Page:The Dedication of Germanic Museum of Harvard University p19.jpg

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The Dedication of Germanic Museum of Harvard University.
19

aquiline nose and the commanding eyes are in full sight, while the mane-like hair flows in bold masses over neck and shoulders, he seems the very embodiment of seventeenth century absolutism. But there is nothing vain-glorious in this man, nothing that savors of a Charles II. or a Louis XV. His horse is not a showy thing of parade, but a doughty animal of tough sinews and heavy limbs; he rides it free and without stirrups; he knows what he is about; he is carrying his destiny in himself; and a victorious future seems to hover before his eyes.

It remains to say a few words about a third service which, I feel assured, this museum will render to American university life. This institution is not a German museum; it is a Germanic Museum; it is to bring together representative monuments of the Germanic past on English, Dutch, Scandinavian, Swiss and Austrian soil as well as German. It seems inevitable that one result of the existence of such a museum will be a strengthened feeling of the unity of the Germanic race; and I doubt not that Germanic studies at large will be benefited and broadened by the growth of this feeling. There is reason to think that it is this very feeling which has given strength to our cause thus far, which has made the museum what it now is. Americans both of English and German blood first supported and promoted it. The Swiss Government has signified its intention to follow up its generous gift from the Landes-Museum at Zurich by regular and continuous supplies from the same source; and a committee of leading citizens of Berlin and other German cities is now preparing for us a superb collection of German gold and silver work from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries—a collection which will be a most welcome and worthy counterpart to the Emperor's donation. It is a matter of especial gratification that a scion of Puritan stock, a Harvard graduate, and a Harvard teacher of history, has chosen the day of the opening of our museum to announce a gift which will serve not only as a lasting memorial of the visit of Prince Henry of Prussia to Harvard University, but also as an enduring incentive for the pursuit of Germanic studies in the broadest sense.

And so let me close with renewed expressions of gratitude—gratitude toward the exalted ruler whom we may acclaim as the