Proceedings of the Inauguration 
35 
And sOj Dr, Chamberlain, it becomes my privilege to extend 
to you, on behalf of the undergraduates of Shepardson, hearty 
congratulations upon your assuming the presidency of a college 
whose students so gladly welcome you as their head, and who so 
confidently trust the future of their institution to your leadership. 
PRESIDENT CHAMBERLAIN’S INAUGURAL ADDRESS. 
Following the speeches of congratulation, President Chamberlain 
delivered his inaugural address. 
On this hill top, dedicated to the cause of education eighty- 
three years ago, we meet at the call of Denison. This dis- 
tinguished group of college and university delegates, this great 
congregation of the friends of education are not here to do honor 
to an individual, for men may come and men may go, but institu- 
tions live. We are met together to reaffirm to our own generation 
the expressed faith of our fathers, a firm and abiding belief in 
the Christian college as an essential factor in the prosperity and 
preservation of the state and nation. It is appropriate that in 
this expression of confidence in the college and hope for its future, 
trustees, sister institutions, faculty, alumni and students should 
have a share, for without the contribution of all these a college 
could scarcely exist. 
To the Trustees : You are a body of men associated for a 
noble purpose. You have asked me to take a place in your coun- 
cils; a place once held by John Pratt, Jonathan Going, Silas 
Bailey, Jeremiah Hall, Samson Talbot, Benjamin Andrews, 
Alfred Owen, Galusha Anderson, Daniel Purinton and Emory 
Hunt. These men carried with you and your predecessory an op- 
pressive weight of anxiety, such as is necessarily borne by those 
charged with the administration of the affairs of a college. It 
was my good fortune to labor under and with three of these men. 
When I recall their inspiring personality, wisdom and foresight, 
their moral worth, their intellectual attainments, their untiring 
energy, their devotion to the interests committed to their care, I 
could almost wish you had permitted me to remain in my accus- 
tomed field of service. Had my work as a teacher of college youth 
fallen short of the highest standard it would have been supple- 
mented by the superior work of colleagues and no educational 
tragedy would have resulted. Had my labors on the frontier of 
