greed and selfish ambition. This remark was made more than thirty 

 years ago, and he lived to see, in the inheritance tax, a partial step 

 in that direction. He probably felt then, as many have come to feel 

 since, that the game should be played more fairly, and, if necessary, 

 that the rules of the game should be modified ; that the prizes, as in 

 schools and universities, should be as many as possible, but lim- 

 ited in size — a maximum cum la tide, the highest with praise — beyond 

 which no one should go. And why not ? If our universities find it 

 wise to fix a maximum prize, and our boys in their games find it 

 necessary to place a handicap on the strongest player, to equalize 

 conditions and to make the game fairer and more interesting, why 

 not, in the game of life, have some kind of bar to the crafty and un- 

 scrupulous, to the end that the prizes shall be more fairly divided 

 and more widely distributed ? Stockbridge's sympathies went out to 

 the weak, and if he had been born in this century I believe he would 

 have become, in the best sense of the word, a socialist. He abhorred 

 a plutocracy, and believed in every man having a fair chance. 



You all know how useful and influential he was in the early years 

 of the College. I wonder if you know how many times, when it 

 was without friends and without funds to pay current ex- 

 penses, he raised the money at the local bank on his own notes, or 

 on the College notes endorsed by himself. I remember a bank 

 friend of his taking him to task for doing it, saying that if he had to 

 pay the notes it would ruin him. Stockbridge's reply was prophetic : 



" Oh, I am not afraid ! Never you worry ! The state of Massachu- 

 setts has entered into a contract with the United States government 

 to maintain this institution, and the State of Massachusetts will never 

 go back on her contract. What is more, some day she will see the 

 error of her way, and will come to the rescue of this institution and 

 do all that may reasonably be asked of her. I tell you, it is going to 

 be a success ! " 



We have lived — and, what is more gratifying, he lived — to see 

 that remark come true. Not only did the state honor the paper 

 which he endorsed, but it has given thousands upon thousands of 

 dollars since then, and will give, as we require it, all that we may 

 need for the development of this institution. It stands here to-day 

 a monument to Levi Stockbridge as much as to any other man in 

 Massachusetts. 



