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COLLEGE 
 
 AND 
 
 COMMONWEALTH 
 
COLLEGE 
 
 AND 
 
 COMMONWEALTH 
 
 AND OTHER EDUCATIONAL 
 PAPERS AND ADDRESSES 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN HENRY MacCRACKEN, LL.D. 
 
 President of Lafayette College 
 
 I 
 
 i; 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 THE CENTURY CO. 
 
 19S0 
 

 .H 
 
 Copyright, 1920, by 
 The Centxjby Co. 
 
 jtC iOiS20 
 ©C!.Ae04548 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 
 II 
 
 III 
 
 IV 
 
 V 
 
 VI 
 
 VII 
 
 VIII 
 
 IX 
 
 X 
 
 XI 
 
 XII 
 
 XIII 
 
 XIV 
 
 XV 
 
 XVI 
 
 XVII 
 
 XVIII 
 
 XIX 
 
 College ajstd Commonwealth 
 The College and the Individual 
 The College of Growth 
 Liberty and Cooperation . 
 Arms and Archimedes 
 War and Education . 
 Education for the New Era 
 
 1 
 
 21 
 42 
 58 
 81 
 95 
 112 
 
 The College and the Shadow of War 120 
 
 Pooling of College Interests as a War 
 Measure 129 
 
 Federal Leadership in Education . . 146 
 
 A National Department of Education 162 
 
 Why the Trust Idea Is not Applicable 
 TO Education 168 
 
 Defining the College Man .... 184 
 
 The College Man and Freedom . . 203 
 
 The American College of To-Day . , 214 
 
 Business Side of College Administra- 
 tion 236 
 
 College Fellowship 257 
 
 The College President 265 
 
 The Education of Women .... 275 
 
Contents 
 
 CHAPTER \. PAGE 
 
 XX Broader Education of Engineers . . 288 
 
 XXI Educational Research 295 
 
 XXII Education for Business 305 
 
 XXIII A Graduate School for the Metrop- 
 
 olis 313 
 
 XXIV Scientific Method and Therapeutic 
 
 Impulse 330 
 
 XXV Fraternity Ideals 336 
 
 XXVI Dedication of Baker Hall .... 341 
 
 XXVII Religion and Education 351 
 
 XXVIII The Forward Looking Presbyterian . 358 
 
 XXIX The Religious Element in Education 
 
 — A Necessity 373 
 
 XXX The Christian College . . . . . 385 
 
 XXXI A New Westminster 396 
 
 XXXII George Taylor — Patriot .... 405 
 
 XXXIII The Lesson of Valley Forge . . . 413 
 
COLLEGE 
 
 AND 
 
 COMMONWEALTH 
 
COLLEGE AND COMMONWEALTH 
 
 COMING in this second year of world war, to 
 a college founded largely by the efforts of a 
 great American Secretary of War, who wrote into 
 its original charter specific mention of military 
 tactics as a subject of instruction; to a college 
 whose seal bears the epaulet of a great soldier of 
 freedom (with a somewhat contradictory legend — 
 Veritas liherabit) ; to a college whose name is that 
 of a great Frenchman, beloved of Washington and 
 remembered by the American people as General 
 Lafayette rather than as the marquis of high line- 
 age, as statesman or as reformer ; to a college situ- 
 ated in this narrow valley which resounds day and 
 night with the straining, agonizing efforts of lo- 
 comotives, to set forward on their way of destruc- 
 tion tons of shells and projectiles, it might be ex- 
 pected that I should speak of education for war, 
 or appraise the place of the college in a civilization 
 where the steel shell seems final arbiter and the 
 scholar's position no whit different from that of 
 Archimedes in Syracuse twenty-two centuries ago, 
 whose scholar's boast, "Give me where I may 
 stand and I will move the world," was quickly 
 brought to naught by the ignorant soldier of Mar- 
 cellus. 
 
 Inaugural address as President of Lafayette College, October 
 20, 1915. 
 
 1 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 But the time is not yet ripe for such appraise- 
 ment, nor can the still, small voice of God be 
 heard until the rock-blasting winds, the earthquake 
 and the fires have passed. The times are too much 
 out of joint, passion still too rampant in porch 
 and grove to attempt at this time the answer to 
 that cry which finds echo in all our hearts to-day, 
 ''Who will build the city of our dream, where 
 beauty shall abound and truth avail, with patient 
 love that is too wise for strife ; who now will speed 
 us to its gate of peace and reassure us on our 
 doubtful road?" 
 
 I limit myself, therefore, to the topic of college 
 and commonwealth, since in Pennsylvania, as in 
 Massachusetts, this term has been preserved and 
 used to designate a society which is supreme in 
 all matters except the right to make war, to coin 
 money, to maintain a postal service, to control 
 commerce beyond its borders and such other mat- 
 ters of inter-state concern as have been relin- 
 quished for the general welfare under articles of 
 federation or a constitution. I use the term in 
 this sense to-day, thus excluding from considera- 
 tion all matters of war and peace, all matters which 
 are, or some day will be, subjects of international 
 agreement. 
 
 I do not use "commonwealth" with reference 
 to the commonwealth of Pennsylvania alone. The 
 gods of education are not local deities. Our view 
 across state lines is as uninterrupted as the view 
 from yonder window over the Pennsylvania 
 boundary to the hills of New Jersey. The com- 
 
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College and Commonwealth 
 
 monwealth of letters has no distinctive color on 
 the map, nor can you learn from any geography 
 its boundaries. As the wind bloweth where it 
 listeth, and thou canst not tell whence it cometh 
 or whither it goeth, so of our common intellectual 
 heritage, so of new discoveries in the world of 
 learning, any attempt to shut them up to this or 
 that class, color, creed or country, is doomed to 
 fail. 
 
 Thomas Hobbes, when he wrote his *' Levia- 
 than," divided it into four parts — the first part, 
 *'0f Man," the second part, "Of Common- 
 wealth," the third part, ''Of Christian Common- 
 wealth," the fourth part, ''Of the Kingdom of 
 Darkness." They would make four excellent sub- 
 heads for the inaugural discourse of a college 
 president. Time will not permit me, however, to 
 begin as Hobbes began, by discussing the thoughts 
 of man first singly and then in train, and, as I do 
 not wish these remarks to grow into a Leviathan, 
 I shall not attempt to discuss either the "Chris- 
 tian Commonwealth" or the "Kingdom of Dark- 
 ness." I shall speak only of common wealth and 
 of that very important item of our common wealth 
 and common life, the American college. 
 
 I Horace Bushnell, who spoke at Yale nearly four 
 score years ago on "The True Wealth or Weal 
 of Nations," said, "What, then, it is time for us 
 to ask, is that wealth of a nation which includes 
 its weal or solid well-being? that which is the end 
 of all genuine policy and all true statesmanship? 
 It consists, I answer, in the total value of the per- 
 
 3 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 sons of the people. National wealth is personal, 
 not material. It includes the natural capacity, the 
 skill, the science, the bravery, the loyalty, the 
 moral and religious worth of the people. The 
 wealth of a nation is in the breasts of its sons." 
 This creed and its corollary as phrased by Wash- 
 ington, "Promote, therefore, as an object of pri- 
 mary concern the means of education, ' ' is the rock 
 upon which our repubhc is builded. The commis- 
 sion given its government by the people of the 
 commonwealth of Massachusetts in their first state 
 constitution has been reiterated with greater or 
 less emphasis in all our commonwealths. *'It 
 shall be the duty of all legislators and magistrates 
 in all future periods of this commonwealth to 
 cherish the interests of literature and all semin- 
 aries of them, especially the University at Cam- 
 bridge, public schools and grammar schools in the 
 towns," and nobly have the states fulfilled their 
 commission.: To-day in a commonwealth where 
 the people have raised a schoolmaster to the office 
 of chief magistrate of the commonwealth, in a na- 
 tion where the people have raised a schoolmaster 
 to the office of chief magistrate of the nation, there 
 is little danger that education will be assigned any 
 less important a place in the polity of the state. 
 In the State of New York the past summer the 
 constitutional convention gave much time to an 
 attempt to define the relation of the state to educa- 
 tion. Decisions of the courts had clearly estab- 
 lished the authority of the state in educational 
 matters, but when an attempt was made to reduce 
 
 4 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 established practice to a theorem and to state it 
 in definite terms, it was fomid impossible to find 
 the right words and the conclusion of the whole 
 matter was that what it was proposed to say was 
 better left to the unwritten constitution. To write 
 ' ' education is a state function, ' ' it was pointed out, 
 is either to say what does not need saying, or to 
 say too much. The discussion in the convention 
 indicated, however, not only that the American 
 people are not all of one mind, but also that the 
 American people as a whole have not as yet given 
 this important subject that searching and far- 
 reaching critical examination which it deserves. 
 No one questions that education is a function of 
 the state ; no one questions that the state may con- 
 trol the chartering of colleges and universities and 
 prescribe the conditions under which degrees are 
 to be given, but many question whether education 
 should be exclusively a state function, while the 
 great majority have never even considered where 
 state control of education should stop and the free- 
 dom of private teaching begin. Constitutions and 
 constitution writers are better at negative state- 
 ments than at positive ones and this is as it should 
 be. Constitutions are not intended to express the 
 public's beliefs and ideals, though the creeds of 
 commonwealths, like the creeds of individuals, may 
 be guessed from their denials. Constitutions are 
 the law addressed to the people's representatives, 
 the thou shalt nots, rather than the gospel of hopes 
 and desires. It is easier to write ''Congress shall 
 make no law regarding the establishment of reli- 
 
 5 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 gion," than it is to prepare a program to make 
 American boys and girls disciplined, responsible, 
 high-minded, aspiring men and women. It is 
 easier to write, ''The state shall teach," than to 
 say what and how, when and where, and whom 
 the state shall teach, and who else shall teach. 
 
 Beginning as we did with a narrow view of the 
 field of government, concerned for freedom from 
 interference with the individual, rather than for 
 efficiency of achievement, we have been gradually 
 expanding our conception of the proper activities 
 of government, until the old sense of individual 
 responsibility, the readiness to organize volun- 
 tary associations to accomplish ajiy good desired 
 by a considerable number and to pay the bills of 
 such undertakings out of the private purse, seem 
 in danger of being lost in the emphasis laid upon 
 governmental activity and in the readiness to shift 
 to the shoulder of the taxpayer the cost of tasks 
 which may or may not have his interest or assent. 
 On the one hand we can not view without concern 
 this apparent diminution of individual initiative 
 and of readiness to sacrifice for the public weal 
 on the part of the individual, and, on the other 
 hand, we must disapprove manifestations of a 
 greedy bureaucratic spirit which would limit serv- 
 ice for the commonwealth to the activities of gov- 
 ernment. There are abroad to-day political philo- 
 sophers, who, like the pantheistic philosophers in 
 religion, are restless and bewildered in a multi- 
 form world and who would force an arbitrary 
 unity. The pantheistic philosopher avoids confu- 
 
 6 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 sion by asserting all is God. The bureaucratic 
 philosopher would organize all activities of society 
 as activities of government, and say it is simpler 
 and more efficient for the state to be the only agent 
 of the popular will. As a rule the sociology of 
 these philosophers is so narrow that they know 
 no men in whom the real reason for acts purport- 
 ing to be acts springing from a sense of duty or 
 from natural benevolence is not either love of gain 
 or love of fame or love of power. They mistrust 
 without a hearing any financial relation between 
 the state treasury and voluntary enterprises. In 
 New York they even questioned at the constitu- 
 tional convention the exemption of voluntary col- 
 leges and voluntary churches from taxation. 
 They not only contend for government ownership 
 of express companies, railroads and telephones, 
 but regard the altruism of the carrier on the rural 
 free delivery route as more orthodox than that of 
 the circuit rider and confound the government pay 
 roll with the angel's list of those who, like Abou, 
 love their fellow-men. They have replaced the 
 outworn creed, *'the King can do no wrong," with 
 the modern extremely socialistic doctrine, no one 
 can do right, unless he be in the pay and wear 
 the uniform of the state. Much, I admit, is to 
 be said for the Greek ideal of the commonwealth, 
 founded that we may live and continued that we 
 may live well, a moral personality, undertaking 
 whatever shall make its citizens better and hap- 
 pier. It is an ideal, however, possible only in a 
 far more homogeneous population than any mod- 
 
 7 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 ern republic has yet possessed. If all had been 
 saints or all sinners in New England theocracies, 
 the concern for the moral well being of the whole 
 community on the part of the local government 
 would have proven less irksome. President Low- 
 ell, of Harvard, has pointed out clearly in his book 
 on "Public Opinion and Popular Government" 
 that government by public opinion can not survive 
 if the opinion of the majority imposes government 
 in a field in which no true public opinion exists ; 
 that is, in a field where the people as a whole are 
 not united in a conviction that it is properly a 
 field of government. Various reasons may oper- 
 ate to restrict the field of government, in a gov- 
 ernment whose functions are restricted to the 
 fields in which a true public opinion exists. It 
 was not the intention of the American people, for 
 example, in excluding religion from the field of 
 government, that this should be an irreligious peo- 
 ple. It was not in the minds of our constitution 
 makers that religion was socially unimportant or 
 that it was one of those luxuries which the plain 
 man could spare. It was not the intention to di- 
 minish activity in religion, but, rather, to furnish 
 greater opportunity for its free exercise. It was 
 the thought of our fathers that some of the most 
 important functions of society could not be per- 
 formed by the state. The foreign visitor, there- 
 fore, who judges the American people by their 
 governments, knows only a part of their life, and 
 the immigrant accustomed to the fostering care 
 of paternalistic government, who thinks first of 
 
 8 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 government as the supplier of his needs and 
 righter of his wrongs, has not entered into full 
 consciousness of the freedom for individual initia- 
 tive and for voluntary association with which the 
 republic endows her children. The striking char- 
 acteristic of the American of to-day is the presence 
 in every part of our country of countless volun- 
 tary organizations for every purpose under the 
 sun. This tendency has undoubtedly been carried 
 to an extreme, but it has made of our nation a na- 
 tion of self-reliant men willing to back their words, 
 like the knights of the days of chivalry, not with 
 the sword indeed, but with their check books. 
 This spirit of voluntaryism has given us in the 
 field of education not only state schools and uni- 
 versities, but voluntary schools and colleges, 
 founded and maintained either by religious de- 
 nominations as a part of their contribution to the 
 enlightenment of men and women, or by men and 
 women of large wealth, ready in our democracy, 
 no less than the kings and noblemen of monarchies, 
 to be patrons of literature and science. And, as 
 we look out over America to-day and view the re- 
 sults of this individualistic effort side by side with 
 the efforts of organized government, the candid 
 observer must agree that the result is eminently 
 good and must hope that this, as well as other vir- 
 tues of frontiersmen, will not be lost in an older 
 civilization. 
 
 The college to whose service you have called me 
 to-day is the product of such voluntary effort. 
 The citizens of Easton who secured the original 
 
 9 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 charter in 1826 hoped for the adoption of the col- 
 lege by the state, made provision in the charter for 
 visitation by the governor (so that the presence 
 of Grovernor Brumbangh to-day is entirely consti- 
 tutional) and were even successful in securing one 
 small appropriation from the state treasury in the 
 early thirties for a school of education. The 
 hopes of the founders were, however, not realized 
 and after twenty years of struggle they turned to 
 the Presbyterian Church as the organization best 
 able to lend the college additional patronage and 
 financial support. This arrangement was rather 
 disappointing in its financial result, but very bene- 
 ficial in that it defined the character of the college, 
 gave it a star to steer by and helped it to grow to 
 manhood with fixed principles and ideas. What it 
 possesses to-day has come to it largely as the re- 
 sult of the efforts of a few consecrated individuals 
 and from the gratitude of that splendid company 
 of sons which it has itself raised up. It stands 
 to-day as a type of the voluntary college, in official 
 and sympathetic relation with a great church, pre- 
 pared to serve the commonwealth. Are such col- 
 leges an asset of the commonwealth! Are they 
 worth what they cost? Is there to continue to be 
 a place for them in our American scheme of educa- 
 tion? Not we of Lafayette alone, but all who are 
 interested in voluntary foundations in education 
 and elsewhere, are concerned to know whether the 
 American scheme of education is to make provi- 
 sion for the continuation of such foundations, or 
 whether, after the analogj^ of so many undertak- 
 
 10 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 ings in our republic, the experiment having been 
 made by voluntary enterprise, the need demon- 
 strated and successful methods proved, the burden 
 as it becomes a little irksome is to be shifted on to 
 the broad shoulders of the state or greedily ab- 
 sorbed by the bureaucrats. 
 
 Now and then perhaps a college will be estab- 
 lished or maintained by some individual for fun, 
 as he would maintain a private yacht, though why 
 any one should do so may be a mystery to you. 
 You can not eat a college, you can not travel in it, 
 you can not clip coupons from it, and no stock ex- 
 change lists its stock ; yet an exceptional man here 
 and there testifies that there is no other hobby so 
 absorbing, none so stimulating, none so likely to 
 remain exclusive, the prerogative of kings, multi- 
 millionaires and democracies, because like other 
 exclusive hobbies no one can afford to ride them if 
 he must ask, ''how much," before he mounts, or 
 keep an eye on the taximeter as he rides. But for 
 the most part our voluntary enterprises in Amer- 
 ica are founded and maintained not as luxuries, 
 but for an end esteemed worth while by men accus- 
 tomed to count the cost and as an imperative 
 duty by those accustomed to hearken to the inward 
 voice of enlightened conscience. It is these men 
 who are asking in all seriousness to-day, "Do the 
 voluntary institutions differ in any way from state 
 institutions in the contribution they make to 
 American life, and would any important element 
 be missing from our commonwealth, were all our 
 professors placed upon the pay roll of the state?" 
 
 11 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 To this question it is not sufficient to answer, what 
 has been will be. 
 
 The American college in the sense in which we 
 use the word is less than a century old. Fifty 
 years ago the largest American college, Harvard, 
 had no more students than Lafayette has to-day. 
 Why, therefore, when the American college is so 
 new, should we think its history so nearly written? 
 Why should we not anticipate as radical changes, 
 as great advances, as revolutionary ideas in the 
 college of to-morrow as in the college of yester- 
 day? The answer to the question is part of the 
 larger question, "How much voluntaryism do we 
 want to preserve in American life?" ''How far 
 are we prepared to go, not in socializing the state, 
 but in governmentalizing society?" 
 
 I had heard reports over in New York that in 
 Pennsylvania a charitable institution was defined 
 as one which got all it could from the state treas- 
 ury, instead of one which contributed all it could 
 to the state, but I was somewhat taken aback to 
 be informed this month, by a representative of 
 a public service corporation, that in Pennsylvania 
 a college was not classed as a charitable institu- 
 tion unless it received money from the state treas- 
 ury. I am glad to have learned on further inquiry 
 that, though this conception may prevail in the 
 public mind, it has not yet been written into the 
 law of Pennsylvania, nor this narrow conception 
 of the commonwealth made an official creed. Per- 
 haps the reason why the voluntary foundations 
 have hardly held their own with tax-supported in- 
 
 12 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 stitutions in recent years is that in education, as 
 in religion, it is the poor who hear gladly any 
 message of advance, of better things within reach, 
 and the poor turn naturally in a democracy to 
 government, the easiest instrument through which 
 the common man can make his faith effective. 
 President King has said of knowledge, ^'knowl- 
 edge has been increased too fast in recent years to 
 have undergone thoroughly the process of ideal- 
 ization." So, too, the wealth of modem society 
 has come too fast for interest in literature and sci- 
 ence to keep pace, and the founding of private for- 
 tunes has outstripped the establishment of more 
 permanent foundations, until for every college or 
 university which exists in the United States to- 
 day, numerous as they are, there is an individual 
 counting only as one, according to our modern util- 
 itarian philosophy, whose personal income for a 
 single year, according to the federal income tax re- 
 turn, is equal not to the income of the college or 
 university with which he may be paired, but to the 
 capital which it has painfully gathered through 
 the generations. 
 
 Conceding room for the voluntary college in 
 our scheme of American education, therefore, how 
 shall it justify itself, what will be its distinctive 
 contribution to the commonwealth? This is the 
 question I ask myself in this inaugural. It is not 
 a question to which time will permit me to find a 
 full answer. But the books of the voluntary col- 
 leges, financial and otherwise, are open to the 
 world, and he who will may read by the light of 
 
 J3 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 history. One answer to the question I must give. 
 Even in this age of ubiquitous omniscience I think 
 it is well to maintain a distinction between school 
 and armory, between school and state house, be- 
 tween school and country club, between school and 
 counting house, between school and church, be- 
 tween school and hospital. The college will not 
 do everything that has to be done in the world. 
 Nor will all the colleges have to do be done by any 
 one college. There have been college presidents 
 that have been great schoolmasters. If the col- 
 lege president of to-day is held down by worldly 
 cares from aspiring so high, he may at least count 
 himself fortunate if he shares the fellowship of 
 great schoolmasters in his faculty. My first an- 
 swer, therefore, to the question, ''What will the 
 college contribute to the state?" is, ''The college 
 will teach. ' ' 
 
 While my inauguration has been postponed to 
 this hour, I should have felt that I had come to 
 Lafayette too late, had I not come in time to know 
 one whom we miss at these exercises, that great 
 schoolmaster, Joseph Hardy, in whose classroom 
 lingered an atmosphere of an older day, when a 
 college was a school, where the professor had 
 something important to teach and the scholar had 
 something important to learn, and where there 
 was no confusion as to which was teacher and 
 which pupil. 
 
 Lafayette has been singularly blessed in great 
 teachers, including its greatest teacher, the scholar 
 of international fame, who fifty years ago at Am- 
 
 H 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 herst defined the true scholar as one "who will 
 not spend his life in general devotion to truth 
 without cultivating any one truth, celebrating and 
 worshiping truth as a goddess, wooing and win- 
 ning none of her daughters, ' ' and who exemplified 
 his own definition by rising to a foremost place in 
 his own specialty. Lafayette, indeed, has been 
 out of fashion so long in sticking to the school- 
 master idea that she needs but cling to it a little 
 longer to find herself leading in the newest move- 
 ment in education. 
 
 I think it worth while to repeat the thesis. The 
 first service of the college is to teach ; to teach, in 
 the first place, a handful of young men. That, you 
 think, goes without saying, but does it? By teach- 
 ing I do not mean training, drawing forth the in- 
 nate power, the development of character, the 
 stimulation of ambition, but by teaching I mean 
 just what it means in the primary school, impart- 
 ing to the student, in such a way that it becomes 
 a permanent possession, a knowledge of truth and 
 things, a knowledge also of causes and of values. 
 I find a good deal of skepticism as to the value 
 of this part of the colleges' work. Do we Amer- 
 icans generally prize very highly the knowledge 
 which the college curriculum purports to impart? 
 Do we not rather all agree that the majority of 
 college students do not know five years after 
 graduation what they gave sufficient evidence of 
 knowing to pass the college examinations? Is 
 there any society or set or group to whom pre- 
 eminence is generally accorded, in which betrayal 
 
 15 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 of ignorance in any sphere causes loss of caste as 
 a breach of etiquette does in a social club? On 
 the contrary, is it not the mark of membership in 
 the most exclusive scientific circles to disclaim the 
 possession of knowledge, or even of a natural curi- 
 osity in any, except a limited field? Is it not the 
 fashion to say, "I remember nothing of what I 
 learned at college, but the impress of this or that 
 man will never leave me?" But why buy com- 
 radeship at so high a price as that paid in the 
 arduous path of learning? Why not the country 
 club, with good fellowship in hotly contested 
 sports and more leisurely golf contests? 
 
 Was Tholuck right when he said, ''My most im- 
 portant work is my walks with individual boys, 
 not my lectures in the classroom? ' ' Why not then 
 dissolve the university again into peripatetic so- 
 phists ? What were the schools that made Alcuin 
 the great schoolmaster of his day and gave his 
 great patron, Charles the Great, immortal fame 
 as celebrated in the window here behind me? 
 They were for the most part companies of monks 
 set to copy manuscripts and so preserve from ex- 
 tinction the world ^s knowledge. Thus Alcuin ex- 
 horts his pupils to "beware of introducing their 
 own frivolities in the words they copy, nor to let a 
 trifler's hand make mistakes through haste." 
 Writing books (and he means by that merely copy- 
 ing books) is better, he exhorted, than planting 
 vines, "for he who plants a vine serves his belly, 
 but he who writes a book serves his soul." The 
 mere transmission of the world ^s knowledge is of 
 
 i6 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 more significance than we realize in this day of 
 the printing press. So strongly do I believe that 
 it is the function of the college to teach that, if 
 the knowledge imparted is not worth remember- 
 ing, I would replace it in the curriculum with some- 
 thing that is so worth while. If the method of 
 teaching gives us a student who does not know as 
 a senior what he knew as a freshman, nor as alum- 
 nus what he knew at commencement, , I would 
 change the method of teaching. If our method of 
 teaching language does not give the student facil- 
 ity in either reading or speaking a language, we 
 must improve the method. If the knowledge im- 
 parted is so strongly tinged with the personality 
 of the teacher and so little a part of what should 
 be expected of the educated citizen of the world 
 that it can not be tested in a comprehensive exam- 
 ination by some one other than the instructor, then 
 is the knowledge, indeed, of little worth. 
 
 There is no commonwealth in America to-day 
 which does not need exact knowledge, and this is 
 true of all ranks of society. It is true of the 
 mechanic no less than of the man who makes our 
 laws in the legislature. It is above all true of the 
 leaders of public thought and opinion, whether we 
 want to make a new tariff or devise a new currency 
 law. With the increasing complexity of our civili- 
 zation it is almost impossible for the common- 
 wealth to find men who can really see the common- 
 wealth as a whole or whose minds are sufficiently 
 disciplined not to have their vision distorted by 
 personal preference or passion, 
 
 17 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 The first duty of the college is to teach, because 
 that is its peculiar duty, because it is a school and 
 systematic teaching its chief object. It need not, 
 however, teach everything to equal extent. We 
 need more specialization in our teaching. The 
 state has felt that it could specialize in agriculture 
 just as it has felt it could give away free seeds, 
 because agriculture has been considered the basic 
 life of the state, but when it comes to further 
 specialization the state is embarrassed. Equality 
 of treatment is the national watchword. If we 
 teach German in our schools we must teach Italian, 
 the politician discovers; if Italian, Spanish. If 
 the arts course is free, the engineering course 
 must be free; if engineering is free, then too, 
 law and medicine. In at least one western state 
 university it has been found necessary for political 
 reasons to avoid invidious distinctions, in assign- 
 ing credits for entrance subjects, so that every- 
 thing, whether it be Greek or blacksmithing, must 
 be assigned academic values on the basis of time 
 alone. The state must have a university where, 
 as Ezra Cornell wished, any one may find instruc- 
 tion in anything. Slow, gradual raising of the 
 average must be the task of the state. 
 
 The voluntary college may make a different con- 
 tribution. She may, if she will, be one-sided. 
 She may, if she will, ignore whole fields of knowl- 
 edge. She may, if she will, pick and choose her 
 students. She may, if she will, even pick and 
 choose her teachers. She may have what we call 
 character, personality, a decided set in one direc- 
 
 18 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 tion. She may, if she will, be little, not big, and 
 it is true, as Van Dyke says, ''We admire the 
 ocean, we love the little rivers." She may seek 
 to train leaders, prophets, seers. She may even 
 be religious, Presbyterian if you please, and make 
 religious exercises a part of her compulsory cur- 
 riculum. Calvinistic though we Presbyterians be, 
 no race has perhaps set greater store by its free- 
 dom of choice, and its theology has been careful to 
 safeguard ' ' the liberty of the creature. ' ' All that 
 our fathers dreamed of the fruits of freedom for 
 the creature, we may dream as the fruits of free- 
 dom in educational enterprise. All that the state 
 has gained from according freedom to its indi- 
 vidual citizens it will gain by according freedom 
 to its voluntary institutions. 
 
 I accept, therefore, Mr. President, the high of- 
 fice to which you have called me, not regretful that 
 this college is a voluntary one ; that it must beg the 
 bread it eats and cannot dip mth others in the 
 common bowl, hard as such a condition is for its 
 executive, because we believe that thereby we 
 shall win to a larger freedom both for ourselves, 
 for our commonwealth and for truth, stern master 
 of us all. The mission of the independent college 
 is not yet done in this commonwealth of ours. 
 Large tasks await the college, still discernible in 
 spite of the shadows cast by war upon our aca- 
 demic groves, and for these we gird ourselves, 
 feign to make that splendid inaugural address of 
 Akbar our own : — 
 
 19 
 
College and Commonwealth 
 
 "I have set my heart 
 On making beauty, truth and justice shine 
 As the ordered stars above the darkened earth. 
 Are not these also things to be desired, 
 And striven for with no uncertain toil f 
 And save through them, whence comes the gift of peace? 
 
 ' ' Here will I build my capital, and here 
 The world shall come unto a council hall, 
 And in a place of peace pursue the quest 
 Of wisdom and the finding out of truth. 
 
 "That there be no more discord upon earth, 
 But only knowledge, beauty, and good will." 
 
 (Bliss Carman, "The Gate of Peace") 
 
 30 
 
THE COLLEGE AND THE INDIVIDUAL 
 
 THE concern of the college is the individual. 
 In our various laboratories we count by dif- 
 ferent units, ^ons in geology, footpounds in 
 physics, electrons in chemistry, cells in biology. 
 The unit of college computation is the man. 
 "When we forget this, we lose our way in the edu- 
 cational world. 
 
 This does not mean, however, that the college 
 which can count the most graduates is the greatest 
 college. Because to-day for $1.25 you can buy 
 downtown a basket of potatoes the size of marbles 
 — the kind that in ordinary years would be left 
 to rot in the field — and so get 200 or 300 potatoes 
 in the same measure which once held fifty, it does 
 not follow that it is a great potato year. 
 
 Neither does it follow that the greatness or 
 smallness, the satisfaction or dissatisfaction of 
 any particular member of the graduating class 
 measures the institution. Tell a man that he is 
 the unit by which you measure, and he is very 
 likely to imagine himself the size of the thing to be 
 measured. He is not content, like a footrule used 
 to measure Pardee Hall, to remain a footrule. He 
 is more likely to act the part of the dressmaker's 
 collapsible form and try to swell to the size of the 
 thing measured. 
 
