As the procession marched up the long walk to the north door of the Amphitheater, immense throngs filled all the available standing room on the slopes of the ravine, and the “Blooming of the Lilies” (the Chautauqua salute) was given by all the opened ranks of the classes as the head of the procession passed through.
The Chautauqua Band, stationed at the entrance of the north gate, discoursed sweet music during the passage of the long cortege.
All the officers, invited guests, members of the board of Chautauqua trustees, officers and members of the Chautauqua School of Languages, the Normal Alumni, and the various classes of the C. L. S. C., passed into the great Amphitheater, when the ropes were dropped, and sooner than we write it, all the remaining seating space was filled to overflowing.
The platform was filled with distinguished Chautauquans and others; the organ gave forth its sweet harmonies under the manipulation of Prof. Andrews; the Chautauqua Banner of the C. L. S. C. was stationed in full view of the vast throng; and after the devotional exercises Dr. Vincent introduced Dr. Lyman Abbott, who delivered the Commencement oration, as follows:
THE DEMOCRACY OF LEARNING.
Fellow Chautauquans:—I see in some of your eyes triumph. You have run in four years a race with uncertainty whether you could ever reach the goal. You have carried on your work under difficulties and discouragements, such as are never known to him who has perfect and continual leisure for the pursuit of studies; but in the midst of employments which were incessant and imperative in their demands upon you; and your courage, your patience, your hope, have vanquished the obstacles, and you are here to-day to receive the outward sign and symbol of your inward victory. In other eyes I see expectation. You have commenced a course and you are hopeful of achieving a result, which has been made possible to you within the last few years, that the fruits and results of study might be yours though you could not give yourself to a life of study, still less to the persistent and professional pursuit of scholarship. In other eyes I see desire dimmed by fear and doubt; you do not know whether this great realm is open to you or not; you wish that you could be assured that it is. Is this all a mistake? Is your triumph a false one, your expectation a delusive one, your hope and your desire one impossible of attainment? This is so asserted. There are not a few in our times who are of the opinion that learning is of necessity only for the few, or at all events if the many can enter a little upon the realm, they must always live upon the border and never can enter into the heart of the country.
I desire, if I may this morning, to meet and to answer this objection of skepticism, and to show that learning is within the possible reach to-day of the great body of industrious, hard-working, perplexed, and driven people of America; that it is not the privilege of the few; that it is the prerogative of the many. I desire to show you that we are entering into an epoch which I may call the “Democracy of Learning.” We have already entered into the epoch of democracy in religion. The time has gone by, at least for all Protestant people, of believing that religion is for the few, or that even the higher and larger privileges of religious life are for the few. It has been established for all those who believe in an open Bible and in the universal religion of Jesus Christ that the innermost sanctuary of the temple is for every one. The great wall that before separated the court of Israel from the court of the priests has been broken down; there is but one court. The great veil that hung between the holy of holies and the court of the priests has been torn asunder, and every one of us is not only priest but high-priest, free to enter into the very holy of holies. And we have entered into the epoch of democracy in public affairs. The time has gone by when political power belonged to the few, and political intelligence was believed to be the prerogative of the few. We have come into an epoch in which political power is lodged in the hands of the great masses of the people; and it is lodged there because we believe that, on the whole, political intelligence is lodged in the hands of the great masses of the people. I desire to show you this morning that we are entering upon an epoch of the Democracy of Learning, in which the highest and best fruits of scholarship are also the privilege and the prerogative of the many. When we have entered upon that land, then we shall be ready to enter upon the last and the completest phase of the triumphant democracy, the Democracy of Industry. Then, when intelligence shall be universally diffused, and when all men shall have the power at least of acquiring the largest and the best and the ripest fruits of knowledge and of intelligence, we shall come into that epoch in which no longer the few will control the industries of the many, but in which industry will be the controlling power, and wealth will be its servant.
I have a three-fold object this morning—I desire in the first place to show you that the fruits of learning are fruits which hang on the lower boughs of the tree where we may all pluck them; to show you not only that, but that the ripest and the best fruits of learning hang there. I desire to show you that it is not necessary that men should go through a college course and should have four years of leisure and of quiet for college study in order to reap the best fruits of a college education. The process of investigation must always be carried on by the few. The results of education may be, yea! are already becoming the property of the many. Only a few explorers can bear the perils of the Arctic Sea and investigate the mystery of the North Pole; but we can all have the fruits of their investigation. Only a few men can labor and toil in the great libraries searching out the course and progress of history and its sacred events, but we can all have the garnered fruits of their toil and their industry. Not only may we pluck a single blossom, and here and there a single half-ripened fruit from this tree; but the ripest, the best, that which has hung the longest in the sun-light, that whose cheeks are painted the most rosy red, and whose heart has in it the most saccharine juice, that is ready to-day to fall into our open palm if we will but extend it.
In endeavoring to show you this, I shall also necessarily ask you to consider with me what are the ripest and best fruits of learning. What is the object of education? It is not an end, it is a means to an end. It is a great pity that our colleges do not understand this better; for if they did better comprehend that education is a means, and that the end lies behind, fewer students would come out with empty diplomas when the college course is ended.
And incidentally I shall hope also to answer one argument which is sometimes used, and oftener, I think, lies secretly in the minds of people, against a popular and universal education. Some satirist has said that “Ignorance is the mother of devotion.” If that were true, we might well doubt whether universal education is worth the price we should have to pay for it. If it were true that God held out in one hand devotion to us and in the other hand education, and said, “You must choose between these two; if you become educated you must be skeptical, if you would be devoted you must remain ignorant”—it would be a difficult question for most of us to decide whether we would have intelligence without piety or piety without intelligence. I shall show you that it is not learning, but a little learning which is a dangerous thing; and that if our work is thorough, the broader the culture, the profounder the piety.