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selecting me to preside over your deliberations during the present session. The 
highest distinction within the power of this body to bestow is not to he lightly 
esteemed, and 1 can only wish that I had been more worthy oi it. I propose to 
occupy youi 1 attention to-night for a brief space by some thoughts on the origin and 
work of the colleges and universities which this association represents, and the influ- 
ence thereof upon the present and future of the American people. 
Many men distinguished by learning and experience have in years gone by 
addressed you from this chair. Some having sown the seed which others in due 
time will reap have already passed over to the majority; others happily are still 
with us to animate by their zeal, encourage by their example, and stimulate by 
their attainments. Like the pioneers of freedom in the western world; like the 
founders of the great republic; like the statesmen who laid the foundation of 
the system of education which this association represents to-day — these men have 
builded wiser than they knew and results which they could not have antici- 
pated have followed. Not visionary doctrinaires, but practical men, they addressed 
themselves to use to the best advantage the material ready to their hands, ami as 
new material accumulated incorporated it with the structure as it grew — maintaining 
the original idea of utility and preserving the architectural symmetry of the funda- 
mental conception. 
The organization of this association was a happy thought. These annual meetings 
have brought together a body of workers and of thinkers whose thoughts and 
achievements, contributed to a common stock, have become the common heritage of 
all. Happy intuitions, intelligent scientific forecasts have been patiently experi- 
mented upon, translated from the hypothetical into the actual, accepted as accredited 
results, and added permanently to the stock of human knowledge. Of some the 
relationship became immediately apparent. They gravitated at once into position; 
discovered their proper place in the order of things; filled a space hitherto unoccu- 
pied; bridged over a hiatus; supplied a missing link. Others did not immediately 
yield to classification, and possible affinities required further investigation. But, 
assailed from this side and from that in the crucible and by the spectroscope, a stub- 
born isolation could not long be maintained, and in the end the most refractory 
yielded to the analytic of the human intellect and the potency of the human will. 
But how greatly have these activities been stimulated by mutual conference and 
mutual cooperation — a hint in discussion has struck a spark which ignited the fuel 
into a flame; a bow drawn at a venture has found a joint in the harness and pene- 
trated the vitals of an unsubdued fact; a stray seed dropped into a generous soil has, 
under the influence of sunshine and rain, sprung up and in due time brought forth 
fruit — first the blade, then the ear, and at length the full corn in the ear. 
A little over forty years ago a new departure took place in education in America. 
Until then classics, literature, and philosophy had been thedominant features of college 
work. The natural sciences were still in their infancy; scientific men had, however, 
for more than half a century been working along scientific lines; a priori deduction' 
had given place to induction founded upon observation and experiment. The 
atomic theory of Dalton; the correlation of physical forces worked out laboriously 
and brilliantly by Helmholtz, Joule, and Tyndall; the uniformitarian hypothesis of 
Sir Charles Lyell; the spectroscopic analysis of Kirschhoff, and, above all, the far- 
reaching generalizations of Darwin and Wallace had made a new epoch in scientific 
discovery. It recalled the spirit of adventure which roused into feverish activity 
the boundless energy and heroic endurance of Henry the Navigator, Vasco de Gama, 
Christopher Columbus, and Alphonso Albuquerque four centuries before. 
A new world of ideas seemed to dawn upon mankind with the introduction of the 
telegraph, of railway construction, of steam navigation, and the application of science 
to the industrial arts. The age of the Utopia of Sir Thomas More and of the New 
Atlantis of Bacon, divested of fantasy and clothed in the habiliments of decorous 
sobriety, seemed to have dawned upon mankind. The stimulus given to immigra- 
tion brought hundreds of thousands annually to our shores, and the impulse given 
to transcontinental migration through the development of the railway system east 
of the Mississippi transferred hundreds of thousands annually from the Atlantic and 
Middle States to the fertile lands stretching out in forest and prairie, ready to receive 
and reward the hardy and industrious pioneer with comfort and plenty. 
The rich gold fields of the West acquired by conquest and purchase, the annexa- 
tion of the great empire of the Lone Star State, the boundless domain between the 
Mississippi and the Rockies, inviting capital and enterprise for pasturage and cultiva- 
tion, all contributed to develop a feeling of unrest and a longing for better things. 
The long pent-up energies of a young, vigorous, self-reliant people broke beyond the 
geographical limits which had hitherto hounded their labors and rewards and swept 
a living tide of humanity over hill and valley, over mountain and plain, beyond lake 