 Address at the Eighty-fifth Commencement of Lafayette Col- 
 lege, June 7, 1920. 
 
 21 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 There is good ground, theological and philo- 
 sophical, for the old slogan ''Man the measure of 
 all things," but popularly interpreted, we find it 
 gives us some romantic egoist such as Mr. Fitz- 
 gerald has pictured in his recent novel, who after 
 some years of prep school and graduation from 
 Princeton, and a wide social experience, feels that 
 he has achieved the summit of wisdom when he 
 can say, ''I know myself but that is all." Thus 
 Amory Blaine agrees with Alexander Pope in his 
 final conclusion of the whole matter, "All our 
 knowledge is ourselves to know," if not with 
 Pope 's twin axiom ' ' That, virtue only, makes our 
 bliss below." It is a form of wisdom ascribed in 
 "Pilgrim's Progress" to the young man Igno- 
 rance, who enters on the way by "the little 
 crooked lane" from the "country of Conceit." 
 
 His final argument was, you will recall, in each 
 case "My heart tells me so. " To which Christian 
 rather brutally rejoined, "The wise man says 'He 
 that trusteth in his own heart is a fool. * ' ' Never- 
 theless you will recall that Ignorance, trusting in 
 his heart, attained the very gate of the Celestial 
 City, and that with somewhat less trouble than 
 Christian, but his ultimate destination caused 
 Christian to observe, ' ' Then I saw that there was 
 a way to hell, even from the gates of heaven, as 
 well as from the city of Destruction." An obser- 
 vation which he has doubtless had occasion to con- 
 firm by recent events in American politics. 
 
 Man is the measure of the college. At once in 
 a democracy there is a cry, then let us test the 
 
 22 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 college by a vote. All who think it a good college 
 say Aye, opposed No. The ayes have it, and the 
 truth is discovered. 
 
 But my fundamiental theorem does not mean this 
 either. The majority do not rule in the halls of 
 truth. One may vote with Galileo and ninety-nine 
 against him, but the earth moves just the same. 
 Indeed one of the chief objects of the college is 
 to create a man with sufficient knowledge and in- 
 sight to be content to stand for the most part with 
 minorities against popular errors and supersti- 
 tions. Neither does my thesis mean that a satis- 
 fied customer is the best recommendation of the 
 institution's worth. Colleges are not here to cre- 
 ate satisfaction, but hunger and thirst after 
 knowledge, and if their customers are satisfied, 
 are filled and not hungry, you may be sure that the 
 college has failed to achieve its mission. 
 
 What then do we mean by saying that Man is 
 the unit by which we count the achievements of a 
 college ? It is a declaration of faith : 
 
 First — That colleges are made for man, not man 
 for the colleges. 
 
 Second — That so far as the vision of the college 
 can see, there is no end of greater value, or better 
 worth seeking, than the perfect man. 
 
 Third — That the particularistic philosophy of 
 life is better than the communistic, for the reason 
 that abstract ideals have ultimate value only as we 
 can look for their incarnation in some particular 
 individual, or individuals ; and 
 
 Fourth — As William James would put it, that 
 
 23 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 God thinks concrete particulars, rather than ab- 
 stract generalities, and that if our thinking powers 
 were as great as His, we could discard abstract 
 ideas, and individuals and concrete occasions 
 would alone remain real. 
 
 I venture to go back to these fundamental truths 
 of our college thinking this morning, because I 
 want to build upon them some observations which 
 you will all recognize as contrary to the prevailing 
 trend of thought, but which are, I believe, never- 
 theless sound from our college point of view. 
 
 "War placed a great premium upon mass. True 
 this last war gave more attention to the individual 
 than any war has ever done before. It went to 
 infinite pains to identify the individual soldier, 
 dead or alive, to shield him from contagion, to 
 cheer him with amusement, to nurse him when ill, 
 to restore him to useful occupation when maimed 
 — and nevertheless the thought of the war was in 
 terms of divisions, of hundreds of thousands and 
 millions, rather than in terms of individuals. 
 Machine guns, such as the one Mr. McCabe there 
 operated, which can fire six shells a minute, make 
 short work of the hundreds and the thousands. 
 Shells or soldiers, it was a war not of thousands 
 but of tens of thousands and millions. "We heard 
 on every side talk of mobilizing not an army but 
 the nation. What any one did, every one must do. 
 The draft must cover all men of serviceable age. 
 Every one must buy a liberty bond. The nation 
 must stand and move as one man. The result was 
 mass thinking. The individual was discarded as 
 
 24 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 a unit of reckoning. Democracy, freedom, patri- 
 otism, great abstract ideals, were enthusiastically 
 toasted with as little thought given to interpreta- 
 tion in terms of the individual, as Mr. Midshipman 
 Easy had given, according to Marryat, to the ap- 
 plication of the splendid ideal of equality, before 
 his arrival on shipboard. 
 
 Abstract ideals, like lightning, are wonderful 
 things to attract the attention and stir the pulse, 
 they are real as lightning is real, and in the hands 
 of a Benjamin Franklin, may be turned to useful 
 purpose, but in the hands of the inexperienced are 
 as dangerous as Jove's thunderbolts. 
 
 And now that the crisis is past, these splendid 
 ideals have become the playthings of the ignorant, 
 and like unexploded shells on a battlefield after the 
 war is over, may injure the very men they were 
 created to help. 
 
 Men are arguing, the war was fought that all 
 men should be free. That means that I must be 
 free of all restraint, and need recognize only such 
 obligations as I choose. The war was fought that 
 smaller groups might choose their own rulers. 
 That means that if we socialists, or we trade 
 unionists, or we college men, or we capitalists, 
 don't like the government, we are free to discard 
 it for one of our own. Once break up the status 
 quo, once admit that nations can be carved as 
 chickens, irrespective of the organic unity that 
 held them together while the old regime breathed, 
 and it is difficult to set any theoretic bounds to 
 your subdivisions, short of the individual. 
 
 25 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 ''Shall the individual not be free to strike, if 
 he will!" cries Mr. Gompers. ''Shall the indi- 
 vidual not be free not to strike in spite of Mr. 
 Gompers' orders'?" asks Governor Allen. Duty 
 is not collective ; it is personal, declares Governor 
 Coolidge, but at the same time he declares the 
 safety of society the supreme law. Freedom and 
 responsibility, instead of being correlative as we 
 have been taught to expect appear divergent. 
 Philip Gibbs in a recent article writes, ' ' The chief 
 charge leveled against the intellectual tendency 
 of the United States may be summed up in one 
 word — Intolerance. Foreign students do not find 
 in their study of the American temperament or in 
 the American form of government, the sense of lib- 
 erty with which the people of the United States 
 credit themselves. ' ^ 
 
 It was in another time of war that Lincoln said : 
 "The world has never had a good definition of 
 the word liberty, and the American people, just 
 now, are much in want of one. We all declare for 
 liberty, but in using the same word, we do not 
 mean the same thing. We assume the word 
 liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases 
 with himself and the product of his labor, while 
 with others the same word may mean for some men 
 to do as they please with other men, and the pro- 
 duct of other men's labors." 
 
 Where the rights of the individual leave off and 
 the rights of society begin, is the burning question 
 of the hour in church and state, the world around. 
 I think it worth while, therefore, to go back to 
 
 26 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 fundamentals, and as college men at least to start 
 our argument afresh. It is quite possible that we 
 shall find that if the college exists for man, and 
 not man for the college, the same may be true in 
 the larger world outside, for as Aristotle observed 
 long since, ' ' He who would duly enquire about the 
 best form of a state ought first to determine which 
 is the most eligible life; for while this remains 
 uncertain, the best form of the state must also be 
 uncertain. Then we ought to ascertain whether 
 the same life is or is not best for the state and for 
 individuals." 
 
 The eligible life, what is our dream or vision 
 of it to-day? We exalt a brotherhood of scholars 
 like this as a form of the eligible life. We believe 
 in the college as an organism with a corporate 
 consciousness. A college professor, writing in 
 the June "Harper's," says, "Life in a college is 
 halfway between earth and Heaven," but would 
 we exclaim with Emerson, "Oh! what is Heaven, 
 but the fellowship of minds, that each can stand 
 against the world by its own meek and incorrupt- 
 ible will. ' ' 
 
 Do we cry with Patrick Henry, "As for me, 
 give me liberty or give me death !" — or do we say, 
 "Everybody's doing it, so also must I?" Is it 
 our great ambition "to belong" or to be free? 
 To belong to a club, to a tradesunion, to a political 
 party to a fraternal organization? Are we so so- 
 cially minded that we are prepared to say with 
 Cluton Brock, "Unless all can be saved, none can 
 be saved"? Or is our manner of thought more 
 
 27 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 individualistic, more like that of Christ, who, when 
 asked. Lord, are there few that be saved? an- 
 swered, Think not in terms of the group, strive 
 yourself to enter in at the narrow gate. 
 
 What is our conception of the relation of prop- 
 erty to the eligible life? Have we imbibed the 
 free and easy communistic spirit of college halls, 
 which holds all things common and is always will- 
 ing that the last man out shall settle the check, or 
 shoulder the deficit? Or have we learned in a 
 more bitter school of experience that everything 
 worthwhile costs somebody sweat and blood, so 
 that we measure property by the effort and fatigue 
 it cost, and feel that property should be as per- 
 sonal and individual a thing as fatigue is? That 
 it makes quite a difference whether the back-ache 
 is in my back or in yours. 
 
 The trend in college circles the last fifty years 
 has all been toward an emphasis on social relation- 
 ships. We have emphasized the social sciences. 
 We have taught our men to think of their duty to ^ 
 their neighbor, to think of themselves as members 
 of a complicated social structure. We have in- 
 vented a science of sociology. We have stressed 
 government and laws of trade and of intercourse. 
 We have talked a great deal about team work, and 
 have magnified democracy — government of the 
 people, by the people — ^until we do not believe one 
 man can even draw up a resolution of condolence, 
 but must commit it to a committee of at least three. 
 We live in a world of machinery. No piece of 
 machinery lives to itself. It is connected by belts 
 
 28 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 and shafts, by wires and bolts to a system. The 
 old-fashioned stove in the class room has given 
 place to a central heating plant, and the open fire- 
 place in the house, where we could accurately 
 measure the ratio between personal effort and 
 heat, has given place to an unseen furnace, with a 
 complicated system of pipes, which can only burn 
 one kind of fuel, which is mined by men we never 
 see and must be bought from a monopoly at a price 
 to be fixed after purchase at the pleasure of the 
 mine owner, mine worker and the government. 
 
 It is not strange that we lose the notion of our- 
 selves as free and independent individuals, and 
 begin to think of ourselves as cogs in a machine. 
 Beginning as a nation that believed that a man 
 had certain inalienable rights, our Anglo-Saxon- 
 ism has been so diluted mth Semitic, and Slavic, 
 Teutonic and Celtic strains, that we are not sure 
 now, that man has any inalienable right of any 
 kind which an authority-drunken majority is 
 morally bound to respect. Even in our own Pres- 
 byterian General Assembly, the majority may pass 
 a resolution about anything under the sun, and it 
 strikes few as incongruous. What the majority 
 want is right — what the majority vote is the truth. 
 America, once the home of constitutional liberty, 
 is to-day more intolerant than England or Canada, 
 and views with suspicion any man who does not 
 run with the pack, or make his demands with a 
 mob at his back. 
 
 I want to-day to make a plea for a place for 
 individualism in America. "We freely acknowl- 
 
 29 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 edge we are not producing our share of the 
 world's most constructive leaders. Not alone in 
 poetry and art, but even in foreign trade we lack 
 courage and invention. The fate of the Cuban 
 sugar crop is witness to that. Our boasted inven- 
 tiveness in mechanics made a sorry showing in 
 the business of aeroplanes in the war. Our fore- 
 most naval officer was Canadian born. Our most 
 successful war administrator acquired his philoso- 
 phy of life in London and Australia. The most 
 constructive critic of our government machinery, 
 a cabinet member in the present administration — 
 was a Canadian by birth. The chief Presbyterian 
 pulpits of New York and Philadelphia are occu- 
 pied by native Scotchmen. Our greatest techno- 
 logical school was administered until recently by 
 a man whose ideals were formed in New Zealand, 
 and we have committed the leadership of more 
 than one of our greatest state universities to the 
 hands of men not American bom. 
 
 It is high time that we stop and ask ourselves, 
 Where is the weak spot in our national philosophy 
 of life? It is not too much religion, because the 
 Scot has that as well as we. It is not too much 
 of life family style, because French and Italians 
 and Germans carry that to greater extremes than 
 do we. It may be enervating luxury, because we 
 are the nation of most widely disseminated wealth, 
 though not of greatest contrasts of life, known to 
 history. It may be our national idea of sport, 
 which is to sit cheering in the bleachers while 
 some one else works. It may be the deadening in- 
 
 30 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 fluence of an outgrown, school system, adapted to 
 the needs of the dull pupil. It may be a certain 
 feminism, due to the exalted position accorded 
 women, the highest known to civilization. It may 
 be the inevitable leveling process of pure democ- 
 racy and the increasing disposition to count, not 
 weigh, opinions, so that even as intelligent a man 
 as Vice President Marshall joins in the popular 
 cry of the futility of representative government, 
 saying as he did at the recent Assembly, "Con- 
 gress, Congress could not settle a cup of coffee" — 
 you, the people, knowing the real truth of things 
 and the way out so much better than your picked 
 representatives in House or Senate or Executive 
 Mansion, you must settle these momentous issues 
 for the nation. 
 
 While Democracy tends to destroy individuals, 
 Democracy on the other hand, if it thinks at all, 
 if it expresses itself at all, must do so through 
 individuals. It thinks not in abstract principles, 
 it thinks in terms of individuals. The League of 
 Nations is Wilson, and Wilson is the League of 
 Nations. Reservations are Lodge and Lodge is 
 reservations. America isolate is Hiram Johnson. 
 Trade Unionism is Gompers, and so it goes. Dem- 
 ocracy will prevent your being an individual if it 
 can, but if you become one in spite of it, it will 
 make you a demigod. In an inarticulate way, the 
 country knows to-day the kind of man it wants for 
 President. If it could once see him, it would know 
 him. It could draw the specifications — a man 
 who believes in a league of nations, which will be 
 
 31 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 a real league and not a ' ' big four ' ' affair or glori- 
 fied expansion of the British Empire — and which 
 gives reasonable promise of promoting the peace 
 of the world. A man who is not unsympathetic 
 with the rights and aspirations of labor, but who 
 is not afraid of the trade-unions, who will point 
 out the falseness of many trade-union ideals, the 
 damage they have done to American standards of 
 honest craftsmanship. A man who as an em- 
 X)loyer of labor has made some substantial contri- 
 bution toward a better working basis for capital 
 and labor. A man who has been trained in the 
 ten commandments and has so disciplined himself 
 that he is immune from the temptation of coveting 
 the possessions of his more prosperous neighbor, 
 and who is not, therefore, sympathetic to schemes 
 of taxation wliich have their root in the passion 
 of covetousness, and are but thinly-veiled forms of 
 brigandage. A man who knows by his own ex- 
 perience that the life of man is a life of toil by 
 the very rules of the game, who knows that wage- 
 fixing will not release men from toil in the long 
 run, no matter how skillfully juggled, and that the 
 only thing that will permanently release man from 
 toil is science and scientific invention and morality 
 of life. A man whose back is bent as was Lin- 
 coln's by sympathy with the toil and strain and 
 suffering of all classes of men and women, and who 
 will not willingly add a jot to the burden, nor add 
 himself to the lawyers and red-tapists and men of 
 brains but no conscience, who bind burdens 
 
 32 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 grievous to be borne while they themselves touch 
 not one with their little finger. 
 
 A man, therefore, who will go the most direct 
 road, live the simplest life, content himself with a 
 plain yea and nay, doing the right as God gives 
 him to see the right, rather than seeking to give 
 the pubhc what it wants for the sake of personal 
 popularity or advantage. A man with a passion 
 for justice — and a man who knows that the usual 
 fate awaiting ''FaithfuP' is torture and death in 
 ''Vanity Fair." It is because America has not 
 been able, in this critical juncture, to discern these 
 qualities combined in any one man that the nomi- 
 nation. Republican or Deniocratic, is still said to 
 be any one's fight. 
 
 The public to-day is more nearly unanimous in 
 what it wants done than the politicians think. On 
 the other hand, public leaders competent to in- 
 terpret these desires and to achieve these ends, 
 were never more scarce than they are to-day. 
 
 A great deal of the blame for this shortage of 
 the right kind of leaders lies, in my opinion, at 
 the door of the American college. Every college 
 is to-day, of course, to a greater degree than ever^ 
 in the history of the world, the child of its tim( 
 There are no cloisters. The news of the metropy 
 lis reaches the campus even before the metropo^- 
 tan reader is awake. The books, the plays, A® 
 periodicals, are the same for student and for /red 
 business man. Student activities, college cus/oms, 
 take so much time — there is so much confftmity 
 
 33 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 to be observed that original thought is crowded 
 out and discouraged. 
 
 If a man has signs of genius or distinguishing 
 markings, if he is a variant of nature from the 
 accepted type, that may be the beginning of a new 
 era or a new species, then every effort is made to 
 tame him, and dress him down to the regulation 
 pattern, to make of him what Fitzgerald would 
 call a ''slicker.'^ 
 
 Side by side with this leveling instinct of 
 democracy goes the demand for the superman. 
 Unwarned by the fate of Germany, where a com- 
 munistic philosophy created as its natural counter- 
 part the cult of the superman, we lend an ear to 
 the advice of Alphonso of Castile: 
 
 "Earth crowded cries, Too many men! 
 My counsel is, kill nine of ten — 
 And bestow the shares of all 
 On the remnant decimal. 
 Add their nine lives to this cat. 
 Stuff their nine brains in one hat; 
 Make his frame and forces square 
 "With the labors he must dare, 
 Thatch his flesh, and even his years. 
 With the marble which he rears, 
 There growing slowly old at ease 
 No faster than his planted trees ; 
 He may by warrant of his age 
 In schemes of broader scope engage, 
 So shall ye have a man of the sphere 
 Fit to grace the solar year. ' ' 
 
 But '>ii the whole we do not take kindly to the 
 34 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 pinched bud theory of creating the individual 
 leaders which the state requires. And just at 
 present, as the result of the war, there is a decided 
 reaction against supermen in general. We are a 
 little skeptical about infallible leaders, and feel 
 we would rather trust our destinies to a team of 
 several individuals of good average strength than 
 to a team with a star so big that only satellites 
 can approach. 
 
 Demolins, in the book which made such a stir 
 twenty years ago, raised the question. To what is 
 Anglo-Saxon superiority due? and found the an- 
 swer to his question in the individualism of the 
 Anglo-Saxon. In the fact that instead of the com- 
 munity predominating over the individual, the 
 individual has been made to prevail over the com- 
 munity, private life over public life, the useful 
 professions over liberal and administrative pro- 
 fessions. To the Saxon farmer, the eligible life is 
 the rural estate, on which the individual is per- 
 fectly independent of his neighbors and of the 
 political chiefs. 
 
 Alfred the Great, himself, cannot enroll in his 
 army any but the Saxons who are willing, and/ 
 who have an interest to serve, or who conside/ 
 that the cause of war is worth fighting for. A/ 
 are land-owners. All equal in rights. The Sax^ 
 institution of trial by jury begins spontaneoi/^y 
 between neighboring land owners. Against/tli® 
 Dane, the Saxon claimed self-govern/ient. 
 Against the Norman, the Saxon claime/ fi"^® 
 fundamental rights: (1) That of bequ/a thing 
 
 35 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 their property to their descendants without con- 
 trol. (2) To be taxed within the limit of their 
 ability to pay. (3) To receive payment for any 
 compulsory work they were made to do. (4) To 
 be left to transact business among'st themselves 
 according to their old Saxon customs. (5) That 
 they should be left the exercise of justice even 
 towards any of their fellows against whom a Nor- 
 man preferred any complaint. 
 
 To secure these rights they made an alliance 
 with the Norman nobility against the autocracy 
 of a Norman king, and the result was Magna 
 Charta. 
 
 Soon there was but one language — the Saxon 
 language, and one law, the Saxon common law. 
 
 To-day Anglo-Saxon individualism is threatened 
 both in England and America by a communistic 
 philosophy of the eligible life made in Germany. 
 Socialism is essentially, as Demolins pointed out 
 long before the war, a product of German origin 
 and manufacture. ''Its center of formation is in 
 Germany; it is from Germany that it permeates 
 the world." 
 
 Self-reliance is the Anglo-Saxon idea of the 
 eligible life. Reliance on the state is the social- 
 istic ideal of the eligible life. It is a dream of a 
 "society in which the state should regulate and 
 organize more or less labor, property, make happy 
 one and all by playing the role of a great universal 
 employer." Under this ideal of the eligible life, 
 we shall all develop more or less the traits and 
 ambitions, or lack of ambitions, which now char- 
 
 36 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 acterize the great army of government clerks in 
 Washington. ' Or according to the hopeful view of 
 Fitzgerald, we shall be children enough to work 
 our heads off for a strip of blue ribbon. 
 
 ''The more a man obeys an inclination to rely 
 on help from others," says Demolins, "from the 
 community or the state, the less is his force of 
 initiative developed, the less is he inclined to exert 
 himself personally to make a livelihood. The 
 community may be a convenient pillow for those 
 societies which are content to slumber; it never 
 yet helped the rise of any." 
 
 These two philosophies of life are now in con- 
 flict with America as the rich prize for the victor. 
 The communistic philosophy has been making the 
 greater gains of recent years. This is partly due 
 to the fact that while as good Anglo-Saxons we 
 kept religion out of the hands of the state, we 
 have surrendered its twin sister, education, more 
 and more into the hands of government. In Penn- 
 sylvania to-day, the particularists, the individual- 
 ists, are almost ready to lay down the burden of 
 higher education as too heavy for their shoulders, 
 and ask the state to assume it. It will mean a 
 great stride forward in Pennsylvania for educa- 
 tion, but also for the communistic philosophy. It 
 will place a heavier burden and responsibility on 
 the isolated garrisons in such outposts as Lafay- 
 ette to take up the battle of the Saxon, and stand 
 more stubbornly than ever, for the rights and re- 
 sponsibilities of the individual. We must preach 
 anew from Cromwell's text, ''What liberty and 
 
 37 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 prosperity depend upon, are the souls of men, and 
 the spirits which are the men." It makes it im- 
 portant that we emphasize anew man as the unit 
 of college reckoning. In mathematics you can get 
 units by adding together fractions, but you can't 
 do it in politics. Colorless ciphers headed by a 
 unit may count a million, but without a unit either 
 before or behind them, they are nothing. It is 
 better that the unit be before than behind. Lead- 
 ers are more needed in a democracy than backers, 
 as some presidential candidates are learning. 
 Even if the Saxon fight for individualism goes 
 against us in the world outside, and we are over- 
 whelmed by the onrushing tide of communism, 
 we, here at Lafayette, recognizing that nowhere 
 are great leaders more needed than in a pure 
 democracy, nowhere do they have greater power 
 while it lasts, may still pursue undisturbed, our 
 task of creating individuals, of making leaders, 
 of computing the worth of the college by the men 
 it can produce. 
 
 We can still teach here the doctrine. Be a per- 
 son and respect others as persons. Then we shall 
 have respect for organizations and institutions. 
 It is the man who rates society as everything 
 and the individual as nothing, who is ready to 
 adulate the one individual, who personifies society, 
 be he king or president, to endow him with super- 
 human attributes, to raise him to absolute do- 
 minion, and to roll all the responsibilities of 
 government upon his shoulders. 
 
 It is the man who has learned to respect him- 
 
 38 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 self and all other men as individuals, who is not 
 willing to yield his own rights, and who is ready, 
 therefore, to concede rights to others — who has 
 faith in republican institutions made for men no 
 more infallible than himself, liable to err but on 
 the whole honest and men of good will. 
 
 Lafayette College is peculiarly fitted to 
 champion individualism. She bears the name of 
 a great individualist whose faith in freedom was 
 fanned to flame by the idle mirth of a German 
 princeling over the ludicrous arrogance of a few 
 poor colonists in rebelling against a mighty 
 society. 
 
 In no subject has her scholarship attained a 
 more assured position than in the study of Anglo- 
 Saxon words and roots. It would not be strange 
 if in the place where the language was most as- 
 siduously studied, stray seeds of 'Saxon spirit 
 should find rebirth and rooted deep in knowledge 
 and in reverence, grow a mighty tree for the heal- 
 ing of the nations. 
 
 When in combination with her French in- 
 dividualistic inspiration, her deep-going Saxon 
 roots, you find the Presbyterian Scot on the walls, 
 you may be sure of a fair field, a broad tolerance 
 and freedom of disputation. 
 
 For say what you may of the restricting bonds 
 of church relationship, a wide experience will show 
 that her tolerance will stand comparison with the 
 tolerance of private individuals or of government 
 officials, or of fickle mobs. Like Carlyle, we can 
 say. If I must trust the holding of the tourney 
 
 39 
 
The College and the Individual 
 
 to some group, ''I take up with my old love for 
 the saints. No class of persons can be found in 
 this country with so much humanity in them, nay 
 with as much tolerance as the better sort of them 
 have. The tolerance of others is but doubt and 
 indifference. Touch the thing they do believe and 
 value — their own self-conceit — they are rattle- 
 snakes then. '^ 
 
 With my associates of the faculty, and with, I 
 trust, the cordial support and cooperation of trus- 
 tees and alumni, we shall strive in the years to 
 come, to make it our motto at Lafayette ''not to 
 indoctrinate but to individuate. ' ' 
 
 I count it a privilege that unexpected circum- 
 stances devolved on me to-day the task of address- 
 ing this graduating class. With the. help of the 
 war, the class contains men of more strength and 
 individuality than the ordinary routine can per- 
 haps produce. It is a pleasure to use such meas- 
 uring rods in telling the cubits of this celestial 
 city of ours. 
 
 As you plan for an eligible life, and as you look 
 out on our seething political world, remember 
 Shelley's words: 
 
 "What are numbers knit 
 By force or custom? Man who man would be 
 Must rule the empire of himself, In it 
 Must be supreme, establishing his throne 
 On vanquished will, quelling the anarchy 
 Of hopes and fears, being himself alone." 
 
 Eemember that no coach can make a strong team 
 
 40 
 
The College and the Individual j 
 
 out of weak men, though he can make a better ! 
 
 team than they can make of themselves. That no i 
 
 state can long remain great which fetters the i 
 
 growth of great individuals. That \ 
 
 "Navies nor armies can exalt the state ? 
 
 MilHons of men, nor coined wealth untold ;; 
 
 Down to the pit may sink a land of gold. ] 
 
 But one great name can make a country great. ' ' ; 
 
 And go forth to conquer and to serve — go forth s 
 
 to your task of individuation : | 
 
 ■( 
 
 "Go forth upon the earth ^ ~ j 
 
 And make there Paradise ,' 
 
 And be the angels of that place '■. 
 
 To make men glad and wise, \ 
 
 With loving kindness in their hearts 
 
 And knowledge in their eyes. i 
 
 And ye shall be man's counselors \ 
 
 That neither rest nor sleep, ] 
 
 To cheer the lonely, lift the frail, ^ 
 
 And solace them that weep. \ 
 
 And ever on his wandering trail .1 
 
 Your watch-fires ye shall keep ; i 
 
 Till in the far years, man shall find \ 
 
 The country of his quest, j 
 
 The empire of the open truth, | 
 
 The vision of the best, I 
 
 Foreseen by every mother dear \ 
 
 "With her new-born on her breast." 
 
 {Bliss Carman, "The Angels of Man") i 
 
 41 
 
THE COLLEGE OF GROWTH 
 
 IT is with very great pleasure that I meet again, 
 even in this formal way, the upper classmen. 
 I trust we shall come to know each other better 
 than was possible last year because of the ac- 
 quaintances I then had to make outside the col- 
 lege. I feel that I know you collectively very 
 much better than I did a year ago, but I cannot 
 but regret that nowadays the work of a college 
 president is so much that of a minister of foreign 
 affairs. I begin this year feeling fairly well ac- 
 quainted with the faculty and buildings and alumni 
 of Lafayette. I hope, before the year is over, to 
 feel fairly well acquainted with individual stu- 
 dents. If, however, freshmen continue to come in 
 such numbers, you will realize that even though I 
 should make the acquaintance of a new man each 
 day of the college year, and should forget no one 
 whom I had met, it would require the whole col- 
 lege year to meet the freshman class individually. 
 I trust, therefore, that you will share the task 
 with me, and if I cannot know every student, that 
 every student will know me and feel that the presi- 
 dent is at least a potential friend and very ready 
 to help. 
 
 You have, perhaps, seen a series of cartoons 
 
 Address at the opening of Lafayette College, September, 1916. 
 
 42 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 running in some of the papers, under the caption 
 ''When a feller needs a friend." I think perhaps 
 the most amusing series of all might be drawn by 
 college men, or at any rate by a college president. 
 I trust, however, that you will feel ''when a feller 
 needs a friend," that the president is accessible 
 to any of you. 
 
 Lafayette College bears the name of a man who 
 made his great decision and undertook his adven- 
 turous voyage to America, when no older than the 
 average American boy when he enters college. 
 True to its name, Lafayette is a young man's 
 college. Masculine in name and tradition, it ad- 
 mits only men. Its student body numbers six 
 hundred and it is the purpose of the trustees by 
 strict enforcement of entrance requirements, and 
 by the maintenance of a relatively high scale of 
 college fees, to prevent the number rising much 
 beyond this limit. 
 
