JOURNAL OF PROCEEDINGS. 417 



This is not the occasion to speak at length on the subject ; but as my 

 term of service will expire before the next meeting, I ask the indulgence 

 of the board while I refer briefly to some of the marked characteristics 

 of our late distinguished associates. 



Few Americans have filled so many high places of trust and honor as 

 Salmon P. Chase; and few have brought to the discharge of the duties 

 of their high station such masterly ability and such rare and varied 

 accomplishments. His career adds another to the many illustrations of 

 the truth, that he who loses his life for the truth's sake shall find it. 



In his early manhood, following his own conviction of duty, he com- 

 mitted himself, without reserve, to a cause which seemed, at the time, to 

 shut him out from all hope of public preferment. He stood by his con- 

 victions, and lived, not only to see his doctrines prevail, but to be one 

 of the honored leaders in the cause he had espoused. 



Whether at the bar, in the practice of his profession ; in the executive 

 chair of his own State ; in the National Senate ; as the great finance 

 minister of the republic in the stormy days of war ; or as Chief-Justice 

 of the United States, there ran through his whole life a depth of con- 

 viction, a clearness of comprehension, and a force of utterance that made 

 his power felt, and marked him as a man who filled and overfilled, hon- 

 ored and adorned, the great stations to which he was called. If, in the 

 course of his high career, he felt the promptings of that ambition which 

 has been called " the last infirmity of noble minds," it must be acknowl- 

 edged that he aspired to no place beyond his capacity to honor. 



Throughout his long and honored life the cares and demands of pub- 

 lic place did not diminish his ardent love for the pursuits of science 

 and the keen enjoyment of literature and art. The great masters of 

 song were his daily companions. I was his guest for many weeks, dur- 

 ing the stormy and troublous winter of 18G2- ; G3,when to the deep anxie- 

 ties of the war were added the gravest financial problems that have 

 ever confronted an American Secretary of the Treasury. And many a 

 time, at the close of a weary day of anxious care and exhausting labor, I 

 have seen him lay aside the heavy load, and, in the quiet of his study, 

 read aloud, or repeat from memory, the rich verse of Tennyson, or of 

 some other great master of song. 



It was this life of art and sentiment, within the storviy life of public 

 duty, that fed and refreshed his spirit, and kept his heart young, while 

 his outer life grew venerable with years and honors. 



As the Chancellor of this Institution, we saw in happy and harmoni- 

 ous action his ample knowledge of our institutions, his wide experience 

 of finance, his reverential love foi science and art, and his unshaken 

 faith in the future of his country as the grand theater for the highest 

 development of all that is best and greatest in human nature. No con- 

 tribution to science offered to this board escaped his attention. Noth- 

 ing that was high or worthy in human pursuits failed to elicit his ap- 

 preciative and powerful support. 

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