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THE PROFOS. ED
NEW MUSEUM BUILDING
FOR YALE
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In this sketch of the
building now needed is the large central portion.
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entire Museum, the present wing (corner of Elm and High streets) is seen on the right,
and the main
The wing on the left, which will be similar to the present one, may
not be required for several years. It will stand on the corner of High and Library streets.
Patriotic men have devised agencies for
this work, most noted of which is the
movement called Civil Service Reform,
the literal and’ close copy of.college
methods in selecting and promoting
public servants. Its purpose is of the
best; its effects, within a limited range,
invaluable. But it is only a fragment,
an incident, of the needed reform, and
must depend for efficiency upon a pro-
found change in the convictions and
sentiments of the people. What is es-
sential is to extend the Yale spirit far
and wide, till an irresistible and uni-
versal public opinion shall seek ever
to recognize wisdom and strength, and
call them to the front, regardless of
bosses, catuctises, political conspiracies
and party machinery; which shall note
the gift of a public trust for any cause
but supreme fitness as treason to the
state.
THE OPPORTUNITY OF THE WAR.
We have been reminded from the
platform to-day that a national crisis is
upon us. The present war, whatever
else it brings, is sure most seriously to
impress and modify our character as
a people. Times of vast struggle and
passion are always times of rapid
change; and the change deeply wrought
in the national mind and heart is often
far more momentous than __ shifted
boundary lines or shaken thrones.
To-day the ice-fields which have long
crusted the ocean of American life are
shivered, and its depths feel a new
freedom to burst upwards towards the
sky. May there not be here the open-
ing for the reform we desire? In just
such times it is that the demand for the
best leadership is heightened to inten-
sity. However in stagnant days of
routine the cunning and the frail might
mock the ways of statesmen, it is now
the hour of imperative need for the wise
and the strong. This-war seemed to
many of us to be begun hastily, per-
haps needlessly; an appeal to force and
barbarism, without having wholly ex-
hausted the resources of statesmanship
and civilization. But if it results in
shattering the tyranny of bosses, in
driving petty politicians from the*en-
trenchments of statesmanship, in shat-
tering the fetters which party mani-
pulation has fastened upon wisdom and
strength, and in filling the nation’s inner
life with the Yale spirit, of worth’to the
front and the banner in manhood’s
hands, it will yet prove a_ glorious
epoch in our history.
A STORY OF STANTON.
Let wisdom and strength have op-
portunity always! How wonderful the
call of war for the strong man armed!
Before this demand, all littlenesses,
even those resting on reason and con-
science, must hide. I am tempted to il-
lustrate this by an experience of my own
thirty-four years ago which, for obvious
reasons, I kept to myself most of that
time. In 1864, Mr. Stanton, then Sec-
retary of War, issued an order which
seemed to many thoughtful citizens an
injury to our cause and a gross in-
justice to one patriotic soldier. They
asked me to present their remonstrance
and request its revocation. The Sec-
retary refused to listen to me. I went
to Mr. Lincoln. He attended closely to
every consideration, seemed much im-
pressed by the thought that injustice
was threatened, and referred me back
to Mr. Stanton, with a written order
that the Secretary of War should hear
Mr. Lewis. With this in hand, I made
my way, not easily, through the guards
of the War Department, and was met
by Mr. Stanton at the door of his inner
room.
“What! you here again? I will hear
no more from you:’ he cried.
I respectfully presented the President’s
order, when he took a firm stand with
folded arms and a defiant air, and
quietly said: “1 will hear what you have
to say.” As briefly and pointedly as I
could, I presented the case, but, ob-
serving his expression of inflexibility
and growing irritation, had the misfor-
tune to close by remarking that ‘“‘the
people of the United States will not
tamely submit to arbitrary acts of in-
justice.”
Mr. Stanton loudly demanded: “Is
that all?” and as I nodded assent, swung
his right arm high in air, advancing
to me, and with an intensity of passion
in feature and voice such as I never
witnessed elsewhere, broke out: “God
damn the people of the United States!
If they would let me alone, I could
carry this war to a successful close.
But their perpetual meddling imperils
the cause. I will not revoke the order.
