the magnanimity of this hero was able to ward from him the public censure; and in the kindness of a generous, as weU as a
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great nature, he could even apologize for his traducers by saying, in substance, the test of military leadership must be snc· cess. Marvelous is the power of true greatness exemplified in this hero and fallen martyr to our cause, who was able thus to repose upon his own consciousness of personal merit.
In early life, General Johnston married into the family of the Prestons of Virginia, and the issue of that marriage was William Preston Johnston, embalming in his name his pater. nal and maternal origin. Upon the early death of his wife, General Johnston saw fit to cast his fortune with the rising Republic of Texas, and thus his son at the early age of four years, was left to the care of maternal relatives, gaining the rudiments of education, first of all, in the schools of Louisville, enlarged afterwards in the instruction received at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, the Military Institute at Georgetown, Kentucky, and completed at last by his graduation at the University of Yale. He had been from his earliest youth a reader and student, and even at that period of his life gave evidence of that exquisite literary and critical taste which formed his highest intellectual characteristic in after years. In proof of this he carried off the Townsend prize for English composition at Yale; and thus in his very youth was our friend "prim... i"ter primos," as he always remained in after years, best among equals. Graduating at Yale he entered upon the study of Law, receiving his diploma from the University of Louisville in 1852 ; and in 1853 was united in marriage with Miss Rosa Duncan, the daughter of John N. Duncan, of New Orleans, the marriage being contracted in New Haven, Connecticut-ilnincident worthy of being noted as almost a prophecy of his later and more intimate relations with the heople of Louisiana. The practice of Law in the city of Louisville was, in due time, interrupted by the outbreak of the war between the States in 1861. Our friend, having imbibed the historic and political principles which descended from the founders of this Confederated Republic, was among the firstin Kentucky to espouse the cause of the Confederacy and to engage in the raising and equipment of troops for the army. He was himself made Major of the 2d Kentucky regiment, from which he was presently transferred to the 1st regiment, with the rank of Lientenant Colonel; and his first military service was in the Northern part of Virginia during the year 1861, upon the line of Fairfax and Acotinck. A severe attack of Typhoid-pneumonia very soon disabled him from service in the field. His own regiment having been disbanded during his illness he Was at once selected by President Davis and placed upon his Staft' as an Aide de Camp, with the rank of Colonel, and became the confidential officer upon the Staff of our great civil chieftain in conducting his intercourse with the Generals in the field.
I may be allowed to pause just at this point to remark that wonderful guidance of Providence which shapes the ends which great men are to accomplish in their later life. It is only when we stand at the stem of the ship, that we are able in the darkness of the night to trace the path which she cuts through the waters by the phosphorescent light which gleams upon that path as far as the eye can reach. So it is only when we draw to the close of an exalted history, that we are able to place our finger upon what we once termed the accident of
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early life which gave inspiration to the man and to the life. It means a great deal to a boy ten years of age, in whose bosom slumbers the spark of genius yet nndiscovered, to read the right book at the right moment, when the electric spark shall fire a noble ambition, which in after years is to become the inspiration of a great man. It may appear to be a matter of caprice, a simple whim of a half-instructed father, when he sends his boy of seventeen to this college or to that; but he may there chance to strike the particular mind which shall be the steel bringing fire out of the flint to fill the after centuries with the light of advancing knowledge. It is interesting to see how our friend was trained for his later work by the strange Providences which directed his earlier career_ Possessing a classic and literary taste, dnly cultivated in the higher Institntions of learning, in the very opening of his own ripe manhood he drew in with his breath those immortal principles which for a hundred years, have been lying at the foundation of this great government and were the comer stone of this great nation of ours, his mind expanding under the influence of the massive ideas which he had absorbed. Just at that moment, in the discharge of those duties assigned to him as a messenger to the fields of battle, he touched here and there, there and here and everywhere around the circle of war, the great heroic spirits thal have made the history of our time. Could it have been otherwise, than that the son of Albert Sydney Johnston, could help, when he thus touches such spirits as I have described, being fully charged with the electricity of his age? And so he was fashioned into greatness, not alone by the education of the schools, but by that sterner discipline and larger and riper education which hasits birth in the storm of battle, inthe midst of carnage and of war. He was faithful to the fortunes of President Davis throughout his entire career, and was with him to the end. He was himself taken captive and for months imprisoned in solitary confinement· at Fort Delaware i and so he stands before us to-night, side by side with that great civil leader who was always great in all the 'relations which he sustained to his country and the world-but greatest in the sublime courage with which he endured defeat, and bearing upon his bosom the badge of martyrdom, of martyrdom for us.