 True to its name again, the contribution which 
 Lafayette proposes to make to America is one of 
 quality, not of quantity. The Marquis Lafayette 
 was worth more to the American cause than a 
 whole regiment would have been. The adminis- 
 tration hopes in a few years to be in a position 
 to select its student body with the same care with 
 which it now selects its faculty. It is more of a 
 privilege to attend Lafayette now than you recog- 
 nize. It mil be a privilege more difficult of at- 
 tainment in the future than in the past. The 
 young man of to-day can assume the name of a 
 Lafayette man, with the moral certainty that the 
 
 43 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 name will grow in worth and fame in the years 
 to come. With one of the largest student bodies 
 gathered in any independent American college for 
 men, the ambition of I^afayette is not to become 
 a University but to maintain the ideals of the 
 small college. Whenever it is a question between 
 quantity and quality, between size and thorough- 
 ness, we propose to sacrifice quantity for quality. 
 
 Such an ideal is contrary to the more dominant 
 ideals of American life up to this time. As Lord 
 Bryce has justly observed: ''Foreign critics 
 often say and some domestic critics have echoed 
 the censure, that what is chiefly admired in 
 America is bigness, things being measured by their 
 size or by what they cost. This quantitative esti- 
 mate finds little place in the colleges and univer- 
 sities. With very few exceptions, the teaching 
 staff are not thinking of size, nor of money, ex- 
 cept so far as it helps to extend the usefulness of 
 their institution. All the better men, and not 
 merely the ablest men, but the good average men, 
 feel that it is the mission of a college or university 
 to seek and find and set forth the real values." 
 
 It is hard, however, in a great democracy like 
 ours to preserve faith in quality, unless the quality 
 be expressed also in quantity. It is the automo- 
 bile manufacturer who can make a half million 
 good cars who reaps the big profits. It is the 
 novelist whose book sells by the half million who 
 is acclaimed the great author. It is the five cent 
 weekly, it is the five and ten-cent theater, it is the 
 five and ten-cent store, which reflect the demands 
 
 44 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 of our democratic age. To be truly democratic, to 
 attain success in a democracy, means to be uni- 
 versal, it would seem. Is it wise then even in edu- 
 cation to deliberately set a standard of quality 
 superior to the popular demand? 
 
 Again, is it wise in a growing country to de- 
 liberately propose to check growth? To the great 
 war convulsing the world to-day we look for light 
 on the question whether a nation to be healthy, 
 must increase in area, in population, in wealth, 
 whether aggrandizement is the law of this world, 
 and whether the choice lies merely between ag- 
 grandizing or being aggrandized. We are in- 
 clined to think that the real is the moving, not 
 that which is standing still ; and that it is a world 
 which has forgotten its physics, and the true mean- 
 ing of the law of inertia, that thinks it is more 
 natural to stand still, than to move. To the scien- 
 tist of to-day, the universe is a universe of forces, 
 not of things ; and the biologist, and chemist, and 
 even the physicist threaten to crowd the geologist 
 from his relative repose. What then of this per- 
 petual motion, of this striving and energizing, 
 must we go forward lest we go back, must we get 
 lest we be gotten, must we kill or be killed, rule 
 or obey? 
 
 What of the possibility of substituting internal 
 improvement for external growth, what of substi- 
 tuting quality for quantity, what of seeking per- 
 fection instead of seeking to be great ? Is perfec- 
 tion like the perfection of the flower, but the pre- 
 lude to decay! Consider the lilies of the field, 
 
 45 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 when they are most perfect their decay is the near- 
 est. 
 
 These are questions which the world is asking 
 to-day, and asking more seriously than ever be- 
 fore. There was a time when knowledge was pro- 
 vincial. If the facts of our nation did not square 
 with our theories, we could always hope that that 
 was a local phenomenon and did not reflect the 
 truth of the world. If the facts of our day did 
 not square with our theories, we could hope that 
 was a temporary disturbance or aberration in the 
 current of events. But as knowledge grows and 
 means of communication improve, and printing 
 makes universally available the experience of men 
 through the ages, we are more hard pressed, in our 
 efforts to maintain a philosophy which does not 
 account for all the facts of life that w^e know. 
 
 We cannot hope to settle the broader question 
 this morning for nations or even institutions, but 
 perhaps we may make a suggestion or two regard- 
 ing the individual. "Very early, ^^ says Margaret 
 Fuller, "I perceived that the object of life was to 
 grow. ^' It is easier to perceive that early than 
 it is late, if by growth we mean growth of stature. 
 Probably a good many of the freshmen are here 
 to-day with the words of parents and friends ring- 
 ing in their ears. You are now a full grown man, 
 or I hope you will grow into a well developed man 
 as the result of your course at college. One way 
 or the other you are thinking of growth, either 
 that you are grown up, or that you hope to grow 
 into full manhood. And vou know enough popular 
 
 46 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 biology to know that growth is dependent on get- 
 ting your share and assimilating it, or turning it 
 to your own uses. But if you go on further you 
 know that growth is not a question of increasing 
 size, but of increasing the complexity of organiza- 
 tion, of forming more associations, of discovering 
 likenesses and dissimilarity, of ordering and 
 classifying and labeling. Still you must get, stiU 
 you must assimilate, but the amount of cruder 
 stuff, food and physical comforts which you can 
 use to advantage is strictly limited. A nice bal- 
 ance must be maintained or your more delicate 
 machinery will not work. If your appetites are 
 the same as those when you were growing in 
 stature, there will be no mental growth. Then, as 
 Dante says in the Divine Comedy, 
 
 * ' Blessed are they, whom grace 
 
 Doth so illumine, that appetite in them 
 
 Exhaleth no inordinate desire, 
 
 Still hungering as the rule of temperance wills." 
 
 Still there is growth but it is growth in knowl- 
 edge, in power, in self-mastery, in discipline of 
 the whole self and all its instruments. 
 
 And later still will come a diminishing in these 
 appetites. Knowledge will seem as surfeiting as 
 too much oatmeal. Power which cannot bring 
 back youth will seem after all futile. 
 
 But still in the healthy soul there will be growth. 
 If the physical and intellectual appetites have not 
 been gorged, and the self spoiled by over indul- 
 gence, there will have been growing, like the slow 
 
 47 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 growing pines under the first growth of poplar, or 
 the second growth of maple and birch, spiritual 
 appetites ready to be fed with truth and beauty 
 and goodness, of which this world affords just 
 enough of a foretaste to whet the appetite and 
 leave the soul ready for the full enjoyment of an- 
 other sphere. i 
 
 No, so far as the individual is concerned, what- 
 ever may, be true of nations or of institutions, to 
 discover that we have stopped growing physically 
 is not to lay on the shelf that truth of Margaret 
 Fuller's, "Very early, I perceived that the object 
 of life is to gTow." If you will take this as a key, 
 it will unlock many of your college problems. 
 
 Let us say of ourselves and of our college, "our 
 object is to grow." The condition of membership 
 in the community shall be growth. Whatever 
 stunts growth, prematurely ages, dulls appetite, 
 throws the human machine out of balance, will be 
 excluded so far as possible. Appetite for a cer- 
 tain amount of intellectual food will be taken to in- 
 dicate a healthy condition and a normal appetite. 
 The absence of such appetite will indicate that 
 conditions are not favorable to growth and that a 
 change of air and of food is desirable. 
 
 Like the tree transplanted from the nursery or 
 the radish or the cabbage plant transplanted from 
 the family to the isolation of the field you may 
 think that you have attained groAvth, because you 
 have been pulled up by the roots when you have 
 only attained a chance to grow. You may think 
 yoii are free as air because you are away by yoTir- 
 
 48 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 self at college and nothing fastens your roots, but 
 unless like the tree, and the radish and the cabbage 
 you can establish new associations, unless your 
 roots can take hold of new soil, you will not retain 
 even the growth that you now have. Cabbages 
 start life well gregariously, but if you want all 
 round development, if you want your cabbage 
 plant to head, you must transplant it at the right 
 period and you must give it enough isolation, 
 enough freedom from other members of the same 
 family, to permit the expansion to the full of all 
 that is within it. Men are not unlike cabbages. 
 Transplanting often produces astonishing results. 
 If students are to continue to grow, however, 
 the college itself must grow, but not necessarily in 
 numbers, as the students need not necessarily grow 
 in stature. To be a young man^s college, as 
 Lafayette is by name and nature, means to be a 
 growing college, a college of change and adapta- 
 tion. Some times just as young men who come to 
 college think they are full grown, so the college 
 makes the mistake of thinking that it is a com- 
 munity of grown-up men, of students and faculty 
 who have attained growth, who know what is good, 
 and true and beautiful, and who have no need for 
 change and experiment. This is to lose what is 
 best in college life. Faculty and students are ad- 
 venturers together in the fields of knowledge. 
 The atmosphere of the college must be expecta- 
 tion, exploitation. The faculty are not keepers of 
 a safe deposit vault from which they bring forth 
 for the new generation treasures, new and old, but 
 
 49 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 gardeners in a garden of life. On all sides of the 
 college campus there should be gates over which 
 should hang signs bidding welcome to anything 
 that comes with a face not seen before. Stored as 
 its warehouses are with all that thought and ex- 
 perience have found worth while in the past, nour- 
 ished from this inexhaustible store, the college 
 does not shrink from the strange or unexpected. 
 Its life stands in no precariously balanced equi- 
 librium, ready to lose its balance at an unexpected 
 shock from any quarter. Its life is a life of 
 motion, of growth, of assimilation; it grasps and 
 uses the new, and swings it to its own ends. Prove 
 all things, hold fast that which is good is the motto 
 of the college for young men. 
 
 Soil and site are important for- the college of 
 growth. The soil here is Presbyterian. In the 
 future, as in the past, Lafayette will declare itself 
 frankly Presbyterian, and stand in religion, in 
 education, in government, for those ideals of in- 
 telligence, independent judgment, representative 
 government, duty, tolerance, cooperation, and the 
 divine significance and purpose of the world with 
 which ideals the name has been associated 
 throughout the history of modern times. It is 
 hoped that its Presbyterianism will be shown also 
 by the fact that in the future, as in the past, 
 young men of all denominations will find them- 
 selves equally welcome and able to live in com- 
 plete accord and mutual respect. 
 
 As to site, it is well for the college of growth 
 to stand somewhat back from the village street, 
 
 50 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 or, better still, on a somewhat inaccessible hill. 
 Talent grows best in quiet. The world is too 
 much with us, early and late we lay waste our 
 powers, if the college stands where it is overrun 
 with the currents of the day hurrying on their 
 petty errands. Not every scarehead of the day's 
 news is worth the attention of the college of 
 growth, not every passing bubble, but only those 
 irresistible, swelling tides which creep almost un- 
 observed up the hillside, only those goings of the 
 winds of the spirit w^hich shake the treetops, not 
 the litter in the gutter, only the clouds which those 
 not too intimate with the affairs of the day, detect 
 on the horizon, and which all appreciate, but ap- 
 preciate too late, when the cyclone is whirling on 
 the pavement. 
 
 Where the college boy shall live within college 
 walls, particularly where the freshman shall live, 
 is a much debated question. Dormitory versus 
 fraternity house is a subject of debate with much 
 to be said on both sides. If there is more democ- 
 racy and wider acquaintanceship in the dormitory, 
 there is more of home, more elder brother solici- 
 tude, more security from hazing, more of the disci- 
 pline of fagging, in the fraternity house. Here 
 again we may apply our touchstone and ask but 
 where does the boy grow more? To this my an- 
 swer is, the freshman grows more in the dormi- 
 tory, and I trust the time will come at Lafayette 
 when fraternities will have no rooms for fresh- 
 men. A fraternity house is a home, only on a 
 little larger scale than the freshman has just left. 
 
 51 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 The freshman needs a wider experience. He 
 needs to know men not of his own kind, or social 
 station or similar tastes, but men of as many dif- 
 ferent kinds as he can come into contact with, if 
 he is to understand the world. When he has an 
 opportunity to know two hundred men, it is a pity 
 that he should hmit himself to twenty. More com- 
 fortable he may be in the fraternity house, but 
 still more comfortable would he probably be at 
 home. Growth in the directions stimulated by 
 fraternity life will come as well in the last three 
 years. The cruder, more elemental growth, which 
 will come from the democracy of dormitory life 
 must come first, if it is to come at all. My answer, 
 therefore, to the question, where should the fresh- 
 man live, is in the dormitory if he wants to grow. 
 To the question, should the student join a frater- 
 nity my answer is, yes, if he can afford it, and 
 wants to grow in capacity for friendship, for close 
 fellowship with men, and in the amenities of life 
 among gentlemen. 
 
 No freshman class ever entered an American 
 college at a more interesting time. The world is 
 convulsed and from its bitter throes a new era will 
 be born, of which era you, if you do not stop 
 growing, will be a part. 
 
 To quote the Divine Comedy again : "It was an 
 hour, when he who climbs, had need to walk un- 
 crippled. ' ^ 
 
 However irresponsible youth may be, however 
 unconscious may be the growth they experience in 
 college, the college itself, true to its name again, 
 
 52 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 cannot forget that life is serious, and that the 
 more difficult conditions of our American civiliza- 
 tion, unpurged of dross by the consuming fire of 
 war, demand sterner discipline, both intellectual 
 and moral, if her youth are to be adequately pre- 
 pared to play their part in the world of to-mor- 
 row. 
 
 The first consideration, however, will be to give 
 the student room to grow. To show him enough 
 so that he may see more, to open unimagined 
 vistas, to stir new questionings, to kindle new im- 
 agination, to give him technical skill and accuracy 
 in the use of the tools of knowledge, language and 
 mathematics. 
 
 But, above all, so to balance the requirements of 
 the curriculum that the student may not only not 
 rust from lack of study, but may also not be too 
 busy studying to think, or to learn the more val- 
 uable lessons of reflection, and profit by that illum- 
 ination which comes with fellowship and the inter- 
 change of opinion. 
 
 Whatever makes for the full development of the 
 student, for his growth in body, in physical 
 strength, in resources of soul, in aspiration of, the 
 spirit, in accurate knowledge, in technical skill, in 
 command of the methods of securing knowledge 
 and of the tests for separating true knowledge 
 from false, will have full recognition in the life of 
 the growing college. 
 
 There is danger, of course, in letting the fresh- 
 men know that they have come to college to grow. 
 There is danger that like children they will be 
 
 53 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 pulling their cabbages and radishes up by the 
 roots to see how they progress, and will become 
 disgusted that the days have so little to show of 
 visible growth. 
 
 The best growth comes, of course, unconsciously. 
 What man, by taking thought, can add even a cubit 
 to his stature, and how much less can a man be- 
 come wise by watching himself become so? 
 
 Freshmen given this secret of college life and 
 purpose will be tempted to judge for themselves 
 that to spend so much time over mathematics or 
 Latin, or German, is to narrow the spirit, to bind 
 it with the commonplace and the dullness of 
 routine, so that it will become hopelessly cramped 
 and misshapen. They will try to devise aero- 
 planes on which the soul can soar to freer atmos- 
 pheres and avoid the toilsome footpath. I recog- 
 nize this danger, and I can but warn you to look 
 back over the way you have come and ask your- 
 self how far your conscious care and invention 
 have added to your stature, and by what thought 
 you have shortened the years required to reach 
 your six feet or even five foot eight. 
 
 Then recall that what is here offered for your 
 further equipment and growth represents the con- 
 sensus of many minds of many generations, and 
 m.ust have shown itself some way worth while 
 through the centuries. 
 
 On the other hand, the world is growing, too, 
 and suitable culture proved suitable by one gen- 
 eration may not be the best possible for another 
 generation. No faculty of a growing college ever 
 
 54 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 reaches that felicitous state of mind of the manu- 
 facturer, who advertises, we could not improve 
 the soap, so we improved the box; we could not 
 improve the tobacco, so we give it to you in paper, 
 instead of tinfoil; we could not improve the tooth 
 paste, so we make the slit of the tube flat, instead 
 of round. They believe that the content of the 
 college course as well as the method is susceptible 
 of improvement, though some may add, but they 
 would like to see the man that could convince them 
 of the desirableness of substituting any new sub- 
 ject for the old tried branch. 
 
 We build a new chapel not because we feel that 
 the spirit of worship cannot be improved, and 
 therefore we improve the house of worship, but be- 
 cause it expresses our desire to improve the spirit 
 of worship. We put the catalogue into new type 
 not because the content of the old catalogue can- 
 not be improved and therefore we improve the 
 wrapping, but on the theory that new wine should 
 go into new bottles. We hope some day to build 
 a new gymnasium, not because we expect the 
 freshmen of to-morrow to prove necessarily of 
 greater prowess than the freshmen of yesterday, 
 but because we believe that the athletic spirit and 
 achievements of Lafayette should receive worthy 
 recognition for the deeds of the past, and every 
 encouragement for the future. 
 
 The best you can do, if you feel that you are 
 not growing as you should, is to make sure that 
 you are in a college of growth, with men on the 
 lookout for the new, and with courage to use what 
 
 55 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 experiment justifies, and then be content to grow 
 along with your growing college. 
 
 You may remember the experience of Alice as 
 she tried to buy the Qgg of knowledge from the 
 sheep in Looking Glass land. Alice was back 
 again in the little dark shop. ''I should like to 
 buy an egg, please," she said timidly; "how do 
 you sell them ? " * ' Five pence farthing for one ; 
 twopence for two," the sheep replied. "Then 
 two are cheaper than one?" Alice said in a sur- 
 prised tone, taking out her purse. "Only you 
 must eat them both, if you buy two," said the 
 sheep. "I'll have one please," said Alice, as she 
 put the money down on the counter, for she 
 thought to herself, they might n 't be at all nice, 
 you know. The sheep took the money and put it 
 away in a box, then said, "I never put things into 
 people's hands — that would never do — you must 
 get it for yourself." And so saying, the sheep 
 went off to the other end of the shop and set the 
 Qgg upright on a shelf. "I wonder why it 
 wouldn't do," thought Alice as she groped her 
 way among the tables and chairs, for the shop 
 was very dark towards the end. "The Qgg seems 
 to get further away the more I walk towards it. 
 Let me see, is this a chair? Why, it 's got 
 branches, I declare ! How very odd to find trees 
 growing here. And actually, here 's a little brook ! 
 Well, this is the very queerest shop I ever saw." 
 So she went on wondering more and more at every 
 step, as everything turned into a tree the moment 
 she came up to it ! 
 
 56 
 
The College of Growth 
 
 If you have come to Lafayette with any idea 
 that it is a shop where you can put your money 
 on the counter -and have your egg of knowledge 
 delivered into your hand, I trust you may have the 
 same experience as AKce. First find that two 
 eggs are sold cheaper than one, but only on con- 
 dition that you eat both eggs. Second, that you 
 must get the eggs off the shelf for yourself; and 
 third, that you will find everything you come in 
 contact with on your way to the shelf, whether 
 chairs of German, or history, or any branch of 
 knowledge or faculty or students, like trees grow- 
 ing, so will you know that you have come to a 
 young man's college, and to a college of growth. 
 
 57 
 
LIBERTY AND COOPERATION 
 
 IT is customary for the president to say a word 
 of welcome at this time to the newcomers both 
 in the faculty and in the student body. We ex- 
 pect at least a quarter of the students to be 
 strangers each fall, but it does not often happen, 
 as is the case this year, that a quarter of the 
 faculty are newcomers, also. It is the beginning 
 of a new era for Lafayette as it is for the world 
 outside, and it is with some seriousness, there- 
 fore, mindful of all that it may mean for the 
 future of this splendid old institution, that I bid 
 you all welcome to Lafayette and express the 
 earnest hope that we may all be better acquainted 
 in the near future, share a mutual confidence in 
 one another, and be firmly bound together in the 
 earnest resolve to make this a society of scholars 
 known for its loyalty to whatsoever things are 
 true, honest, just, pure, lovely, or of good report. 
 We are glad you come in such large numbers. 
 The war is over, but the tasks before the Republic 
 are great. It is a good omen that after the heart- 
 searchings and world visions of war, so many of 
 our young men should seek better mental equip- 
 ment in preference to the present tempting wages 
 in industry. 
 
 Some one, I think it was the Scientist in Lowes 
 
 Address at the opening of Lafayette College, September, 1919. 
 
 .?8 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 Dickinson's '^ Modern Symposium," has said, 
 that since Biology entered the scientific field, and 
 we began to think biologically, the thought of the 
 world has been necessarily optimistic, and directed 
 to the future rather than to the past, because it is 
 always the coming generation in which Biology is 
 interested. ' ' The series of births is the vehicle of 
 progress. It is this discovery that gives to our 
 outlook on life its exhilaration and zest. Our 
 eyes are on the coming generations ; in them cen- 
 ters our hope and our duty. ' ' 
 
 No biologist can think of the golden age as in the 
 past, nor of the future as darker than the present, 
 because if such were his creed, his duty would be 
 to curtail and cut off life rather than to encourage 
 it, and his science a science of death rather than of 
 life. 
 
 However true this may be of biologists in gen- 
 eral, it is certainly true of any college community 
 worthy of the name, that they think biologically in 
 this respect, that their hopes are always in the 
 future, and that they preserve an unquenchable 
 optimism as to the superior possibilities of each 
 new lot of freshmen. The high hopes with which 
 you enter this new world, therefore, find their 
 counterpart in the high hopes of the faculty for 
 what you are, and for what you are destined to 
 accomplish. 
 
 In a spirit of optimism in spite of the lowering 
 clouds in the world about us, therefore, I have 
 taken as the subject of the few remarks I shall 
 make this morning, "Liberty and Cooperation," 
 
 59 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 two ideals in which we all believe, but which we 
 sometimes find it difficult to reconcile with each 
 other, and which appear just now to be locking 
 horns in inevitable conflict. 
 
 I often wish that the inventor who some day 
 will give us an apparatus for projecting the 
 thoughts of men on a screen, would make haste 
 with his invention, in order that we might have 
 some true picture on an occasion like this, of the 
 thoughts, the feelings, the hopes, the fears, the de- 
 sires and doubts with which you freshmen step 
 into the college world. We of the faculty, it is 
 true, have all passed through similar experiences, 
 but the impressions fade like an old photograph 
 and lose their clearness and sharpness of outline. 
 I have sometimes wondered whether the flights of 
 steps that lead up the hill to Pardee ever speak to 
 men's souls as the sacred stairs at Eome spoke to 
 Luther, saying, ''The just shall live by faith,'' 
 or as the steps of our capitol at Washington spoke 
 to John Stuart Mill of a treatise on Liberty. For, 
 as he tells us in his autobiography, "It was in 
 mounting the steps of the capitol that the thought 
 first arose of converting my short essay on Liberty 
 into a volume." That these steps will some day 
 speak some such great word to some man, I have 
 no question. Perhaps it has been spoken to some 
 one of you new men to-day. 
 
 There is significance in the fact that we say a 
 man enters college, goes into college, but goes out 
 to work, goes up to the University (as they say 
 of Oxford or Cambridge) but goes down to the 
 
 60 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 office, and we have to rely somewhat in the absence 
 of our projection machine on such incidental hints 
 of attitudes of minds. In the same way we notice 
 a slight shift in the center of interest in the fact 
 that an Englishman says, ' ' Shall we go in to din- 
 ner?" while an American says, "Shall we go out 
 to dinner?" I should like to find, if I could, some 
 such revealing hints this morning, as to how many 
 of you freshmen think of coming to college, as a 
 stepping out into a larger place, and how many of 
 you think of it, as entering into restricting walls. 
 
 Last year, when to enter college was to enter the 
 Students' Army Training Corps as a soldier of the 
 United States, your predecessors may perhaps 
 have thought that they were thereby restricting 
 their freedom and placing themselves under 
 orders. At the same time they may have thought 
 they were thereby exercising the greatest liberty 
 they had ever enjoyed, the liberty of saying, ''All 
 that I am or hope to be, even life itself, I lay on 
 the altar of a great cause." 
 
 Probably you have not thought very much about 
 the subject as yet. You will, I hope, think more 
 about it the next four years, and I shall be glad 
 if any questions I may raise here to-day shall 
 start you to thinking regarding this question of 
 liberty. 
 
 The whole world to-day is concerned with this 
 question, Under what conditions can I enjoy 
 liberty f If I am constrained, what constrains me ? 
 Is liberty or power the greater good? If I don't 
 want to be ruled, ought I to rule others? May a 
 
 61 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 minority set any bounds to the power of a major- 
 ity to rule in a democracy? May each organized 
 trade exploit society for its own benefit and be 
 the judge of its own necessities? May an organ- 
 ized trade deny any free citizen the right to work 
 at that trade except as a member of the organiza- 
 tion and under such terms and conditions as the 
 organization may prescribe? These are questions 
 which are convulsing the whole world to-day. 
 They are questions which go to the root of life 
 and questions which all thinking men must face. 
 
 For a college bearing the name of Lafayette 
 the natural watchword is Liberty. Never was 
 there a more consistent believer in human liberty. 
 Never was there a man less influenced by circum- 
 stance. What was good for the French and Amer- 
 ican was in his eyes good for the Irishman or the 
 Dutchman. Much as he admired Napoleon's 
 ability to rule, he felt he must join the opposition 
 when Napoleon proposed to exercise that power 
 to the detriment of human liberty. Champion of 
 the people as he was, he defended the king when 
 the mob sought to substitute mob violence for law. 
 
 Liberty is a good watchword, and I trust it 
 will be an ideal for which this college will always 
 fight, no matter Avhat other ideals other institu- 
 tions may champion. I think it may be well, how- 
 ever, for us to stop a moment to-day and consider 
 our ideal in the light of another ideal very popu- 
 lar just now and an ideal whose worth I would be 
 the last to deny. This is the ideal of cooperation. 
 The late war was a war of allies, on both sides. 
 
 62 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 Both sides claimed the name. The allied German 
 people tried to insist that the other group was 
 only an entente, not a real alliance. Both sides, 
 however much they differed on other things, were 
 agreed that allies was a name of which to be 
 proud. 
 
 Of nothing in her share in the war does Amer- 
 ica boast more than of her readiness to cooperate, 
 and of the fact that it was America that insisted 
 that all should fight under a unified command. 
 
 The great Y. M. C. A. boasted of the spirit of 
 cooperation, and the growing admiration for co- 
 operation finally found expression in the United 
 Drive for money for Y. M. C. A., Knights of Co- 
 lumbus, Jewish Welfare, etc. Finally America 
 favors a League of Nations — and is ready to go 
 farther than her Republican Senators imagine in 
 subordinating independence to cooperation. 
 
 At the same time we have watched the growth 
 of the great labor brotherhoods and trade unions 
 and federations. We have admired the willing- 
 ness of the individual, especially the more ambi- 
 tious and gifted individual, to join a union, to 
 limit his earnings so that they shall not exceed 
 those of his weaker brother, to spend if need be 
 his savings that strikes may be won and the gen- 
 eral conditions of all his craft improved. We 
 have watched the creation of a sentiment which 
 brands a man as an outcast who has no union 
 card, just as the sentiment of patriotism brands 
 as outcast the man without a country, or as the 
 
 63 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 inquisition branded as outcast the man who would 
 not think as the Catholic church thought. 
 
 We have seen in our colleges and universities 
 the growth of friendliness and cooperation. 
 There is not the same hot political rivalry between 
 fraternity and non-fraternity men that there once 
 was. Faculty and students dress and look alike. 
 Community sentiment is more important than in- 
 dividual opinion and becomes more tyrannous and 
 exacting. No freshman can successfully struggle 
 against the freshman cap edict, and irreconcilable s 
 are almost unknown to-day in college communities. 
 
 ''The plague of uniformity has descended upon 
 our colleges" as Robert Louis Stevenson said 
 some years ago, and we find the ideal of individual 
 liberty at a discount, the ideal of cooperation and 
 group conformity at a premium. 
 
 It is rather important for us to know, therefore, 
 what it is you expect to find in college, whether 
 you look forward to enjoying liberty, or whether 
 you are thinking how worthwhile it is to belong, 
 to belong first to a college with so honored a name 
 as Lafayette, to belong to the largest class which 
 ever entered, to belong perhaps to this or that 
 fraternity, or team, literary society, or boarding 
 club. 
 
 You have probably heard that one of the great 
 advantages of going to college is the associations 
 and friendships that you form, the unconscious 
 lessons in cooperation which you receive. If in- 
 dividual liberty is uppermost in your thought, you 
 
 64 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 are probably wondering how far you will be let 
 alone, how far the plans of your classmates, col- 
 lege traditions, officious sophomores, the faculty, 
 the Dean, laws and regulations will mar the pleas- 
 ure of being your own master and of testing out 
 your various powers in a broader world of experi- 
 ence than any you have yet known. 
 
 If some one asks you to cooperate, to join with 
 others for some good end, your natural question 
 will be, what becomes of liberty if I cooperatie'? 
 For that matter, what becomes of liberty if I make 
 an engagement with one friend, much more if I 
 maintain intimate relations with six or eight? If 
 I bind myself by a promise to be at March Field 
 at three, it is obvious I thereby lose the liberty 
 to be at the Circle at the same hour. If I am for 
 liberty, ought I not to stay outside a fraternity 
 lest my freedom be restricted thereby"? If I am a 
 fraternity man is it not a descent from my lofty 
 isolation if I attend a debate or allow any interests 
 which do not center in the fraternity to command 
 a share of my time f 
 
 We know that the fathers of our country were 
 enthusiastic believers in both liberty and in union. 
 The two ideals did not appear to them incompat- 
 ible. How is it then, that in our own day, men 
 seem to be withdrawing into two camps, over one 
 of which floats the banner of individual freedom, 
 while over the other floats the equally attractive 
 banner of cooperation and fraternity. How is it, 
 that men are asking themselves to-day, how shall 
 T harmonize my ideals of liberty and of coopera- 
 
 65 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 tion? What are the rights of the individual as 
 over against the desires and judgments of his 
 group ? Ought a man to try to be a good man, or 
 is it enough to be a good student, a good fraternity 
 brother, a good American, a good policeman, a 
 good railway conductor, a good and loyal member 
 of his union? Is one necessary or supplementary 
 to the other, or are they at times mutually exclu- 
 sive? Is there any universal loyalty, higher than 
 the loyalty to the group, to the trade-union, to the 
 college, to the nation? Oan we be like the Stoics 
 good citizens of the world without also being good 
 Romans, or if the two conflict which is the more 
 important, to be a good American or to be a good 
 covenanter. The trade-unionist says, why should 
 it be thought any greater hardship that a man can- 
 not escape membership in a trade-union and be 
 governed by the union 's laws, than that he cannot 
 escape citizenship of a country and be subject to 
 the country's laws? If nativity carries with it 
 membership in the state, why should not occupa- 
 tion carry with it membership in the union? 
 There was a time when the church claimed also 
 that to be a citizen of a Christian country was ipso 
 facto to be a subject of the church. Why was it 
 that man rejected this doctrine in the name of 
 freedom, and was Protestantism in religion and 
 the claim of the right of individual determination 
 in matters of religion a step in the right direction, 
 or was it a mistake brought about by a lack of 
 spirit of cooperation and unity? 
 When may a man rebel against a trade-union 
 
 66 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 and set up an economic protestantism, and in so 
 doing be only fighting the age long fight of free- 
 dom, and not be accused of betraying the interests 
 of the many for his own selfish benefit? When 
 may a man stand up and defy a college tradition as 
 some have done at Princeton and Yale, and in so 
 doing, be doing right and an admirable thing, and 
 when ought he to be decried as uprooting old tra- 
 ditions, and setting up his own judgment, like a 
 conceited ass in opposition to the will of the great 
 majority? Is there any test of the nobility of the 
 action save the test of success — if he wins he is a 
 hero, if he fails he is a traitor and a rebel? Is a 
 scab necessarily to be despised as a large part of 
 our world thinks, or may there be nobleness in 
 his action, and the man himself good stuff for 
 citizenship in a free republic? 
 
