"The college should be distinctly and eminently Christian. Not in the narrow, sectarian sense—that be far from us—but in the broadest evangelical view. Our course of thought culminates here; and here does all else that has been affirmed find its proper centre and unity. Christianity is the great unity. In it, as was intimated at the outset, are all the chief elements of organic influence. It is itself the very acme of completeness, and it tends to all symmetry and finish. It is at once conservative and progressive, balancing perfectly the impelling and restraining forces; by a felicitous adjustment of the centripetal and centrifugal, ensuring to human nature its proper orbit. It is the golden girdle wherewith every institution like this should bind her garments of strength and beauty about her.
"Were it needful to argue this point, we might put it on the most absolute grounds. All things are Christ's; all dominions, dignities, potences; it is especially meet that we say, to-day, all institutions. It is the grossest wrong practically to hold otherwise. It is loss, too, and nowhere more palpably than in the educational sphere. It is no cant saying to affirm, and that in a more than merely spiritual sense, that in Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.' At his throne the lines of all science terminate; above all, the science that has man for its subject. Of all history, for example, rightly read, how is He the burden and the glory! Otherwise taken, it is a more than Cretan labyrinth. The Christian spirit, besides, raising the soul to the loftiest planes of thought, giving it the highest communions, bringing before it the grandest objects, and securing to all its machinery the most harmonious action, is eminently conducive to intellectual achievement. We have already said something like this as touching moral culture; but that, be it ever remembered, takes its proper form and direction only as it is vitally linked with Christianity. What God has joined together let not man put asunder. Let the studies which we call moral, have all a Christian baptism; and, with all our getting, let us not stop short of the cardinal points of our most holy faith. Let the Will be still investigated, not as a brute force, or in a merely intellectual light, but in those high spiritual aspects in which our great New England metaphysician delighted to present it. Let Butler, with his curious trestle-work of analogy, bridge, to the forming mind, the chasm between natural and revealed religion. Let the Christian Evidences be fully unfolded. We can hardly dispense with them in an age, when by means of 'Westminster Reviews,' and other subtle organs of infidelity, the old mode of assault being abandoned, a sapping and mining process is continually going forward. Let Ethical Science,—embracing in its wide sweep the Economy of Private Life, the Philosophy of Government, and Law, which 'hath its seat in the bosom of God,'—be all bathed in the light of Calvary. That light is its life. 'Let us with caution indulge the supposition,' said the Father of our country, 'that morality can be maintained without religion.' Let the Bible be included among our text-books as the sun is included in the solar system; and let all the rest revolve in planetary subjection about it. Let it be studied, not in a professional, much less in a partisan way; but with the conviction that it is indispensable to the broadest culture; that without theology we have but a straitened anthropology; that we see not nature aright, but as we look up through it to Nature's God. Be ours, in its largest significance, the sentiment so devoutly uttered by the old Hebrew bard: 'In Thy light shall we see light.' And let the discipline of college, so intimately connected with its prosperity, be fashioned on the model of the Gospel. Let it copy, in its way and measure, the wondrous harmonies of the redemptive scheme, in which 'mercy and truth are met together, righteousness and peace have kissed each other.' So shall it bless our halls with some faint reflection of the Divine fatherhood, and give to our society some happy resemblance to a Christian family."
A prominent feature of President Smith's administration was a greater utilization of the libraries, and the opening of a reading-room. The librarian says:
"The late Professor Alphæus Crosby contributed considerably to the increase of the classical books, and Hon. Nathan Crosby has recently furnished the means for commencing a collection of the works of Dartmouth alumni. It is intended to gather all books and pamphlets which have been written by graduates. The collection will also include matter relating to them and to the work of the college.
"In reviewing the history of the library their number is so great that it is impossible to mention even a small part of the benefactors; their best record is in the well filled shelves and the large amount of reading done in connection with the studies of the college course.
"One of the departments of the library consists of the books given by the late General Sylvanus Thayer, founder of the school of engineering, numbering 2,000 volumes.
"Early in its history the members of the Chandler Scientific Department founded the 'Philotechnic Society,' the library of which, together with some books belonging to the department, contains 1,700 volumes.
"The three society libraries continued under separate management until 1874, although the societies, as far as literary work is concerned, had for some time given way to the secret societies, and the interest in them was so slight that only with great difficulty could a quorum be obtained for ordinary business. During that year an arrangement was made by which the three society libraries were placed under the same management as the library of the college, the latter receiving the society taxes which were slightly reduced, assuming all expenses including the support of the reading-room, and providing for the increase of the library by books to be annually selected by the Senior class. Under this arrangement the different libraries have been brought together and considered as departments of one, the hours for drawing and consulting books have been increased from three hours per week in the society libraries and six in the college, to twenty-one hours per week, and in many respects the facilities for use have been greatly increased. Since 1870, the yearly additions for all the libraries have averaged 700 volumes, and they at present contain exclusive of pamphlets about 45,000 volumes, besides nearly 5,000 books which are either duplicates or worthless. These figures are independent of the Astronomical library located at the Observatory, the library of the 'Society of Inquiry,' and of the libraries of the Medical and Agricultural departments, which will probably be connected with the main library. The library as it is now constituted is well adapted to the work of the college, and is especially so in some of the departments of instruction, in connection with which a large amount of reading is done. There are in use at present three printed catalogues: one of the college library, printed in 1868; one of the 'Social Friends' library, dated 1859; and one of the 'United Fraternity' library, issued in 1861. These are supplemented by a card catalogue arranged under title, author, and subject."
The "Centennial" celebration of the founding of the college, at the Commencement of 1869, was a season of rare interest and profit to the very large number of alumni and friends of the college assembled from nearly every quarter of the globe.
The following is the substance of the address of Chief Justice Chase, who presided on the occasion, as given by Mr. William H. Duncan: