490 
JAMES CLARKE WELLING. 
and refined by communion with the manifestations of the 
beautiful in nature and art till in the end the aesthetic sense 
within us shall be as feelingly alive to each impulse as was 
the untaught soul of Correggio when, for the first time, he 
stood in the presence of Raphael’s St. Cecilia and exclaimed, 
“Anch’ io sono pittore !” 
With all the skill of the logician this theme was developed, 
and the aptest quotations from ancient and modern authors 
called to prove that the poet “ does not sing by the critic’s 
score, albeit that he follows implicitly the subtle laws of 
rhythm and melody.” 
He entered with zeal into his work at Princeton, having 
faith in his alma mater and looking upon that noteworthy 
fact in the history of the race that all periods of great civil 
commotion have been attended and followed by a new phase 
of intellectual energy. “It is,” he was accustomed to say, 
“in the stir of great events and under the sway of strong 
passions that the dormant powers of the national mind are 
roused into vigorous exercise, and though in the stern gladi- 
atorship of martial conflict these powers may for a time be 
laid under contribution by the demands of a mere material 
strife, the day soon comes when an antagonist must needs 
retire from the lists, when arms must yield to the gown, and 
when the statesman and the scholar are called to untie with 
dexterous hand those Gordian knots which the sword left 
uncut.” 
He filled this position so congenial to his tastes and ac¬ 
quirements onty one year, when he was called to the presi¬ 
dency of Columbian College. On the occasion of his induc¬ 
tion into this new office he spoke upon “The Fundamental 
Elements of Intellectual Education,” in which the dogma is 
laid down that “ no university, even in all its faculties, can 
teach all knowledge, but it can comprise in its curriculum 
such a compend of the past thought and cultivation of the 
race as shall be reduced to the shape and dimensions best 
fitted to be taken in by the minds of the present generation, 
and therefore best fitted to promote the growth of culture. 