 Is it true, as Mill says, that we must recognize 
 the importance to man and society of a large 
 variety in types of character, and of giving full 
 freedom to human nature to expand itself in in- 
 numerable and conflicting directions? Ought the 
 majority always to rule? Ought the students to 
 rule the college because they outnumber the 
 faculty? Ought we to go to the same logical ex- 
 tremes as in Eussia and put it to the vote of the 
 students what they will study, with the result that 
 mathematics is omitted and dancing included, and 
 that the class begins when the majority get tired 
 of recess play? Shall we attempt nothing in gov- 
 ernment which the man on the street cannot un- 
 derstand and does not approve? Shall we teach 
 
 67 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 nothing that the majority of the people do not 
 want their children to learn? Shall we allow a 
 well organized minority to prescribe what we shall 
 study as they prescribe at what hour we shall get 
 up, and what we shall drink? Is there no occupa- 
 tion for the freedom of idle hours, but to devise 
 schemes for forcing more pay from our fellows, 
 and for imposing our will upon our fellowmen? 
 
 Is the freedom to which we invite the oppressed 
 of the world a freedom to confiscate the fruits of 
 toil, to put the ignorant in command, and to exalt 
 the man without conscience or truth to the places 
 of leadership? Is the sovereignty which our Re- 
 publican senators are so afraid we may lose the 
 right to do what we please, or only the right to 
 do what is right? 
 
 Was not liberty perhaps a perquisite of a new 
 country, where there was room for a man like 
 Patrick Henry to swing his arms and declaim, 
 ' ' Give me liberty or give me death, ' ' and have we 
 not become now too congested especially in our 
 large cities, for any one to enjoy much liberty of 
 action, without hurting a neighbor? Could two 
 million people ride daily in the subways of New 
 York if any considerable number of them were de- 
 votees of personal liberty and not rather as meek 
 and unresisting as the dumb cattle which night 
 after night fall into their places at milking time? 
 
 What about this Democracy of which we have 
 heard so much of late, and of which Lecky said 
 prophetically twenty-five years ago — ''I do not 
 think that any one who seriously considers the 
 
 68 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 force and universality of the movement of our 
 generation in the direction of democracy can doubt 
 that this conception of government will neces- 
 sarily, at least for a considerable time, dominate 
 in all civiKzed countries, and the real question for 
 politicians is the form it is likely to take, and the 
 means by which its characteristic evils can be best 
 mitigated. As we have, I think, abundantly seen, 
 a tendency to democracy does not mean a tendency 
 to parliamentary government, or even a tendency 
 towards greater liberty. On the contrary, strong 
 arguments may be adduced, both from history, and 
 from the nature of things, to show that democ- 
 racy may often prove the direct opposite of liberty. 
 Equality is the idol of democracy, but with the in- 
 finitely various capacities and energies of men, 
 this can only be attained by a constant, systematic 
 stringent repression of their natural development. 
 Whenever natural forces have unrestricted play, 
 inequality is certain to ensue. Democracy de- 
 stroys the balance of opinions, interests, and 
 classes, on which constitutional liberty mainly 
 depends, and its constant tendency is to impair 
 the efficiency and authority of parliaments, which 
 have hitherto proved the chief organs of political 
 liberty. In our own day, no fact is more incon- 
 testable and conspicuous than the love of democ- 
 racy for authoritative regulation. 
 
 * ' The industrial organization to which the trade- 
 unions aspire approaches far more nearly to that 
 of the Middle Ages or of the Tudors than to the 
 ideals of Jefferson and Cobden. I do not here- 
 
 69 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 argue whether this tendency is good or bad. No 
 one at least can suppose that it is in the direction 
 of freedom. It may be permitted to doubt 
 whether Uberty in other forms is likely to be very 
 secure if power is mainly placed in the hands of 
 men, who, in their own sphere, value it so little." 
 
 The time is too short for me to attempt any 
 very complete answer to the questions I have 
 raised. I shall be content if I have provoked ques- 
 tions in some of you, and have sent you to the 
 library for Lecky or John Stuart Mill or Lowes 
 Dickinson. Even Euclid, however, sometimes 
 offers hints as to the direction in which a solution 
 may be found, and with a similar purpose in view 
 I want to call your attention to three or four 
 truths which seem to me to help toward a solution 
 of the conflicting claims of the ideals of liberty 
 and of fraternity or cooperation. 
 
 The first is that we mislead ourselves when we 
 talk of Liberty with a capital L, instead of liber- 
 ties. There is no such thing as Liberty in the ab- 
 stract. Even Patrick Henry when he said. Give 
 me Liberty or give me Death, did not mean Liberty 
 in general, but the liberty then in question, free- 
 dom from English rule. No man has ever attained 
 complete freedom, complete independence. We 
 have won, humanity has won by its struggles 
 through the ages certain liberties, freedom from 
 slavery, freedom to sell his services in an open 
 market, freedom to worship and to think in re- 
 ligious matters as his conscience dictates, freedom 
 of opinion, freedom to learn and to know. Some 
 
 70 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 of these liberties are held precariously, some are 
 more in peril to-day than others. Not all the 
 world would join even with Bums in his defense 
 of that fundamental liberty : 
 
 "Here's freedom to him. that wad read, 
 Here 's freedom to him that wad write, 
 There 's nane ever feared that the truth should be heard 
 But them whom the truth wad indite. ' ' 
 
 While we have seen this summer even in enlight- 
 ened America that when men's passions are roused 
 their faith wanes in that creed so well stated by 
 Mazzini: ''God has given you thought; no one 
 has the right to restrain it, or to forbid the ex- 
 pression of it, which is the communion of your 
 soul with the soul of your brothers and the only 
 way of progress which we have. The press must 
 be absolutely free; the rights of the intellect are 
 inviolable and any preventive censorship is 
 tyranny. 
 
 ''Peaceful association is sacred like thought. 
 God planted the tendency in you as a perennial 
 means of progress, a pledge of that unity which 
 the human family is destined one day to attain; 
 no power has any right to impede or limit it." 
 
 When we shut a man up in prison we say we 
 have deprived him of his liberty, but Bunyan los- 
 ing the liberty to walk in England and to dispose 
 of his physical person, discovered thereby the 
 liberty to write and to walk the road to immortal 
 fame. 
 
 It will help us then in our efforts to think out 
 
 71 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 the proper relations of liberty and cooperation, 
 if we talk of liberties rather than of liberty in the 
 abstract. The trades unionist feels that he is in- 
 creasing the liberties of men by fighting to wrest 
 the control of industry from capital and captains 
 of industry and place it in the hands of the leaders 
 of the majority of those participating in that par- 
 ticular industry; that thus the individual work- 
 man will have the greatest freedom in determining 
 the circumstances of his labor. The owner of 
 property, on the other hand, feels that if he loses 
 the right of peaceful possession and control of 
 property, freedom no longer exists and he has lost 
 one of the most cherished of his liberties, a liberty 
 for which the Anglo-Saxon has fought long and 
 bitterly. 
 
 Not all liberties are equally desirable, and some 
 smaller liberties must be sacrificed to greater free- 
 doms. When we argue for liberty, therefore, let 
 us be careful to define the liberty we have in mind. 
 The idea of liberty and its applications will grow 
 from generation to generation and develop accord- 
 ing to changed conditions. In general, however, 
 we may say with Dickinson, "The liberty that is 
 desirable is that of good people pursuing Good in 
 order — and the order that is desirable is that of 
 good people pursuing Good in liberty," or with 
 Mazzini, "Your liberty will be sacred so long as 
 it develops under the ruling influence of the idea 
 of Duty and of faith in the common perfectibility. 
 Your liberty will flourish protected by God and by 
 men, so long as you regard it not as the right to 
 
 72 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 use and to abuse your faculties in any direction 
 which it pleases you to choose, but as the right 
 to choose freely and according to your special 
 tendencies a means of doing good." 
 
 If the first principle is to distinguish liberties, 
 the second principle is that liberty, like life itself, 
 must die in order to live. In the field of liberty 
 as elsewhere we run up against that paradox of 
 biology that living is dying. If we seal up the 
 body hermetically so that there will be no decay, 
 there will also be no life. If we decline to use our 
 liberty for fear we may thereby incur obligation 
 and become less free, our liberty is only potential, 
 not actual. It becomes like the money of the miser 
 — useless. 
 
 Liberty is the power to say yes or no, to turn 
 to the right or left, but it is not the power to turn 
 right and left at the same time, nor the power to 
 enjoy the consequence of turning left if you have 
 actually turned right. Liberty after it has been 
 used is about as significant as gunpowder after it 
 has been exploded, or the stick of a rocket after 
 the flight. Like money, therefore, liberty may be 
 overrated. Unlike money, the more one spends, 
 the more rapidly is one^s store replenished. 
 
 You have come to college to be free, at least 
 I hope you have. You have come to rid yourselves 
 of all that fetters your freedom, bodily weakness, 
 intellectual sloth, ignorance, mental blindness, de- 
 pendence upon the eyes and brains of others. If, 
 however, you are so greedy of your new-found 
 freedom, that you hesitate to do anything for fear 
 
 73 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 you may commit yourself and thereby shackle 
 your freedom — if your attitude of mind is that of 
 the little girl portrayed in a recent novel, who was 
 called ^'Shant" because her favorite response was 
 "Shant if I don't want to," you have made the 
 great mistake of confounding means and end, the 
 tool and the job, the uniform and the cause. 
 
 When freedom meets cooperation, therefore, it 
 is true that if it cooperates some liberties are de- 
 stroyed, but it is also true that if it refuses to ex- 
 ercise its freedom to cooperate it has thereby ar- 
 bitrarily restricted its field of action. 
 
 Third — Cooperation is a worthy ideal. Love of 
 f ellowmen, willingness to work with and for fellow- 
 men, readiness to subordinate personal advantage 
 to the public welfare, the spirit of the fraternity, 
 the clan, the trades-union, the nation, the league, 
 these are great ideals. Cooperation is, however, 
 in our day perhaps likely to be overestimated 
 rather than underestimated. The town meeting 
 was never a very efficient form of government. 
 Democracy, we think, is worth what it costs, but it 
 is a terribly expensive method of educating men in 
 freedom. If the voice of the people is the voice 
 of God, it also is true that mobs are notoriously 
 fickle and foolish. 
 
 The devotee of cooperation some times forgets 
 that the greatest apostle of Democracy, Jesus 
 Christ himself, or Thomas Jefferson were great 
 individualists. Jesus allowed no friend, not his 
 own disciples, neither the secular nor religious au- 
 thorities of his time, to swerve him from the task 
 
 74 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 he had set himself, to hurry him toward it, or to 
 hinder him from accomplishing it. 
 
 Thomas Jefferson, the great apostle of the 
 rights of man, built his house on a hill top for 
 solitude, and arranged underground corridors so 
 that his thoughts should not be disturbed by the 
 sight of his servants passing to and fro, while he 
 could look down and see in the dim distance the 
 university which his individual thought and genius 
 were shaping in its minutest detail, taking visible 
 form. 
 
 The truth of the matter is that cooperation is 
 good if those who cooperate are worth while. If 
 you multiply zero by a thousand or ten thousand 
 or a hundred thousand you make no advance. 
 The great danger in our colleges and in our re- 
 public to-day is the assumption that if enough 
 people favor a thing it must be right or worth- 
 while ; that if enough people get together you have 
 an army or a political party, irrespective of the 
 ability or genius which the group includes ; that a 
 great leader in a democracy need not be a great 
 individual, or a willful man, had indeed best not 
 have any private convictions or opinions, but 
 strive only with ear to the ground to hear the 
 popular voice, and in action to register the popu- 
 lar will. 
 
 It was no mere chance that of the men we hon- 
 ored with honorary degrees at our last commence- 
 ment three of the eight had not attended college, 
 and I regard it as the strongest argument against 
 college education to-day, that the spirit of cooper- 
 
 75 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 ation is so rife, that there is little encouragement 
 to a man to think for himself, or to stand heroi- 
 cally for his own convictions. Democracy does 
 not know what is good for it and never has. More 
 than any form of government it requires great 
 individuals, strong and gifted leaders, and yet all 
 its efforts are bent on destroying the man who is 
 different, who exhibits genius or originality or 
 power. 
 
 Finally, cooperation implies at least two inde- 
 pendent parties. If we believe in cooperation we 
 must desire that capital and labor shall be fairly 
 evenly matched. If capital is too strong, or if 
 labor is too strong, there will not be cooperation. 
 A servant may give a master loyal service, but he 
 can hardly be said to cooperate. 
 
 If men are forced by intimidation or armed 
 troops to join a labor-union it ceases to be a co- 
 operative society and becomes a despotism. Co- 
 operation presupposes freedom and is possible 
 only for free men. This is the cardinal principle 
 which must be borne in mind by all voluntary 
 organizations, whether it be church, or trades- 
 union or societies of scholars. When the tyranny 
 of an organization proceeds so far as to destroy 
 the characteristic type of which it was formed, 
 when its constituent members are no longer free 
 and equal, but cowed by force or blinded and be- 
 guiled by deluding flattery, it has ceased to be a 
 cooperating society and has become a dominion. 
 You must be on your watch against this tendency 
 of cooperation, to destroy the thing it loves, to 
 
 76 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 kill that liberty which alone makes cooperation 
 possible. 
 
 If then liberty finds expression in cooperation, 
 and if cooperation and fraternization are only pos- 
 sible between men who enjoy liberty, we see that 
 the two ideals are not, as appears at first sight, 
 contradictory alternatives, bnt rather supplemen- 
 tary the one to the other, and that they only come 
 in conflict when pressed too far. 
 
 The two have, however, a common enemy which 
 often wears the cloak of one or the other. The 
 common enemy is the lust of power. The fight 
 to-day between trades-unions and capital is not 
 a. fight for higher wages or more things to eat 
 or to Avear or to own. It is a fight for power. 
 Against the lust for power the spirit of liberty 
 and the spirit of cooperation, the individualist, 
 and the socialist can join hands in a common 
 cause. 
 
 The good man is as thirsty for power as the 
 bad man. The prohibitionist exults in the polit- 
 ical power he wields for good, quite as much as 
 the liquor seller in the political power he wields 
 for evil. The greatest crimes against freedom 
 and brotherliness have been committed in the 
 name of religion just as we are to-day witnessing 
 liberty destroyed in the name of patriotic democ- 
 racy. 
 
 The necessities of war remove the sentinels of 
 liberty and power is enthroned. Men cooperate in 
 a just cause, and demagogues thirsty for power, 
 seeing how easy it is to set a hundred millions 
 
 77 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 singing one tune, try to continue the experiment 
 when the necessity has passed. 
 
 Democracy pressed too far is to-day in danger 
 of landing us in the condition so well pictured by 
 Shakespeare in Troilus and Cressida; 
 
 ' ' Force should be ri^ht, or rather right and wrong 
 
 Should lose their names, and so should justice too. 
 
 Between whose endless jar justice resides 
 
 Then everything includes itself in power 
 
 Power into will, will into appetite; 
 
 And appetite, an universal wolf, 
 
 So doubly seconded with will and power, 
 
 Must make perforce an universal prey, 
 
 And last eat up himself. ' ' 
 
 In our own day, when we control the services 
 of others by wages rather than by force of arms, 
 this lust for power takes chiefly the form of lust 
 for wealth or the ability to get or to give greater 
 wages. Political power is sought not so much for 
 its own sake as because it can be used to determine 
 tariffs or wage conditions or railroad rates. It 
 is a lust which has leaped all bounds and run mad 
 since the war ended. It is important for us as 
 students to recognize it as the enemy of both those 
 who believe in individual freedom and those who 
 believe in cooperative enterprise, and to point it 
 out to all as such, just as the students of China 
 have been the ones to interpret to the Chinese 
 people the true significance of such questions as 
 that of Shantung. 
 
 If we identify this lust as the enemy of both 
 
 78 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 freedom and cooperation, perhaps even we our- 
 selves after a little reflection may decide in the 
 words of Stevenson, to "spend a trifle less of this 
 thing we call life for money, and indulge our- 
 selves a trifle more in the article of freedom." 
 We may indeed even reach that state of mind 
 which characterized Thoreau as a youth when he 
 said, '^To have done anything by which you 
 earned money merely is to be idle and worse. ' ' 
 
 Certainly we will be on the watch in our own 
 souls against any loss of respect for our fellow- 
 men, any disposition to subordinate them to our 
 own ends, or to utilize them for our own enjoyment 
 to their detriment, for from this spirit in the indi- 
 vidual springs the lust for power and tyranny 
 which threatens the existence of every state in 
 which freedom and fraternity have planned to live. 
 
 And as we look out from this peaceful hill upon 
 the boiling cauldron of a world in economic revo- 
 lution, we shall go one step further than the most 
 enlightened trades-unionists have gone, and be 
 prepared to say, ''Not only is it not enough that 
 wages be reckoned in money, they must be reck- 
 oned in goods if we are really to be better off than 
 our fathers," but also ''not only is it not enough 
 that we receive due wages in material goods, we 
 must be careful that we do not dispose of our 
 share of that life which on the highest authority 
 we know, neither springs from nor can be meas- 
 ured by the amount of things which a man pos- 
 sesseth." 
 
 79 
 
Liberty and Cooperation 
 
 To any who are seeking the key to a successful 
 life in the present world welter, I commend th^ 
 words written by Huxley to his son on his 18th 
 birthday, ' ' The great thing in the world is not so 
 much to seek happiness, as to earn peace and self- 
 respect. I have not troubled you much with pa- 
 ternal didactics, but that bit is 'ower true' and 
 worth thinking over" — or even better, the words 
 of the greatest teacher of all, ''Seek first the King- 
 dom of God, and all these things shall be added 
 unto you,'^ for we know that where the Spirit of 
 the Lord is, there is liberty, and that the first law 
 of his Kingdom is to cooperate in love. 
 
 80 
 
AEMS AND ARCHIMEDES 
 
 A WELL known college president wrote a book 
 a few years ago on ' ' The American College, 
 What It Is, and What It May Become. ' ' It never 
 occurred to him, however, to say that it might be- 
 come a military camp. It must have been some 
 strange prophetic instinct which led those early 
 Eastonians, founders of a college, to which they 
 were giving the name of a Frenchman, to write 
 into one clause of the charter, instruction shall be 
 given in military science and in the Grerman lan- 
 guage. We hope that the military instruction you 
 are to receive here this winter will shortly make 
 it possible for you to put to good use any knowl- 
 edge you may have of Germany or of the language 
 spoken within its borders. 
 
 The eyes of the world are now upon Metz, the 
 city where according to tradition Lafayette first 
 heard of Americans gallant struggle for freedom. 
 Curiously enough it was from the Duke of Glouces- 
 ter, brother of the British king, that Lafayette 
 first heard the tale, a tale told too in ridicule. 
 ''When I first learnt the subject of the quarrel," 
 writes Lafayette, ''my heart espoused warmly the 
 cause of liberty 'and I thought of nothing but of 
 adding also the aid of my banner." 
 
 Address at the opening of Lafayette College, September 19, 
 1918. 
 
 81 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 So we, too, of the College of Lafayette, think 
 to-day of nothing but of adding also the aid of 
 our banner. Like Lafayette, we are devotees of 
 liberty. In one place Lafayette speaks of some 
 schoolboy successes, inspired by the '4ove of 
 glory, and somewhat disturbed by love of liberty." 
 In another place he says, ''you ask me at about 
 what age I first experienced my ^irdent love of 
 liberty and glory. At eight years of age my 
 heart beat when I heard of a hyena that had done 
 some injury and caused still more alarm in our 
 neighborhood, and the hope of meeting it, was the 
 object of all of my walks." 
 
 ''When I arrived at college," says Lafayette, 
 "nothing ever interrupted my studies except my 
 ardent wish of studying without restraint. I rec- 
 ollect with pleasure that when I was to describe 
 in rhetoric, a perfect courser, I sacrificed the hope 
 of obtaining a premium, and described the perfect 
 courser, as the one who on perceiving the whip, 
 threw down his rider." 
 
 "We of the colleges, than whom there are none 
 more ardent lovers of liberty, welcome the 
 Students' Army Training Corps, because it is 
 based on the principle of mutual cooperation be- 
 tween the school and the army, and because we be- 
 lieve we shall thus advance liberty in the world. 
 Like the perfect courser admired of Lafayette it 
 is quite conceivable that should the colleges of 
 America perceive the whip, they too would throw 
 down their rider. 
 
 We welcome you then to both academic and 
 
 82 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 military training. For tlie first time, a college 
 president may properly begin as Vergil began his 
 ^neid : — 
 
 " Arma virumque cano . . ." 
 
 I speak of arms and the man; with the arms 
 first, capitalized and emphasized. For the first 
 time the students of Lafayette are, or soon will be, 
 soldiers first and students second. Nevertheless 
 truth remains the same, and what was sound mo- 
 rality or accurate scie-nce, or good psychology yes- 
 terday, is the same to-day. It is not always the 
 thing that strikes the eye first that is the most 
 important. If you read on in Vergil you will dis- 
 cover, that while arms stand first, and have the 
 emphasis in the first line, in the second line arms 
 are already forgotten, and the verse goes on to 
 talk, not about arms, nor about ' ' the arms which, ' ' 
 but about ''the man who.^' 
 
 So you will find it here at Lafayette, I trust, this 
 year also, for all the outward military show. 
 Though we may try to conceal individuality by 
 uniform, though you will no longer be able to rec- 
 ognize a freshman by his cap, though all classes 
 will wear the same olive drab hat cord, and the 
 only external difference between a locomotive 
 engineer and a student of Latin be the difference 
 between a blue hat cord and an olive drab one, we 
 hope that you will find a college unit different from 
 a cantonment in this, that while the song of both 
 begins ''Arms and the Man," the college unit will 
 go on to the second line, and place the emphasis 
 upon "the man, who." 
 
 83 ; 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 We shall continue to talk here of men, not of 
 man power. We shall try to distinguish men here 
 according to their several virtues and aptitudes. 
 We shall seek to sift men with more discrimination 
 than is possible even with the carefid personnel 
 system at the large camps, and we shall try to 
 adapt means to ends, with a little more differentia- 
 tion than is possible in the rough and ready, hurly 
 burly of shaping three million men into an army 
 of trained soldiers. You are to be congratulated, 
 therefore, on your status as prospective members 
 of the Students' Army Training Corps, stripped 
 as the status is, of the freedom and luxuries of 
 other years. 
 
 I do not propose to discuss this morning, much 
 as I am tempted to do so, the causes, the aims, or 
 the issues of the war. 
 
 By direction of the War Department every 
 student will receive instruction in these subjects in 
 a special course, and I shall not attempt to deal 
 in twenty minutes with a subject for which the 
 War Department has set apart three hundred and 
 fifty hours. 
 
 My theme is Vergil's ''Arms and the Man," and 
 the man, if we must give him a name, you may 
 call Archimedes, for I want to speak of a man in 
 relation to the tools of his trade, in this case the 
 trade of war, and therefore, properly called arms. 
 
 I suppose the chief difference between a mature 
 man and a boy is that the mature man attaches 
 greater importance to tools than the boy does. A 
 woman, they say, needs only one tool — a hairpin. 
 
 84 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 A boy of resolution and spirit feels he can do any- 
 thing with no tool but himself. I notice the aver- 
 age college boy scorns even to equip himself with 
 a note book and a. pencil, believing in character- 
 istic American fashion, that the less equipment 
 he provides, the more chance he has to exercise 
 his wits. I have even known college boys who put 
 off, perhaps to the day before examination, the 
 purchase of a text book, scorning ulterior aids in 
 the pursuit of knowledge. I have noticed even in 
 athletics that very few boys will equip themselves 
 with the paraphernalia of athletics if left to them- 
 selves. They would rather risk a broken nose 
 than buy a nose gniard, rather risk a split hand 
 than bother with a catcher's glove, run in shoes 
 too large or too small, than take the trouble to 
 be accurately fitted. 
 
 Age on the contrary comes to love good tools. 
 The barber has his pet razor, and takes infinite 
 pains to keep it sharp ; the carpenter has his own 
 special saw, or some extra tempered chisel, the 
 dentist is as fond of some pet instrument of tor- 
 ture as a mother of her first child. The chauffeur 
 suffers personal agonies if his motor groans, the 
 bank clerk has his pet pen, the draftsman prides 
 himself on his pencil points, and even the hobo is 
 likely to have some treasured stick which helps 
 him carry his pack, ward off stray dogs, and 
 steadies him when weary. 
 
 The more civilized we become, the more depen- 
 dent we grow on the various instrumentalities of 
 our life. When we revert to some primeval state 
 
 85 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 like warfare, therefore, we discover with surprise 
 two things. We find first, that after all, it is the 
 man behind the tool that counts, and second, and 
 this we learn almost as soon, we find that that 
 man counts for the most who can best fashion for 
 himself tools adapted to his new job. 
 
 The old man is likely to depend too much on 
 tools, the young man is likely to attach too little 
 importance to tools. Sometimes a young David 
 with a simple tool like a sling, is more efficient than 
 an old man with orthodox armor and sword, but 
 generally speaking the principle holds, youth un- 
 dervalues tools, age overvalues them. 
 
 The War Department sets down as one of the 
 chief aims of its military instruction, confidence in 
 the power of the rifle. I don 't know just why they 
 select the rifle, instead of the machine gun, or the 
 gas bomb, or the hand grenade, but it is doubtless 
 because it was the only tool of the old men who 
 wrote the regulations, and like age in general, 
 they had undue confidence in the tool they were 
 most used to. 
 
 Our task here at this college, as teachers, is to 
 make youth feel the importance of, and have con- 
 fidence in, a much wider range of equipment. 
 
 We have had to teach this first to Washington, 
 to convince the authorities that in this war, they 
 are indeed fighting not an army, but the accumu- 
 lated science of Germany's forty years. 
 
 To teach that if as old men they rely on the tools 
 of their youth, they are lost, or if as a young na- 
 
 86 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 tion, they rely on their virile manhood alone, they 
 are lost. 
 
 Far fetched and intricate as it may appear, dubi- 
 ous as some may think the experiment, Washing- 
 ton has finally been convinced that colleges and 
 universities are an essential industry even in war- 
 time, and can give the nation arms, which they will 
 not get elsewhere, and which are essential to the 
 winning of the war. Some one told me recently 
 that it had all been worked out scientifically just 
 how many men a ton of steel spares the United 
 States. We know that if the workmen strike and 
 diminish the supply of steel, America must re- 
 place the steel with the bodies of so many of the 
 flower of her manhood. War is not only arms 
 and the man. In these days it is arms or men, and 
 it is our business to teach you young men the im- 
 portance of adequate equipment not only for your 
 own sakes, and for the sake of the work you have 
 to do in the world, but also for the sake of the 
 other men, who will have the necessary tools ac- 
 cording as your administration and leadership as 
 officers, are adequate or inadequate. If there are 
 any among you who can see how a blacksmith 
 forging a bayonet is getting ready to fight, how 
 a soldier learning to operate or repair an auto- 
 mobile is learning something that will help in the 
 war, but who cannot see what the study of math- 
 ematics, or Latin, or war aims, has to do with the 
 struggle in Europe, he had better apply at once 
 for a place in the vocational section, or in the can- 
 
 87 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 tonment rather than in the college section of the 
 S. A. T. C. 
 
 If there is any one who thinks the things of the 
 spirit are of no consequence compared with the 
 things you can touch, and that can touch you, that 
 the old adage that " he who ruleth his spirit is 
 greater than he that taketh a city" applies only in 
 peace times, he needs a little special tutoring in 
 some algebraic equations. 
 
 Arms plus man equals victory. Arms + man 
 = victory. Arms minus man, or turn it around, 
 minus man in parenthesis plus arms equals de- 
 ficiency and defeat. Arms — man = deficiency 
 and defeat. ( — man) -|- arms = deficiency and 
 defeat. If we could only rid ourselves of the 
 ''minus man" we should save hundreds of thou- 
 sands of lives. 
 
 We hear a good deal of talk about the War De- 
 partment having taken the colleges. Down in 
 Washington you will hear a good deal of talk 
 about the colleges having taken possession of the 
 War Department. Neither is true. The watch- 
 word of the hour is cooperation. We have dis- 
 carded the minus sign for the period of the war. 
 It is War Department plus colleges. It is men 
 and arms. It is brains and ammunition and self- 
 control. It is science and industry, capital plus 
 labor, scholarship and morale that will win this 
 war. 
 
