Excerpt from An Address Prepared by the Late John A. Vanderpoel of the New York Bar: For Delivery to the Alumni of Columbia College Law School, on the Evening of Wednesday, May 16, 1866

Enthusiasm is the strongest motive power of the moral world. Where it does not exist, the smallest difficulty disheartens, the least obstacle diverts, the weakest opposition prevails. Where, however, its electric power is felt, it braces the nerves and fires the soul with an almost superhuman energy. Difii culties but animate, obstacles quicken, and opposi tion arouses its headstrong fervor. In every calling, honorable or dishonorable, sacred or profane, it is Enthusiasm always which underlies success. It was this that made an itinerant monk the inspirer of the martial spirit of Europe and the leader of hosts of devotees to the holy sepulchre; it was this that nerved the heroic Xavier with a fortitude that nei ther hardship nor persecution could bend; it was this that bore up the ardent Fresnel under the rav ages of disease until he had gained for his name an immortal homage. It has always been this that won the crown of martyrdom, the wreath of laurel, the chaplet of ivy.

Now, in no walk of life is this exalted quality more necessary or more efficient than in our own.

Search the historical annals of the law and you will never find apathy and fame associated together. Enthusiasm is here the principal condition of success. Impressed with this belief, and firmly convinced that in all right-minded persons, Enthusiasm itself is grounded in reverence, I shall with difiidence at tempt to strengthen in your minds the former senti ment by expounding to you to-night a few of the more prominent claims of the law upon the latter, fondly hoping that in some of my auditory I may thus be the instrument in laying at least one stone of a foundation on which is hereafter to be based a permanent and brilliant success.

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