repose. With other similar memorials, it was destroyed at that period; and nothing but the same tradition remains to guide us to the hallowed spot. Upon it we have erected a plain and simple, but at the same time, we apprehend, a permanent memorial. It will add nothing to the renown of him who is commemorated by it; but it will guide the grateful student and the respectful stranger to the precincts of that spot, where all that is mortal rests of one of the earliest and most efficient of the country's benefactors. It is constructed of our native granite, in a solid shaft of fifteen feet elevation, and in the simplest style of ancient art. On the eastern face of the shaft, and looking towards the land of his birth and education, we have directed his name to be inscribed upon the solid granite; and we propose to attach to it, in a marble tablet, this short inscription, in his mother tongue : "On the twenty-sixth day of September, A. D. 1828, this Stone was erected by the Graduates of the University at Cambridge, in honor of its Founder, who died at Charlestown, on the twenty-sixth day of September, A. D. 1638." On the opposite face of the shaft, and looking westward, toward the walls of the university which bears his name, we have provided another inscription, which, in consideration of his character as the founder of a seat of learning, is expressed in the Latin tongue : "In piam et perpetuam memoriam JOHANNIS HARVARDII, annis fere ducentis post obitum ejus peractis, academiæ quæ est Cantabrigiæ NovAnglorum alumni, ne diutius vir de litteris nostris optime meritus sine monumento quamvis humili jaceret, hunc lapidem ponendum curaverunt." And now let no man deride our labor, however humble, as insignificant or useless. With what interest should we not gaze upon this simple and unpretending shaft, had it been erected at the decease of him whom it commemorates, and did we now behold it gray with the moss and beaten with the storms of two centuries! In a few years, we, who now perform this duty of filial observance, shall be as those who are resting beneath us; but our children and our children's children, to the latest generation, will prize this simple memorial, first and chiefly for the sake of the honored name which is graven on its face, but with an added feeling of kind remembrance of those who have united to pay this debt of gratitude. When we think of the mighty importance, in our community, of the system of public instruction, and regard the venerable man whom we commemorate, as the first to set the example of contributing liberally for the endowment of places of education, (an example faithfully imitated in this region, in almost every succeeding age,) we cannot, as patriots, admit that any honor which it is in our power to pay to his memory, is beyond his desert. If we further dwell on our own obligation, and consider that we ourselves have drank of the streams that have flowed from this sacred well, that in the long connection of cause and effect, which binds the generations of men indissolubly to each other, it is perhaps owing to his liberality that we have enjoyed the advantages of a public education, we shall surely feel, as students, that the poor tribute we have united to render to his memory falls infinitely below the measure either of his merit or of our obligation. - But, humble as they are, let these acts of acknowledgment impress on our bosoms a just estimate of desert. Of all the first fathers of New England, the wise and provident rulers, the grave magistrates, the valiant captains, those who counselled the people in peace, and led them in war, — the gratitude of this late posterity has first sought out the spot where this transient stranger was laid to rest, scarce a year after his arrival in America. It is not that we are insensible to the worth of their characters, nor that we are ungrateful for their services. But it was given to the venerated man whom we commemorate this day first to strike the key-note in the character of this people first to perceive with a prophet's foresight, and to promote with a princely liberality, considering his means, that connection between private munificence and public education, which, well understood and pursued by others, has given to New England no small portion of her name and her praise in the land. What is there to distinguish our community so honorably as its establishments for general education, beginning with its public schools, supported wholly by the people, and continued through the higher institutions, in whose endowment public and private liberality has gone hand in hand? What so eminently reflects credit upon us, and gives to our places of education a character not possessed by those of many other communities, as the number and liberality of the private benefactions which have been made to them? The excellent practice of liberal giving has obtained a currency here, which, if I mistake not, it possesses in few other places. Men give, not merely from their abundance, but from their competence; and following the great example, which we now celebrate, of John Harvard, who gave half his fortune and all his books, it is no uncommon thing for men to devote a very considerable portion of estates not passing the bounds of moderation, to the endowment of public institutions. And well does the example of Harvard teach us, that what is thus given away is in reality the portion best saved and longest kept. In the public trusts to which it is confided, it is safe, as far as any thing human is safe, from the vicissitudes to which all else is subject. Here, neither private extravagance can squander, nor personal necessity exhaust it. Here it will not perish with the poor clay to whose natural wants it would else have been appropriated. Here, unconsumed itself, it will feed the hunger of mind, the only thing on earth that never dies, and endure, and do good for ages, after the donor himself has ceased to live, in aught but his benefactions. There is in the human heart a natural craving to be remembered by those who succeed us. It is not the first passion which awakens in the soul, but it is the strongest which animates, and the last which leaves it. It is a sort of instinctive philosophy, which tells us, that we who live, and move about the earth, and claim it for our own, are not the human race; that those who are to follow us when we are gone, and those that here lie slumbering beneath our feet, are with us but one company, of which we are the smallest part. It tells us, that the true glory of man is not that which blazes out for a moment, and dazzles the contemporary spectator; but that which lives when the natural life is gone; which is acknowledged by a benefited and grateful posterity, whom it brings back, even as it does us at this moment, with thankful offerings at an humble tomb; and gives to an otherwise obscure name a bright place in the long catalogue of ages. We stand here amidst the graves of some of the earliest and best of the fathers and sons of New England. Men of usefulness and honor in their generation lie gathered around us, and among them, no doubt, not a few, whose standing in the community, whose public services, and whose fortune placed them, in the estimate of their day, far above the humble minister of the gospel, who landed on our shores but to leave them forever. But were it given to man to live over the life that is passed, and could the voice of a superior being call on the sleepers beneath us to signify whether they would not exchange the wealth and the honors they enjoyed for the deathless name of this humble stranger, how many would gladly start up to claim the privilege! We have now, fellow-students, discharged our duty to the memory of a great benefactor of our country. In this age of commemoration, as it has been called, it was not meet that the earliest of those to whom we all are under obligations, should be passed over. Nor is it we, who are here assembled, nor the immediate inhabitants of this vicinity, who are alone united in this grateful act. What is done for intellectual improvement is as little bounded by space as by time. Not a few of the sons of Harvard, in the distant parts of the Union, have promptly contributed their mite towards the erection of this humble structure. While the college which he founded shall continue to the latest posterity, a monument not unworthy of the most honored name, we trust that this plain memorial also will endure. While it guides the dutiful votary |