 We look to you young men to help make this 
 combination soldier-student. The first rule of suc- 
 cess is to be proud of your own particular job. 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 There is more truth than poetry in Pinafore's 
 ''He polished up the handle so carefully that now 
 he is the ruler of the Queen 's Navy, ' ' so long as 
 he had no choice but to polish the handle. Yet 
 there never was a time in America when so many 
 men were trying to do anything except the thing 
 they were trainedi^o do, as now. If a man sticks 
 at his regular job, no matter how essential, he feels 
 rather a slacker. If he rushes off and gets the 
 Government to put him at something else no mat- 
 ter how poorly he does it, he feels a patriot. 
 
 If you think that study is a bore and all the time 
 you are at college, go about your tasks grudgingly, 
 wishing you were at an officers' training camp, 
 and enduring the S. A. T. C. only because it leads 
 in that direction, you will lose half of what the col- 
 lege has to give you. If on the other hand you 
 realize that the chief equipment of the modern 
 officer is not his sword, but certain mental quali- 
 ties, that he fights with his mind, and his soul, more 
 than with his arm, or his revolver, that knowledge, 
 accurate observation, power of concentrated 
 thought, are not qualities picked up over night, 
 you will value more nearly at its true worth the 
 contribution which the college has to make toward 
 your equipment even in war time. 
 
 Because analogies drawn from German science 
 are properly odious at this time, I like to refer any 
 old cynic or young skeptic who has doubts about 
 the importance of colleges and of college trained 
 men, in the winning of the war, to the old story 
 of Archimedes. Archimedes probably means, to 
 
 89 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 most of you, the old fool of a scholar who was 
 so wrapped up in drawing geometrical figures in 
 the sand, that he was slain by a soldier for fail- 
 ing to answer a question. But that is by no means 
 the whole story as it is given to us by Plutarch in 
 his life of Marcellus. Marcellus by the way means 
 martial, and he was one of the three men in Ro- 
 man history entitled to offer spoils of war person- 
 ally in his triumph to Jupiter Feretrius, because 
 he, the commander-in-chief, had won them in per- 
 sonal combat with the opposing commander. He 
 may be taken theriefore, very well, in view of his 
 name and his record, to stand for the martial 
 spirit, for personal prowess in war in its elemental 
 directness. 
 
 Archimedes, on the other hand, was by pref- 
 erence a scholar, a mathematician, a theorist. 
 ' * Give me, ' ' he said, * ' only another world as a ful- 
 crum for my lever, and I will move this sphere," 
 and though the theoretical scholar was the victor 
 over the martial Marcellus, he asked that when 
 he died, on his tomb should be placed a cylinder 
 enclosing a sphere because he regarded the demon- 
 stration of the mathematical relations of the con- 
 taining solid to the contained, a greater triumph 
 than those he won for his native city in war. 
 
 The story as told by Plutarch relates how Syra- 
 cuse was lucky in having a king, Hiero by name, 
 who had sense enough to use his men of science to 
 help him prepare for war, and when Archimedes 
 had given him a practical demonstration of the 
 power of the pulley he had at once said, ' * Use your 
 
 90 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 scientific principles to make me offensive and de- 
 fensive engines of war. ' ' So that when war in the 
 person of Marcellus marches up against Syracuse 
 and against science in the person of Archimedes, 
 Archimedes is ready for him, and as the original 
 Greek reads, "Archimedes' apparatus stood the 
 Syracusans in good stead ; and with the apparatus 
 its fabricator — and along with the contrivance the 
 demiurge ' ' — another case of arms and the man. 
 
 As we are interested in war news just now, per- 
 haps, you will bear with me, while I read part 
 of the account of that famous battle of the third 
 century B. C. 
 
 ''When, therefore, the Eomans assaulted them 
 by sea and land, the Syracusans were stricken 
 dumb with terror ; they thought that nothing could 
 withstand so furious an onset by such forces. 
 But Archimedes began to ply his engines, and 
 shot against the land forces of the assailants all 
 sorts of missiles and immense masses of stones, 
 which came down with incredible din and speed; 
 nothing whatever could ward off their weight, but 
 they knocked down in heaps those who stood in 
 their way, and thr-ew their ranks into confusion. 
 At the same time huge beams were suddenly pro- 
 jected over the ships from the walls, which sank 
 some of them with great weights plunging down 
 from on high, others were seized at the prow by 
 iron claws, or beaks like the beaks of cranes, 
 drawn straight up into the air, and then plunged 
 stem foremost into the depths, or were turned 
 round and round by means of enginery within the 
 
 91 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 city, and dashed upon the steep cliffs that jutted 
 out beneath the wall of the city, with great destruc- 
 tion of the fighting men on board, who perished in 
 the wrecks. Frequently, too, a ship would be 
 lifted out of the water into mid-air, whirled hither 
 and thither as it hung there, a dreadful spectacle, 
 until its crew had been thrown out and hurled 
 in all direction, when it would fall empty upon the 
 walls, or slip away from the clutch that had held 
 it. 
 
 *' However, Marcellus made his escape, and jest- 
 ing with his own artificers and engineers, 'Let us 
 stop,' said he, 'fighting against this geometrical 
 Briareus, who uses our ships like cups to ladle 
 water from the sea, and has whipped and driven 
 off in disgrace our sambuca, and with the many 
 missiles which he shoots against us all at once, 
 outdoes the hundred-handed monsters of mythol- 
 ogy.' For in reality all the rest of the Syracu- 
 sans were hut a body for the designs of Archi- 
 medes, and his the one soul moving and manag- 
 ing everything, for all other weapons lay idle, and 
 his alone were then employed hy the city both in 
 offense and defense. At last the Eomans became 
 so fearful that, whenever they saw a bit of rope or 
 a stick of timber projecting a little over the wall, 
 'There it is,' they cried, 'Archimedes is train- 
 ing some engine upon us,' and turned their backs 
 and fled. Seeing this, Marcellus desisted from all 
 fighting and assault, and thenceforth depended on 
 a long siege." 
 
 I covet for the Student Army Training Corps 
 
 92 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 the part of Archimedes in this war. I trust the 
 time will come when the Germans, whenever they 
 see a bit of rope, or a stick of timber projecting 
 a little above the trenches, will say "There it is, 
 it is those American college men again at some 
 scheme with brains behind it. " I hope still more, 
 that some American Archimedes will yet be dis- 
 covered whose inventions will end the war in an 
 overwhelming victory for the alHes, but such an 
 application of science to warfare is not likely 
 unless our King Hiero calls on Science to serve, 
 and gives it a chance to work undisturbed in its 
 laboratories. 
 
 I wish I could stop here, leaving science prop- 
 erly triumphant, but if I did so, you would nat- 
 urally ask, why should it have happened that 
 Archimedes, so lofty a spirit, so profound a soul, 
 so wise and so inventive, should have been re- 
 membered chiefly by reason of the stupidity and 
 futility of his death? 
 
 In the answer to that question there is perhaps 
 another parable to be drawn from the war of 
 twenty centuries ago for our war of to-day. 
 After some years of siege, Marcellus noticed, says 
 Plutarch, a certain tower that was carelessly 
 guarded and ' ' seized an oportunity when the Syra- 
 cusans were celebrating a festival and were given 
 over to wine and sport. ' ' 
 
 Science, be it ever so wise, arms, be they ever 
 so clever, are of no avail without steadfastness 
 and fidelity behind them. 
 
 We come back then to the theme with which 
 
 93 
 
Arms and Archimedes 
 
 we began, and the word which I would leave with 
 you as a motto for this momentous year is "Arms 
 and the Man/' Not the man alone, brave and 
 courageous as he may be, without the requisite 
 material and mental equipment, not the arms 
 alone, automatic and irresistible as they may be 
 guaranteed to be, but the man with his arms, along 
 with the contrivance — the demiurge. 
 
 94 
 
WAR AND EDUCATION 
 
 FOR the eighty-sixth time professors and 
 students gather at Lafayette to begin a new- 
 year's work, to live together in one of the most 
 felicitous of human relationships, the relation-, 
 ship of master and disciple, to enjoy the common 
 life of scholars, to satisfy the insistent inquiries 
 of the spirit as to ourselves and the universe, to 
 serve our beloved country by efficient prepara- 
 tion in knowledge and technical skill. 
 
 We are in large part strangers to each other to- 
 day. 
 
 The community of teachers changes less rap- 
 idly than the community of scholars, and yet if 
 forty per cent, of the students here to-day are 
 strangers to their fellow students, so too forty 
 per cent, of the faculty have entered since my 
 own very recent entrance two and a half years 
 ago. We are none of us so old or so long estab- 
 lished then, that we cannot put ourselves in the 
 place of the new man, share his enthusiasm and 
 fresh point of view, and yield him ungrudgingly 
 a place in the sun within the wdde walls of fair 
 Lafayette. Our first word then is a word of 
 hearty welcome to the newcomers, both in faculty 
 and in student body. The freshmen constitute 
 a larger part of the college than in normal times. 
 
 Address at the opening of Lafayette College, September, 1917. 
 
 95 
 
War and Education 
 
 We owe them much for having the courage and 
 resolution to settle down to routine study in these 
 stirring days. We trust that they will not feel 
 that the importance of the place they occupy 
 numerically in the college, can be apportioned to 
 them individually, making each of them a more 
 important man than in ordinary times, but that 
 the good old traditions of the lowly estate of the 
 freshman will survive even the perils of war 
 time. 
 
 Our second word is a word of grateful memory 
 of those who would be with us to-day, except for 
 the country's necessities. Twenty-eight of the 
 senior class, 28 of the junior class, 46 of the 
 sophon;iore class are known to be in the national 
 service. They are a part of that larger Lafayette 
 whose walls stretch round the world, and are one 
 with us to-day in the spirit of service to country 
 and to mankind, which has marked Lafayette men 
 through all the years. We remember them with 
 grateful affection, and wish for them a safe re- 
 turn to the ''College on the Hill." 
 
 We have welcomed new classes to this hill be- 
 fore, but never under such conditions as to-day. 
 Doubtless you are wondering, as I wonder, how the 
 war will affect our college course, what difference 
 there is between the freshman this year and last 
 year, what ought to be the difference in the col- 
 lege and in college men, in war time as compared 
 with peace time. Does the price and value of 
 learning rise in war time like the price of wheat 
 and coal? If silver and copper double in value, 
 
 96 
 
War and Education 
 
 how about wisdom? What are its market quota- 
 tions? If rubles and dollars are at a discount, 
 what about science! Athletics were at a pre- 
 mium for college men in peace, how shall we rate 
 them then in war time? If the time spent in 
 study before the war yielded eventually higher re- 
 turns than the same time spent in industry, how 
 is it now that the price of manual labor has risen 
 fifty per cent., and you can get from fifty cents 
 to a dollar an hour making munitions? Congress 
 in its draft bill has decided that men in certain 
 industries are as important to the country as men 
 in armies, but that study is not an industry, and 
 if you are 21 your services are more valuable to 
 the country in this crisis as a soldier than as a 
 scholar, unless you are studying to be a doctor 
 or a clergyman. Is this a fair rating of the value 
 of technical education to the country, even in this 
 time of war? The United States is offering to 
 pay two hundred civil engineers eighteen hun- 
 dred dollars a year a piece to go to France, 
 while at the same time it is curtailing the supply 
 of civil engineer apprentices available in normal 
 times at nine hundred dollars a year. At one time 
 during the summer Washington announced the 
 exemption of technical students, but the proposed 
 exemption was withdrawn on the technicality 
 that a man engaged in study was not engaged in 
 industry, the term industrious student apparently 
 having become obsolete. 
 
 What would the Government give to-day for the 
 discovery of a more certain fuel than gasoline for 
 
 97 
 
War and Education 
 
 airships, for the discovery of a more efficient gas 
 that would destroy life in acres at once, for a 
 cheap method of producing potash, or a fertilizer 
 that would double the yield of wheat to the acre I 
 What would they pay if the civil engineers in 
 charge of the Siberian Railroad could by the ex- 
 penditure of money be made at once as efficient as 
 the engineers of the Pennsylvania Railroad? 
 What would it be worth to America if applied 
 science had advanced ten years more rapidly, and 
 we were to-day burning our coal at the mines and 
 transporting the energy for heat and fuel, instead 
 of blocking our railroads with the dead weight of 
 ashes? As in Solomon's day, so in this en- 
 lightened twentieth century, "Wisdom crieth 
 aloud in the streets, her price is above rubies," 
 even though she has no rating with an exemption 
 board. Do not forget these things when you ask 
 yourselves, am I worth more to my country as a 
 soldier or as a civil, as an electrical, as a mechan- 
 ical engineer? 
 
 In the minds of the faculty, as we greet the 
 new men, are doubtless other questions. What is 
 this material placed in our hands to-day? We 
 had grown used to thinking of threescore and ten 
 as a normal life, long enough for a rich and varied 
 experience, long enough for the slow unfolding 
 of a soul, long enough for men to see their chil- 
 dren and their grandchildren rise and carry on 
 the torch of learning. Death we knew was ever 
 a possibility, but remote enough in the great ma- 
 jority of cases to be left out of the reckoning. 
 
 98 
 
War and Education 
 
 Disease, physical maiming, the loss of limbs and 
 disfigurement, were coming to be negligible fac- 
 tors in the life of the educated man. The ideals of 
 our life were coming to be ideals of physical com- 
 fort, steam heated apartment, paved street ideals. 
 We wanted our wool coats thinner, our dresses 
 and shoes flimsier, our faces smoother than did 
 other generations. We had begun to suspect that 
 the fruits of liberal culture, and the enlargement 
 of the soul, counted for little in the sleek life of 
 modern civilization, and to question whether there 
 was any life of the spirit apart from the life of 
 the body. Now war has taken us in its grip, and 
 the normal life of the youth of 21 is to be that of 
 a soldier. The men we expected to graduate last 
 June for life, we have graduated for war. Their 
 expectancy of life in the life insurance tables is 
 only a quarter of what we had come to expect. 
 The life of the family, the life of the home, is to 
 be left out of the reckoning. How then, we ask 
 ourselves as a faculty, how then does the material 
 placed in our hands to-day differ from that of last 
 year, and what change is required in the process 
 of molding or tempering to meet the changed 
 conditions! If we teach these men, as we have 
 taught them, shall we not be tempering too fine 
 material, which later the drill master must take 
 and harden and coarsen for the cruder handicraft 
 of war? 
 
 Is learning of any use to the soldier, is a think- 
 ing machine of any use, ought he to be liberally 
 educated, or ought we to do our best to make him 
 
 99 
 
War and Education 
 
 into a mechanical machine, no more sentient, no 
 more complicated than a printing press? 
 
 War is not a new thing in the world however 
 new it seems to us. America which in peace will 
 hear nothing of war, or preparation for war, with 
 the unstable equilibrium of a democracy is in 
 danger in war time of being willing to listen to 
 nothing but war, yet those who read history know 
 that through long centuries the arts of peace and 
 the arts of war traveled side by side. Sometimes 
 in the same man, sometimes in specialists. 
 Socrates was both a teacher and a soldier, but 
 more often the scholar has been the antithesis of 
 the soldier. The troubadour rarely shared the ex- 
 ploits he celebrated. We do not know much about 
 Homer, but we never confound the picture of him 
 in our minds with the picture of Achilles or Hec- 
 tor. Caesar and Cicero are alike in both being re- 
 quired for college admission, in both beginning 
 with "C," in both living at the same time. We 
 think of Caesar, the warrior, as a scholar because 
 of his Commentaries, but we never think of Cicero, 
 the scholar and statesman, as a warrior, though he 
 was a soldier at the age of seventeen. 
 
 We urge as a mitigation of the aims of war, 
 that it produces letters, that it advances science, 
 that the lost art of letter writing, for example, is 
 being revived by Americans in France, like Vic- 
 tor Chapman. We urge that the coming of the 
 aeroplane as a commercial conveyance has been 
 hastened twenty years by the war, but the con- 
 verse is not true. We do not praise literature, 
 
 100 
 
War and Education 
 
 we do not praise science, on the ground that they 
 produce war. Which then ranks higher in the 
 universal scale of values? Behind me you see a 
 memorial window to Ario Pardee, and to Presi- 
 dent Cattell, of whom the inscription states ''one 
 gave, the other built, Pardee Hall." The two 
 figures represent Charlemagne and Alcuin side by 
 side. Charlemagne is the larger and stronger 
 figure — Alcuin the slighter, more spiritual figure, 
 and yet you feel that Charlemagne leans upon 
 Alcuin. Charlemagne was the warrior who added 
 nation after nation to his dominion, and gave them 
 the blessings of firm and secure government. 
 Charlemagne was the warrior who on one day 
 caused 4,500 Saxons to be decapitated at Ver- 
 den on the AUer, having seven years before re- 
 solved never to sheathe the sword until the 
 Saxons were either subdued and converted to 
 Christ, or annihilated, and yet in spite of this and 
 other deeds of warlike prowess, the biographer of 
 Charlemagne records — "He was ever learning, 
 and fond of learning, no subject ever came amiss 
 to him. The most attractive feature of his char- 
 acter was his love of learning. He delighted in 
 the society of scholars, and in his life time men 
 called him Charles the "Wise, not Charles the 
 Great." 
 
 We are in danger in America, where war is so 
 new, of thinking that the gun is the only weapon, 
 and that as loyal citizens we have but one thing 
 to do, and that is to equip and maintain our fight- 
 ing forces as efficiently as possible, and leave the 
 
 101 
 
War and Education 
 
 outcome of the war to the God who fights with the 
 heaviest battalions. This might well be the na- 
 tional attitude of Germany, because the ideals of 
 morality and reason do not fight for the German 
 cause in this war, but America will only deny her- 
 self her advantage in the field of morality and 
 reason if she fails to encourage liberal education 
 or declines to permit free discussion and to use 
 a well informed and rationally persuaded pub- 
 lic opinion as her most potent and decisive im- 
 plement of contest. 
 
 Lafayette, for whom this college was named, 
 was remarkable for many qualities of life and 
 temperament. In nothing was he more remark- 
 able than in the fact that a soldier by profession, 
 neither in our Revolution, nor after its victorious 
 conclusion, did he come to think of war as an end 
 in itself, or other than as an imperfect instru- 
 ment for the achievement of those ideals of free- 
 dom and liberty which he held with the same 
 simple faith and fervor in old age as in youth, in 
 the presence of King Louis, as in the presence of 
 George Washington, in the distressing times of the 
 French Revolution, and in the presence of Na- 
 poleon, as the prisoner of the King of Prussia, 
 or in an Austrian dungeon. As he said in a let- 
 ter at the tim,e of the French Revolution — ''At 
 nineteen, I devoted myself to the liberty of man- 
 kind and the destruction of despotism, as much 
 as a powerless individual like myself could do so. 
 I departed for the New World, opposed by all, and 
 aided by none. I only attached value to some 
 
 102 
 
War and Education 
 
 military talents as the means of attaining my 
 aim," and, as he says elsewhere, ''he was as ready 
 to aid a fight for freedom in Ireland or in Hol- 
 land, as in America or France." 
 
 He fulfilled, too, in unusual degree, that maxim 
 of Cicero — ''War should be so managed, as to 
 remember that the only end of it is peace." The 
 unique thing about the present war is not only 
 that it is a world war, but that in a greater degree 
 than ever before, it is a war which has a ten- 
 dency to absorb the entire energies of the na- 
 tions engaged. The men in the trenches, the men 
 who go over the top, the men who go under the 
 sea, and in the air above — all the fighting forces 
 play a relatively smaller part in the war in pro- 
 portion to the total amount of human energy in- 
 volved than ever before. This is due partly to 
 the fact that the war is on such a gigantic scale, 
 and partly to the fact that it is a war of Applied 
 Science, and involves the products of complicated 
 industries to a greater extent than ever before. 
 It is, also, partly due to the improved means of 
 communication, to the universal reading of news- 
 papers, and the consequent dissemination of mili- 
 tary news among all the people. Another rea- 
 son perhaps is that democracies like to. do only 
 one thing at a time. Everybody's doing it, Every- 
 body join! Shout for one thing to-day, and for- 
 get it to-morrow. So that the enthusiasms of 
 Wednesday shall never be revived on Friday, but 
 be as dead on Friday as a moving picture reel 
 shown on Wednesday. This is one of the char- 
 
 103 
 
War and Education 
 
 acteristics of democracies, which has its good and 
 bad points. Perhaps we ought not to take excep- 
 tion to it more than to that philosophy of life 
 reflected in the old children's song, 
 
 This is the day we wash our clothes, wash our clothes, 
 
 So early Monday morning. 
 This is the day we dry our clothes. 
 
 So early Tuesday morning, etc. 
 
 Then the test of democracy will be whether it can 
 sustain the same interest with Wednesday as Red 
 Cross Day, and Thursday as Liberty Loan Day, 
 and Friday as Wheat Day and Saturday as Coal 
 Day, as the weeks roll around, ^s the whole race 
 has sustained with Monday as wash day, and 
 Tuesday as ironing day through the generations. 
 In view of this absorbing character of the war, 
 and in view of the fact that the Government, in 
 the face of growing military necessity, has re- 
 ceded from its plan of making provision for a 
 continued supply of technical men, the technical 
 schools of the country have felt that they must 
 do their part to avert the threatened calamity, 
 and have united and spent thousands of dollars in 
 trying to impress upon the country the necessity 
 of maintaining the supply of educated men. No 
 one institution could have done this without lay- 
 ing itself open to the charge of seeking its own 
 selfish interest, but when 36 of the leading tech- 
 nical schools of the country are willing to throw 
 aside all questions of institutional rivalry or in- 
 stitutional preeminence, and to join, the great 
 
 104 
 
War and Education 
 
 and the small, alphabetically, in an appeal to the 
 country, the country must believe that the doc- 
 trine so promulgated is based on sound founda- 
 tions. You who are fortunate enough to be able 
 to serve your country by study must not be mis- 
 led by our natural interest in things military 
 at this time, nor feel that as students you are in 
 a side eddy, and out of the line of march of the 
 nation's progress, serving your own interest while 
 your friends and class mates serve the cause of 
 freedom and democracy. 
 
 To you who are not technical students, but stu- 
 dents looking forward to the ministry, or to teach- 
 ing, or to literary pursuits, or to finance, I would 
 say a similar word. We need religion in war 
 time, as never before, to make our thinking in- 
 telligent. ''Without God," as Mr. Britling says, 
 ''we begin with no beginning, we think to no 
 end" in war time. Society must have some ex- 
 planation for the curtailment which it demands of 
 the individual life for the benefit of the race. 
 Without God and immortality, and the ideals of 
 sacrifice which religion has instilled, society has 
 no rational answer to the young man who asks 
 "What is the recompense of the reward to him as 
 an individual," if he lays down his life for his 
 country at 21, and elects six months or a year of 
 deadly monotony and drudgery, and a week or 
 two of glorious fighting, in preference to the nor- 
 mal life of sixty or seventy years of his neigh- 
 bor. You, who are studying, therefore, for the 
 ministry have much greater responsibilities, and 
 
 105 
 
War and Education 
 
 move in a much needier world than in ordinary 
 times. When men are being slaughtered by mil- 
 lions and are counted but cannon fodder, men will 
 renew their interest if you can tell them of a God 
 without whose notice ''not a sparrow falls to the 
 ground" and who "counts the very hairs of their 
 heads." 
 
 To you who are to be teachers and writers, I 
 would say that the greatest task of the war will 
 be to keep alive the ideals of liberty and democ- 
 racy, in whose name we have entered the conflict. 
 Lord Northcliffe admires America because there 
 is ''no complicated reckoning of compensation" 
 when the nation shuts a man's saloon in war time, 
 "no sentimental slush about the rights of neutral 
 countries like Spain, and Sweden." But the dan- 
 ger is lest, as in Germany, there will be no sense of 
 justice, of toleration, of fair dealing, but only the 
 law of military necessity. Some of those who 
 would direct American thought seem to feel that 
 you cannot fight a man and love him at the same 
 time — that no one can be a loyal American who 
 regards an enemy as a fellow man, and yet this 
 is the philosophy which seems the true one, un- 
 less we are ready to adopt Germany's philosophy 
 of the superstate, answerable to no one but itself. 
 The world is in this war to-day because of Ger- 
 many's false philosophy, that a state is above the 
 laws of morality, that it has no duties to its fellow 
 states, because it learned only half of the Apostle's 
 injunction, "Owe no man anything," and insisted 
 that a sovereign state must be free of obligations, 
 
 106 
 
War and Education 
 
 and shut its eyes to the second half of the injunc- 
 tion, which applies to states just as much as to 
 individuals, ' ' but to love one another. ' ' 
 
 The creed of democracy is the creed of Chris- 
 tianity — that whatsoever is right for any one is 
 right for every one. The creed of the superstate 
 leads irresistibly to universal war, when super- 
 state comes in conflict with superstate, and can 
 only result, if successful, in world dominion, a 
 dream which has proved a will-o'-the-wisp in the 
 days of Alexander, Augustus and Charlemagne to 
 draw empire after empire into a hopeless morass. 
 
 America has not done enough constructive think- 
 ing the last three years. In the first part of the 
 war it was urged not to think too much lest it lose 
 its neutral mind, and now it is urged not to think 
 too much lest it lose its martial will. The country 
 has been plunged so suddenly into a line of action 
 contrary to all the doctrines in which it has been 
 brought up that it is not strange that the public 
 mind is bewildered, and because it gives signs 
 of groping toward an intelligent comprehension of 
 the war, is accused of moral and intellectual in- 
 dolence, and advised that the best way to avoid a 
 fool's cap in the school of events is to keep still 
 or play the part of a parrot. Be loyal to the truth 
 as you see it, and independent in your thinking. 
 Eemember Lafayette 's doctrine of natural rights, 
 so inherent in every man's existence that all so- 
 ciety united has not the right of depriving him 
 of them — among them liberty of opinion, the care 
 of his own honor, and life, the conmiunication of 
 
 107 
 
War and Education 
 
 thought in every possible manner. President Wil- 
 son in his reply to the Pope speaks of this war as 
 the final winning of American independence. The 
 war may free America from the possibility of for- 
 eign invasion, and from interference with its com- 
 merce on the seas, but there is a battle for freedom 
 begun long before the American Eevolution, and 
 which will continue long after this war, of which 
 we are reminded by the motto on our college seal, 
 the words of the great teacher — "Ye shall know 
 the truth, and the truth shall make you free." 
 You, who are to be students of history, students of 
 government, students of economics, who are to 
 learn to know men through their literatures, must 
 not rate too low the importance of the work you 
 have to do for your country. You must remind us 
 that he is still a slave, whose limbs alone are free. 
 With increasing conscription of the body we shall 
 look to you for increasing liberation of the spirit. 
 We shall look to you to win for us the freedom 
 which truth gives, and to remind us if need be in 
 the words of that hymn which college men sing 
 with fervor : 
 
 Our fathers chained in prisons dark, 
 Were still in heart and conscience free. 
 
 If you are tempted to find your college course 
 monotonous before the end of the term, think of 
 the awful monotony which the great bulk of the 
 fighting forces is enduring in France. Talk with 
 your fellows who are in the Naval Peserve, and 
 find out how long and empty their days are ; think of 
 
 108 
 
War and Education 
 
 the thousands of sailors on battleships waiting 
 quietly at sea like a cat watching a mousehole; 
 look at the guardsmen down on the railroad 
 bridges, and you mil find that the routine of col- 
 lege life is relatively exciting compared with much 
 of the life of the soldier. 
 
 If you are tempted to rearrange your scale of 
 moral values, steady yourself by resorting to liter- 
 ature which sets down the opinion of nations to 
 whom war was a commonplace. If war tempts 
 you to place a lower value on yourself as a physi- 
 cal animal destined for early slaughter, stop be- 
 fore you rate yourself in terms of the physical, and 
 think how the reality of the spiritual side of man 
 has come to be recognized in the war, and how 
 whole nations have had a spiritual rebirth, and 
 then if you mind the things of the spirit you will 
 not fulfill the deeds of the flesh. War makes men 
 either hogs or heroes, swine or spirits of lofty en- 
 deavor. Both sides of human character are mag- 
 nified in war. If you give the spiritual side of 
 your nature room for expansion, it will take care 
 of the domination of the lower side. Our life as 
 a college in war time, and our life as individuals 
 is as different from our normal life as war bread 
 is different from white bread. They tell us there 
 Is more of vitamen, more of the principle of life in 
 war bread than in white bread, and that refine- 
 ments of civilization as we know them in peace, 
 are at the expense of the virile elements which are 
 present in war. Shadows, dark places, sorrows, 
 pains and sufferings which make the bread of war 
 
 109 
 
War and Education 
 
 dark and bitter to the taste, are, we are told, for 
 our spiritual nourishment. Nevertheless, given 
 the opportunity, the nations of the world after 
 the war will doubtless go back by preference to 
 the white bread of civilization. But so long as we 
 must for the present eat the black bread of war, 
 let us give it such mental mastication that we shall 
 gain for ourselves all the nourishment of soul it 
 has to give. Let us be resolute in our purposes. 
 Let us know that we know now in part, but know 
 what we know. Let us adopt Franklin's advice, 
 ''Have you somewhat to do to-morrow, do it to- 
 day," and comfort ourselves with Butler's opti- 
 mism, 
 
 **For discords make the sweetest airs, 
 And curses are a kind of prayers, ' ' 
 
 and if possible let us contribute our share of con- 
 structive patriotism to the solution of the war's 
 problems. 
 
 In the Eevolution there was a ballad by Howard 
 Warren very popular with the Americans which 
 ran, 
 
 "That seat of Science, Athens, 
 And earth's proud mistress, Rome, 
 
 Where now are all their glories? 
 We scarce can find a tomb. 
 
 "Then guard your rights, Americans, 
 
 Nor stoop to lawless sway. 
 Oppose! Oppose! Oppose! Oppose! 
 
 For North America." 
 
 110 
 
War and Education 
 
 Let us oppose for North America, where we 
 must, but let our opposition be against the enemies 
 abroad, and against the enemies of the Republic 
 within, who would neglect the foundations of jus- 
 tice, freedom and mutual respect. 
 