Mr. President, there are but three names in modem history which, in my judgment, stand side by side in their unsullied patriotism and in the brightness of their excessive moral greatness. The first of these is the Silent William, the Prince of Orange, who, if my memory serves me aright, never won a single battle, but who, by patient endurance, led a brave people through a protracted struggle to final triumph and national independence. The second of this immortal trio is he before whose name a grateful nation has bowed, these hnndred years, on the 22d day of February-"The Father of His Country"-the immortal Washington. These were examples of magnificent success under the most trying circnmstances, but the third who stands beside the other two is the twin brotherthough separated by the breadth of a centnry~f that great Virginian, our own Robert E. Lee. It was in tonch with men like these that the final cast was given to the character of him whose virtues we are assembled here to commemorate.
At the close of the war Col. Johnston retnrned to the practice of law in the city of Louisville for the short period of
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time intervening between 1865 and 1867, when, at the call of Gen. Lee, he is summoned to the University of Washington and Lee as Professor of History and English Literature. There, for the ten years between 1867 and 18n, these two allied spirits sat side by side, the younger drawing inspiration from the heroism and learning of the elder.
Robert E. Lee was not greater, as the commander leading forth his troops to conquer on the field of battle, than on that day when he stood before the tattered fragments of his army and tendered the hilt of his sword to the General of the Union forces at Appomatox. And that fine sense of military courtesy, which is born only of battle and bravery, never had a more graceful illustration than when the hilt of that sword was returned to the hands of the defeated hero. But if Robert E. Lee was great in the hour of defeat, sustaining himself with a dignity which can be admired, though scarcely excelled, he reached the summit of moral grandeur when he laid aside the trappings of authority and power to teach the youth of the South how to gather up the scattered fragments of their homes aud of the prosperity which had been taken from them by the war. These are the associations that make heroic men; aud it is not strange that he, who came later into our own University, should, in his private and public life, illustrate the virtues with which he was adorned.
Col. Johnston remained at Washington and Lee University until 18n, during which time he wrote the life of his father, one of the richest contributions which have been made to the history of our time. In 1880 he removed to Louisiana, assuming the Presidency of the State University at Baton Rouge,
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which position he occupied until 1884, when he was called to the Presidency of Tulane University. In 1883 Mr. Paul Tulane wrote to the Board of Administrators of Tulane University, expressing his desire to bequeath at least a portion of his fortune to that Institution. In that letter, which is the Magna Charter of that Institution, occurs this memorable sentence, that whilst he desires the University to be in no sense sectarian, it was also his wish that nothing should ever be taught within its walls that should contravene the authority of the Sacred Scriptures, the inspired Word of God. I emphasize this sentence in that letter, simply to show that, in the judgment of the wise and the good, it is never safe to divorce education from religion; certainly not from that education which is intended to fit man for the duties which belong to an immortal being; for the duties of this life can only be adequately performed by those who have regard for the account and the life which is beyond the tomb.
In order to estimate the worth of Col. Johnston's administration, it will be necessary for a moment to glance at the difficulties experienced in its inception. There Is a letter of Mr. Tulane authorizing the establishment of a University and making transfer of certain moneys with which it was to be endowed; but at this point it is an Institution that exists only npon paper; it is without plant, Faculty or students. The only organization as yet effected is the Board directing its affairs and the superior officer who shall preside over the destinies of the projected Institution. The first difficnlty which he enconntered was in obtaining a plant, for it mnst have a local habitation as well as a nallle, This was SOOn overcome by a
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contract between the State of Louisiana and the Board of Admin. istrators of Tulane University, in which contract the State transfers its existing Institution, with its Medical, Law and Academic Departments, into the hands of the new Tulane Board. This Board, on its part, in this contract with the State, agreed to consecrate all its moneys to the building up of a University which should be worthy of the great State in which it was established, and of the giver by whom it was par. tially endowed. The old plant which thus came into their possession was immediately occupied on the square bounded hy the streets of Baronne, Common, Dryades and Canal; until the buildings, or at least one of them, became too unsafe to be longer tenanted; and the second, perhaps the most important of the three, had been superseded by an elegant structure, through the mnnificence of a noble lady of this city. The plant was then transferred from its old location to the new buildings and to ,the new site on St. Charles Avenue, opposite Andubon Park.
