“Tyrtaeus called aloud to arms,”

and who have animated the living and celebrated the dead in the noblest strains are here; that our orators whose burning words have so cheered the gloom of the long controversy are here, altho withal we lament that one voice so often heard through the long night of gloom was not permitted to greet with us the morning.  Surrounded by memories such as his, surrounded by men such as these, we may well feel at receiving this noble testimonial of your regard that it is rather you who are generous in bestowing than we who are rich in deserving.  Nor do we forget the guests who honor us by their presence to-day, chief among whom we recognize his Excellency the Governor of Massachusetts, who altho he wears the civilian’s coat bears as stout a heart as beats under any soldier’s jacket, and who has sent his men by the thousands and tens of thousands to fight in this great battle; and the late commanding general of the Army of the Potomac under whom so many of us have fought.  If the whole and comprehensive plans of our great lieutenant-general have marked him as the Ulysses of a holier and mightier epic than Homer ever dreamed, in the presence of the great captain who fairly turned the tide of the rebellion on the hills above Gettysburg, we shall not have to look far for its Achilles.

Yet, sir, speaking always of others as you have called on me to speak for them, it seems to me that the record of the sons of the university who have served in the war is not unworthy of her.  In any capacity where service was honorable or useful they have rendered it.  In the departments of science they have been conspicuous and the skill of the engineer upon whom we so often depended was not seldom derived from the schools of this university.  In surgery they have by learning and judgment alleviated the woes of thousands.  And in the ministration of that religion in whose name this university was founded they have not been less devoted; not only have cheering words gone forth from their pulpits, but they have sought the hospitals where the wounded were dying, or like Fuller at Fredericksburg, have laid down their lives on the field where armed hosts were contending.  All these were applying the principles of their former education to new sets of circumstances; but, as you will remember, by far the larger portion of our number were of the combatants of the army, and the facility they displayed in adopting the profession of arms affords an admirable addition to the argument by which it has been heretofore maintained that the general education of our college was best for all who could obtain it, as affording a basis upon which any superstructure of usefulness might be raised.  Readily mastering the tactics and detail of the profession, proving themselves able to grapple with its highest problems, their courage and gallantry were proverbial.