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and of the institution as a whole, the awakening of individual interest and power, 
and the inspiration of fellowship; and the greatest of these is inspiration. 
The faculty meeting ought to be the center of strong intellectual and spiritual 
forces. It ought to develop and promulgate the ideas which form the texture of 
the academic life. Its spirit ought to be high and magnanimous, and its impress on 
the student body ought to be a royal impress, set so deep that it can never be 
effaced. That spirit ought to pervade the atmosphere of the place as a purifying 
and stimulating force reaching upward and downward from the office of the presi- 
dent to the room of the humblest and most sluggish student, and outward to the 
utmost boundaries of its sphere. The faculty meeting ought to be the fountain of 
life to the college — the warm and ample heart whose beat regulates the pulse of the 
whole body, and from whose outgoing tide the whole body, 'fitly joined together 
and compacted, may make increase unto the building up of itself both in love and 
in power. 
When can such conferences be held? This must be determined according to cir- 
cumstances. If the time of the faculty meetings is taken wholly or partly from 
regular programme hours, it would hardly be right to extend it for this purpose. 
But if the faculty meetings have an evening set apart for them once a week, or once 
a fortnight, or once a month, the latter part of the evening may very appropriately 
and profitably be devoted to such conferences as are here meant. It might be a still 
better plan, and one that would suit either case, to give one evening a month to 
this special object, and to have one or two short papers prepared as a basis for dis- 
cussion. What is this meeting in which we are now engaged but a representative 
faculty meeting of the kind I have suggested? If it is worth while for us to come 
together, at great expense of money and time, from different colleges scattered over 
the whole country, to hold such conference meetings as this, surely it would repay 
the slight effort and inconvenience involved in holding meetings of a single faculty 
for a similar purpose. 
