wealthy sons of the State have been prodigal of
theirs. In no country has the private patronage of science been more
liberal and prompt than in Massachusetts. Seldom, in the history of
science, has there been a nobler instance of that patronage than this
University is now experiencing, in the mission of one of her professors
on an enterprise of scientific exploration, started and maintained by a
private citizen of Boston. When our Agassiz shall return to us
reinforced with the lore of the Andes, and replenished with the spoils
of the Amazon,--_tot millia squamigerae gentis_,--the discoveries he
shall add to science, and the treasures he shall add to his Museum,
whilst they splendidly illustrate his own qualifications for such a
mission, will forever attest the liberality of a son of Massachusetts.

The rich men of the State have not been wanting to literature and
science. They have not been wanting to this University. Let their names
be held in everlasting remembrance. When the Memorial Hall, which your
committee have in charge, shall stand complete, let its mural records
present, together with the names of those who have deserved well of the
country by their patriotism, the names of those who have deserved well
of the College by their benefactions. Let these fautors of science, the
heroes of peace, have their place side by side with the heroes of war.

Individuals have done their part, but slow is the growth of institutions
which depend on individual charity for their support. As an illustration
of what may be done by public patronage, when States are in earnest with
their universities, and as strangely contrasting the sluggish fortunes
of our own _Alma_, look at the State University of Michigan. Here is an
institution but twenty-five years old, already numbering thirty-two
professors and over twelve hundred students, having public buildings
equal in extent to those which two centuries have given to Cambridge,
and all the apparatus of a well-constituted, thoroughly furnished
university. All this within twenty-five years! The State itself which
has generated this wonderful growth had no place in the Union until
after Harvard had celebrated her two hundredth birthday. In twenty-five
years, in a country five hundred miles from the seaboard,--a country
which fifty years ago was known only to the fur trade,--a University has
sprung up, to which students flock from all parts of the land, and which
offers to thousands, free