Men who have never known this, perhaps observe and value it more than we who have it. I remember once to have talked with a man of New England, of Massachusetts, who had become eminent as a public man,—no mean orator,-a soldier once in high command-who might be said to have succeeded highly in life. He spoke of a meeting of Harvard men he had once attended and addressed. "I would have given," said he, "all I am or was or hoped to be in this world, for one hour, not of their learning or scholarship, but of their fellowship; to have been one, not with them, but of them." This he said with emotion, and he was right. I would lose all else that I gained, if anything, at Yale, sooner than the tie and impulse which brings us here to-night, which bids us to a feast of the soul. 'Tis the truest touch of nature I ever feel. When Walter Scott was wandering, an invalid, limb and hand and brain overtaxed with work, in Southern France, you remember he tells us of meeting a countryman. The very accent of his native soil touched and cheered him. They had no common interests or tastes, but the poor sick poet and romancer loved to hear the voice of one who spoke the accent of his mother, whose talk, foreign almost in everything else, was still of dear old Scotland, and its dear old hills, and above all, its glorious old kirk; and he says that uninteresting as this man was in all else, he loved him because he was a Scotsman, and when others were wondering why he loved his society, Scott says he was repeating to himself, Burns' words: "My heart's in the Highlands, my heart is not here; 66 'A-chasing the wild deer, and following the roe "My heart's in the Highlands, wherever I go." And so it would be, would it not, with one of us, if alone and sick in foreign lands, we were to meet the humblest classmate of Yale? I thank you, then, Mr. President, and I thank especially my good classmate here, Fred. Ward, for giving me this hour of true Yale fellowship to-night. But what does Yale signify to us? For what does she stand? She stands to-day for all that is best and greatest in the past, and for all that is most vigorous and triumphant in the present, of American college life. Yes, she stands, for one thing, for victories, unbroken and unparalleled, in the athletic fields of college life,and I want to say a word of Yale athletics. They are not all of college life, but they are a noble, a valuable, an inspiring part,and I trust they will so remain,-of Yale college life. The oar, the bat, the ball, the discipline of heart and muscle which they combine, ought to enlist our admiration and enthusiasm. I missed this, for the most part, as did most of my college generation, but I confess I lift my hat now not only to the great scholars of Yale,-not only to Dwight and Whitney and Fisher and Peck and Seymour, but to her athletes,-to Cook, to Camp, to Corbin, to Stagg, and to all who have won for us all the untarnished laurels of the championship in athletic sports, of the colleges of America. I read last winter with regret the remarks of Dr. Van Dyke at the Harvard dinner in censure and depreciation of modern college athletics. I have never happened to know a Yale athlete who was not a noble-hearted man; and if hereafter, as twenty-five years ago, patriotism should again call for volunteers and martyrs, these athletes, I fear, would outstrip Dr. Van Dyke even, in the heroism and power they would give to their country. The Robert Shaws leading forlorn hopes at future Fort Wagners, the Frank Bartletts marching their comrades to certain death at future craters of Petersburg,-the heroes and martyrs of new struggles for American "Liberty and Union,”—would, I suspect, come from the ranks of these glorious Yale boys of this generation, who have bent to the oar at New London, or have driven Harvard and Princeton in confusion on the fields of athletic struggle. But I agree, of course, that athletics are not the whole, nor even the greater part, of college duty and life, but only an incident. One may be absolutely classical, if that be necessary, in defending athletics from such aspersions as I have referred to. Mens sana, in corpore sano, is good Latin as well as good sense and good morals. High athletics, one may reply, are not for the many but only the few. Well, high mathematics, high classics, high science, are only for the few. It is the example of high athletics that has given us, and is giving us, and will give us, our well-equipped gymnasiums, our most approved racing boats, and best developed base-ball; and all these are for the many. A finer type of physical man is a distinct gain to humanity. I remember Mr. Beecher, and I love to refer to him in Brooklyn, -was fond of saying-and it was ever true of him-that "the best brains come from the heels as well as the head." He meant, of course, that a man of intellect with a strong body had his power -his power to move and guide men-redoubled in comparison with the valetudinarian. Gentlemen, there is no way to produce good averages in anything, except by having a few who are greatly above the average we aim at. We observe this truth in all things. We rejoice for example, in some abnormal scholar-worth little to the world in a superficial view-less surely than an abnormal athlete. Why? Because we believe we must have abnormal scholarship in order to have