Daniel Coit Oilman 51 



ficient in specialties. . . . We observe a tendency, 

 already manifest in a considerable degree, to mark out on 

 paper long lists of 'chairs' which it is proposed to fill. 

 But in our opinion it is not half so important what the 

 professorships are as who the professors are. It is the 

 men who make the college, not the titles of the catalogue. 

 A corps of instructors, young, manly, thorough, truth- 

 loving, able to teach, speak, and encourage, will do more 

 to give character and success to a foundation than a corps 

 of older men who may have been titular professors for a 

 quarter of a century, but who are not possessed with the 

 spirit of modern inquiry." How splendidly he lived up to 

 this faith, enunciated ten years before this University was 

 opened, and how splendidly this faith found its fulfilment 

 is a matter of record. Two natural consequences of great 

 significance in the academic life of this University have 

 followed the application of this ideal, when after 1876 it 

 became the guiding principle governing the attitude of 

 the president toward the staff with which he surrounded 

 himself. First, that the highest standards in methods of 

 teaching and of research found sympathetic approval and 

 hearty support at Dr. Oilman's hands, and no instructor, 

 enthusiastic, truth-loving, and ambitious, ever met other 

 obstacles in his path than those which arose from the 

 natural difficulties of his task; and secondly, because of 

 the fact that Dr. Oilman manned this University at its 

 outset with a harmonious body of instructors, each able 

 to do something beyond his specialty and eager for the 

 general good, a spirit of peace and fraternal good-will has 

 hovered over its government and administration from its 

 foundation to the present time. How much these two 

 great results have contributed to the effectiveness of the 

 work here done, both for teaching within and for scholar- 

 ship without, only those familiar with the limitations 

 and dissensions prevailing all too frequently in American 

 colleges can estimate. To Dr. Oilman is due the establish- 

 ment of these academic traditions, which I hope may 



