(Note: This is a slightly abbreviated version of a speech given by President Jones at the Cornerstone Summit gathering at Trinity on October 24, 2008.)

Look about you for just a moment, out at the Quadrangle. As my wife Jan and the ladies in our office in Williams Memorial will attest, I spend inordinate amounts of time just wandering at all manner of day and night around this Quadrangle, which ranks in my mind only with the Lawn at the University of Virginia as representing the epitome of academic open spaces in the entire country.

I wonder what the shades of yesteryear think of us, you and me, tonight. I wonder what the good Bishop’s shade thinks right now, what with his statue fully restored last spring, now all illuminated, dominating the College he founded so long ago.

I wonder what Burges and Kimball, architects of our beautifully restored Long Walk, might think of us. Or what might think the shades of Frohman and Mather and the Italian stone masons who worked on and on, building our Chapel during the worst days of the Great Depression, without salary, mind you, after both the College and Mather ran out of cash.

But the Long Walk still stands. And the Chapel still looms up over us all. And the Bishop’s hand is still outstretched.

The College opened its doors in 1823. Within eight years or so, a disastrous recession swept the United States. Banks failed. Stocks plummeted. People went bankrupt. What did Trinity do? We continued to build the College on the grounds where the State Capitol stands today.

Move on to 1873. Here are a few headlines from the New York Times. September 19, 1873: “It was a wild day in Wall Street yesterday. The announcements of The Times in the morning prepared the public in a certain degree for the trouble which was to ensue.” September 20, 1873: “The Panic. There has been no day in Wall Street to be compared with yesterday….” September 21, 1873: “The Panic in Wall Street…This morning at 10 o’clock the Secretary of the Treasury will meet the President in this City, and a consultation will be held as to the measures to be announced tomorrow.”

Sound eerily familiar? And what did Trinity do? The minutes of the July 1, 1874, meeting of the Board of Trustees tell us that the trustees established a Committee on Finance, and the next year the Board voted to move forward with the construction of the Long Walk. Ground was broken on July 1, 1875—and all this against a backdrop of immense financial uncertainty. And Jarvis and Seabury rose from the ground right here on Rocky Ridge.

And in the midst of the Great Depression, the Chapel and Clement Hall were built. The work of the College moved on unabated, despite the slings and arrows being hurled by the Fates upon the world around Trinity.

And so will the work of the College move forward at this time.

What will the future College archivist write of us, those of us sitting tonight in this tent? What will the future say of us?

I hope the future will say that we stayed the course, that we did not once flinch, that we labored on, because the cause is so just and so noble.

Robert Frost once said that of all the things one might love, a school is surely among the finest.

And why does our work on behalf of Trinity matter so incredibly much? Here are five of the best reasons I could ever offer.

You have heard from Jared Paletti ’09, an economics major from Florida, during his eloquent earlier remarks on the rededication of the Long Walk. Here is one reason why Trinity matters. Jared, please stand.

You have heard from Nate Kirschbaum ’09, our 26-year-old history major, who was reared on a farm in Wyoming and is now president of the Student Government Association. Nate, please stand up. Here is another reason.