You may go.”
Shocked and grieved I returned to
the President and made my report. Mr.
Lincoln reviewed ‘the case at some
length, agreeing with me that the order
in question was unjust and impolitic.
“But,” he said, “I have no choice but to
let it stand, or to lose my Secretary at
War. Do you know, Mr. Lewis, where
I can replace him?’ This was final,
and from that day till now, there has
grown upon me, as upon the world, the
conviction that the strength of Stanton
was what the country needed in that
hour, and that the wisdom of Lincoln
recognized and sustained it.
Now we are again at war, and
strength like Stanton’s and wisdom like
Lincoln’s are wanted at the _ head.
Minor injustices and errors must at
such times be patiently borne, but the
highest wisdom and strength in the
great historic outlines of policy and
achievement are the hope of the Repub-
lic. Among the laureled brows on the
stage before me, we delight to see that
of our minister to Spain; and I take
this occasion to say, in view of all his
memorable achievements and honored
life, that the brightest page of his fame
is that which records his wise and
strong efforts to preserve the peace of
the nation and of the world. Such a
partial failure is worth in permanent
glory a thousand less noble successes.
But our way to peace now lies
through the fierce and bloody fields of
war, and we can but join in the aspira-
tion which sums up the spirit of his
labors, the longings of all patriots, and
the larger patriotism of philanthrophy:
“© when shall all men’s good
Be each man’s aim: and universal Peace
Lie like a shaft of light across the land,
And like a lane of beams athwart the sea,
Targnen all the circle of the Golden
ear!”
Prof. Charles F. Johnson of Trinity,
Yale ’55, who received his degree of
Doctor of Laws from Yale that morn-
ing, said that Trinity would recognize
in the honor which had been shown
him, the good will of the Corporation
at Yale toward that institution. Prof.
Johnson named ubiquity and common-
sense as the two dominant traits of
Yale character.
Rev. Dr. Henry S. Barnum, who re-
ceived his doctorate that morning,
briefly acknowledged the honor which
had been done him. He said his friends
sometimes asked him why he had buried
himself in his Turkish mission work.
He did not think that the phrase de-
scribed his stations, which had been
very pleasant ones, but he said that it
might be that a man should bury him-
self, as it would seem to his contem-
poraries, in order to make his services
most effective.
Please hurry to this office every scrap
of war news about Yale men which comes
your way. Put m every detail you can.
Please send this news as fast as 1t comes
to you. It is especially necessary to get tt
promptly.
Rev. David Brainard Perry, President
of Doane College, Nebraska, Yale 63,
expressed his gratification that the only
thing which did not change in all the
development of Yale was the simple,
devout, manly recognition of the God
of our fathers. :
President Dwight then said that
Judge Henry E. Howland had finally
succeeded in winning the election to
the vacancy in the Corporation caused
by the expiration of his own term of
office. This he had accomplished by
ordering the competition in a peculiarly
happy way. Out of a total of 1425
votes he received 1395. The President,
after chaffing the Judge at some length
on this line, and expressing* his warm
personal attachment for him, introduced
him to an enthusiastic audience. Judge
Howland responded somewhat as fol-
lows:
Judge Howland’s Response.
I once heard a man say that he
didn’t mind a man blowing his own
horn, but it was the tune he always
selected that made him tired. With
this remark in mind, I will only say
that for this signal and well-deserved
mark of confidence and regard of the
alumni of this institution, I am pro-
foundly grateful.
If it is true, as some reformers assert,
that the office should seek the man and
not the man the office, that man reflects
credit upon his training, and as a poli-
tician is not to be despised, who can so
engineer a canvass that when the office
starts out to hunt for a man, he is the
only one in the way for it to strike.
But it doesn’t speak well for the dig-
nity of the office or the ambitions of
the sons of Yale who should aspire to
it, that one man should run over the
course without handicap, restriction,
or contest. A little city girl who was
visiting her country cousins came down
to breakfast one morning and saw honey
upon the table. With the tact and
courtesy of a well-bred little lady who
wished to call attention to what might
be pleasing to her host, she remarked
smiling and complacently, “Ah! I see
