Another thing which has added strength to this college and been fruitful in respect to morality is the attention that has been paid of late to athletic exercises. This outlet for superfluous energy has more to do with the good order and subordination of the institution than most people are wont to imagine. Boys that in my day would have been playing cards in their room for a hot supper and fixings at the Tontine, are now pulling an oar or playing baseball or lawn-tennis, and the germs of mischief ooze out in copious drops of perspiration. And when night comes, instead of reveling in shirt-tail processions, making night hideous, they are contented to sit down with their books or go to bed.
It has always been a vexed problem how to give students exercise. Every man of common sense knows that students, in order to accomplish anything, must have exercise. Andover built a large building, bought tools and stock, hired a skilled foreman, and was going to set the students to work. They wasted so much lumber and brought the institution so heavily in debt that they were obliged to sell out and turn the building into a house for Professor Stone.
I recall the military drill here. It was all very well for a while. But all couldn’t be officers. Nobody was content to be dragooned by an army officer. But lawn-tennis, baseball, football, and the gymnasium fill the bill. The students are proud of their gymnasium, and I know from personal experience that, during the last eight years, those who have excelled in athletic exercises have also excelled in rank.
Now I believe that this college has taken a new departure, and I believe there is a future for it from the fact that the alumni take more interest in the college than they used to take, and because there are so many poor students connected with it. Poor students are the salvation of a college. I know young men who worked their way through college who are to-day its benefactors. I worked my way through college with a narrow axe, and when I was hard up for money, I used to set the college fence afire and burn it up, and the treasurer would hire me to build another one. Let the young man who has to help himself thank God, keep his powder dry, and take to his bosom the old motto: “Per angusta ad augusta.”
AT CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION OF BOWDOIN COLLEGE, JUNE 28, 1894
My love, Mr. President, for this college was inherited. I drew it in with my mother’s milk, and was taught it at my father’s knees. He was one of its first trustees, proposed its first president, and sold the lands the proceeds of which, after almost interminable delays, built Massachusetts Hall. Judge Freeman of the trustees, a most excellent and influential man and ardently attached to the college, was naturally very cautious, and that trait was now much increased by age; it seemed on account of his influence as if a building would never be erected. It was at length moved at a meeting of the Boards that my father be appointed and empowered to sell the college lands. He accepted the trust on condition that they would put Judge Parker of Massachusetts with him to draw the writings. This being done, he said, “Gentleman, these lands will all be sold within a year.” Judge Freeman, stroking his face, as was his habit when excited, exclaimed: “They will ruin us. They will ruin us.” “I,” observed another of the trustees, “want to be ruined; I had rather die at once than moulder away by dry rot.” The lands were sold within the specified time, a building was then erected, and President McKeen inaugurated. Seldom has the hand of Divine Providence been more clearly manifested than in the origin and growth of this college. From its inception it secured in its presidents, professors, trustees, and overseers men who had the interests of morality and sound learning more at heart than their own ease or emolument. The abilities of its teachers and their reputation would have at any time procured for them more eligible positions if ease, compensation, and reputation had alone been consulted. They were self-denying men; they loved the college and labored and denied themselves for its good.
I was absent from college but three years when I returned and settled at Harpswell. I had a great deal to do with the college, was in intimate relations with the professors and their families, and had opportunity to appreciate their real worth. They were not merely residents of the community, but useful citizens and a public blessing. The high school owes its origin in a great degree to Professor Smyth. All the neighboring ministers were under more or less obligation to them. They attended funerals, supplied destitute churches, and in the weekly religious meetings of the village were a power for good. I have worked weeks with Professor Smyth, setting out trees on the campus which he bought and paid for. Professor Upham gave the greater part of his property to the college. He for two years supplied the pulpit of the Congregational church at Harpswell, and but for his efforts it would not have been in existence now. In the last term of my senior year he came to Andover and told me if I did not go to Harpswell, God would curse me as long as I lived. I do not know what the Lord would have done, but I have found that obedience is sweet and not servitude.
Those worthy men inspired the students with like sentiments. Every class made great sacrifices to purchase valuable standard works for their society libraries. The literary spirit was by no means in abeyance in those days. The best minds in college took as much interest in preparing themselves for debates and other parts in the two societies as they did for a Junior and Senior Exhibition. The students dammed the glen at Paradise Spring and made a pond. They also terraced the sides of the glen and constructed seats of turf, and addresses and poems were delivered there to most appreciative audiences. Sam Silsbee flung Albion Andrew into Paradise Pond, and he was so fat that he floated like a bladder. Sam was not aware that he was laying sacrilegious hands upon the future governor of Massachusetts any more than I was aware that Melville Fuller would be Chief Justice of the United States, when with care on his young brow and the fire of a great purpose in his eye, I marked him laying the foundation of future renown. Were there not poets in those days who possessed the vision and the faculty divine? Did not President Allen have a hat that was woven of grass that grew on Mount Parnassus? Did not John B. Soule compose a Latin ode upon a moth that flew into a candle which in the opinion of the class compared favorably with those of Horace? And has he not since that time by more elaborate efforts proved that the child is father of the man? How can I ignore a most pathetic effusion, on the death of an unfortunate cat that was crushed beneath a woodpile, written in the style of President Allen?