Daniel Colt Gilman 59 



aptitude. He had an almost unerring instinct as to men, 

 a power of human diagnosis. But the possession of 

 mental endowments alone is not the basis for the tributes 

 that have been accorded to Mr. Gilman. His real claim 

 upon us and his generation rests upon the way in which 

 he employed his gifts. He might easily have used his 

 great organizing ability in the pursuit of wealth or power. 

 But, fortunately for the country, he placed it at the dis- 

 posal of his countrymen. He possessed the ten talents, 

 but he neither converted them to his personal ends nor 

 hid them in a napkin. They were held in trust. When 

 humanity is thus made the beneficiary of an active and 

 productive life, it is natural as well as just that it should 

 strive to pay, in part at least, its debt of gratitude when 

 these activities are interrupted by death, although, words 

 even at their best are but a poor exchange for deeds. For- 

 tunately, the forces which hie organized and the plans 

 which he perfected will not stop, and their beneficent 

 effects will be felt in the centuries to come. 



In Mr. Gilman the idealist and the man of affairs were 

 happily blended. We sometimes hear the practical and 

 the theoretical man contrasted, as if they involved a con- 

 tradiction, but this is not true. Both may co-exist and in 

 a life such as his they must of necessity co-exist. Such a 

 man must have glimpses of the divine philosophy, which 

 is said to be as musical as is Apollo's lute. His ears must 

 be attuned to hear the music of the spheres, but this fine 

 cultivation does not render him the less practical, if the 

 humanities are of the heart as well as of the head. He is 

 guided by the higher things, but it is this life which he is 

 seeking to improve. The function of the idealist has been 

 well described by the late Carl Schurz, when he said 

 "Ideals are like stars. You will not succeed in touching 

 them with your hands, but, like the sea-faring man on the 

 desert of waters, you choose them as your guides and 

 following them you reach your destination." No man not 

 an idealist could have established this University, whose 