 Let us not go so far in our battle for world free- 
 dom, as the orator of the French Revolution was 
 ready to go, who according to Taine said — "I 
 would take my own head by the hair, cut it off, and 
 presenting it to the despot, would say to him, 
 Tyrant, behold the head of a free man." But let 
 us join with Lafayette and ''heartily address our 
 prayers to Heaven, that by her known wisdom, 
 patriotism, and liberality of principles, as well as 
 firmness of conduct, America may preserve the 
 consequence she has so well acquired, and con- 
 tinue to command the admiration of the world. ' ^ 
 
 111 
 
EDUCATION FOR THE NEW ERA 
 
 WE welcome you to a New Year, and to a new 
 era. To the old Lafayette and yet to a 
 Lafayette which can never be the same college that 
 it was before the war. Colleges change with the 
 changes in the hearts of their men. We take it for 
 granted that the material part of the college, build- 
 ings, the brick and stone, this window behind me, 
 that these, at least, are the same to-day as yester- 
 day, and that they look alike to Freshman and to 
 Senior. But a larger experience convinces us 
 that this is not the case. What we see depends, in 
 fact, on what we are. The college trustee who is 
 an alumnus, can never see the college buildings 
 exactly as the new trustee from outside who looks 
 at them through no boyhood memories, and whose 
 mental pictures are tinged with no youthful asso- 
 ciations. Wordsworth Avas but voicing the uni- 
 versal experience of the race when he wrote on re- 
 visiting Yarrow, ''I see — but not by sight alone, 
 loved Yarrow, have I won thee?"' 
 
 But if past associations determine what we see, 
 if the Lafayette we see to-day is determined in 
 large measure by our way of looking at her in the 
 past, still more, is the Lafayette of to-day a differ- 
 ent vision to each one of us according to each 
 man's plans, purposes and aspirations for the fu^ 
 
 Adfireps at the opening of Lafayette College, January, 1919. 
 
 1121 
 
Education for the New Era 
 
 ture. There is a curious selective law of assimila- 
 tion running through all nature. Out of the same 
 universe the plant and the animal according to the 
 law of their being seize, feel, taste, digest and con- 
 vert to their own purposes material for their dif- 
 fering lives. This law holds not only for plant 
 and animal but also for mind and spirit. We see 
 that for which we are looking. We make our own 
 in an intellectual and spiritual way that which fits 
 into our plans and ambitions. The broader and 
 more far-reaching our interests, the greater our 
 experience, the more sights and sounds enter our 
 consciousness and become a part of our life. If 
 the senses and sensual appetites have the upper 
 hand in a man 's life he will meet from hour to hour 
 and from day to day experiences which will feed 
 and nourish and develop these appetites. His 
 roommate on the other hand may live largely the 
 same life, walk the same paths and outwardly at 
 least experience the same events, yet because his 
 affections are set upon higher things his purposes 
 and ambitions directed elsewhere, the roommate 
 will by the universal selective process of assimila- 
 tion, experience a totally different life and absorb 
 and make his own totally different elements. You 
 w^ill discover in the laboratory of biology or in the 
 laboratory of chemistry no more infallible law, of 
 assimilation or of chemical affinity, than the law of 
 spiritual assimilation expressed by John Bur- 
 roughs in his lines, 
 
 "The waters know their own and draw 
 The brook that springs in yonder heights; 
 113 
 
Education for the New Era 
 
 So flows the good with equal law 
 Unto the soul of pure delights." 
 
 We had forgotten before the war what a large 
 part the will and desire played in determining our 
 world. We had begun to think of a thirst for 
 pleasure, a selfish sparing of ourselves effort or 
 pain, as natural inevitable parts of ourselves, 
 which by an inevitable law must seek their satis- 
 faction. And then with the war there came in 
 the mightier passions and these dominant passions 
 showed their power in that out of the most repul- 
 sive material of experience, mud, filth, blood, ver- 
 min, disease, and pain they could assimilate a 
 life of the spirit far more beautiful, more real, 
 more satisfying, more pleasurable even in the best 
 sense, than the sensuously pleasant life which the 
 bod^ had tried to build for itself in peace. I trust 
 that we shall not forget too soon the lesson the war 
 has taught that a man's purposes, ideals and ambi- 
 tions are not the product of his material environ- 
 ment, but that there is within him a spiritual 
 power and will which can hear and respond to the 
 call of other spirits and of great ideals. 
 
 I feel reasonably sure then in saying that I wel- 
 come you to a new Lafayette and to a new era, not 
 so much because Lafayette is changed as because 
 you are changed. 
 
 Some of my cynical friends nevertheless say 
 this talk of a new era is overdone. We don't 
 think college life will be very different, we don't 
 think national life will be very different after the 
 
 114 
 
Education for the New Era 
 
 war from what it was before the war. The men 
 we meet are the same men to-day that they were 
 four years ago. 
 
 Now, of course, if this be true, that the men of 
 to-day are the same as the men of four years ago, 
 then I am wrong in supposing that you return to 
 a new Lafayette or stand on the threshold of a 
 new era. At least I am wrong, if men everywhere 
 8.re the same, because the new era, and our life 
 here at Lafayette while largely dependent on our 
 own plans and ambitions, is also determined by 
 the impact of the plans and ambitions of other men 
 upon our lives. 
 
 I base my belief in a new era and a new Lafay- 
 ette, not only on what I know of the changes in 
 you but of the changes which I know have occurred 
 in other men. America with her President travel- 
 ing and conferring in other lands can never be the 
 America she was with her President tied to Wash- 
 ington. Two hundred million Teutons without a 
 Kaiser introduce a totally new force into the world 
 — a totally new factor which must in the long run 
 affect our experience. Hungry millions in Russia, 
 seething millions awaking to new life in China, 
 Japan and India change the conditions of the prob- 
 lem which you have to solve for yourself here in 
 Lafayette College, and whether you are a new man 
 yourself or not, the world in which you must live 
 is changed, so that you cannot be the same or lead 
 the same life in all ways, if you would. 
 
 How happy we should all be if we could meet 
 here on the threshold of this new year a divinely 
 
 115 
 
Education for the New Era 
 
 inspired guide who would foretell all things which 
 are to conxe to pass in the next ten years, and give 
 us a chart and a compass by which we might steer. 
 There are perplexities enough in shaping one's 
 course through a well charted ocean, but the first 
 ships which seek to navigate after a volcanic erup- 
 tion must feel their way, sounding carefully from 
 time to time with the lead of experience. Of 
 course the stars remain michanged. The great 
 fixed immutable principles of right and wrong, of 
 love to God and to fellow man, are the same to-day 
 as before the war, but our Scylla and our 
 Charybdis are shifted and the stars will not help 
 us to discover or to avoid them. With what equip- 
 ment then shall we set sail? First, I would say 
 with the name and location of our port clearly 
 fixed in mind. The big things, the things that 
 really matter, have been brought so much closer to 
 us by the war, have been so much more in our 
 thoughts than usual, that it ought to be easier for 
 us to determine just what we conceive the purpose 
 of life to be than in ordinary times. We want to 
 be perfectly frank with ourselves, when we think 
 about "those who sleep in Flanders fields," or 
 who return crippled and maimed. We cannot 
 have two measuring rules for life, one for them 
 and one for us. If their lives were a success, 
 if we rate them high by the measuring rod we use, 
 then we must not use for our own lives a measur- 
 ing rod which applied to theirs would show deficit 
 and loss. Out of the turmoil of this war I expect 
 to see American college men emerge with a more 
 
 116 
 
Education for the New Era 
 
 well considered philosophy of life than has been 
 theirs in the past. This will make American col- 
 lege life more mature and will be the first item 
 of equipment for the new voyage. 
 
 Second, if your destination is firmly fixed in 
 mind, the next requisite for the new voyage is an 
 open mind. It is characteristic of a new era that 
 we cannot use our fathers ' charts or go by the old 
 formulae. If you know as much as your fellow of 
 equal age, if your heart is as pure and as stout as 
 his, you are as qualified to shape the course as he. 
 But you must sail in the experimental spirit, ready 
 to be guided by the experience of the day, and to 
 alter and realter your course as the land and cur- 
 rents and winds and tides may suggest. 
 
 And, third, I would mention courage and faith, 
 always preeminent virtues in youth but never 
 more so than when setting forth to a land you 
 know not. 
 
 And last, but not least, knowledge — knowledge 
 of two kinds, first a knowledge of men and of the 
 experiences of other men sailing in every direction, 
 and under all conditions, an experience which has 
 been treasured up in language and literature, in 
 philosophy and history, in art and music, in 
 science, tools and machines, and secondly the 
 knowledge of methods and devices for reading and 
 interpreting for yourselves new experiences and 
 drawing proper conclusions therefrom, and of the 
 technique for utilizing material of all kinds for 
 such machines, tools or structures as you may re- 
 quire to successfully complete the voyage. If con- 
 
 117 
 
Education for the New Era 
 
 ditions of life do not change, tools need not change 
 very much. Life by rote is not a very difficult 
 matter. But if 3^ou are going to be an adventurer 
 and leader in the new era you will feel the need of 
 knowing all that is known, for after all, it is but 
 very little that we do know, or if you are not to be 
 a leader but hope to be taken along on the expedi- 
 tion, your chances of going in the leaders ' boat will 
 be multiplied a thousand times if there is some 
 one thing you can do as well or better than any one 
 else. Wars undoubtedly created kings, called 
 forth into prominence the competent man, the man 
 who could do what had to be done, and while the 
 present war has been no king-making war in the 
 old sense, yet like all previous wars it has served 
 to reveal men of ability and to place them in posi- 
 tions of responsibility and power. It has done 
 more than that. It has taught democracy in a 
 way that the lesson has never been taught before, 
 how democracy above every form of government is 
 dependent for its success or failure, for its effi- 
 ciency; for getting done the thing it wants done; 
 upon the caliber of men it can find for its service. 
 And democracy proposes to see to it, that if our 
 present system of education will not supply ade- 
 quate men for the nation's tasks, the system shall 
 be strengthened and improved for that purpose, 
 and in this great task we of Lafayette must do 
 our share. The new Lafayette will, I trust, ac- 
 cordingly, lay greater emphasis on keeping fit 
 physically, on the splendid human animal, which 
 can stand erect and serve the mind instantly with- 
 
 118 
 
Education for the New Era 
 
 out fatigue; on a spirit of service to the nation, a 
 larger patriotism which will perform the full serv- 
 ice of the private in the ranks in peace as well as 
 war, so that our whole civil life shall be well 
 ordered — on a broader brotherhood, which will 
 apply the ideals of fellowship and mutual helpful- 
 ness for which our fraternities and colleges stand 
 to the larger units of national, and international 
 life, calling nothing common or unclean which God 
 has cleansed. As a discriminating French writer 
 has recently observed — "the part of America in 
 the war appears great, but that which she is called 
 to play in the peace of to-morrow is unprece- 
 dented. ' ' 
 
 And for that part she and you are peculiarly 
 fitted. '^To the American," says the Frenchman, 
 ''his fatherland is not behind him in a venerated 
 past, it is before him, in a future that he foresees 
 and is helping to bring into being. 'Go Ahead!' 
 The old device is truer here than anywhere else. 
 The American is moving toward his fatherland 
 (his patrie) and creating it by the very movement 
 in which he seeks for it. He is conscious that she 
 is his work, that she comes forth from him rather 
 than he from her. His country is more than any- 
 thing else, a will to be, a part of his own will, a 
 hope rather than a reality and a hope to be real- 
 ized. He will realize it. That is his true reason 
 for being." You too, we trust, will realize the 
 new Lafayette, and so your better selves. That, 
 indeed, is your true reason for being here. And 
 for that we wish you all. Godspeed. 
 
 119 
 
THE COLLEGE AND THE SHADOW 
 OF WAR 
 
 OVER in Pennsylvania our careful Board of 
 Censors of Motion Pictures have very exact 
 ideas of propriety. I am told, for example, that 
 a kiss may be fifteen feet of film long, but that a 
 kiss more than fifteen feet long is outlawed. It 
 is dehghtful to have such very accurate and ex- 
 act standards by which to distinguish wrong from 
 right, and no doubt it occurs to you that toast- 
 masters might very well organize a censorship 
 along the same efficient lines. It is always a 
 puzzle, however, to a college president to know 
 just how to tell the alumni the year's story in 
 fifteen minutes, and at the same time avoid every- 
 thing of vital moment, lest he be suspected of 
 bringing the shop to the banqueting hall. 
 
 Lafayette himself solved the problem of a speech 
 to New Yorkers by not visiting New York during 
 the Revolution. Neither on his first or second 
 visits to America, but only on his third visit when 
 he was no longer in service did he venture into 
 New York, and then he paid the consequences by 
 having to make a speech. With your president, 
 however, the beginning of the third year of service 
 means the third visit to the New York alumni, 
 and therefore the third speech. What I could tell 
 
 Address to the New York Alumni of Lafayette College, New 
 York City, February, 1917. 
 
 120 
 
The College and the Shadow of War 
 
 you of the college, that it is larger than ever, 
 richer than ever, more wholesome in its life, more 
 desperatel}^ in need of money to help its faculty 
 meet the 30% increase in the cost of living, would 
 be overshadowed, I fear, by the larger questions, 
 now engaging your minds and the flashes of im- 
 pending storm on the muttering horizon. 
 
 As I walked down Fifth Avenue to-day and 
 saw more Stars and Stripes than ever decorated 
 the city on the most festal days, I felt and you 
 feel that there is only one subject uppermost in 
 our minds as American citizens, and that is loy- 
 alty. And in loyalty, Lafayette is not behind her 
 brothers. True to their name, true to the immor- 
 tal example of the great marquis, the men of 
 Lafayette of this generation as of former genera- 
 tions have already given expression of their loy- 
 alty, their readiness to serve their country and 
 the cause of freedom. 
 
 Shall we talk then of campaigning and discard 
 education except military education for the time? 
 What will be the effect of war on our colleges if 
 war comes? I am asked. Shall we lose, for the 
 time, interest in education, because of our interest 
 in war? Will loyalty to country sap loyalty to 
 Lafayette? The answer is hard to find in ad- 
 vance. One thing we know with great assurance, 
 if we may depend at all upon the lessons of his- 
 tory, and that is, if war comes, just as surely then 
 will come, at war's close, a great revival, a great 
 renaissance, a new era in education. It was so in 
 Germany after the Napoleonic wars, it was so in 
 
 121 
 
The College and the Shadow of War 
 
 Germany and France after the Franco-Prussian 
 War, it was so in Japan after the Kusso-Japanese 
 War. In the midst of the Revolution, Thomas 
 Jefferson withdrew to the legislature of Virginia 
 to draft laws for a Virginia school system. At the 
 close of the Civil War General Lee accepted the 
 presidency of a college. Why should this happen 
 apparently in contravention of the universal law 
 that like begets like? When a nation is in th3 
 midst of the diabolic fury of war, it is natural 
 that it should think of shells and submarines, aero- 
 planes and poisonous gases as the final arbiters 
 of human destiny. But when the smoke of battle 
 clears away, the persistent questioning of the hu- 
 man spirit drives it to ask, How did all this come 
 about? Has it a meaning? What is beyond? It 
 sees submarine and aeroplane, shell and bayonet 
 as the children of intellect, as servants of the pas- 
 sions and ideas of men, and is forced to say if the 
 servants are so great and so terrible what of the 
 human spirit which they serve? And so man re- 
 turns to education, to the attempt to draw out the 
 inexhaustible powers of the mysterious being man. 
 
 Some never mend their roofs when it is not 
 raining because they do not need a whole roof' 
 then, and when it is raining it is too late. This 
 is another lesson which war teaches regarding edu- 
 cation. 
 
 When war is as near as it is to-day, we feel in- 
 stinctively that it is as wrong to attempt to pro- 
 claim war from the advertising columns of the 
 newspaper as it is to attempt to direct the policy 
 
 122 
 
The College and the Shadow of War 
 
 of the nation toward peace by a postcard poll. 
 The die was cast long since. Not Emperor Wil- 
 liam, not the German staff of 1914, but the Nietsch- 
 ian philosophers of the superman, and the im- 
 perialistic dreamers molded Germany's destiny. 
 Not von Moltke and Hindenburg, but his boyish 
 heroes, Theodoric, Frederick the Great. It re- 
 quires the storm to demonstrate the significance 
 of a sand or rock f omidation. It requires a great 
 national crisis such as war to show that the acad- 
 emic molds the practical more than the practical 
 molds the academic. It is a mistake to think of 
 war as a test of the relative importance of mind 
 and matter, of brute force against ideas, as many 
 conceive it. The war of to-day is the child of 
 mind just as surely as the school is the child of 
 mind. If your purpose is to kill then if you are 
 intelligent you will use the tools best fitted for 
 killing, just as, if your purpose is to cure you will 
 use the drugs best adapted to curing. Mind will 
 not be a Christian Scientist in war any more than 
 in medicine. War may, therefore, shift the em- 
 phasis in education, it may change the curriculum, 
 it will not substitute God and gunpowder, or gun- 
 powder as God for the orderly knowledge of man 
 and the universe, even though that universe may 
 include more shells and submarines. 
 
 Loyalty to Lafayette then should grow and find 
 a rebirth in loyalty to nation even if that loyalty 
 shall mean war. War will make us very con- 
 scious of the defects in our education, and we 
 shall be more ready to give to Lafayette and to 
 
 123 
 
The College and the Shadow of War 
 
 other colleges and technical schools the money 
 necessary for adequate teaching. 
 
 As Admiral Fiske has said recently, the nation 
 that invents will win, whether it is the cheese box 
 on the raft, the tank, the submarine, or the pill 
 on the pole, victory will be not with the well drilled 
 soldier who never does anything but what he has 
 been trained to do, but with the adventurous mind 
 in the scientist's laboratory. 
 
 There is a good deal being said to-day about 
 universal service as the essential element in mili- 
 tary preparedness, and a good deal remains to be 
 said, but it will have to be a more comprehensive 
 universal service than that conceived by the De- 
 partment of War if it is to be effective. To call 
 upon our colleges to train their young men for 
 service in the trench or behind the mortar, and not 
 at the same time to organize men for work in the 
 machine shop or in the coal mines, nor make pro- 
 vision for more technical advisers of the Govern- 
 ment, for Geheimrats in economics, in history, in 
 international law, in chemistry, in biology, in agri- 
 culture, for more Ph.D.^'s in chemical engineer- 
 ing, more mechanical engineers, more financiers 
 and inventors, is to make the same mistake as the 
 child mind which conceives the policeman as the 
 Government of New York. On one thing America 
 seems to have clearly made up her mind, if it be- 
 comes a question between installing the soldier as 
 schoolmaster, or installing the schoolmaster as 
 warrior, America will choose the latter. War to- 
 day is too complex to be entrusted solely to the 
 
 124 
 
The College and the Shadow of War 
 
 fighter. The war is costing England a million 
 dollars an hour, it is reported. If you give La- 
 fayette a million dollars for its chemical depart- 
 ment and the result is an invention which would 
 shorten the war an hour, it would pay for itself. 
 
 Huxley in a public lecture at the London Royal 
 Society once said : 
 
 ''Pasteur's discoveries alone would suffice to 
 cover the war indemnity of five milliards paid by 
 France to Germany in 1870. ' ' No ! Let us keep 
 our faith in education even in these war times, and 
 when we are tempted to prize the man of action 
 above the man of thought, let us remember the 
 reply of a friend to one who sought Pasteur as a 
 physician: ''He does not cure individuals, he 
 only tries to cure humanity." 
 
 Science's last analysis of matter speaks of col- 
 lisions of electrons as the basis of all that is real 
 and beautiful. We shall not be unscientific, there- 
 fore, if we see in the collisions of this awful year 
 of war the fundamentals of a more beautiful world 
 than we have yet known. We want to know how 
 real moral law is in the universe. Is it a polite 
 convention, which we may discard as we do our 
 clothes when we have to swim for our lives, or are 
 collisions with the moral law just as real, just as 
 much to be reckoned with in the real world, as 
 collisions of the subdivided atom? 
 
 We revere to-day the memory of Lafayette. 
 We think of him as the wealthy aristocrat, the 
 distinguished officer, the friend of Washington, 
 the idol of a grateful people. We forget the La- 
 
 125 
 
The College and the Shadow of War 
 
 fayette the exile, imprisoned for five long years, 
 first by the King of Prussia with heavy manacles 
 locked on hands and feet in a cell so damp that all 
 hair came off his head, and later in a worse dun- 
 geon by Francis of Austria, with no word to 
 friends of his whereabouts or whether he was dead 
 or alive. 
 
 We forget the message sent to the imprisoned 
 Frenchman who had had to flee from his own 
 country because, while himself a soldier, he was 
 not willing to give the right of government un- 
 restrictedly into the hands of the greatest soldier 
 of modern times, that the King of Prussia would 
 release him from prison if he would assist in con- 
 quering France, and the response sent back with 
 scorn: ''Tell your master, that 'Lafayette is still 
 Lafayette.' " We forget the trials of the loyal 
 wife, who was permitted by the Austrian Emperor 
 to visit her husband in prison only on the condition 
 that she should not come out of the prison again 
 while she lived, or of the innocent daughters who 
 for twenty-two months shared the imprisonment 
 of their parents. We forget that the proposal to 
 take steps for the relief of Lafayette was defeated 
 not only in the British Parliament, but that on 
 March 3, 1797, in the American Congress, a reso- 
 lution requesting the President to take such meas- 
 ures as he might deem it expedient to adopt, to 
 restore to liberty our fellow citizen General La- 
 fayette, was defeated by a vote of 52 to 32. We 
 feel gratitude to France for Lafayette's part in 
 the Eevolution and forget that he came in the face 
 
 126 
 
The College and the Shadow of War 
 
 of opposition from the governraent of France as 
 well as from the government of England, and that 
 his companion on his arrival was the Bavarian 
 Baron de Kalb. 
 
 Every man has two countries, said Franklin, his 
 own and France, and so the world feels to-day, 
 but a century ago we were on the verge of war 
 with France to maintain the freedom of the seas, 
 and the threat was then made that the French 
 party in America would be stirred up to defeat the 
 President at home if war should come. Loyalty 
 is not as simple of definition as the Pennsylvania 
 censors have found the definition of a proper kiss. 
 The ^'Master, Master, and kissed him," may be in 
 truth a betrayal. 
 
 But though we may grope in the confusing 
 kaleidoscope of human affairs for the government 
 or people to whom we may be ever loyal, it is not 
 so hard in the realm of ideas and ideals. La- 
 fayette was Lafayette, and freedom was freedom, 
 and constitutional government was constitutional 
 government, in dungeon or beneath the Arch of 
 Triumph, and the words of Lafayette, who had ex- 
 perienced both a dungeon and triumph, in reply 
 to the farewell address of John Quincy Adams are 
 worthy our loyalty to-day — ''The cherishing of 
 that union between the States, as it has been the 
 farewell entreaty of our great paternal Washing- 
 ton, and will ever have the dying prayer of every 
 patriotic American, so it has become the sacred 
 pledge of the emancipation of the world; an ob- 
 ject, in which, I am happy to observe, that the 
 
 127 
 
The College and the Shadow of War 
 
 American people, while they give the animating 
 example of successful free institutions, show them- 
 selves every day, more anxiously interested." 
 
 I toast, therefore, in the words of Lafayette, 
 ''America, the sacred pledge of the emancipation 
 of the world" — and I join with it, a toast to his 
 namesake, our own Lafayette, and to its motto, 
 "VERITAS LiBERABiT, " the truth shall make you free, 
 in the words placed on Lafayette's triumphal 
 floral arch in Washington : 
 
 ' ' Our fathers in glory now sleep 
 Who gathered with thee to the fight, 
 But the sons will eternally keep, 
 The tablet of gratitude bright. 
 
 We bow not the neck, 
 
 We bend not the knee, 
 
 But our hearts, Lafayette, 
 
 We surrender to Thee." 
 
 128 
 
POOLING OF COLLEGE INTEEESTS AS 
 A WAR MEASURE 
 
 THERE is a widespread feeling that American 
 education is not organized to make its great- 
 est contribution to the war. The experience of 
 the last six months has shown that the need is two- 
 fold : first, the need on the part of the Government ; 
 second, the need on the part of the colleges; that 
 in both cases the need is not so much for unity 
 of spirit and purpose as for coordination, which 
 is unity at work. 
 
 The Government at Washington needs during 
 the war an administrator of education of some 
 sort who will be of sufficient dignity and authority 
 to rank with the food and coal administrators, and 
 to have authoritative standing with the chief of 
 staff. His function would be to coordinate the 
 demands made upon education by the Government 
 in the prosecution of the war. 
 
 The colleges need a war council with at least 
 seven bureaus — a bureau of propaganda, of legis- 
 lation, of statistics, of finance, of promotion, of 
 personnel and of international relations, as well as 
 national officers, who shall make the educational 
 point of view at least as potent in the councils 
 of the nation as that of organized labor, or of the 
 
 An address delivered before the Association of American Col- 
 leges, at Chicago, January 12, 1918, 
 
 129 
 
Pooling of College Interests 
 
 anti-liquor movement, or of woman's suffrage. I 
 will present briefly some of the considerations 
 which have led me to these conclusions. 
 
 Lord Bryce in his recent article on the ''Worth 
 of Ancient Literature to the Modern World, ' ' says, 
 ''The Greeks, like children, saw things together 
 which moderns have learnt to distinguish and to 
 keep apart. ' ' I want to ask you either to go back 
 with the Greeks or forward with the little children 
 of the Kingdom this morning and see things to- 
 gether which as moderns we have learned to dis- 
 tinguish and keep apart. For, as the vice-presi- 
 dent of the Guaranty Trust Company told the 
 Illinois bankers, perhaps the greatest lesson we are 
 learning from our excursion ' ' over the top ' ' is the 
 need of national unity. Unity is the watchword 
 of the day, whether on the battle line in Italy, the 
 council chamber in Paris, in the Shipping Board at 
 Washington, or in this Association of American 
 Colleges. The sacrifices demanded of the individ- 
 ual citizen in the name of patriotism have taught 
 a gospel of assent to a land where individualism 
 and dissent had become rampant. Even before 
 the war the organization of this association ex- 
 pressed the need for greater unity of action among 
 colleges, and this year the word "cooperation" 
 appears with special prominence on this pro- 
 gram. I wish to raise the question whether our 
 colleges can go farther than cooperation, and by 
 pooling their interests for the war advance the 
 national interest. 
 
 The present popularity of the word "pooling" 
 130 
 
As a War Measure 
 
 reminds me that I have lived through a complete 
 era. As an undergraduate student, I wrote an 
 essay in competition for a prize on ''The Inter- 
 state Commerce Commission," then a new experi- 
 ment in government, and a device inaugurated by 
 a people to whom the word "pooling" was an- 
 athema. To-day the readiness of the railroads to 
 pool freight, and to maintain joint traffic bureaus, 
 expediting the necessities of the war by the most 
 direct lines, excites only the highest praise and 
 admiration. The readiness of one road to become 
 a freight road, while another remains a passenger 
 road, the sharing of pet terminals and the yielding 
 of trade-marks such as "Your Watch is Your 
 Timetable," "The Standard Eailroad of Amer- 
 ica, ' ' etc., indicates a submergence of institutional 
 pride which no one would have thought possible 
 three years ago. Up to this time the necessities 
 of the war have not forced upon educational insti- 
 tutions any such radical change of program as in 
 the case of the railroads. The necessity, which is 
 said to be the mother of invention, is discerned by 
 the far-seeing college men on the horizon, but is 
 not yet upon us. We have not heard from Eng- 
 land, France, Canada, or even Germany, of any 
 constructive changes in the educational program 
 or institutional life due to the war. We know that 
 the colleges stand empty; we know that they have 
 been used for hospitals and for military barracks ; 
 we know that women are replacing men as students 
 in increasing numbers ; we know the manifold serv- 
 ices rendered the state by members of the faculties 
 
 131 
 
Pooling of College Interests 
 
 in the guidance of public opinion, in scientific in- 
 vention, in specialized governmental service. We 
 have noted the leveling effect of the war in the 
 pamphlet on "British Universities and the War," 
 which reports the activities of Manchester, Birm- 
 ingham and Leeds on complete equality with Ox- 
 ford and Cambridge, and in the more significant 
 proposal to readjust university representation in 
 Parliament so as to extend the privilege to the 
 provincial universities as well as to Oxford, Cam- 
 bridge and London. But we have heard of no 
 institutional program at all comparable to the con- 
 structive program of our railroads. The colleges 
 of America are casting about, therefore, for ex- 
 amples and analogies in other fields of human ac- 
 tivity which they may safely follow. The college 
 trustee who is a railroad man naturally thinks 
 that the colleges should do something similar to 
 what the railroads are doing; the college trustee 
 who is a dry goods man naturally thinks that the 
 college should do something similar to what the 
 drygoods stores are doing — adopt the slogan, 
 ''Business as Usual," and as sales fall off increase 
 the size of advertisements in the daily papers and 
 enter into a costly and frantic competition for the 
 patronage which remains. The college trustee 
 who is a broker naturally feels that the colleges 
 should do somewhat as the bankers and brokers 
 are doing — get a leave of absence from their regu- 
 lar work and help the government by raising 
 money for the Eed Cross or by selling Liberty 
 bonds. The college trustee who is a manufacturer 
 
 132 
 
As a War Measure 
 
 naturally feels that the college, like the manufac- 
 turer, should adapt its plant to the needs of the 
 war, discontinuing the Latin and Greek lines and 
 enlarging the output in the direction of chemistry, 
 explosives and gas engines. So that just as the 
 plant which in peace time makes drills for wells, 
 now makes steel casings for shells, so the college, 
 which in peace time makes scholars, will in war 
 time make soldiers; the college, which in peace 
 time seeks to refine human material, will in war 
 time adopt the processes which tend to toughen 
 and harden. 
 