The second difficulty to be encountered was to provide for a snccession of students who should have attained a suffi· cient grade to be enrolled in classes which belong to a true and a great University. For whilst some of these classes came from the old University under the former training of Mr. Jesse, when these should have graduated others must 'be raised to take their place. This led to the establishment of the HighSchool, of which the lamented Mr. Hurt was Princi· pal, "Which continued only so long, however, as to carry the University over that critical period of its existence. As soon as it could safely be dispensed with, it was abolishe<t and Mr.
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Hurt was transferred to the Professorship of Greek in the University proper. The training of youths in the preparatory studies was remanded to the public and private schools, and academies of the city and State; the University taking pains to keep itself in line with these earlier institutions, agreeing to receive without preliminary examination their students who should bear certificates of a certain grade of scholarship. And so, from that day to this, the University has been extending its influence al1 over the State; for it is of the nature of education that, like the rain from Heaven, it shal1 come down from above and percolate the soil, thus nourishing the roots which underlie the vegetation, the flowers and fruits which grow upon the surface of the earth. In addition to this High School, the wisdom of Colonel Johnston perceived the necessity of a school of manual training in which young men should acquire dexterity in the handling of tools of every kind. As soon, however, as the University was completely organized this training school merged into what is now modestly termed "the work shops," a necessary equipment in the Department of Technology. In this process of development the superior judgment of Colonel Johnston was chiefly displayed in the selection of men for the chairs of instruction required in a great University. Having been himself for fourteen years a teacher in the higher schools of learning, he was brought in touch with all branches of universal education; and was therefore largely associated with those men who were engaged in the business of education. It was his habit to correspond, or through personal knowledge, come in contact with other educators from every section-possessing
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that rare insight which Burns describes as "keeking through a man with critical inspection." I believe that, in all his selection of men to occupy chairs in the Academic Department,
he never made a mistake; never had occasion to reverse his
own judgment. Up to the present moment never has there appeared before the Board of Administrators an applicant presenting his credentials and soliciting appointment to any office. The method hitherto bas -been for the University to search for and to secure its own men. This could not have been the case under the administration of any other than a man of singular judgment and large acquaintance with the educational men of his time.
Colonel Johnston was marked from his birth, as might have been expected, with strong will power. I think it was apparent even to outsiiers that it was only under the leverage of a masterly will that his frail body could have been sustained through years of suffering and of trial. Though never surrendering his own convictions when presenting candidates before the Board, such was his dignity and suavity of manner, so circumspect in all his utterances and so considerate of the higher authority of the Board itself, that I presume in all the records of these fifteen years, there can not be found an in
stance of disagreement between the Board and the President of the University. Sufficient proof of the wisdom of his administration is found in the fact that since his death the Instition has gone forward with its own momentum, under the gnidance of those who are naturally placed over its affairs, in such a way as to be most successful even under the threat of
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the epidemic which clouded the opening of its present session.
I can scarcely trust myself, Mr. President, to draw the portrait of such a man as Colonel Johnston. I have presented his superlative wisdom and the force with which his views were always presented and the strength of argument by which he generally carried his point. He was a man of exqnisite literary taste, possessing a poetic temperament, so that all his writings, even his fugitive addresses made before different audiences, and the larger work of his hiography of his eminent father are all of them examples of perfect English. In his poetic effusions there are to be fonndpassages of sweetest sentiment' often quaintly expressed, which glitter like gems of rare heauty in a casket of pearls.
