ON THE CULTURE DEMANDED BY THE AGE. BY FREDERIC DE PEYSTER, LL.D. DELIVERED BEFORE The Alumni Association of Columbia College. New York: 1869. THE CULTURE DEMANDED BY THE AGE. BROTHERS OF THE ALUMNI ASSOCIATION OF COLUMBIA COLLEGE: THERE are few associations so delightful as those which cluster around the venerable mother, from whom our intellectual life is, in so important a sense, derived. These associations carry us back to the freshness and vigor of our youth. They recall the time when life presented itself in anticipation, only as a series of brilliant victories; and when a golden glow suffused the morning sky of our early years. The remembrance of generous friendships, some of them only strengthened by the lapse of time, and others sundered only by the separations of death, touches our hearts, even now, with a strange delight. Nor can we forget, under the influence of these associations, the peculiar charm, which at that time attended the acquisition of certain departments of knowledge. It is indeed the common impression that most young men, in college, are averse to intellectual effort, and acquire knowledge only under the pressure of the severest discipline. This is not the case. There are few who do not have a keen relish for those studies which, under wise instruction, open themselves naturally to |