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