PROCEEDINGS OF DARTMOUTH ALUMNI. THE gathering of the graduates of Dartmouth College exceeded in every respect anything in the history of the college. The alumni headquarters were established in the Representatives' Hall, where, during the day, between three hundred and four hundred names were enrolled. The oldest class represented was 1832, and from that date to the present it was stated that only one class failed to have a representative. At four o'clock the graduates formed in procession in the western portion of the statehouse park, under the marshalship of Albert S. Batchellor, of Littleton, of 1872. The roll of classes was called, and the oldest alumnus was given the head of the column. He was followed by those of succeeding dates, the line being closed by nearly a hundred undergraduates who came from Hanover in a special train. As the procession passed down State and up Pleasant street on its way to the rink, where the meeting was to be held, sharp lookout was kept to discover any alumnus who happened not to be in the line. When any such was seen many lusty voices would call for him, and the ranks would be opened to receive him. In the rink, tables extended throughout the floor, with an official one at right angles at the head. In the galleries were a large number of spectators, personal friends of the graduates. At the head of the table sat Hon. Walbridge A. Field, of Boston, the president of the meeting. On his right was the chaplain, Rev. E. O. Jameson, of 1855, of Millis, Mass., and next the orator, Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, of 1844, of Boston. On the left of the president was the toastmaster, Hon. George A. Marden, of 1861, of Lowell. When Mr. Field rose to call the meeting to order it was evident that he was deeply impressed by the number and character of the large assembly. Grace was said by Rev. E. O. Jameson, after which an hour was devoted to the dinner. After cigars had been lighted, Judge Field introduced the orator, Mr. Chamberlain, who on rising was greeted with earnest applause. JUDGE CHAMBERLAIN'S ORATION. I am sure, Mr. President, that the alumni of Dartmouth College desire, first of all, to express to his Excellency the Governor, and to the honorable council of the state of New Hampshire, their grateful sense of the privilege of participating in the dedication of a statue of Daniel Webster on his native soil; and to add that they regard the selection of the president of the college for the part which he has performed in these interesting ceremonies with distinguished success, as a manifestation of good will by the state to the college which is appreciated by all its friends. The relations of the college to the state are peculiar. As a corporation it is older than the state; for the charter of the college, which is still the basis and measure of its rights, and irrevocable except for cause, came from George the Third when New Hampshire was a royal province, without charter, and governed under the king's commission, which was revocable at his pleasure. To-day we witness an extraordinary proceeding. The state accepts as a gift from an estimable and loyal citizen, and with the according voices of thousands of other citizens also loyal, sets up in a conspicuous place before the most august symbol of its authority, a statue of Daniel Webster, to whom more than to any other man is due that construction of the constitution of the United States which overthrew a legislative act of the sovereign state of New Hampshire, reversed the solemn decision of its highest judicial tribunal, and erected within its jurisdiction an imperium in imperio which will endure as long as the constitution endures. And it is well; for the state and the college have been mutually helpful. The state has been the benefactor of the college; and if not munificent when compared with more opulent states, yet liberal in a degree honorable to a government which derived its revenues from a people without profitable industries until the stimulus of foreign capital had aroused the slumbering giant of the Merrimack, and whose agricultural interests rapidly declined when canals and railroads opened the markets of the East to the disastrous competition of the more fertile West. But now a new era has begun. Necessity has developed a new industry. Thrift and the near approach of hunger have stimulated the conversion of pure air and mountain scenery into merchantable commodities, happily indispensable to the sweltering corn-growers and pork-packers of the malarial prairies. A retributive corner has been made, reasonably permanent, if we may rely upon the providentially slow growth of mountains, and remunerative, we hope, "beyond the dreams of avarice." These inspiring facts open a vista. In the distance the college is seen reveling in opulence. If the state has been liberal according to her means, the college has recognized her reciprocal obligations, and met them with promptitude and efficiency. Erase from the state's roll of honor, of which she is justly proud, the names of those sons of Dartmouth who have gained distinction in science, in jurisprudence, and in public affairs, and the place of New Hampshire would be less conspicuous than it now is among her sister states. Give back to unlettered drudgery those undistinguished sons of Dartmouth who with minds quickened by liberal studies have followed their professions on hillsides, or in sequestered valleys, narrow, but necessary fields of labor, and there would be a manifest decline of intelligence, good judgment, and moral sense in those communities. I do not purpose to dwell on those special relations of Daniel Webster to the college, to which I have adverted; but in the general relations of debt and credit between the college and the people of the state, Daniel Webster was included. Born remote from the centers of civilization and culture, and without the means of access to them, there was danger, and in his case, from temperament, special danger, lest he would grow up in obscurity, and add one more to the large number of richly endowed but imperfectly educated men of which New Hampshire was full, who gave to the wilderness powers which might have made them conspicuous on any theater of action. More than most men of anything like his intellectual force, Daniel Webster needed the stimulus of education and the prospect of a career. This needed help was just what the college gave. She opened the mine, she laid bare the ore, - abundant, massive, pure, - and set it free, as currency bearing the royal stamp of genius, to enrich the wisdom of the people and the English speech of the world. This was his chief debt to the college. Apart from Webster's natural endowments, no one was more "heinously unprovided," as he said, with education or pecuniary means "to break into college." Luckily, it was not far to seek; otherwise he might never have found it. But he sought it and entered. When there, unlike Bacon and Milton at English Cambridge, he made no complaint of the education it afforded. It was the best he was prepared to receive, and both parties were satisfied. She gave him all she had to give, and with all her requirements he cheerfully complied. Both were young together, both were poor, and both struggling to gain a foothold on bare creation. It is idle, but we may guess if we will, how much and in what respects Webster might have been greater, had he, after the preparatory training of such schools as Eton or Winchester, been educated at Oxford or Cambridge, with their splendid libraries, their exact scholarship, their impressive antiquity, and the stimulating influence of the long lines of their illustrious graduates. Such were the relations to the college of Daniel Webster as an undergraduate. He was greatly in her debt. But there came a time when all this was changed, an hour when her need was sore and pressing, and his help was seasonable and adequate; an hour when he repaid the unforgotten debt of his youth; when he secured immortality for her, and laid the foundations of his own. But, gentlemen, I must not forget even in this presence that there are other claims than ours to Daniel Webster. He was a son of New Hampshire, and he was the foremost man of his country. Of all the great Americans of this century, perhaps of any century, he was the most genuinely and thoroughly American; of all, most undoubtedly a product of our soil, climate, institutions, and modes of life. He owed much to the state of his birth, but he owed nothing to any other state. He owed much to his New Hampshire ancestors; but to them, and to them alone, was he indebted for his rich inheritIn him there was no intermixture of nationalities; no crossing of plebeian with patrician blood. His pedigree was of New Hampshire, and as pure as the air he breathed. Unlike Morris, Gallatin, and Hamilton, he was born on our soil. His forefathers were ance. |