Inaugural Address of
Paul
B. Means
for the
Dialectic Society, May 8, 1868
1
Means, Paul Barringer, 1845-1911
Cover page
Page 1
Friends and Fellow members:
To be called to preside over your meetings, is in my opinion as
great an honor as can be confered on any person connected with this
University.
This distinction having been shown me
once before, I hardly again
expected to receive
this expression of your esteem:
and did it not appear to me that this deference on your part should be
doubly appreciated, inasmuch as you selected me as
your President during my abscence from
the Hill and when there were others who might claim
your attention, the duties, incumbent upon me at this time, as a member of the
graduating class, would undoubtedly induce me to decline the acceptance of this
office. Having considered it therefore, under the circumstances, my paramount
duty to abide the result of your kind suffrages; I now return you my most
sincere thanks for
this appreciation of me. To speak
at
any
length to you of
the condition of your
Society, since this matter has been so frequently
and ably refered to recently; I would consider not only presumptious on my
part, but preposterously absurd. All therefore
Page 2
that I shall say on this matter is that, in my opinion, you have made decided
progression during the last year, and that if you will follow the sensible and
profound advice of my recent predecessors,
especially the
immediate one,
2
you will, in addition to the advancement already made, improve in
many respects and
vastly.
The subjects upon which an "
appropriate
address" may be written, have been so
thoroughly exhausted that I have been almost at a loss in what manner to
perform this
first duty pertaining to my office.
But as this will be the last time that I
will, in any manner, address you, I suppose that it will be most
"appropriate" for me to speak in accordance with the
occasion.
A College life is one which none can appreciate but those who have
experienced it.
When the student enters upon his career
here, as when
Eneas
entered the temple at
Carthage,
"the cloud" of parental affection,—which has shielded and
protected him from the snares and vicissitudes of other storms—, is
almost invariably dissipated by the fierce blasts of temptation. Here for
the
Page 3
first time he feels that, in the frail barque
of existence, he is sent forth upon the ocean of life, and must "paddle
his own canoe" or sink beneath its boisterous waves.
Before him are the
Sylla and
Charybdis of indolence and vice, and seldom it happens that he escapes them both
entirely.
The current between them, in comparison with human
inclinations, is almost as difficult to follow, as it is "for a camel to
go through the eye of a needle".
3
And Fellow-members, as one, who knows fully the many and fearful shoals upon
which you may founder, and the numerous under currents that may drift you into
these terrible whirlpools, I advise you now in
this
my
last speech to beware,
and look well to your course.
In our youthful days we little regard with what great velocity the
wheels of life roll on, from an inate quality we are
distressingly regardless of the warning, that on the
fast fleeting wings of time we are rapidly approaching "that bourne whence
no traveller returns."
4
And not until age increases upon us do we open our eyes to our situation, and
then in deep anguish
Page 4
we exclaim,
"Ah me! those joyous days are gone;
I little dreamt till they were flown,
How fleeting were the hours!
For lest he break the pleasing spell
Time bears for youth a muffled bell
And hides his face in flowers.
5
When a young man enters College he stands at the first
great cross road in the journey of life.
Upon his left stand
Pleasure and
Vice with their "siren songs" and all the
enticing allurements to which human nature is liable to succumb; and how many
alas! follow them and find but too late, that they are only deceptive "
ignes-
fatui"
6
which decoy their improvident pursuers only thro' the boggy mires of corruption
and disgrace.
"Oh! that youth in lifes gay dawning years
Could see the world as it in age appears;
How many virtues would experience teach,
How many vices place beyond his reach
Passions, like ocean billows, would subside
And every dark temptation be defied
7
You have
all been here
sufficiently long to indicate, to some extent, by your actions
Page 5
what will be your future career in college:
but, the die is not yet cast, and to those of you
whose magnetic needle does not point in the direction I now say take another
and a better course!
Listen only to the words of Virtue and Reason upon your right, push
zealously and faithfully on, upon the collegiate journey that stretches before
you,—which will grow brighter and smoother as you near the end—,
and there, instead of the willow wreath of sorrow,
receive upon your brows the trembling garlands of laurel with which Victory is
anxiously waiting to crown you.
