JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 177 



The services of such an academical officer could not fail to be prized and honored. 

 Years before his election to the presidency of Harvard, his name was prominent 

 among those who were thought of for that post ; and when President Walker felt 

 compelled by ill-health to retire from the station which he had filled so wisely and 

 satisfactorily, the voice of the public anticipated the votes of the boards which consti- 

 tuted Professor Felton his successor. He was inaugurated into his new ofiice July 

 the 19th, 1860, and those who heard his address pronounced upon that occasion, if 

 they had not known the man before, must have felt assured that his administration 

 would be firm and vigorous. The distinct opinion which he there avows, that no 

 offences against civil order can be tolerated in a college which would not be borne in 

 the wider circles of citizens — that academical walls can furnish no refuge for crimes, 

 nor academical relations justify outrages on gentlemanly propriety, or on the feelings 

 of fellow-students, was one which commends itself to all who are acquainted with our 

 higher institutions of learning, and which, if united in the carrying of it out with 

 such kindliness as was manifest in the character of President Felton, would strengthen 

 and secure everything that is good in a college life. Whatever temporary obstacle or 

 local custom, " more honored in the breach than in the observance," might oppose 

 for a time, it is certain that the claims of law and order would at length prevail, and 

 the state of things afterwards become so much the better. 



President Felton entered thus into his new duties, with the confidence of the wisest 

 and best on his side, and gave himself up chiefly to administrative functions, not 

 without deep regrets, we are sure, at leaving those pleasant toils which had filled 

 thirty years of his life. But Divine Providence had scarcely invested him with his 

 new authority when he was summoned away from these earthly responsibilities and 

 labors. A little less than two years of his official life had elapsed when the complaint 

 of which he died — hypertrophy of the heart — showed itself in an aggravated form, 

 after having manifested its presence in his system for some twenty years. He was 

 not, however, so ill at first but that he could undertake a journey, and it was hoped 

 that a change of climate might do him good. Setting out for Washington — where 

 he intended to be present at. a meeting of the Kegents of the Smithsonian Institution 

 — he had reached the house of his brother in Chester, Pennsylvania, and was seized 

 with an attack of disease during the ensuing night. Here he breathed his last, Wed- 

 nesday, the 26th of February, 1862. His remains were removed to Cambridge, where 

 a sermon on his death was preached, March the 9th, by Dr. Peabody, preacher to the 

 university, and appropriate resolutions, in honor of his memory, were passed by the 

 governing boards, the faculties, and others. 



We have spoken of President Felton as a scholar and a worker, earnest and suc- 

 cessful, in the field where Providence placed him. But the man is far more in the 

 scale tban the scholar. Let us then look for a few moments at the man in his traits 

 of mind and character, and in the conduct of life. 



His mind, as may have already appeared from what we have said of his scholarship, 

 was a rounded, well-balanced, many-sided one, where no trait was deficient. Yet the 

 predominance of the aesthetic faculty, with the attendant pleasure derived from art 

 and the works of creative intellect, may have given that direction towards scholar- 

 ship and belles lettres, towards the concrete form rather than the abstract metaphysi- 

 cal principle, which somewhat characterized him. His simple, correct taste, and his 

 judgment, which estimated probabilities aright, and looked below the show and the 

 surface, although, no doubt, cultivated by the study of language, and especially of 

 Greek literature, must have had, beyond question, an independent natural foundation. 

 He had a native curiosity and thirst for knowledge, which felt and grasped on every 

 side ; if you wanted to know about Jasmin, the Provencal Burns, he had read his 

 poems, he could speak of the Finnish mythology, and in his later years especially he 

 entered with zeal into the progress of natural science. Nor ought his keen sense of 

 the ludicrous and his humor to be forgotten here, which made him the most entertain- 

 ing of companions without undermining the manliness of his character. And the 

 easy play of his faculties, working rapidly and smoothly, without jar or much effort, 

 deserves especial notice. 



Among the traits of President Felton's character may be mentioned kindness and 

 sympathy, united with moral energy, courage and firmness in acting up to his con- 

 victions. His kindly nature showed itself in the forms of sociality, friendliness, and 

 generosity reaching to self-sacrifice. His friendship extended widely beyond the 

 borders of his way of thinking in religion and politics, and men of various opinions 

 and convictions sought his companionship, and partook of his regards. Few men 

 have had more friends or fewer enemies, and yet he never shrunk from avowing his 

 own principles. He enjoyed society, of which, by his pleasantries and other collo- 

 quial powers he was made to be the life. " He was generous," says his friend Profes- 



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