LITERATURE AND ART.
LITERATURE AND ART.[B]
If one may find by the way-side in early springtime so much as a harebell or dandelion, a springing blade of grass or an unfolding bud, as much real satisfaction may be drawn from these scant treasures as from the more abounding fullness of summer, or the mellow ripeness of autumn. In all that relates to education, literature and art, it is early springtime here. What would you have more than some wayside evidences of the serene summer yet to follow, and an intellectual fruitage, of which the gold and purple of the vintage are but the faintest symbols? What is a quarter of a century in the life of a commonwealth, to the rounded centuries which have matured the great universities of Europe, or even the two centuries which have enriched Harvard and Yale? The canvas tents of '49, pitched on the sandy slopes of the peninsula, promised no great city, no perfected system of common schools, no academies and seminaries, and no university planted at Berkeley, in sight from a city of more than a quarter of a million inhabitants. The dissolving gravel beds of a placer mine and the arid plains, were neither symbols of permanence nor of bread. What could you expect in this stress of humanity, even though the agglomerated community were not lacking in some of the best and bravest of all lands?
There can be no beginning of a commonwealth until a Divine Providence begins to set the solitary in families. Homes, children, the economies of domestic life, the commonwealth of husband and wife, the law of the household, and that human providence which grows tender and thoughtful with each young and dependent life—these are precedent conditions of the future state.
It was most fitting that a graduate of one of the oldest colleges in the country should have opened the first public school in California. Thomas Douglas, a graduate of Yale College, began a public school in San Francisco on the 3d day of April, 1848. It was a good beginning. But when a few months later nearly the whole population had, drifted away to the mines, Douglas was left high and dry on the sand hills.
All true scholarship has breadth and catholicity. Let not ours be impeached by ignoring what others have done in the domain of letters and science. The fact is none the less significant, that the public school, with its canvas roof, and three scholars, in 1849, is crowned by the University of California to-day.
Possibly, the pioneer educators builded better than they knew. Douglas, the master of arts of Yale, setting the first stakes in the sand hills—Marvin, the first State Superintendent of Public Schools, who, having made a campaign against the Indians, turned over his emoluments to the school fund—Brayton, who conducted for years the most successful preparatory school in the State, a brave, patient and lovable man, whose life went out all too soon in the midst of his noble work—Durant, who, beginning at the foundations, saw the University with the clear vision of a prophet, and lived to see the fruition of his hopes—the gentle and profound scholar, the dignified president, the wise and firm civil magistrate, who, in the richness of his intellect, the purity of his soul, and the steadfastness of his friendship, was more than president, magistrate, or scholar. Tompkins, as a legislator and as regent, worked with unflagging zeal for the University, and fitly crowned that work by endowing, out of his moderate fortune, the first professorship. When he had made his last public speech in behalf of the institution for which he had wrought so well, it remained for him to enter into the sacred guild of those pioneers who had gone a little before. Gilman, the second president, whose organizing mind grasped every detail of the University, who wrought effectively for it by day, and planned wisely for it by night—a man of rare executive ability, who seemed half unconscious of his own power to influence men in behalf of the great interests for which he wrought. Let it be said of him that he bore himself in his high office with a patience and dignity befitting the Christian gentleman and accomplished scholar. Such a man rarely misses his place, because he is a citizen of the world of letters. It is here for a few years, and on the other side of the country for more. But here or there, I think he will never need a better testimonial than that which his work will offer.