The hour when you must all bid a long farewell to this garden-spot
of your life is fast, fast approaching.
The suffering and sorrow of that hour none of you will believe,
until it falls upon you from the grasp of time.
These classic shades have become endeared to us all; there are
incidents and associations connected with, that, though trackless deserts and
boundless oceans may intervene, it is
impossible for
us to forget them. This our earthly
Page 6
Elysium,
has for years been the home of many of us; here we have all formed friendships
and attachments that it would soften a heart of adamant to severe; but
especially heartrending it is to leave these scenes, when to some of us they
are the only remenicences that we have, of dear friends, whose names, once on
the college list with our own, are now inscribed on the roll of mortality.
But even if you find here no others charms of endearment, you must
become enraptured with this sacred spot and mourn to leave it when you reflect
that it is the home of your mind:—the only
spark of Divinity the only fragment of Immortality that you possess.
Whether then you leave this transitory Paradise with sadness or
joy, it is my ardent wish for one and all that, when the hour arrives at
last for you to depart, you, in addition to having
plucked the most brilliant flowers of education, may look back with pleasure
and pride upon your college career, and go forth in such a manner that this
University shall be the nucleus around which will
cluster the most lasting and pleasant reminiscences of
Page 7
life; and that the information you may have
acquired here shall be the germ whence shall spring forth mighty and wonderful
acheivements in your struggles for fame and reputation.
In conclusion, Fellow-members, I ask you to apply yourselves
diligently and lead such a life that the rising of your genius, which is just
begining to illumine the first day-spring of your existence, may continue to
shine with undim[in]ished splendour throughout life, and that the last gleam of
its parting rays may reflect streams of credit and honor on your parents, on
your
University, and on the American nation!
But as
men I address you, and for the
honor of your
sex I implore you that you do
not endeavor to ascend the steep, "whence
Fames' proud temple shines afar"
8 as
the grovelling, cunning serpent, which climbs the lofty crag only by dark
crevices and hidden paths; but like the noble eagle soar boldly up on the
pinions of intelligence and virtue with your course open to the eyes of all
your fellow-creatures, and having reached the zenith of your glory there seat
yourself in the chaplet of honor, unmolested save by the deafening applause
Page 8
of the ardent admirers below and around you.
Thanking you again for your kindness, I now assure you that I will
perform my duty according to the dictates of my conscience, and taking the
Constitution as my monitor "execute it as I understand it."
Endnotes:
1.
Dialectic Society Addresses, UA. The address consists of a
title page and eight numbered pages of text. The title page is inscribed
"Inaugural Address/of/
Paul B. Means
/
Cabarrus Co.,/NoCa
/Delivered May 8
th 1868/
Samuel
F. Bitting,—Vice President/
Mt.
Airy,/NoCa
." A second hand
has written "
Means
." at the top of the title page.
2.
William Simpson Pearson
(1849-1920) from
Morganton,
NC, entered the
University in 1864 and was president of the
Dialectic Society from April 2 to May 8, 1868,
when
Means
took the chair.
Pearson
had argued in his inaugural address that obsolete
rules governing members' conduct should be expunged from the
Society's constitution.
Pearson
received his degree in 1868 and became an author,
lawyer, and railroad commissioner. He served as a
University trustee from 1905 to 1907.
3.
Matthew
19:24: "And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go
through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of
God."
4.
William Shakespeare,
Hamlet
III.i. (1603).
5.
John
Godfrey Saxe,
"My Boyhood," Clever Stories of
Many Nations
(1865).
6. "ignes fatui": fires that sometimes appear at night
over marshes; foolish goals.
7. A blot in the manuscript obscures the end punctuation of the
line. The quoted passage appears in
William Henry Rhodes,
Theodosia,
The Pirate's Prisoner
, III.vii, lines 36-41 (1846).
8.
James
Beattie,
The Minstrel
(1771).