normal. "The aorist was made for man," it is true, and "not man for the aorist," as Matthew Arnold so wittily said. We applaud the German who digs Greek roots or Hebrew, for a lifetime, and never writes a line, or speaks a word, or does a deed, other than this, that helps mankind. By the same rule, I honor Yale athletics. But Yale athletes, it happens, by the record, are good scholars and good men too. The mud and dust of the arena, do not stick to them. Dr. Van Dyke deplores the hard-hitting, the brutality, as he calls it-of Yale athletics. I think Depew was right in remarking that when Princeton should win some athletic victories over Yale, the good Doctor would probably forget or overlook the brutality. But it is not brutality that wins Yale victories. It is pluck, patience, high resolve. Brutality is tabooed. If it ever occurs, it is only an incident,-no athlete approves it. As well might we say to our Princeton mentor that because theologians are sometimes the narrowest, most uncharitable, most partisan of men, we must abandon theology. But, gentlemen, I did not mean to say so much on this matter; but I confess I listen with impatience to current criticisms from some Doctors of Divinity and other excellent elderly ladies, of Yale athletic games. A great all-round Yale man of to-day ought to be, I say, with deliberation, a good athlete, and as long as Yale has great athletes, Yale will have a physically well-trained and well-developed body of students. But Yale stands and must stand always for literary, intellectual, and moral training and discipline. I have no fear she will lose that, and I therefore rejoice at the new dispensation which adds to her old pre-eminence, the new. But, Mr. President, I should be sorry to seem for a moment to overrate this phase of college work and life. The true great aim of college and univer sity is to train, to discipline, for mental and moral work. stand at the close of the series of observances which have fitly marked the end of our first century of national life. If there is one lesson we ought to have learned it is, to quote Lowell, that "Material success is good, but only as the necessary preliminary to better things. The measure of a nation's true success is the amount it has contributed to the thought, the moral energy, the intellectual happiness, the spiritual hope and consolation of mankind." From material standards, from sordid aims, from degraded practices which environ us, let Yale summon us by an irresistible call. Her quarter-millenial draws on. Let it find us true, as our fathers in Yale were true, to the higher life, to letters, to learning, to high thinking and plain living. Let her count up here in Brooklyn a host of those whom no modern plutocratic influences have warped from rectitude, whom no mercenary aims have swallowed up. Mr. President, I do not often resort to anecdotes, but one occurs to me at this moment. A gentleman went once to attend a friend on the occasion of that friend's making a speech. After the occasion was ended, the friend inquired if he did not think the speech ended well. "Yes," was the reply, "but there was a time when I thought it never would !” CURRENT LITERATURE. SIR MONIER-WILLIAMS ON BUDDHISM.*-Sir Monier MonierWilliams, Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford, has long been well known to the circle of those interested in such subjects, by his works on the history, philosophy, and literature of the Hindūs, and his ability to present these somewhat obscure and abstruse topics in a clear and attractive manner. It is therefore with no small degree of expectation that we turn to this last work, hoping to find some tangible and intelligible treatment of so complicated a system as Buddhism in its various developments. Very much has been written about this most interesting subject, but until now there has appeared in English no thorough and comprehensive history of the origin and general development of a religious and philosophic system which has at least a fair claim to a place among the great religions of the world. The book before us is an expansion of a course of six lectures delivered on the Duff foundation in Edinburgh in 1888. The six lectures have become eighteen, and although a great part of the matter was actually delivered, there is practically none of that repetition and padding which is almost unavoidably present in mere printed lectures. In general we may say of the book, that it is a most admirable compend of what people want to know about Buddhism, written in clear and concise style, and avoiding as far as possible all philosophical obscurities and technicalities. It is intended for the general educated reader, and no knowledge of Sanskrit, Pāli, or Hindu is necessary that one may understand it, though of course such knowledge is very helpful. Of late the curious phenomenon has been observed, of large numbers of educated and intelligent people, in both England and America, suddenly becoming enthusiastic over the doctrine of the Buddha, comparing this doctrine with Christianity to the disparagement of the latter, and in general giving society the im * Buddhism, in its Connexion with Brahmanism and Hinduism, and in its Contrast with Christianity. By SIR MONIER MONIER-WILLIAMS, K.C.I.E. pp. 32 + 563. O. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1889. |