30 
Proceedings of the Inauguration 
more, and none of us so young* as to know everything. We are 
none of us apostles of hind sight, none of us reactionaries. 
Goldsmith, in his comedy, “The Good Natured Man,’' makes Mr. 
Croaker say, when chided for not listening to reason, “Produce 
your reasons. Pm fixed, determined. When Pm determined, I 
always listen to reason because it can then do no harm.” There 
is none of Mr. Croaker’s spirit in the Denison Faculty, so far as 
I know. During the last twenty years we have often reversed 
ourselves, but it has been in the direction of the rising sun. We 
have frequently changed our minds, but that is one of the things 
minds are for. When Mr. Gladstone entered the House of Com.- 
mons, Macaulay described him as “the rising hope of the stern 
and unbending Tories.” His last speech in that legislative body 
made by him sixty years later and as the leader of the Liberals, 
was a stern but dignified arraignment of the Tories for their 
obstructive policy with reference to his Home Rule bill. The 
world owes much to the inconsistencies of honest men. The 
Faculty of this College is conservative enough not to go too fast, 
and progressive enough not to go too slow. 
A Scotch nobleman had on his coat of arms this Latin motto, 
Sub pondere crcsco— under a weight I grow. There is nothing in 
easy berths to promote solid growth in men. Wilkie Collins says 
of Mrs. Vesey, one of the characters in his novel, “The Woman 
