What our land now needs, aside from the three great Professions Law, Divinity and Medicine, is not so much scholars, as that term was understood half a century ago, men learned in the classics and polite literature, but men, who with minds previously disciplined to careful and exact thought by a due study of the dead languages and mathematics; have then devoted themselves to the study of the phenomena of nature its and resources. Men who make their studies tell in their practical benefits in developing the resources of the land, in opening up new highways of communication, in broadening the range of human comfort, in increasing the productive power of machinery, in utilizing the agencies of the material world, and in doing those things which make the world a better place to live in, draw out of it new treasures, add to mans domestic and social comfort, and elevate him in the scale of moral beings. These are the kind of men needed in this bustling, wrestling, grasping age. Men with drilled minds and taught eyes, and skilled hands, steady wills, and earnest purpose, and plodding progress. Men who make past discoveries stepping stones to new ones, past triumphs herald to new conquests, and who, feeling that we are but in the infancy of the developing state of our country, and but in the childhood of scientific research are stretching forth to higher results, and nobler aims, and will not tire or falter until they have reached new fields or opened long buried treasures, or unlocked the still guarded secrets of nature's laboratory.
Thus we believe that this University is fitted to the needs of the age, and the land we live in, and that the age and the land need and must have just such an University. They fit and adjust themselves to each other, and our country which has just belted itself with that iron girdle which is to compact its strength and unify its nationality, will need all the aids and appliances which such institutions can bestow.
This education to be really valuable must be moral as well as scientific and practical. The God of nature, and the God of the Bible are one. All the researches of human philosophy, all the discoveries of science, all the application of science to arts, and manufactures are but researches, discoveries and applications that busy themselves with what God has opened before the mind in the world of nature.
Hence, though there can be no science without God, no laws of nature without him, no nature itself aside from Him, yet human science too blindly constructs its theories and schemes totally apart from God, leaves Him out altogether, as if the presence of God was the great disturbing factor in the region of their study.
We hold that as men become eminent scientists just in proportion as they draw near to, and understand the real facts of nature; so they honor science when they bring it near to Him whose laws and works constitute the science or the philosophy which they seek to explore. The highest names in nearly all the great branches of human learning have been men who bowed reverently before God. True science ever leads up to God; true philosophy only brings the heart nearer to the fountain head of all wisdom. The flippant sciolist, the chirping smatterer, the proud and boastful wordmonger, men who know only the nomenclature of science and not its deep principles, who deal with a few isolated facts and not with a well-arranged generalization, sneer at God and would remove him beyond the pale of human thought.
The best posture of the mind for the study of any science is a reverent recognition of the existence and presence of God; and just as it brings itself into contact with the deep thoughts of God, whether those thoughts are bodied forth in the facts of nature or in the word of revelation, just so far will that mind be best fitted to explore the ways and works of the Almighty, and will find the recognition of God one of its greatest stimulants, one of its best guiding principles, one of its noblest aims of study.
I congratulate you, Honored Sir, upon the rapid progress and high advancement of this University, which your munificence has founded. I congratulate you, Mr. President, upon the wonderful success which has attended your administration of the affairs of this University. I congratulate you, respected and learned Professors, upon the superior excellence of your teaching as illustrated in the superior attainments of your students. I congratulate you, my young friends, upon the admirable and beautiful provision here made for the education of your minds and training of your bodies; and especially do I congratulate the first graduates of this institution. Though few in number, you yet constitute, like the first ripened grain reaped in the ancient Jewish fields, "the Wave Sheaf' which we this day offer to the world as the type and emblem of the men and the scholars which this university shall make. May all its subsequent graduates, as they shall come up here year by year to receive their diplomas, be as worthy of them as you now are, and may you who bear the first honors of the College, remember that you go forth to represent to the world what this University can do, in making good students, true gentlemen, and thorough scholars.
When over five hundred years ago, Petrarch was crowned Poet Laureate of Italy, in the Capitol of Rome, by Orso, Count of Anguillara, Senator of Rome, he received what was then regarded as the highest literary honor which a nation or the world could bestow. The crown of laurel, the reward of virtue decreed to him by the unanimous consent of learned Italy, and given to him amidst displays of pomp and beauty and learning, and civil and churchly power such as had never before conjoined in placing, the laurel wreath on a Poet's brow. Yet in that hour of triumph, he turned from the steps of the Capitol, and amidst the sound of trumpets, and the acclamations of the people, went to the church of St. Peter, and dedicated his crown of laurel to God, by offering it up on the altar of the Saint. So let it be with your honors. They came from God who made your mind and body. They are obtained by the strength and wisdom which He imparts. Give back to God, then, the tribute of His own gifts, in the honors which those gifts have won, and remember that like Petrarch, you transfigure your earthly laurels into crowns of glory when you lay them reverently on the altar of God.