 War, in the words of the Battle Hymn of the 
 Republic, ''tries out the souls of men before the 
 judgment seat" in many ways. To the teacher it 
 is a great test of his educational faith. Every col- 
 lege man to-day asks himself, "Is what we are 
 teaching important? Are we teaching it as fast 
 as we can, or as thoroughly? Are we developing 
 our men physically to the best advantage?" 
 Those whose educational houses are builded upon 
 the sand have already been swept away; those 
 whose educational faith has firm foundations have 
 had their belief in the importance of their task 
 reenf orced by recent events ; and just because the 
 storm has blown away a lot of the unessential dec- 
 orations, see the essentials and their significance 
 more clearly. Such a company of educators 
 naturally ask themselves, ''How can we best per- 
 form a task fraught with such importance for the 
 nation?" Shall we enter upon a ruthless period 
 of competition? Shall we take the road of the 
 
 133 
 
Pooling of College Interests 
 
 department stores and increase our appropria- 
 tions for advertising, send out more agents to 
 drum up trade, lower educational standards, pro- 
 vide short cuts to degrees, reduce tuition fees, 
 offer special inducements in the way of scholar- 
 ships and free rooms, and so each of us in his own 
 way do his share to increase the number of college- 
 trained men in the nation and save our institutions 
 from extinction ? Or, is there some better way by 
 which our joint expenditures in advertising can be 
 directed against ignorance and forces of reaction, 
 our agents ' efforts be directed toward augmenting 
 the total number of college students in the country 
 rather than toward increasing our own enrollment 
 at the expense of less wide-awake and energetic 
 institutions'? Shall we create a sincere spirit of 
 cooperation which will be ''each for all and all 
 for each"? Can we organize some sort of strate- 
 gic war board which will secure for the important 
 interests of education as able and watchful leader- 
 ship as is enjoyed by the labor unions, by the anti- 
 liquor forces, or by the cause of woman's suffrage? 
 For there is no question about the importance 
 of education for war. Brains, trained brains, will 
 win the war. War is to-day so much a matter of 
 delicate and intricate scientific apparatus that only 
 the nation equipped for scientific education can 
 win. But if ''brains" is the first word of the 
 countersign by which we pass to victory, the 
 second is "coordination." As Major-General 
 Squier said recently in Washington, ' ' In the army 
 of to-day arms are so accurately balanced that co- 
 
 134 
 
As a War Measure 
 
 operation is the keynote of the whole thing." If 
 the artillery continues to blaze away too long you 
 kill your own men. When the barrage stops the 
 front line men must be ready. Communication 
 between aeroplane, artillery and trench must be 
 absolutely accurate and instantaneous. Had it 
 been so at Gallipoli the whole history of the war 
 would have been changed. Unity of spirit is es- 
 sential, but coordination is no less so. The one 
 will give us a mob, the other an orderly proces- 
 sion. The great manufacturers, like the General 
 Electric, Western Electric, the railroads and the 
 automobile manufacturers, have already demon- 
 strated that America excels her allies in her 
 readiness to pool individual interests for the suc- 
 cess of the war. We already have more of this 
 spirit manifested in America than is known in 
 England after three years of war. The same 
 spirit exists among the educational leaders of the 
 country. Nowhere has the response been more 
 prompt or more unanimous to the country's sum- 
 mons. Education has shown a laudable readiness 
 to follow, but for some reason it has lacked leader- 
 ship and coordination. Perhaps this is due to 
 the fact that under our theory of government edu- 
 cation is a state, not a national function. Perhaps 
 it is due to an old jealousy between the scholar and 
 the soldier ; between the military caste and the men 
 of books, which has come down through the cen- 
 turies and finds expression in our own adjutant- 
 general's office. Perhaps it is due to jealousy be- 
 tween labor and the high-brow, and democracy's 
 
 135 
 
Pooling of College Interests 
 
 natural suspicion of the expert. Whatever the 
 cause, it is an undoubted fact that education is one 
 of the last great factors in our civilization to or- 
 ganize for the war. Various war agencies have 
 made use of existing educational organizations for 
 recruiting, for the Eed Cross, for Liberty bonds, 
 but education has not organized herself for her 
 own no less important work. 
 
 It is time that we were finding answers to the 
 question whether the colleges cannot subordinate 
 institutionalism to the common welfare without 
 sacrificing that characteristic college institution- 
 alism which is one of the richest possessions of the 
 American people and which encourages so much 
 loyalty and self-sacrificing devotion. Whether 
 there is not perhaps some constructive program 
 open to the colleges which shall be neither the road 
 of the department store nor the road of the rail- 
 road, but which shall make good our boast that 
 education marches in the van of evolution, and is 
 the first to adapt itself to new conditions. 
 
 It is clear enough what we have to expect in the 
 next two or three years if the war continues and 
 the colleges are left each to do the best that it can 
 for itself. We all know the symptoms to which I 
 have referred. The entrance requirements will be 
 less rigidly enforced, free rooms will be offered in 
 empty dormitories, college fees will be cut, the col- 
 lege year will be shortened, degrees will be offered 
 in three years instead of four, instructors will be 
 enticed by larger salaries, more money will be 
 spent on advertising and promotion. Not only 
 
 136 
 
As a War Measure 
 
 will the colleges be shorn of their young men, but 
 the few that remain will be secured at such a 
 heavy cost, and at the price of such inducements, 
 as not only to empty the treasury, but to pervert 
 the relation of teacher and student. 
 
 The colleges, however, are not blind to the les- 
 sons taught by the Eed Cross and Y. M. C. A. cam- 
 paigns. It is evident that during the war the most 
 eifective appeals will be those which are nation- 
 wide. If money is to be secured for education 
 there must be some way of driving home the truth 
 that education, even though represented by a mul- 
 tiplicity of institutions, is national in its scope and 
 purpose. Neither are the colleges blind to the 
 economies which are being effected in so many 
 directions. If non-essential industries must shut 
 down for lack of fuel, it is evident that non-essen- 
 tial college buildings will have to close for lack of 
 fuel. It has even been suggested that December, 
 January and February be taken for vacation in- 
 stead of June, July and August. If the Standard 
 Oil companies have to discontinue dividend notices 
 to stockholders because of the increase in the cost 
 of postage, it is evident that colleges must econo- 
 mize even in 3-cent stamps. If women are to re- 
 place men on street cars and elevators, on farms 
 and in munition factories, it will not be strange if 
 they replace men to some extent as instructors in 
 laboratories and class rooms. If college instruc- 
 tors and technical men continue to be drafted for 
 government service, it is evident that the few that 
 are left will have to teach overtime — labor union 
 
 137 
 
Pooling of College Interests 
 
 rules to the contrary notwithstanding. There are, 
 it is true, serious difficulties in the way of pooling 
 interests. It is comparatively easy to pool rail- 
 road interests when there is more than enough 
 traffic to go round, and every track is full, because 
 then every facility can be used to its utmost. It 
 would be a more difficult matter to pool depart- 
 ment store interests in the face of a shrinking 
 market, because there is not enough to go around, 
 and whatever the division everybody would be dis- 
 satisfied. In education the shrinkage has been 
 even greater, and will be greater still in each suc- 
 ceeding year. So that any pooling of the traffic 
 would still leave the educational facilities in a cer- 
 tain measure unused. If you have a large roast 
 of beef it is a relatively easy matter to carve it 
 on the table, but if it is a duck, and a very thin 
 one at that, there is a great advantage in individ- 
 ual service. I don't know how the professors feel, 
 but I imagine the college presidents would be quite 
 ready to accept, like the railroads, a government 
 administrator for the period of the war, if like the 
 railroads the colleges could be guaranteed a net 
 income equal to that of the last three years. The 
 Supreme Court, however, has not yet included edu- 
 cation within that very elastic phrase "commerce 
 between the states," and even in war time the 
 Federal Government will probably not venture to 
 do for education what it has done for the railroads. 
 If, therefore, the problem is to be satisfactorily 
 solved, it must be divided into two parts. First, 
 the coordination of the war demands of the Gov- 
 
 138 
 
As a War Measure 
 
 ernment upon education, which can be effected by 
 the appointment of an educational administrator 
 at Washington, and second, the coordination of 
 the efforts of American colleges and universities 
 so that they may efficiently perform their duty in 
 the present crisis. 
 
 You are all familiar with the various attempts 
 made within the past year at Washington to secure 
 the cooperation of education for the war. An 
 effort to secure enlargement of the powers and 
 functions of the Bureau of Education, the revival 
 of the plan to make education a separate depart- 
 ment with a seat in the Cabinet, seems to be still 
 stranded on the shoal of Congressional opposition. 
 In the advisory commission of the Council of Na- 
 tional Defense education was tacked on to engi- 
 neering as an afterthought, and Dr. Godfrey has 
 struggled heroically to span the two great fields as 
 a Colossus of Rhodes. A good many cargoes, as 
 you know, have passed between his legs in the last 
 two months. Dean Mc'Clelland and the Intercol- 
 legiate Intelligence Bureau have made some con- 
 tribution to the problems of personnel and still 
 maintain a somewhat precarious foot-hold in the 
 scheme of things. Now comes the Federal Board 
 for Vocational Education, and because they hap- 
 pen to have some money to spend think they are 
 fitted to serve the Government as intermediary be- 
 tween the Government and education, not only in 
 the field for which they were created and to which 
 their expenditures must by law be restricted, but 
 in other fields as well,, and while they grasp for 
 
 139 
 
Pooling of College Interests 
 
 higher education they fail to serve their own par- 
 ticular field, and the Shipping Board and the De- 
 partment of Labor, also having some spare cash, 
 start out on their own account in the fields of 
 secondary vocational education. 
 
 What the surgeon-general can get in the way of 
 education for his recruits, the chief engineer is 
 finally convinced is good for his division, and what 
 is good for the chief engineer is good for the chief 
 signal officer, and what is good for them is good 
 for the quartermaster and the ordnance depart- 
 ment, and so education, ready to serve, but with 
 no representative with standing or authority on 
 a par with that of a Secretary of War or Secretary 
 of the Navy, with no priority board chairman, with 
 no railroad director or administrator, becomes 
 servant to all, and is expected to serve not two 
 masters, but certainly seven with all the confusion 
 and uncertainty therein involved. It is rumored 
 that the Department of War wants an educational 
 director on its staff, to take over, not only the edu- 
 cational activities of cantonments, but all ques- 
 tions in which the Department of War and the col- 
 leges are concerned. But, of course, the educa- 
 tional director of the War Department would not 
 know what the Navy educational director was 
 about to propose, much less what the Federal 
 Board of Vocational Education, the Committee on 
 Engineering and Education of the Advisory Com- 
 mission of the Council of National Defense, or the 
 departments of Labor, Agriculture and the Inte- 
 rior had on the slate. 
 
 140 
 
As a War Measure 
 
 It is evident that the necessities of war require, 
 not only some kind of pooling of educational inter- 
 ests, but some kind of an administrator of educa- 
 tion at Washington to whom the various govern- 
 mental departments can present their educational 
 needs, and where the various demands on the edu- 
 cational resources of the country can be coordi- 
 nated. I propose, therefore, an administrator of 
 education, to rank with the administrator of food 
 and the administrator of coal, and to occupy a seat 
 in the War Council. 
 
 Not only is there need, however, of coordination 
 in education from the standpoint of the govern- 
 ment's war needs, but there is also need of coordi- 
 nation of educational efforts on the part of the in- 
 stitutions for themselves. Everywhere in the edu- 
 cational world is felt the need of some machinery 
 to voice the educational mind, to act for the educa- 
 tional will, and to beg for the educational purse. 
 Various suggestions have already been made for 
 meeting this need. It is a good rule in war time, 
 whenever possible, to convert to war uses whatever 
 structure or organization is at hand, and it may 
 be that this Association of American Colleges 
 under the enlightened leadership of Dr. Kelly, can 
 organize the War Board that we need, or if not 
 this association alone, perhaps this association 
 with representatives of other similar organiza- 
 tions, such as the Association of American Univer- 
 sities, Association of State Universities, etc., 
 might organize such a board. This board ought to 
 represent the colleges as distinct from the Govern- 
 
 141 
 
Pooling of College Interests 
 
 ment, though in hearty sympathy and cooperation 
 with it. It ought to have national representatives 
 at Washington to give effective expression to any 
 questions of national policy upon which the organ- 
 izations represented may agree. The National 
 Education Association has recently opened a secre- 
 tary 's office in Washing-ton, making a small but 
 wise beginning in this direction for the public 
 school interests. Higher education ought, par- 
 ticularly, to be heard speaking with no uncertain 
 voice when the question of lowering the draft age 
 comes before Congress — it ought to be heard 
 speaking with no uncertain voice when questions 
 of taxing legacies to colleges come before Congress 
 — it ought to have an official representative to 
 speak for education when a plan is being worked 
 out for universal military training. In a word, 
 higher education needs a national council and na- 
 tional officials to make effective their point of 
 view, enlarge their opportunities for service, se- 
 cure appropriate legislation, mold public opinion 
 and secure an adequate share of financial support. 
 Such a War Board should have at least seven 
 bureaus : A Bureau of Propaganda, analogous to 
 that undertaken by Sir Gilbert Parker and Pro- 
 fessor McNeill Dixon, of Glasgow; a Bureau of 
 Legislation to guard educational interests in Con- 
 gress ; a Bureau of International Relations to take 
 up educational questions which affect our allies as 
 well as ourselves ; a Bureau of Personnel to make 
 sure that every teacher in the present emergency 
 is being used to the best advantage ; a Bureau of 
 
 142 
 
As a War Measure 
 
 Promotion to dream dreams and see visions for 
 American education and to bring them to the atten- 
 tion of the American people, and a Bureau of 
 Finance to do for education on a large scale what 
 the national boards have been able to do for the 
 Eed Cross and the Young Men's Christian Asso- 
 ciation. If the continuance of education is a pa- 
 triotic service we must see too that it secures 
 recognition as such, by such devices of iron 
 crosses, uniforms, service stripes and titles, of red 
 and blue triangles and crosses, as appeal to the 
 imagination of democracy. The patriotism of the 
 marine who guards the sugar plantation in Cuba, 
 of the farmer who plants potatoes, of the college 
 professor who teaches French to the soldier, is 
 seen and applauded. The medical scientist wears 
 his reserve officer's uniform in the laboratory, but 
 the uniforms of teachers even in the ground 
 schools of aviation have recently been taken away 
 from them. I do not say that America has yet 
 reached the point where either a uniform or a 
 title is needed to make the citizen a servant of the 
 nation, but if these things are needed for the popu- 
 lar imagination, American teachers must have 
 them. 
 
 We must organize joint campaigns to increase 
 the supply of students, as otherwise any attempt 
 on the part of the college to secure students will 
 be regarded as a selfish attempt for the benefit of 
 the institution, and at the expense of the war. We 
 must encourage wherever possible the differentia- 
 tion of functions and make it easy for competing 
 
 143 
 
Pooling of College Interests 
 
 institutions to give up to each other certain fields 
 of instruction. If the war continues and the sup- 
 ply of instructors decreases more rapidly than the 
 number of students, we must devise some method 
 by which specialists can give half of their time 
 to one institution and half to another. We must 
 establish some kind of a labor exchange, with 
 which perhaps the Carnegie Foundation would co- 
 operate to insure the most efficient use of all the 
 teachers available. We must adopt a code of pro- 
 fessional ethics which will discourage the calling 
 of members of college faculties from one institu- 
 tion to another on short notice in the midst of the 
 term by offers of higher salary. Finally, we must 
 appoint a committee to consider how the deficits 
 of the colleges in this Association, caused by the 
 war, are to be financed as a matter of general 
 national policy. With the immense expansion of 
 governmental activity, due to the war, there will 
 be a strong disposition to have the Government 
 control the industries of the country and pay all 
 bills. It is evident that the salvation of the insti- 
 tutions represented in this Association does not lie 
 in that direction, but rather in the direction of the 
 national campaigns of the Eed Cross and the Y. M. 
 C. A., in nation-wide and universal appeals. So 
 far as I know, there has never been in America 
 a joint meeting of any kind of college trustees. 
 With the readiness of business men to give their 
 services to national movements connected with the 
 war, it is conceivable that even college trustees 
 might be brought together for action. The Grer- 
 
 144 
 
As a War Measure 
 
 man General von LudendorfP made a remark apro- 
 pos of the recent War Council in Paris that ''when 
 nations were at their wits' ends they called a 
 War Council. ' ' It was a stinging challenge from 
 autocracy to democracy. We have given individ- 
 ualism free play in America, and we all admire 
 what private initiative has been able to do, not 
 only in building its own institutions but in creat- 
 ing a faith in education in the American people 
 which has made possible education through the 
 state with popular approval and support. We 
 must now show ourselves farsighted and broad 
 enough to again blaze a new path and point the 
 way to the American people for a constructive war 
 program for American education, by a willingness 
 to submerge the individual glory of our institu- 
 tions in a common pool for the public welfare. 
 
 145 
 
FEDEEAL LEAJDERSHIP IN EDUCATION 
 
 ONLY a year ago we were quite unanimous in 
 the opinion that the colleges needed, that the 
 country needed, some national agency to coordin- 
 ate American education and to increase the effec- 
 tiveness of college service in the winning of the 
 war. 
 
 We talked of a national administrator of edu- 
 cation, and we went from the meeting of this as- 
 sociation to other conferences here and in Wash- 
 ington, and organized an Association of National 
 Education Associations which has come to be 
 known as the American Council on Education. 
 We went further, and carried to the Senate, to the 
 House and to the White House, a report of what 
 we understood to be the conviction of the educa- 
 tional forces of America that education was not 
 properly represented in the national councils, that 
 American education had no international voice, 
 much less an international hand or pocketbook. 
 
 On January 31, 1918, we presented to Senator 
 Hoke Smith, Chairman of the Senate ^s Committee 
 on Education, a letter from which I will quote 
 a paragraph to show that our thought went out 
 beyond war time. The letter said : 
 
 ' ' The opportunity is before us of cooperating in 
 
 Address before the Association of American Colleges, Chicago, 
 January, 1919. 
 
 146 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 large educational undertakings with France, Eng- 
 land and Italy and of helping in the educational 
 reorganization of Eussia, and the educational 
 awakening of China. Our educational relation- 
 ships with the South American republics also are 
 sure to grow rapidly in extent and in importance. 
 We must act in all these matters as a nation and 
 not as separate and individual states. While leav- 
 ing to the states all the old measure of autonomy 
 in their own educational systems, it will be neces- 
 sary to provide some central and general agency 
 through which they may all express themselves 
 in policies which are either national or interna- 
 tional in scope. 
 
 ''Since education is universally recognized as 
 the first corollary of democracy, it seems incon- 
 gruous that it should not be recognized as of equal 
 rank in the councils of the nation, with that ac- 
 corded Commerce, Labor and Agriculture, all of 
 which have representatives in the President's 
 cabinet. . . . The creation of a Department of 
 Education would in our judgment unify, direct 
 ■and stimulate effort, and would give just recog- 
 nition to the dignity and practical importance of 
 Education in the national life. It would also 
 establish a governmental agency for dealing with 
 international educational problems of a rank co- 
 ordinate with the educational departments of the 
 majority of the great nations with which we shall 
 be dealing.'' 
 
 To-day, conditions are very different from what 
 they were last year at this time. We were sure, 
 
 147 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 then, that we needed not only a Federal Leader, 
 but even a Federal Administrator.' To-day we 
 are not so sure. The pendulum has started on 
 the return swing. We have had a taste of military 
 dictation and it has left a bad flavor in our mouths. 
 I understand that the only time the faculty of the 
 University of Chicago ever voted unanimously on 
 any subject was when they voted recently against 
 continuance of military training in any form. 
 The attempt to retain control of railroads, the ar- 
 bitrary seizure of telephone and telegraph lines 
 when the war was over, the frightful waste of 
 bureaucratic circumlocution and stupidity, the ab- 
 sence in American official circles of that sense of 
 fair play which is so characteristic of better 
 Americans in their private professional and busi- 
 ness life, the excesses and blind tyranny, the sloth 
 and greed of Bolsheviki and Soldiers and Work- 
 men's Councils abroad, all these things make us 
 skeptical as to the wisdom of casting the Federal 
 Government for any more important role in the 
 great drama of ''Education for a Democratic 
 World," upon which the curtain of a new era is 
 about to rise. 
 
 There must, therefore, be cogent reasons for 
 the step if it is to win our adherence and support. 
 Arguments which will bear rough matter-of-fact 
 handling. Ends which looked at in any light or 
 from any angle will still appear desirable. 
 
 For myself, I have reexamined in the light of 
 the year's experience and changes, all the argu- 
 ments which we advanced a year ago in the letter 
 
 148 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 to Senator Smith and I am as ready to subscribe 
 to that letter as a declaration of faith to-day as I 
 was a year ago. 
 
 Like all great reforms we mistrust the proposal 
 because of its very simplicity and obviousness. 
 To the question, Is Education a national interest 
 comparable in importance to agriculture, com- 
 merce, labor? — the press, the trade-unions, the 
 man in the street, are prepared to give an affirma- 
 tive answer. The truth of the matter is, not that 
 we don't recognize the significance of education 
 in our national life but that we are all so much 
 interested in education in America, that we all 
 want to have a hand in it, and hesitate to set up 
 a department, and say Education belongs particu- 
 larly to this jurisdiction. Everybody wants to 
 educate. Agriculture wants to teach, Commerce 
 wants to teach, the Treasury wants to teach, the 
 Post Office wants to teach. Labor wants to teach, 
 the "White House wants to teach, the little country 
 school district wants to teach and resents being 
 consolidated with a neighboring district, while 
 there is hardly a child born who is not ready at the 
 age of five to explain the universe and direct the 
 steps of his little brother of three. 
 
 If there is a stumbling block in the road of 
 Federal Leadership in Education, I should say 
 it was not so much lack of appreciation of the 
 importance of education in national life, as too 
 widespread appreciation of the fun of playing 
 teacher — and too little appreciation of the rich re- 
 wards which com€^ to the teachable spirit. 
 
 149 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 You are all familiar enough with the subject 
 to marshal each the arguments pro and con for 
 himself. The arguments which I find most cogent 
 naturally group themselves for me under three 
 heads : 
 
 (1) The International Argument 
 
 (2) The National Ideal Argument 
 
 (3) The Argument of Convenience. 
 
 The International Argument is simply the argu- 
 ment applied to education, which gave us in the 
 first place our Union of States. If there had been 
 no international problems, no problems of com- 
 merce or war with other nations, we should prob- 
 ably never have had any Federal Government. 
 International relationships created the Federal 
 Government. Up to this time our international 
 relationships in education, in the world of science 
 and letters, have been of minor importance. Now 
 they are assuming a place of primary importance. 
 If national ambitions are to be turned from ag- 
 grandizement by war, to the satisfaction of hu- 
 man needs and the improvement of the individual, 
 then education, science and letters, must come to 
 constitute a very large part of the stuif of inter- 
 national intercourse. If war is to be impossible 
 in the future, then we want educational attaches, 
 as our eyes and ears and mouthpieces, at our for- 
 eign legations, as well as military or naval at- 
 taches and such other relics of a past age. 
 
 And when the United States officially invites a 
 foreign educational mission to visit this country, 
 we want it arranged so that President Cowling 
 
 150 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 and Professor Schofield will not have to pledge 
 their Carnegie pensions as security for the travel- 
 ing expenses of the distinguished visitors, because 
 the great United States, however friendly it may 
 feel, however much it may desire closer relation- 
 ships, is deaf and dumb and a penniless beggar 
 when it tries to assume the role of International 
 Educational Host. 
 
 The second group of arguments I call the Argu- 
 ment of the National Ideal. This is the argument 
 woven from the stuff that dreams are made of, 
 the lightest, airiest, toughest, most inescapable 
 stuff we know. In America we have always had 
 a right to make our state in our own image. We 
 have never been taught to believe that the state 
 was a ready made institution imposed on us by 
 God. The writers of our Declaration of Inde- 
 pendence and of our Constitution took care that 
 we should be constantly reminded that our state 
 was a device for human needs made for man, not 
 man for the state, so that Man was Lord also of 
 the state and could discard any particular form if 
 it failed to work. 
 
 And many of us, as we picture to ourselves our 
 ideal state, are not satisfied that it shall be a state 
 of merely soldiers and workmen 's councils, or even 
 a state merely of successful business men, and 
 farmers, capitalists and trades-unionists. The 
 means to life have somehow in America usurped 
 the place of life itself in our daily life as well as 
 in our governmental organization, and we feel that 
 one step in correcting this disorder and restoring 
 
 151 
 
federal Leadership in Education 
 
 a proper emphasis will be to give to education, to 
 science, art and philosophy, at least equal recog- 
 nition with commerce and agriculture in the 
 scheme of things at Washington. 
 
 Third, there is the group of arguments which 
 we may call the Argument for Convenience or Effi- 
 ciency, arguments which are matter of fact, and 
 as easily demonstratable by experiment, as the 
 argument from the National Ideal is cobwebby and 
 illusive. Under this head I would group all the 
 arguments which demand a Department of Educa- 
 tion because there are specific tasks which we want 
 done and we find we have no machine guaranteed 
 to do them easily, promptly and inexpensively. 
 
 While we may agree fairly well on the first two 
 arguments and the conclusion which they will sup- 
 port, we are likely to part company when we come 
 to this third group of arguments. Naturally in a 
 great country like ours one set of people want one 
 thing done, another another thing. If a machine 
 is to be set up, some say it must be a churn to 
 miake butter, others, a sewing machine, others a 
 pump, others an automobile for travel, others a 
 phonograph, others a printing press. Probably 
 we need all of them if our farm is to be completely 
 equipped, but let us begin either by installing an 
 electric wire with direct connections with the pub- 
 lic treasury, or else a gas engine with a good fat 
 appropriation barrel of oil, and having made sure 
 of the supply of power we can hitch it up to any 
 machine we may thereafter acquire for a specific 
 need. If such a plan is too ideal, let us compro- 
 
 152 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 raise on some sort of a self-starting automobile in 
 which we shall be able to travel not only, but 
 which we can block up in the barn in the winter 
 months and put to running the threshing machine, 
 or to sawing wood. 
 
 In this article I cannot go further than indi- 
 cate the lines of argument. We hope the whole 
 nation will turn itself into a debating society, and 
 that the national policy will follow what proves 
 to be the soundest argument. We must not be 
 discouraged if the movement takes time. Mrs. 
 Humphry Ward has recently claimed that the 
 Fisher Education Act of last August, England ^s 
 notable contribution to educational reconstruction, 
 is for the most part simply an embodiment of the 
 ideas of her Uncle Matthew Arnold, who held the 
 office of Inspector of Schools from 1851 to 1886. 
 In America twenty^ve years of agitation were 
 required to produce the present Bureau and fifty 
 years more have not been long enough to convince 
 Congress of its right to larger appropriations. 
 But the pace is quickening and the new Depart- 
 ment will be ready for America when America is 
 ready to use it. 
 
 In the meantime what are the practical steps 
 that are being taken toward the desired end! I 
 have made an analysis of the legislation affecting 
 education proposed during the present Congress. 
 It was an illuminating and surprising study. 
 Apart from the legislation dealing with education 
 in the District of Columbia or other direct wards 
 of Congress there have been about sixty different 
 
 153 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 bills introduced during the 65th Congress appro- 
 priating some two or three hundred million dollars 
 for education. These classify themselves gener- 
 ally under four heads : 
 
 (1) General legislation affecting the organi- 
 zation and administration of federal educa- 
 tion. 
 
 (2) Legislation granting federal aid to engi- 
 neering, agricultural and vocational education, 
 three branches of education which have already 
 received definite federal recognition. 
 
 (3) Legislation providing for education in 
 other special directions such as Americanization, 
 illiteracy, public health, deaf and dumb, music, etc. 
 etc. 
 
 (4) Legislation providing federal financial aid 
 for particular institutions. 
 
 A score of bills belong to the last group and ap- 
 propriate various amounts varying from the seven 
 million acres to be given the schools of Nevada 
 to the reduced carfare which is to be allowed a 
 student from any part of the United States who 
 studies in Washington. 
 
 A score of bills belong to the third class and 
 show immense originality and variety, from the 
 bill providing for the establishment of a National 
 Conservatory of Music and Art and prescribing 
 how many rooms there shall be in each building 
 and how many pupils each room shall hold, to the 
 bill providing for investigating and teaching the 
 science and art of manufacturing and using oleo- 
 margarine and providing that oleo may be used 
 
 i?4 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 free from tax in college dining halls. Here also 
 are the bills providing for a Federal Correspon- 
 dence School, a Federal Board for Physical Cul- 
 ture, and for a Bureau in the Department of Labor 
 which shall give instruction in hygiene of mater- 
 nity and infancy. 
 
 In the second group there are only half as many 
 bills but they make up for their small number 
 by the huge size of the proposed appropriations. 
 Here are the bills providing millions for voca- 
 tional rehabilitation of wounded soldiers, estab- 
 lishing schools and departments of mining, estab- 
 lishing engineering experiment stations and pro- 
 viding for a National Board of Engineering and 
 Industrial Research, which may deal with any- 
 thing in heaven above, in the earth beneath, or in 
 the waters under the earth which bears on the 
 welfare of the people of the United States. 
 
 Finally, in the first group fall the bills in which 
 we are particularly interested at this time, and for 
 which the bills in the other groups illustrate the 
 need and form one of the most obvious arguments. 
 In the first group there are a number of war bills 
 dealing with the display of the flag, the teaching 
 of German, military training of various degrees 
 and kinds. Leaving these aside there are three or 
 four bills which bear directly on the question in 
 hand. 
 
 There is first Mr. Husted's bill providing for a 
 commission of five persons to be appointed by the 
 President to inquire into the condition of public 
 education in the several States and to recommend 
 
 155 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 such measures as it may deem advisable for the 
 improvement of the same, the commission to re- 
 port on the following subjects particularly: the 
 desirability of establishing a uniform system of 
 public education throughout the United States 
 under federal regulation and control; the advan- 
 tages, if any, to be secured through federal legis- 
 lation of uniform application throughout the 
 United States; providing for compulsory educa- 
 tion, registration of children, inspection of schools, 
 examination and licensing of public school teachers 
 and supervision of teaching; the desirability of 
 establishing a national system of military educa- 
 tion and training; the desirability of providing 
 optional subjects in educational courses in col- 
 leges and universities and the extent, if any, to 
 which such selection should be permitted, to- 
 gether with such constitutional amendment or 
 legislation as may be necessary to carry the recom- 
 mendations into effect. 
 
