Let us be thankful that it is impossible for them to take away from us the “Iliad,” the “Æneid,” the “Divina Commedia,” the “Pilgrim’s Progress,” the “Paradise Lost.” These great works and their fellows are ours forever. And there are more and ever more such works to be created and enjoyed. Literature is indestructible. They may depress it, but they can not destroy it. Always, however much we may enjoy knowing nature, we shall at least as much enjoy knowing man. And it is in literature that man speaks to man. And never will come a time when there shall not be souls that must speak, and souls, too, in still greater number, that can not but listen.
Literature, then, is a true good of human life, both because, first or last, it addresses all, and because it speaks to that in all which is highest, most permanent, most controlling. Did I say I would claim for literature nothing more than equality of place with science? Let me unsay that. Science is knowledge, literature is wisdom. As wisdom is better than knowledge, so greater than science is literature.
THE AFTERNOON SERVICES.
In the afternoon the presentation of diplomas took place in the Amphitheater. The services were most interesting, many excellent addresses being delivered. A very interesting feature was the presentation of a Class Memorial by the ’84s. This memorial is to adorn the walls of the new Hall of Philosophy, and consisted of the portraits of President Lewis Miller and Superintendent of Instruction, Dr. J. H. Vincent. After the unveiling of the portraits President Miller was introduced and said:
Chautauquans, and especially the Class of ’84:—The name Chautauqua is now among classical words, and various definitions of it have been given, and, until its meaning is fully known, definitions will be given. You will therefore allow me to give a few definitions, so that this classical word may fix itself upon your minds and hearts, and its spirit may ever be with you. What does it mean? In its crude form I will not say, but in these last few years, and since this Assembly began, it has come to mean a place where God is all and in all; it means a place where caste, sectarianism and denominationalism are unknown; a place for formulating all kinds of moral forces; a place of rest, of proper rest, and physical development; a place to inspire mental culture—in short, a place for the consecration of all of man’s possibilities for good, and to prepare men to go out to the world to do good. These are some of the definitions, and you do not wonder, when you are here, how various and how broad the outlook is, an outlook so broad that I fear many times we become discouraged because of its breadth, and give up in despair. I am glad to see this afternoon that there are many here who have not given up.
Now, for your encouragement, let me say a few words. Suppose that the world should stand still for sixty years, and you had no more teachers for the young, that all teaching stopped, and those who now have the ability to teach, those who now have the skill to work in the mechanical arts, or to take that scientific field we heard of this morning, passed away, and there should be no more students or apprentices for sixty years, what would be the result? Taking this country as a guide, we would have but one million people who are in any vocation. This is an astonishing fact, taken from the census of the United States, as I gathered it some time ago for another occasion. Now, take the other fact: in 1880, twenty-six millions of the American people—more than one half of the inhabitants of the United States—were below twenty-one years of age, and had not taken up any vocation or any purpose in life. Chautauqua puts within your reach a privilege. I saw a man among your number this morning who was eighty-four years old. With that exception, few of you are sixty. There are not so many gray hairs here as there were this morning. In sixty years many of you will have gone; most of the men you find here on this platform will have gone, and you will have the privilege of taking their places. We sometimes think we have no place, there is no use trying to become anything because all these places are filled, but before you are sixty years old you will have the privilege of coming up through these avenues and taking any place you are able to fill. These avenues will be open to you. See what privileges you will have. I will give you the figures. You will have sixty-four thousand chances to take the rostrum or the pulpit; you will have eighty-five thousand chances to take a place in medicine; you will have two hundred and twenty-seven thousand chances to be teachers or scientists. All others will have given way before you. Now, do you think it worth while to struggle to become something? We can not all go through the schools, but by this new Chautauqua Idea we can gather together, and put our hearts together, and in this way gather some ability that will be consecrated for good.
Dr. Vincent then announced Dr. Lyman Abbott, one of the Counselors of the C. L. S. C., who spoke as follows:
ADDRESS OF REV. LYMAN ABBOTT, D.D.
Mr. Chairman and Fellow-Chautauquans:—The Circle, you know, is symbolic for the conception of perfection. The C. L. S. C. stands, therefore, by its very title, for an inclusion of all knowledge. Dr. Wilkinson this morning dealt with one half of that Circle, literature. There is nothing to be added to what he said this morning, for certainly I would not detract anything from what he said, if I could. The praise that he awarded to literature as a means of education was well deserved, as it was well given.
I thank him for having left us for this afternoon the other half of the subject, and I want to say something to you about science. And I approach it from the side of ignorance, not as a scientific man, but as one whose education in youth, and ever since, has been neglected on the scientific side, and who looks at science from the point of view of desire and aspiration, not from the standpoint of satisfaction and achievement. Certainly science has done a great deal for us in the mere physical and material realm, and of that aspect Dr. Wilkinson spoke this morning. It has enlarged, if not our comforts, certainly the material of our comforts. It has enlarged, if not our satisfaction, at all events our content. It is to science we owe the fact that we have so largely increased the facilities also for our learning. Science has made for us voyaging and travel easy; science has bound the different parts of our nation together with iron bands; science enables us readily and quickly to communicate with one another; science has formed our houses, preserving us from cold; science has illuminated our houses, and redeemed from darkness and night the hours that can be given to social intercourse and study. In innumerable ways, science has added to our material and moral well-being.