Of his religion I would speak with tenderness and moderation, and yet there is one feature of his religious life which I would like greatly to emphasize. My first intimate talk with our friend was in his earliest domestic sorrow in 1885, when he was called upon to lose the wife of his youth and the mother of his children, and afterwards in the death of his only son. In the gloaming before the artificial lights were kindled, he came in.to my home, sat by me in my study, quietly opened his hreast aud showed me the two wounds which were hruising his heart. Uttering but a single wail of bitter anguish, he bowed in reverential submission to that Divine will which had seen fit to take from him his loved ones. Then drawing his mantle over the wonnd, he went through the door of my house with a calm and peaceful smile on his face and mingled with the outside world as though there were no wound in his heart. None ever met him from that day of sorrow until he himself
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passed away, except those drawn to him in the intimacy of his home, who ever heard a sigh or moan from those lips. In 1893 a daughter passed to the realm of the blessed, and I natnrally sought him in his chamber. Burying his head for a moment beneath his pillow, I heard one sob, and then came the same calm and perfect acquiescence in the wisdom and will of Him who doeth all things well. The soundness of his religious faith may be inferred from an old and well-worn copy of a favorite hymn,fouud in his pocket-book, beginning with the familiar lines:
.. Just as I am without one plea,
But that Thy blood was shed for me,
And that Thou bidst me come to Thee 0, Lamb of God, I come;"
and he remained to the end of life a faithful member of the Episcopal Church. Upon the ledge of the drawer of his desk in his office was attached this printed slip: .. I shall pass through this world but once. Any good thing therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any human being let me do it now, and not neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again." These are the utterances left behind, which indicate the character of a ripe religious mind. All the doubts and fears which had ever come to him had long since been dispelled, aud tho.ugh his life was made sweeter by the ties which connected him with the living, yet he was willing to go at the Master's call, trusting in no work of his own, but in God's in. finite mercy.
It was not strange, my friends, that three years after his first bitter bereavement, he should find solace in a second marriage with a lady whose name may not be pronounced in this
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assemblage, for she sits with us, * under the veil of her deep widowhood, bearing her sorrow with Christian fortitude and having only this comfort, that for eleven years she was the solace and stay of his declining age.
In the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral at London repose the ashes of Sir Christopher Wren, the world-renowned architect and designer of that great edifice which is one of the wonders of the age; and upon his tomb is this brief but sublime in
scription: "Si requiris 11lonumentu1Il, circumspice." The
ashes of our beloved friend lie in the beantiful cemetery at Louisville. At the head of his grave will shortly rise a testimonial shaft bearing upon its polished marble in metrical rhythm the inscription of his name and manly virtues. But if in this or any other age the stranger shaH seek the monument of William Preston Johnston, it will not be found in the marble above his tomb, but on our own highway where those buildings stand in all their beauty of architecture and where our youth are gathered for the rich instruction there afforded. And if it ever be given a pure spirit to look down from above upon the scenes of its earthly success, we may almost fancy him whispering to himself-" &egi 1IIonummtum aere perennitts.
Mr. President, there is a silence in death which has no voice, and yet it is a silence that can be felt. Do you ask me to interpret the voice of that silence tOonight? It is to say to these administrators that in the death of our great friend there devolves upon us a solemn trust. It may be rash for me to make the statement in the presence of these educators, yet I
• NOTIC.-Oa the 25th of April, 188S. Colouel Johnston wu unlkd tn marri.~e with Mis. Margaret H. Avery, daughter of Judie Daniel D. Avery-.
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can not repress the conVictIon, even before them, that within the last forty years, in this country of ours, we have entered upon a stupendous educatioual experiment, and one which must be conducted to a safe conclusion. For centuries two or three back, I might say from the revival of letters in Europe, the training of the educated classes was conducted upon what may be described as a horizontal plane. That is to say, the young men who were educated, generally for the learned professions alone, were all taught under the same curriculum, going successively through the same course, and supposed to graduate with the the same amount of general knowledge. It can not be denied that the experience of centuries has shown the exceeding wisdom evinced in the selection of the studies in that old curriculum. There was just enough of the classics to teach the young mind how to compare and to judge. The youth opens the dictionary to find the meaning of a word, and to his distress he finds twelve given, out of which only one will fit the word in the particular passage which he is called to translate. What a lesson is this in what is termed" probable reasoning." It is that kind of reasoning which is called for in the ordinary affairs of life--which is used at the bar, in halls of legislation, and before a popular assembly, comparing this with that, aud that with this-forming at last a conclusion that is more or less definite and satisfactory in proportion as the reasoning itself bas been just and close. There was in that curriculum just enough of mathematics to rivet the attention upon the matter in hand, not permitting it to waver for an instant, and carrying it through all the stages of the most rigorous logic, until at last a demonstration is reached.
