rring brethren, we
are doubly bound in gratitude to keep green the memory of the men who
have deserved well of their country in the hour of utmost need. We ought
to do this also in that temper which shall look most singly to the noble
end of forming heroic traditions for the youth of our future land. I
know no place where this can be more fitly carried out than in
New-England's foremost university. Coeval with the commonwealth itself,
the starry roll of its heroes links it with all the fortunes of our
history. Men who sat in the Long Parliament, and who may have seen the
Battles of Worcester and Dunbar, took their early degrees upon Harvard's
first Commencement-stage. Her sons fought against King Philip, were
colonels and captains in the "old French War," went forth in the days of
Wolfe and Amherst, and exchanged the lexicon for the musket in the eight
years' struggle which gave to the Thirteen Colonies their independence.
Alumni still survive who did military duty in the second war with
England. The men of Harvard were with Taylor at Buena Vista, and helped
Scott in his victorious march upon the Aztec capital. Of these the only
record is in the annual necrology and the quaint Latin of the
"Triennial."

For the young heroes who dropped the oar and took up the sword, who laid
aside the gown for the sash and shoulder-strap, who, first in the
bloodless triumphs of the regatta and in "capital training" for the
great race of life where literary and professional fame are the prizes,
went forth to venture all for honor and country, the Alma Mater surely
should have a special commemoration. For her own sake, because of her
high responsibility in the education of "ingenuous youth," she can do no
less. I will venture to say that not a Harvard man, among all the loyal
thousands of her surviving Alumni, but feels his heart beat quicker as
he reads the story of her children amid their "baptism of fire." There
is a notable peculiarity about this the most purely New-England of our
colleges,--the continual recurrence of familiar patronymics. I take up
the last semi-annual catalogue, and there among the five hundred names I
can almost make out my own classmates of twenty years ago. Abbots,
Bigelows, Lawrences, Masons, Russells,--they come with every
Commencement-season. Some families have had for every generation in a
hundred and fifty years a representative in her halls. There is a patent
of nobility in this, such peerage as a republic