was commenced. There being no haste, only a few men were employed, and the work went on but slowly.

The summer college term was by this time drawing to a close, and another Commencement-time was at hand. Everything connected with the College was moving prosperously, except the endowment subscription. This held back. The committee appointed by the Trustees from among their own number failed of success. It was easy to see that there were reasons for this, but these reasons did not make the lack of resources less trying. Among these reasons was the fact that the entire business community had for years been heavily drawn upon by war taxes. At the same time very large contributions had been asked for the Sanitary and the Christian Commissions of the army, and they had been freely and generously given. Within a few years, also, all the San Francisco churches, co-operating in building the College, had changed pastors, receiving new ones from the East. Under their administration it was not possible that the College cause could be viewed in quite the same light as under those who knew it historically and by experience. The indispensable necessity of concentration upon this one cause for the time being, did not, probably, appear to them all, as it was. It is likely that the College itself appeared to strangers to be more firmly established than it had actually come to be. It had become somewhat generally known at the East. It had its grounds and its buildings. It had its annual literary festivals, largely and enthusiastically attended. And it would not be strange if it made the impression upon new-comers that it was past the period of uncertainty. So that it was said: "Of course the College of California will be sustained. Of course an institution that has got on as far as that, will be carried forward. The public would not let that suffer." And so attention began to be directed to other new institutions that were needed, as well as a college. Their importance was manifest enough, especially to those recently from the full equipments of the East, where they had been accustomed to all the ample methods of church extension, as well as work

in behalf of education. And these new enterprises made their appeal to the same class of givers as had stood by the College for fifteen years or more. This was one thing that made it at this time more difficult to get subscriptions to the temporary endowment fund, than before.

The situation presented a problem that it was hard to solve. Business prospects after the war were unsettled. In the sudden changes of fortune, not a few of the most generous givers to the College were now utterly disabled. It was not easy to find others to take their places. The vast national debt was a matter of concern, and fluctuations in the value of currency unsettled business in every department. Reconstruction was in its earlier stages and its outcome could not be foreseen. What was needed then was a permanent endowment, to yield an income to meet current expenses— even a small one, such as had been given to several young Western colleges within a year or two before that time, would have sufficed. It seemed as if it had been earned by this College, and would certainly come from some quarter.

GRADUATION OF THE FOURTH CLASS.

The consideration of these matters, however, was put aside, for the time, by the occurrence of Commencement. The examination that preceded it being over, the Commencement occurred on Wednesday forenoon, June 5. The two Seniors of that year, Marcus P. Wiggin and William Gibbons, delivered their addresses, and then Prof. Benjamin Silliman pronounced the annual oration before the College, on the theme: "The truly practical man necessarily an educated man." After its conclusion the degrees were conferred. The honorary degrees conferred on this occasion were as follows: that of Master of Arts, upon F. M. Campbell, George Tait, James Wylie, Freeman Gates, and Henry Hillebrand; and that of Doctor of Divinity, upon Rev. John Chittenden.

In the afternoon the Associated Alumni assembled. It was their fourth annual meeting. The orator was the Rev. Dr. A. L. Stone, and the poet, Bret Harte. The oration by Dr. Stone and the poem by Bret Harte constitute the fifth number of the subjoined Appendix.

At the close of the morning exercises, a procession was formed under the direction of F. M. Campbell, marshal of the day, and marched to the place of the evening's entertainment.

Hon. John W. Dwinelle, Alumnus of Hamilton, class of 1834, President of the Association for 1866, presided at the table, in the absence of the Hon. Oscar L. Shafter, LL.D., Justice of the Supreme Court, President of the Association for 1867, and Alumnus of Wesleyan University; and was supported by His Excellency Gov. F. F. Low, and Prof.

B. Silliman, of Yale College. Every chair was filled. The supper was excellent, and was worthy of the fair hands. by which it was furnished. After the supper came the speaking.

THE PRESIDENT.—“BROTHERS: We greet you well. Another year, with its inevitable changes, has completed its circuit since we last parted in this hall, and we are permitted to meet once more. Death has meantime visited our ranks, and has nipped buds of unusual promise, which were just expanding into matured usefulness; we miss also the forms and faces of several of our most cherished and useful members, but we are grateful that their absence is only temporary, and that we may expect them to rejoin us at our next anniversary.

"We are drawn together to-day and on this occasion by the combined influence of a memory, a resolve, and a hope. We are Californians; to this fair land, fairest of all earth's dowries, we have succeeded as our heritage, prepared for us by the providence of God, and fostered for us by the paternal care of the American Union. Here have we concentrated all our hopes; here have we embarked all our enterprises; here have we anchored our destiny. To California we pay the tribute of a grateful and undivided allegiance; we have shared the hidden treasures of her mountains; we have reaped the golden harvests of her plains; we have partaken of her wine, her oil, and her honey; here will we live, here will we die, and here will we be buried. Still we cannot forget the land of our boyhood, youth, and manhood-the land where we were born and educated-over which memory sheds an aurora of soft and radiant light. And as reminiscences come crowding upon us from that far distant land which we can never call by any other name than that of home, we cannot forget that this is the season at which the educated men of the United States, the Alumni of their Colleges, return to their Alma Maters, to celebrate their anniversaries, and to hold social communion with the brotherhood of letters. If the electric telegraph could flash visions upon our sight, and sound

upon our hearing, as it flashes thoughts into our souls, we should behold the fires burning upon a hundred altars, and hear the grand symphony of ten thousand voices, where our fellow Alumni at the East-priests and hierophants-are offering their annual sacrifice, above them hovering the assistant spirits of our mighty dead. With them in spirit, although absent in the body, we resolve that we will found in this young Pacific republic the same institutions of culture around which clustered the hopes and aspirations of our youth. Hence we have invoked the principle of voluntary association; and, as the ancient colonist of Greece reared in his new home an altar consecrated to the religion of the mother-land, so have we here erected an altar to culture, with the inscription, Hæc sit patria mea, and, lighting upon it the sacred fire, with the invocation esto perpetua, have consecrated it to the hope of the future.

"The Associated Alumni of the Pacific Coast, then, consists of those who in academic, military, naval, medical, law, and scientific institutions of collegiate rank, have received those testimonials of acquirement, training, and skill which entitle them to be styled educated men. Adopting as its means social reunion, frequent intercommunication, and united effort, it has for its object the diffusion of education and culture throughout the State of California, and all the States of the Pacific Coast.

"In proposing our beloved State as the first sentiment, we are fortunate in having present one to whom we are largely indebted for the fact that while she has rushed on in her orbit, mighty, swift, and ponderous, she has yet noiselessly obeyed the restraining influence of the central law. I propose, California; with a luminous past and a still brightening present, she promises a future of dazzling brilliancy."

His Excellency Governor Low, being loudly called for spoke as follows:

"When I look around me upon this highly cultivated audience, and remember the exercises of to-day, I am glad that my fortunes are cast with you this evening, and regret more