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There was just enough in the old curriculum of natural science to make one sufficiently acquainted with the laws of the material world aud the various forces which exist in Nature. There was also just enough of metaphysics to give subtlety to the miud, sharpeuing it to such an edge that, in the language of Hudibras.
,.It can with ease a hair divide Betwixt its south and southwest side."
There was added to these just enough of general literature to polish the mind aud to make the taste accurate and beautiful in the interpretation of thought through the word. The excellence of this system was in the fact that it was Education in the etymological sense of the term-educing the powers of the mind and drawing them all up in equal proportion; so that a young man graduating at twenty or twenty-one would be, to use an expression often heard from the lips of our friend whom we remember to-night, "an all-around man," with all his mental faculties broadened aud equally developed. In the perfect symmetry of all his intellectual powers, he would be able to devote himself to any special study or any special department which his tastes or the circumstances of the times might reqnire.
During the last fifty years science has made such tremendous strides, and the necessities of our people and our times are such that this old system has to be revised and remodeled. Formerly a single octavo volume would conduct the student through all the branches of natural science; but now each one of these has developed into a colony of co-ordinate studies, each requiring its own text-book, and pos$ibly a special teacher.
How could all these be compressed within the old curriculum? The entire system of education must be made broader, extending its benefits to a larger number of persons following different pursuits in life. This in turn compelled the adoption of the elective principle, giving each student his choice of the studies to be pursued. In place of the old-fashioned college, we have now the broad university, which is but a congress of schools, fitting men for different employments in life, and requiring a large endowment for the necessary equipment of the same. It is a scheme magnificent in its proportion, and admirably adapted to the changed conditions of our ai(e. The problem to be solved is that of adjusting this comprehensive system, with the elective principle at its base, with the symmetrical development of all the mental powers by which all the great men of the past have been trained.
I know that division of labor is necessary to secure perfection in any given art, but the question is how to avoid turning men out as mere specialists, fitted only for a single pursuit and incapable of anything else. It is a problem which I believe will be solved; because it must be solved in order to success, and because there are great minds engaged in working out its proper solution. Education has ceased to be a mere employment or simply a business. It has become a distinct profession, standing upon the same plane as the learned professions of the olden times, ranking with that of law and medicine, and with all the professions in which intellectual men formerly engaged. The noblest minds to be found in this country are doubtless devoting their energy to the development and exteusion of educational interests and to the correction of all evils that may be inherent in the changes from one system to another.
Now, sir, I tum from these Administrators to the citizens of New Orleans and the people of Louisiana for whom I have a parable. Motley, in his History of the Dutch Republic, describes the seige of Leyden, so long protracted that its inhabitants were reduced to the point of starvation. Deliverance came at last, through the bravery of a people who could afford to sacrifice their Country in order to save it. It was only when the dykes of Holland were cut, allowing the waters of the ocean to overflow the land, that that protracted struggle was ended and the army of Philip driven back to their homes. It was under these circumstances that the Prin~ of Orange, with the consent of the States of Holland, tendered to the City of Leyden, as a reward of their heroic endurance the gift of a University, with designated revenues set apart for its endowment. This was the famous University of Leyden, which, for three centuries, has been the resort of scholars from all parts of Europe, and, in latter times, of America. This grant was made in October, 1574, and in February of the following year, 1575, an immese procession, filled with allegorical representations of the gods and heroes and philosophers of ancient Gre~ and Rome, marched through the streets of Leyden to the buildings in which the University was formerly installed.
