IV. THE PROJECT FOR THE IMPROVEMENT 334 V. ADDRESS BEFORE THE ASSOCIATED ALUMNI. BY REV. A. L. STONE, D. D... 360 VI. POEM. BY BRET HARTE. 375 VII. REV. DR. BENTON'S COMMENCEMENT ORA- 380 VIII. ADDRESS BEFORE THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION. BY REV. I. E. DWINELL, D. D..........----- 397 IX. ALUMNI RESIDENT ON THE PACIFIC COAST, 1867. 412 I. ANNIVERSARY ORATION.1 BY JOHN B. FELTON. MR. PRESIDENT AND TRUSTEES: A week ago I went to visit the spot which you have selected as the site of the future University of California. I was accompanied by one of your number, one of the pioneers in the great and sacred cause of education in California, Early in 1849, when the thousands who flocked to these shores saw in them but a dreary place of exile, where they were to dig and to delve wearily for a few years-when but one picture filled the imagination of the Californian, and that was his return to his home laden with the glittering spoils of our rivers, our plains, and our mountains -amid all the exciting turmoil and agitation of the California pioneer life, this gentleman, the Rev. Mr. Willey, with one or two kindred spirits, conceived and matured the plan of a great California University. As we rode along, he told me of his alternate hopes and discouragements, of the heroic men who had, one by one, associated themselves in the great enterprise, of the munificent donations already made, and the gradually yet surely spreading enthusiasm in the cause of education. He told me of the modest and learned preceptor of your preparatory school-how quietly and noiselessly, but with how earnest and unflagging zeal, he had worked in his holy mission; and in yon neat and tasteful building, its ample play-grounds, and, more than all, in the intelligent and happy faces of the scholars, I saw the success that had already crowned his work. We came at length to the spot which the taste of one of New England's ripest and choicest scholars has selected for the future. home of California science and letters. It would be risking little to This oration was delivered on Friday, October 1, 1858, at the fourth anniversary of the College School. say that nowhere in the world could a place be found more lovely or more exquisitely adapted to its repose. Sheltered by the mountains from the winds of the ocean, the student will drink in health and strength from a climate more beautiful, and an air more pure, than that which attracts to Italy the death-shunning invalid. Copious streams, that shall hereafter be classic, descend from ravines in the mountains, and long lines of majestic trees stand like sentinels on the banks. At a short distance stretches the great harbor of San Francisco, whose broad breast can bear the navies of the world; and on its other side is that restless and agitated city which, having known no infancy, but leaping into existence, as Minerva sprang from the brain of Jove, fully armed and matured, seems to crave the healthful and calming influence of a great university. In full view, towards the ocean, beyond where the fort of Alcatraz points its threatening guns, the Golden Gate lies lapped in the glorious light that gave it its prophetic name. And the last glance of the future student of California as he leaves his native shore-his first returning glance as he welcomes home-shall fall on the spires of his own Alma Mater. There is one striking feature in the system of education as you have planned, which struck me on my visit so forcibly that I have made it the subject of my address to you to-day. I mean, that part of it which unites the preparatory school for children with what, in common language, is called the university. It is a great defect in the systems of collegiate education in Eastern States, that they begin only with the youth as he approaches manhood-that they do not embrace in their scope the infant and growing boy. The student commences what is called his "education" at the average of sixteen years; and the four years between that and twenty, spent within the walls of a college, entitle him to claim the distinction of calling himself a "liberally educated" man. But at the age of sixteen, the student is rather a man than a boy, so far as regards the purpose of education. He is still in the spring of life, if you will; but it is the late spring as it verges on summer. The time for planting the seed, and nursing and tending the young plant on which the hope of an abundant harvest depends, has long since past, and past irrevocably and forever. For, as nature divides, by her inexorable laws, the seed-time from the growing-time, and the growing-time from the reaping, in the physical world, so, certainly, by laws equally immutable, has she divided, in the mental world, the time for planting, for ma |