EULOGY OF PRESIDENT ELIOT

The following minute on the resignation of President Eliot, which has been placed on the records of the Overseers, has just been made public:

"In accepting with reluctance and keen regret the resignation of President Charles W. Eliot, the Overseers of Harvard College make this record of admiration and esteem.

"Called to the presidency in early manhood, he has administered the affairs of this University for forty years with eminent skill and fidelity. Its vast development during his term of service has been mainly due to his rare wisdom, his strong convictions, his enterprise and his zeal. Prompt to initiate reforms and fearless yet prudent in pressing them, he has by his constructive energy transformed Harvard College into a university, and at the same time has exerted an influence on the educational forces of the nation which has largely shaped their policy, so that he stands today the leader in his age and generation.

"Nor does Harvard alone attest his greatness. His mental precision and unusual capacity for lucid and apt discrimination have enabled him to treat public questions with singular authority and with an unerring instinct for the aspirations and needs of society. He has touched no subject without illuminating it; he has stood firmly for collegiate and civic righteousness; and so sane have been his counsels, so masterly his power of statement, that he not only commands today the attention of America, but he is honored by scholars and thinkers throughout the world. He has set an example to all by the simplicity of his life and by his absolute devotion to duty and the public interest. He lays down the cares of office voluntarily at the ripe age of seventy-five while 'his eye is not dimmed nor his natural force abated.' Indeed his temperament has mellowed with time, and he has grown young with the passing years.

"This board, to every member of which association with him has been a privilege, congratulates him warmly on his long and distinguished service, and expresses the sincere hope that blessed with health he may enjoy for years to come the rest which he has richly earned and the honor freely accorded to him by a grateful community."