More than fifty years ago there was in the streets of a certain city the familiar form of a man who lived the life of a hermit, going about in well-worn clothes and encountering the jibes and taunts of the boys in the streets as a miser. It was not until after his death that there was found a noble heart
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concealed beneath that tattered garb. It had always been known that he lived only to accumulate wealth; but it was not known until after his death that that wealth was amassed in order to endow the schools of the city in which he lived. In this personage you recognize McDonogh, with whose money have been erected the numerous buildings distributed over this city, in which are accommodated our Public Schools.
More than forty years ago there came to this city a stranger from abroad. He, too, lived a lonely life, but not such a life as I have described; and in his old age, before the gleam had quite gone out of his eyes, he wrote that will which bequeathed to the City of New Orleans the University which we represent in this Lodge to-night, transferring his property for the endowment of the same. I can recall as distinctly as though it were but yesterday, when I sat with him alone at his breakfast table, the gleam of that eye which shown like a flash of light as he said : "I have always loved the people of New Orleans, and I wish to leave a legacy, which shall be the token of my remembrance and of my love for them forever." He lived just long enough to carry out his almost life-long desire, passing then through death to the life above.
Even this is not all. The elegant structure on the central artery of this city, in sight of the Charity Hospital, is the gift of another noble heart, heating with an ever fresh love for her native City~rected in honor of him whose name she hears, and who had but recently been an illustrious member of the Medical Staff connected with this University.
The catalogue is not yet exhausted of benefits received from the hand.of.charity. The handsome square on Washington
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Avenue, with its fine equipment of buildings, represents another educational plant-the gift of another widowed heart that raises a memorial of her dead in the endowment of a superb College for the Education of the women of the South, and forming the Fifth District Department of Tulane University. Such are the benefits which have been conferred upon us within a single generation.
Citizens of New Orleans, if the University of Leyden was founded just after a period of adversity and trial carried to the extremes of want and of suffering, let it not be forgot· ten that the bequests which have been made to us came after the close of the great struggle, when our Southland was only just recovering from the desolations of a long and unsuccess· ful war.
The Prince of Orange felt that the fortitude and courage of the people of Leyden could only be adequately rewarded by the gift of a great college. The people were worthy of the gift, and the gift was worthy of the people that received it. It is proper then to ask in this assembly t<>-night, whether-having in the honr of our darkness received a like bequest, a gift similar in character and equal in grandeur tl) that bestowed three centuries ago npon the city of Leyden-is it a gift worthy of the people that received it, and are we, the people of New Orleans, worthy to be trusted with it? You and I living here in this city at the end of a continent, are holding from the hand of the dead, a great and immortal trust; and my appeal is to the conscience, and from the conscience to the heart and to all the sensibilities which are the attributes of a true and generous soul, that yon will rise to the height of yonr opportunity and
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be able to say to the world that you are grateful and worthy of the trust which has been conveyed to you. You ask how it shall be accepted. Gather around this University with your sympathy, which can find expression in a thousand forms. Give to this University your sons and your daughters, as well. Let your children be educated at home. Let their first love be for the soil on which they were born: for all patriotism and all philanthropy are but the outcome of that earlier and deeper love which the human heart has for its home. Teach your boys and your girls a love for the home of their birth, such as a man feels only for the blessed mother who bore him; a sort of lower worship, which is not idolatrous, because it does not interfere with that higher love and worship rendered to Almighty God. Give according to your wealth toward completing the endowment of this Institution. ' It takes more than a million to endow a great university. And just here allow me to speak of what I regard as the first want of the Institution under our care. It is the.need of a closer academic life within itself. The professors and students are scattered over the breadth of this city. They need to be gathered nearer together and be united as an academic family. The ample grounds behind the present buildings afford space for a beautiful campus, upon which might be erected homes for the professors, with dormitories sufficient to receive the students who may come from abroad. We shall be ungrateful to the memory of those who have bestowed these large gifts, if we do not ourselves rise to a sense of our responsibilities and these claims which devolve upon us. Generations go, but they also come, and at no distant day there should be
an army of students from abroad on these streets of ours and gathered in this noble Institution. Let us act in the prophetic hope that Medical Science shall banish the ever-recurring pestilence from our borders-when the marshes which surround us shall be drained into harvest fields-when our city and our State shall be throughout as a well-watered garden-and when our "sons shall grow up as plants in their youth, and our daughters be as corner-stones polished after the similitude of a palace."
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