The instructive and practical elements in Dr. Gladden’s writings, the wide influence he exerts in the cause of aggressive righteousness, and his interesting personality, do not, however, measure the full extent of his gifts.  One has only to read his well-known hymns to realize anew that here is lyric quality of the first order.  Then, too, the Williams alumnus, whether he sings hymns or not, has the warmest place in his heart for “The Mountains,” and when he comes back to the college with white hair will continue to thank Washington Gladden for that song.  While serving as one of the trustees of Williams, Dr. Gladden was a familiar figure at commencement.  His personal presence indicates the character of his thought, and the spirit which challenged him to high daring in the early days is still unflinching.  During the present disintegration of old beliefs, this servant of the truth has always been eager to reconstruct the new with the clear and definite purpose of meeting the highest requirements of life.

IV.  FRANKLIN CARTER

HENRY D. WILD ’88

It was largely owing to her location that Williams College gained the son who was to become her sixth president.  Born at Waterbury, Connecticut, and thus well within the centripetal sweep of Yale, Franklin Carter left New Haven at the close of his sophomore year for reasons of health, and later sought the more favorable climate of the Berkshire Hills.  Thus, once a member of the class of 1859 at Yale, he was graduated from Williams in the class of 1862.  There came a blending of these affiliations throughout his career.  Williams was the first to claim him, as professor of French and Latin till 1868 and then as Massachusetts Professor of Latin until 1872, when Yale drew him to a professorship of German, to relinquish him in 1881 when he succeeded Dr. Chadbourne as president of Williams.  For twenty years, the third longest administration in the history of the college, he stood at the head of her interests.

The history of education can show fewer periods more critical or more rapid in change than the last quarter of the nineteenth century in this country.  Williams was in her own crisis when Dr. Carter came as president.  How he met it, and how he guided the college in a steady movement toward larger things, a mere comparison of the catalogues marking the limits of his administration can tell the younger men of to-day, who enjoy the fruits without knowing the process.  Such a comparison would show an increase of sixty per cent. in the number of students and over one hundred per cent. in the number of instructors.  This period also saw an increase in real estate, buildings, and improvements of $600,000, and, in addition to this, of $900,000 in invested funds.