What Is Your Culture to Me?

Delivered to the Hamilton College alumni in the summer of 1872, this address opens with a vivid recollection of a young graduate summoned to the podium, his voice echoing the lofty cadences of Cicero and Caesar. The speaker paints the ceremony as a rite of passage, where newly minted orators feel the surge of honor and the promise of shaping the world with their freshly honed intellect.

Yet the speech swiftly turns to a gentle critique of the modern world’s indifference to such cultivated minds. It laments how generations of scholars, armed with classical languages and literary treasures, find their gifts slipping unnoticed through a bustling society that values practicality over erudition. Still, the orator’s faith in the enduring worth of culture persists, urging listeners to cherish the lofty ideals that once inspired the very act of graduation.