in purpose and high toned in endeavor burned brightly. By God's help we are not going to let it flicker or wane."

Let us consecrate this hall to his memory, whom we must now emulate, and, in the exhortation of Pericles to the Men of Athens, “remembering that happiness is freedom, and that freedom is the high spirit, regard not the dangers of war." Let us take for our own the great motto of his life, Pro Re Publica.

WILLIAM DEWITT HYDE.

BY EDWARD HALE, '79.

WILLIAM DEWITT HYDE, president of Bowdoin College, died suddenly at his home at Brunswick, Maine, June 29. Fatigue from overwork had obliged him to give up his college duties some weeks previously, but his physicians had thought that with complete rest for a time he would recover, and the trustees of the college had granted him a six-months' leave of absence, which was to be extended if necessary. He was born at Winchendon, Massachusetts, September 23, 1858, the son of Joel and Eliza DeWitt Hyde. At the time when he entered Phillips Exeter Academy, in the fall of 1872, and for some years afterwards, his home was at Southbridge, Massachusetts. In 1875 he graduated at Exeter and was admitted to Harvard. In college he took high rank in his studies, gained a reputation for facility in debate, was one of the founders of the Harvard Philosophical Society, and was prominent in other societies and clubs. At graduation, as one of those who were chosen to deliver their commencement parts, he gave an address on "The Modern Idolatry of Culture," which not only expressed frankly a young man's judgment on educational tendencies of the day, but was prophetic of the attitude which was to characterize much of his work in later years.

After graduation he studied for a year at Union Seminary, New York, and for two years at Andover Seminary, engaging in home missionary work at Roxbury, New Hampshire, during the summer of 1880, and spending the summer of 1881 in the Adirondacks as a tutor. He remained at Andover during the year 1882-83 as a post-graduate student, and at the same time studied Hegel at Harvard with Professor George Herbert Palmer, his close friend and counselor through life.

He had been licensed to preach in May, 1881, by the Woburn (Massachusetts) Association of Congregational Ministers. In September, 1883, he was ordained and installed as minister of the Auburn Street Congregational Church at Paterson, New Jersey. Here his parish

duties were performed with energy and devotion and with marked success, but he found time to attend the meetings of the "Friends in Council," a club which met in the city of New York to discuss ethical questions, and of a philosophical club which had no name, composed of professional men of New York and its vicinity. He also published at this time two essays which attracted notice, "The Metaphysical Basis of Belief in God" and "An Analysis of Consciousness in its Bearing upon Eschatology.

...

In 1885 he was elected Stone Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy in Bowdoin College, and at the same time, though after some hesitation on the part of the trustees because of his youth, president of the College. Bowdoin then had 119 students, and its resources were limited. Only ten years later Hyde could write to a friend that it had "doubled both in numbers and resources. We have introduced the elective system, so that we allow more liberty in the choice of studies than any college in New England except Harvard. . . . Within the past three years we have added two buildings unsurpassed by any buildings of their kind in the country, the Walker Art Building, designed by McKim, Mead and White... and the Searles Science Building." In 1912 he wrote again: "Like all college presidents, within the past decade I have had to turn my attention to money-raising. We now have... two million dollars of endowment, which for three hundred students is fairly adequate. We... have introduced the preceptorial system, and in the face of a good deal of cutting rates by competitors have maintained consistently a high standard of admission and graduation." A convenient and beautiful library building had been added, and a grandstand and athletic building, "as convenient for our purpose as is the Stadium for the needs of Harvard." Last June, at the time of his death, the number of students had increased to nearly 500, including those in the medical school, a gymnasium had just been dedicated, and a dormitory to be called William DeWitt Hyde Hall was in process of building.

All this outward growth and prosperity testified to his initiative and energy and persistence as an organizer and administrator. He followed it with justifiable satisfaction and an affectionate pride. But it is for his work as teacher and educator, in his classroom and in the pulpit, through his public addresses and his writings, that he is most honored and will be best remembered by those whom he has influenced. As Stone Professor his teaching in ethics, psychology, and philosophy, saturated with religion," to quote from a letter from a former stu

dent, was characterized by an exceptional sanity and breadth. "Other men," the same student writes, "seemed more like specialists. He saw the universal and introduced us to it, made us a part of it." He preached frequently, not only at Brunswick but elsewhere, and as frequently was called upon at special occasions to make addresses, of which perhaps the most noteworthy were a paper on "The College," read at the Congress of Arts and Sciences at St. Louis in 1904, the address delivered at Wellesley College Commencement, 1905, and the address in defense of academic freedom at a recent Boston University commencement.

He was for many years a trustee of Phillips Exeter Academy, and during the years 1897-99 was one of the preachers to the University at Harvard. He lectured in summer schools at Colorado Springs, Chicago University, Chautauqua, Hingham (Massachusetts), and Harvard, and in 1904 delivered a course of lectures before several institutions, including Haverford College and the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences, which were later published in book form with the title, From Epicurus to Christ. As occasion invited he wrote from time to time, chiefly on educational and ethical topics, for the Atlantic Monthly, the Forum, the Educational Review and other periodicals, and published a score of books of which Practical Ethics, Social Theology, Practical Idealism, The Art of Optimism, Jesus' Way, and SelfMeasurement are among the best known. Finally, in addition to all these activities, he had helped in 1890 to organize the Maine Interdenominational Commission, and was from the first its president. It has done something, he wrote, "to prevent the multiplication of needless churches in the rural regions, to check sectarian rivalry and competition, and to bring about a more fraternal feeling between the religious denominations in the State." His interest in the work of this commission received fuller expression in two articles for the Century Magazine and the Forum, respectively, on "The Unity of the Sects" and "Church Union a Necessity; the Maine Experiment."

He had nominal vacations but took little real rest. He spent a few months in Europe in 1897, and again in 1907. The second visit was made, as he said, "rather from necessity than from choice," for the pace had begun to tell. But he came back refreshed, and with a characteristic buoyancy and youthfulness of mind and spirit still so marked that his friends began to think of him as one whom no amount of responsibility or work could weary permanently. The eager will to do, the attitude of mind which in every immediate duty and under