 The bill illustrates very well what Dr. Kandel 
 has so clearly pointed out in his study of the Land 
 Grant Acts, namely how little any one conver- 
 sant with education has to do with federal legisla- 
 tion, actual or proposed, on education. A consti- 
 tutional amendment to determine whether a sopho- 
 more might have two or three electives in col- 
 lege, would be federal leadership indeed. 
 
 Then there is Mr. Sears ^ bill providing seventy- 
 five million annually for scholarships in State Uni- 
 versities and creating a Federal Board for Mili- 
 tary Training; and various other plans for mili- 
 
 156 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 tary colleges, in the various States at federal ex- 
 pense. 
 
 There is Mr. Fess' bill to create a National 
 University open only to those holding Masters 
 degrees and giving no degrees itself, the Uni- 
 versity to be governed by a Board of thirteen with 
 the Commissioner of Education, Chairman, and by 
 an Advisory Council made up of the State Uni- 
 versity presidents. 
 
 Then there is a bill which closely affects all col- 
 lege presidents, because it provides that you can- 
 not beg for your college without a license which 
 you are to get from the Commissioner of Edu- 
 cation by paying $2.50, and which is revokable at 
 his pleasure. What a simple device that is to 
 place all American education under the thumb of 
 the Commissioner of Education, because of course 
 if a college president could not beg, there would 
 be no excuse for his existence. 
 
 And finally, there is Mr. Owen's bill creating 
 a Department of Education with a secretary with 
 a salary of $12,000 and an assistant secretary at 
 $6,000; and Senator Smith's N.E.A. omnibus bill 
 which not only creates a Department of Educa- 
 tion, and permits the President to transfer to the 
 new Department such agencies of Government be- 
 sides the Bureau of Education as he may deem 
 wise, but which seeks to marshal various powerful 
 forces behind the bill, by consolidating with it, 
 the various bills for Americanization, improve- 
 ment of Rural Schools, abolition of illiteracy, phy- 
 sical training, and elevation of the teaching pro- 
 
 157 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 fession, and appropriating a round comfortable 
 hundred million for the purpose. 
 
 Political expediency may make it desirable to 
 secure the support of powerful lobbying interests 
 in this way, but I am of the opinion that just as 
 the attempt to secure a Department of Education 
 a few years ago failed when promoted by the 
 Sage Foundation which had a special interest 
 along the lines of child welfare, so the present at- 
 tempt to place education where she ought to be in 
 the councils of the nation is more hindered than 
 helped by being made to carry with it certain 
 specific purposes in which some of the people are 
 interested and some not, and regarding which 
 there is great diversity of opinion as to whether 
 the cost should be borne by direct or indirect 
 taxation. The same objection holds against the 
 bill recently introduced in the House, which pro- 
 poses a Department of Education and Human Wel- 
 fare, thus saddling education, which has a very 
 definite task to perform, with all the vagaries and 
 schemes for human betterment which the fertile 
 American imagination can invent. 
 
 Of one thing I am quite sure nevertheless, and 
 that is that in our plans for Federal participation 
 in Education we want more of the leadership of 
 ideas, and less of the compulsion of cash. The 
 American people have already a deep distrust of 
 efforts to direct moral and social movements by 
 the persuasion of loaves and fishes, and the danger 
 is equally great and insidious whether the loaves 
 and fishes be in the hands of private individuals or 
 
 158 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 in the hands of office holders. If the Federal Gov- 
 ernment is prepared to give freely to education 
 I for one would favor receiving it gladly; but if 
 the Federal Government proposes to exact a price 
 for every dollar, then I say it is sounder econom- 
 ics and better politics for the States to apply their 
 own money directly to education rather than to 
 pass it over to Washington to be bought back at 
 a price. 
 
 In the Morrell Act the grant was a gift practi- 
 cally without conditions. In the vocational grant, 
 a harder bargain is being attempted. In the 
 Smith Bill even the pretense of free gift is cast 
 aside, and the Federal Government appears 
 frankly bargaining for control in the States in re- 
 turn for its cash. 
 
 This is a fatal defect which however is not essen- 
 tial to the main purposes of the bill and which can 
 be remedied. I think, however, that it is quite 
 clear that if a change from State Education to 
 Federal Education is desired, it should be secured 
 openly on its merits by a constitutional amend- 
 ment and not bought by the operation of sordid 
 motives. 
 
 "We have learned a good deal from our experi- 
 ence with the S.A.T.C. the past year in more di- 
 rections than one. For one thing it has set a new 
 high standard for unselfish cooperation in educa- 
 tion in the public service. With all the faults of 
 the S.A.T.C. I think you will all agree that one 
 of its great glories was the spirit of democratic 
 
 159 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 equality which controlled its administration. 
 Small and great were treated equally. There 
 was no respect of persons and no suspicion of 
 service of any special interest. If we could al- 
 ways have such enlightened bureaucrats we should 
 be much more ready to place education in federal 
 hands. But with all its purity of purpose, the 
 S.A.T.C. experiment demonstrated also that our 
 country is too big to hope for prompt, intelligent 
 administration from a single center. We have 
 come through the war I take it with a greater 
 belief than ever in the fathers' wisdom in prizing 
 so highly local self-government. We watched 
 with interest the advantages of the local draft 
 boards under federal direction and leadership and 
 these lessons will, I judge, make us more likely 
 to seek to retain State control of Education even 
 though we seek to magnify federal leadership and 
 make every effort to secure for education better 
 representation in the national councils. 
 
 Mark Baldwin says, ' ' The rank which the United 
 States now occupies in art, science, and literature 
 is not, by universal consent, lower than fourth 
 among all the nations of the world." We dare 
 not rest satisfied with fourth place. We covet 
 earnestly the best gifts for our beloved land. 
 We want first that our nation should lead us, and 
 then that it should lead all mankind in the best 
 things of the spirit. 
 
 Rodrigues has pointed out that while French 
 and Americans are both creative, it is their genius 
 
 160 
 
Federal Leadership in Education 
 
 to create by first bringing to birth the idea, while 
 with us we plunge forward and act and the idea 
 is born in the throes of action. 
 
 We shall probably be true to our genius in this 
 matter of federal leadership in education. We 
 shall not first evolve a perfect plan for a federal 
 department and then make the Department fit 
 the plan, but the creators among us will plunge 
 ahead, give us some legislation, however crude, 
 and as we act and move forward and do something, 
 a more perfect conception of the possibilities of 
 federal leadership will emerge, which we shall all 
 recognize at once as that true American leadership 
 of Education for which we have all been blindly 
 groping. 
 
 lOl 
 
A NATIONAL DEPAETMENT OF 
 EDUCATION 
 
 THE proposal to create a national Depart- 
 ^ ment of Education with a Secretary of equal 
 rank with the Secretary of Conunerce or the Secre- 
 tary of Agriculture, and entitled to a seat in the 
 President's Cabinet, is not a new one. The bill 
 drawn by Emerson White and presented by Gen- 
 eral Garfield at the close of the Civil War pro- 
 posed such a Department, but during the discus- 
 sion in Congress the Department was reduced to 
 the rank of a bureau in the Department of the In- 
 terior. The proposal, however, has taken on new 
 significance as a result of the radical change in 
 our international policies during the last three 
 years. A nation which deliberately sought inter- 
 national isolation had little need for a national 
 representative of education. A nation which as- 
 sumes the role of arbiter of the world's destinies 
 and judge of the world's disputes must give the 
 American school a national representative so that 
 the United States may contribute to the world's 
 education whatever it has of value, and learn 
 from the school experience of other nations all 
 that is to be learned. 
 It is not a question of placing the administra- 
 
 From The Nation, March 7, 1918. 
 
 162 
 
A National Department of Education 
 
 tion of schools in the hands of the national Gov- 
 ernment. No one wants the national Government 
 to administer the schools, nor could it do this 
 without a constitutional amendment. It is not 
 a question of introducing the national Government 
 to a field of effort which hitherto it has not en- 
 tered. Already its educational activities are 
 manifold. The encouragement of colleges for ag- 
 riculture, or the mechanic arts, the recent creation 
 of a Board for Vocational Education, the research 
 activities of the Bureau of Standards, the Naval 
 Observatory, the Smithsonian Institution, as weU 
 as the activities of the present Bureau of Educa- 
 tion, testify to the fact that the national Govern- 
 ment has already entered the field of education 
 and feels at home there. 
 
 We want a Department of Education, not to 
 rule, but to serve, education in the States. As 
 President Wilson said thirty years ago, ' ' The na- 
 tion properly comes before the States in honor 
 and importance, not because it is more important 
 than they are, but because it is all-important to 
 them and to the maintenance of every principle 
 of government, which we have established and still 
 cherish. The national Government is the organic 
 frame of the States. It has enabled and still en- 
 ables them to exist. '^ What is true of the States 
 in their more general governmental functions is 
 true also of education. We do not want a national 
 Department of Education to supplant or replace 
 our State Departments of Education; we want it 
 because such a national Department is all-impor- 
 
 163 
 
A National Department of Education 
 
 tant to them, and because we believe education is 
 the first corollary of democracy. 
 
 Our forefathers, having suffered from an ex- 
 cess of governmental activity, wanted government 
 a negative rather than a positive force in our 
 community life. Accordingly, they withdrew the 
 whole field of religion and religious teaching from 
 the territory open to legislative activity. A sim- 
 ilar sentiment leads many to regard with appre- 
 hension anything which looks towards greater 
 governmental activity in the field of education. 
 They admit the right of the national Government 
 to step in and take charge of the youth of the 
 country from sixteen to twenty years of age to 
 prepare them for war, or so to order universal 
 military training as to modify the whole educa- 
 tional system of the United States, so long as it is 
 done by the Department of War. They admit the 
 right of the national Grovernment to establish any 
 schools or to give any instruction necessary for 
 the conduct of the present war, or any possible 
 future war, yet hesitate at the thought of a 
 national Department of Education, either in war 
 or in peace. They allow the national Government 
 to say what the American people may or may not 
 read, so long as it is done through the Post Office 
 Department. They strain at the gnat and swallow 
 the camel. It is said that the hearing of the blind 
 is peculiarly acute, that those who cannot see or 
 hear develop extraordinary sensitiveness of touch, 
 that if the legs are cut off, the arms are stronger. 
 In the same way our nation, if by reason of ar- 
 
 164 
 
A National Department of Education 
 
 bitrary stricture not allowed to develop certain 
 normal national interests, will develop others just 
 so much more strongly. If as a nation we can give 
 expression to our interest in agriculture, in com- 
 merce, in war, in labor, but not to our interest in 
 education, we shall become, as in the past we have 
 shown a tendency to become, a nation of farmers 
 and business men, or as we are now in danger of 
 becoming, a nation of soldiers and workmen, and 
 our Government, like Russia's, a Council of Sol- 
 diers' and Workmen's Delegates. 
 
 Whether we like it or not, the events of the war 
 have made us a world power. During the next 
 hundred years our international life will be more 
 important than our intra-national life. What are 
 to be the interests of this giant among nations'? 
 What ends is our gold to serve? Into what are we 
 to transmute our wealth or our treasure? If we 
 profess adherence to the creed that aggrandize- 
 ment of territory or power can no longer be the 
 purpose of national life, what are we as a nation 
 going to live for? The political philosophers have 
 thought of only two alternatives : one, a good time ; 
 the other, improvement. Up to the present time 
 our Government at Washington is in the same mu- 
 tilated condition in practice as Aristotle's Politics 
 in theory; in both the section dealing with educa- 
 tion is missing. 
 
 But what specific things, it is urged, would be 
 left for a national Department of Education to do, 
 if the States all do their full share? There is 
 at present a French Education Commission in 
 
 165 
 
A National Department of Education 
 
 America duly accredited by the French Grovern- 
 ment. Who has authority to bid it welcome in the 
 name of American education? The English uni- 
 versities have proposed a commission to visit 
 England and confer on questions of international 
 interest. Whose business is it to take up the mat- 
 ter for American education? China is emerging 
 into a new civilization. Is she to model her 
 schools on the Prussian system? The Russian 
 Republic is groping for light educationally, as well 
 as otherwise. Are her educational leaders to turn 
 again to Germany? If not, whose business is it 
 to express a national American interest in the edu- 
 cation of her illiterate millions? South America 
 is ready for closer relations educationally. Must 
 the work be left to private foundations, or have we 
 other interests than war which require national 
 expression and national unity? 
 
 The national Government gave liberally for col- 
 leges of agriculture and mechanic arts, but it has 
 had no way of making sure that the money was 
 used for the purpose for which it was given. It 
 has learned already that the nation which lacks 
 scientifically trained men cannot wage war in 
 these days, and if the chief end of the future were 
 to be the waging of war, the national Government 
 would have to take a greater interest than it 
 has ever done before in the promotion of science 
 and scientific research. Government has made 
 heavy drafts on the colleges and universities for 
 their trained scientists, economists, psychologists, 
 linguists, public speakers, historians, and other 
 
 166 
 
A National Department of Education 
 
 experts in the present emergency. After such a 
 demonstration, is the Government prepared to say 
 to education after the war, '^ Washington is no 
 place for you ; leave representation in the govern- 
 ment machine to soldiers, farmers, and mechan- 
 ics"? Or are we prepared to say: ''We have 
 invested a billion dollars in school plants; and 
 spend nearly a billion a year on running expenses ; 
 we keep seven hundred thousand teachers con- 
 stantly employed; we entrust to their charge the 
 best years of twenty-two million American youth, 
 an army as great in numbers as all the armies of 
 all the nations now under arms. If America has 
 any contribution to make to the world, it is her 
 schools and the ideals of her schools. If we can- 
 not always have for the head of the Cabinet a 
 schoolmaster, at least let us have one Cabinet 
 member who can talk internationally, not for 
 ships, or shoes, or cabbages, but for schools and 
 the American citizen of tomorrow"? 
 
 To quote from Button and Snedden's "Educa- 
 tional Administration in the United States ' ' : 
 
 ''It has been a matter of sincere regret to many that 
 the United States has not given to education a place in 
 the councils of the nation, equal to war or commerce. 
 The work of raising the Bureau of Education to its 
 proper dignity and equipping it to control and care for 
 all the educational agencies which the Government un- 
 dertakes, awaits the commanding effort of some great 
 leader, who not only appreciates the crying evil of the 
 present situation, but has the heart and the courage to 
 take up the battle and win the victory. ' ' 
 
 167 
 
WHY THE TRUST IDEA IS NOT APPLI- 
 CABLE TO EDUCATION 
 
 TEXJSTS, A FALLACIOUS ANALOGY FOE COLLEGES AND 
 UNIVERSITIES 
 
 THIS has been an age of trusts, of combina- 
 tions and consolidations of all sorts, and the 
 public imagination and reason have been influ- 
 enced thereby. The arguments advanced in favor 
 of trusts are : A lessening of cost of production, 
 greater division of labor, with consequent speciali- 
 zation of functions, and higher and better paid 
 skill. To these may be added a wiser control of 
 production and the elimination of waste. Two 
 central ideas have consequently become firmly 
 fixed in the public mind; first, the economy in- 
 volved in combination, and second, the greater 
 perfection and higher skill demanded and secured 
 by the large organization as compared with the 
 small organization. There is a natural disposi- 
 tion accordingly, to extend the same methods to 
 other than commercial fields. We see it in the 
 work of the church. At the present time there is 
 a movement in more than one of our principal 
 denominations to consolidate and combine the 
 work of various mission boards. We notice it in 
 the case of individual churches in our large cities. 
 
 Address for the Semi-Centennial of Westminster College, Ful- 
 ton, Missouri. 
 
 168 
 
The Trust Idea 
 
 In New York in the last few years we have had 
 at least two notable instances where two churches, 
 both strong and abundantly able to support them- 
 selves as independent organizations, have united 
 to form one church, thus making the church more 
 of a preponderant force, and the road easier finan- 
 cially for members of both churches. 
 
 There is at the present time a strong disposi- 
 tion among many to extend the trust idea to col- 
 leges and universities. They feel that the day has 
 passed for small things in education — that nothing 
 is worth doing which is not done on a large scale 
 or as part of a large whole — that it is needless 
 and wasteful expenditure of effort for the various 
 churches to engage in separate educational enter- 
 prises — that the same amount of work could be 
 done much more satisfactorily and economically 
 by a single joint institution, than by a half dozen 
 scattered institutions, and at any rate, whether 
 the advantages be greater or less, the business 
 man feels himself entirely competent to judge one 
 point, and that is, that it would be infinitely easier 
 and cheaper for him and his partner were the five 
 institutions reduced to one than it is to put their 
 hands down into their own pockets and help make 
 up the salary of an instructor, or pay the coal bill 
 for a building. 
 
 So widespread and so general is the belief in 
 consolidations of this sort, that I need not spend 
 time in an effort to be fair and Just by pointing 
 out how much truth there is in it, or how well it 
 would be if, under certain circumstances and under 
 
 169 
 
Why the Trust Idea 
 
 certain conditions, more heed were paid to such 
 considerations by those entrusted with the man- 
 agement of educational foundations. There is, at 
 the present time, I am convinced, less danger of 
 these principles of economy through consolidation, 
 being slighted, than of a failure to recognize the 
 objections and difficulties involved in an introduc- 
 tion of the trust idea in education, and a dis- 
 regard of the thoroughly sound and wise argu- 
 ments in favor of a multiplicity of educational 
 foundations. 
 
 I wish, therefore, in this paper to urge the other 
 side of the question. To recall the strong argu- 
 ments in favor of individual initiative and of di- 
 versification of effort. To show, if possible, that 
 there is still wisdom in the old maxim that every 
 man should hoe his own row, and every company 
 bear its own burdens. To strengthen our faith in 
 the soundness of judgment and foresight of the 
 founders of our institutions, and to fix more firmly 
 our faith in their future destinies. 
 
 Taking up, then, the trust idea as applied to 
 education, let us consider first what, for conven- 
 ience' sake, I may call the local argument. When 
 in the business world the factories in this or that 
 particular town are closed by reason of their ab- 
 sorption by a trust and the town perchance ruined, 
 the people of that locality bring forward these re- 
 sults as arguments against the trust idea. To 
 these the answer is made that in estimating the 
 economic advantages or disadvantages of any 
 particular phase or development of industry, we 
 
 170 
 
Is Not Applicable to Education 
 
 must have regard to its effect not on this or that 
 particular man, nor on this or that particular 
 town or county, but to its effect on the nation or 
 even the world as a whole. Just as some political 
 economists argue for free trade on the ground that 
 while it may not develop as high a civilization in 
 this particular part of the world as protection 
 might, yet the world as a whole will be better off. 
 Can the same answer properly be made to the 
 argument for a diversity of educational institu- 
 tions on the ground that they supply a local need? 
 I shall, I believe, command assent, if I say that the 
 trust idea is not applicable to education as re- 
 gards the location of educational institutions, be- 
 cause, while industrial reasons may importantly 
 affect the distribution of population and the popu- 
 lation adjust itself ultimately to the new location 
 of factories, population will not to any extent so 
 adjust itself to the location of colleges. The argu- 
 ment in behalf of a multiplicity rather than a con- 
 solidation of colleges, is a sound one, which main- 
 tains that the settlement of the question whether 
 the American boy or girl is to enjoy a college edu- 
 cation or not, will depend largely on whether the 
 college is located within one hundred miles of the 
 particular boy's or girl's home. To my mind this 
 argument is an unanswerable one, and borne out 
 by the statistics of attendance at our great insti- 
 tutions. The exceptional boy or girl once started 
 on the road towards an education will of course 
 pursue it wherever it is to be found, and whatever 
 the obstacles in the way of attainment. But the 
 
 171 
 
Why the Trust Idea 
 
 average boy or girl if the college or university is 
 too far out of his ordinary environment and circle 
 of thought, is not likely to venture on a tour of 
 discovery into unknown lands. Eailroads and 
 telegraphs and newspapers are binding the world 
 closer together so that a man's neighborhood is 
 much more comprehensive than it was fifty years 
 ago, and yet if one goes into one of the counties 
 in the center of the State of New York and asks 
 the men he meets how often they have been in 
 the metropolis, he is likely to be astonished at the 
 home-keeping characteristics of his neighbors. 
 It is the local teacher and the local institution 
 which must create the demand and desire for a 
 higher education. It is conceivable of course, as 
 education became organized on the lines of a great 
 trust, that just as the tobacco trust continues to 
 cultivate a demand for its product in the most re- 
 mote village by means of its traveling men, so the 
 great centralized university by means of College 
 Extension lectures and their traveling instructors, 
 would cultivate the demand for learning and cul- 
 ture in the most out-of-the-way points of the State. 
 I say it is conceivable but it is not likely. "Wis- 
 dom crieth aloud in the streets, but so far as his- 
 tory shows, if you give knowledge a chance to be 
 exclusive and oligarchical, she will seizq it. The 
 first argument then, against the trust in education, 
 is that unlike the factory, the college does not take 
 its population with it. It only moves its culture. 
 The local institution then exists not only to meet 
 a local demand, but for the express purpose of 
 
 172 
 
Is Not Applicable to Education 
 
 creating such a demand in that particular locality. 
 
 The second strong argument in favor of trusts 
 is the argument based upon the reduction in the 
 cost of production. In brief, the argument for 
 economy. As applied to the educational world 
 we may take up this argument from two stand- 
 points. First, the saving to society at large, and 
 second, the saving to the individual student. 
 Taking the second first, the unanswerable argu- 
 ment advanced by the Standard Oil Company has 
 always been that oil was furnished to the con- 
 sumer cheaper than it could have been without 
 consolidation. So, too, I am inclined to believe 
 that consolidation in the educational world might 
 in the long run, perhaps, give the individual stu- 
 dent his education at a somewhat less cost. 
 Though this conclusion is open to considerable 
 doubt. Certainly it has not been true thus far, 
 that the larger the institution and the better en- 
 dowed, the cheaper the cost to the student, but 
 quite the contrary. Even if college fees are less, 
 the cost of living shows a tendency to increase in 
 proportion to the number of students. With the 
 consolidation of educational institutions they 
 would naturally gravitate to the larger cities 
 where the cost of living is higher. 
 
 We may say, therefore, that the economy for 
 the student through consolidation is likely to 
 come, if at all, not directly but indirectly. That 
 is, he will spend the same for his education, but 
 he will secure along with the education greater 
 bodily comforts and intellectual luxuries. In edu- 
 
 17s 
 
Why the Trust Idea 
 
 cation as elsewhere, the law will hold that the 
 more complex the civilization, the more expen- 
 sive will be the scale of hfe. Nor is it always a 
 sound argument in favor of the greater expenses 
 involved in attendance at a large institution, that 
 the greater range of subjects afforded is worth 
 the additional cost. As a matter of fact, it often 
 happens, that the very richness of the curriculum 
 proves an embarrassment. If the university 
 offers five highly specialized courses in economics, 
 it is very probable that the college student who 
 wishes only a general comprehensive outline of the 
 subject, will be unable to find what he wants. 
 
 A story is told of a remark made to the Dean 
 of the Department of Economics at one of our 
 large universities by a senior that, he had just 
 listened to an explanation of the theory of the 
 trade winds, for the seventh time, in seven dif- 
 ferent courses, and that he was becoming slightly 
 tired of that particular topic in economics. It 
 often happens too, in the large institutions, that 
 the apparent range of electives is fictitious, be- 
 cause so many of the courses are offered at the 
 same hour. The result is, that the under-graduate 
 student may find it more difficult to arrange a satis- 
 factory course of study at the large institutions 
 than at the more modest small college. There is 
 no economy, therefore, for the average man in 
 paying for the great range of electives, if what 
 he wants is merely a well proportioned and well 
 selected college course. 
 
 Turning now to the economy for the community 
 174 
 
Is Not Applicable to Education 
 
 in such consolidation of educational institutions, 
 there can be no question that we have here an ar- 
 gument which appeals strongly to the average 
 man. Just as the American family in the large 
 cities is gradually giving up its independent, sep- 
 arate house, for the consolidated apartment house ; 
 so the American is ready to have his half dozen 
 colleges move into one building, because of the 
 obvious economy involved. 
 
 A college with one hundred students must have 
 a professor of Greek, and a college with two hun- 
 dred students must have a professor of Greek, 
 but not two. A college with two hundred students 
 must have a professor of French; but a college 
 with four hundred students will require no more. 
 A college with four hundred students may re- 
 quire an instructor in Spanish ; but a college with 
 eight hundred will probably be equally content 
 with one man in this department. And, so, the 
 business man of to-day, stating the problem thus 
 to himself : Five thousand boys to educate in col- 
 lege, will it cost more per head to educate them in 
 one institution or in ten ; if he looks no further, is 
 likely to say, the more consolidation, the more 
 prevalent the trust idea, the better, because it 
 saves the community money and effort. Now, 
 such an argument is, of course, a sound one, so 
 far as it goes, provided, we admit the truth of 
 the conditions upon which it is based. As a mat- 
 ter of fact, however, a careful study of educational 
 finances makes one very skeptical as to whether 
 there is any such great economy in the consolida- 
 
 175 
 
Why the Trust Idea 
 
 tion of educational effort. One man can teacli 
 well only a certain number of men — not over forty, 
 I should say, in the college grade. If a class ex- / 
 ceeds this number, it should be divided into sec- 
 tions, and to teach two sections of forty each in 
 the same institution, is hardly less expensive than 
 to teach one class of forty in each of two institu- 
 tions. Again, the greater the organization the 
 more red tape and the more machinery, and the 
 more waste. Administrative work, which is done 
 incidentally by professors in a small institution, 
 requires in a large institution special officers. 
 The college which has an annual budget of twenty 
 thousand a year, is, of necessity more careful in 
 the expenditure of a dollar than an institution 
 which has an annual budget of two hundred thou- 
 sand dollars a year. We are, I believe, too ready 
 to take it for granted that consolidation must 
 necessarily mean the elimination of unnecessary 
 expense, and the consequent reduction in the aver- 
 age cost of performing a specific piece of work. 
 
 But, supposing that we admit for the sake of 
 argument, that the individual student would save 
 something in financial cost and the community 
 would save something by educational consolida- 
 tion, would there not be lost thereby, things of a 
 value hard to reckon in dollars and cents ? There 
 are a good many who feel that a clear case can 
 be made out against trusts in the commercial world 
 on this very ground. Supposing that it is true 
 that I can get a coat, a sewing machine, a type- 
 writer, a gallon of oil, cheaper by reason of the 
 
 176 
 
Is Not Applicable to Education 
 
 trusts, is there, after all, enough in the conse- 
 quent increase of the things to eat and the things 
 to drink and the things with which we shall be 
 clothed, to compensate me and tens of thousands 
 like me, for the loss of opportunity to be our own 
 masters commercially, to conduct our own busi- 
 ness in our own way, on our own responsibility, 
 and feel ourselves free and equal individuals 
 among many independent men, rather than mere 
 cogs in a gigantic wheel? Tliis is not the time nor 
 the place to say whether there are, or are not, 
 such priceless considerations lost in industrial 
 combines, which more than offset the financial 
 economies. But if such arguments may be urged 
 in the commercial world, which goes on the as- 
 sumption that values can all be measured in dol- 
 lars and cents, how much more properly might 
 they be urged when we come to things of educa- 
 tion; when we come to colleges which avow that 
 the fruits of their labors are not such that you can 
 weigh them in the balance over against so much 
 gold? 
 
 What are some of the things which we would 
 lose were the trust idea to prevail in education? 
 All that has been said in favor of the small col- 
 lege would have to be reckoned on the debit side 
 of the account, were we to blot out this class of 
 institutions by consolidation. For myself, I be- 
 lieve that there would be no economy to society 
 at large, which could begin to compensate for the 
 loss which it would suffer in the cutting off of the 
 supply of that peculiar quality of manhood which 
 
 177 
 
Why the Trust Idea 
 
 has in the past issued from the small institutions 
 and shown itself peculiarly fitted for leadership 
 and great achievements in the State. 
 
 But we must have regard not merely to the 
 product, but also to the process. A fallacy creeps 
 in when in an argument of this sort we introduce 
 a co^unercial analogy, because in the industrial 
 world the product is the only consideration. If it 
 is crackers you are manufacturing, the question 
 is, how many crackers, and of what flavor does 
 a given method turn out. If it is needles, then 
 what and how many needles. If straw hats, then 
 what and how many straw hats. 
 
 The value of a given process in the commercial 
 world is reckoned solely by the value of its com- 
 pleted products; the process is of no value in it- 
 self. If we could pick from trees, or off a grocer's 
 counter, crackers already done up in in-er-seal 
 packages, we should have little concern as sociolo- 
 gists whether there existed any cracker factories 
 or not. In other words, it is solely the product 
 which we seek in commercial industry and not the 
 processes. The same is not true, however, of edu- 
 cation, from the standpoint of the sociologist or 
 the philosopher. 
 
 If it were our lot to order the life of the universe 
 and we were compelled to omit all that life which 
 exists in the school and involves the relation of 
 student and teacher in the pursuit of truth for 
 truth ^s sake, and the study of the best in letters 
 and in history and philosophy for its own sake, 
 
 178 
 
/5 Not Applicable to Education 
 
 we should feel that we had been set a task and at 
 the same time denied most desirable material 
 for the proper completion of that task. In other 
 words, school and college life are to be followed 
 not only as a means of preparation, but as good 
 things in themselves. In so far as they involved 
 the pursuit and contemplation of truth for its 
 own sake, they are an occupation which from the 
 days of Plato down to the present, have properly 
 been regarded as among the highest forms of ac- 
 tivity open to men. It is to the interest, therefore, 
 of every community, not only to have educational 
 machinery for turning out well equipped men, but 
 also to have the process going on in their midst, 
 and open to the participation, in one way or an- 
 other, of all their citizens. 
 
 The argument advanced in favor of the eight- 
 hour day by the trades-unions is that the work- 
 ing man should have at his disposal certain hours 
 for those pursuits which elevate and ennoble. 
 This is a recognition of the value to a conmiunity 
 of having such pursuits cultivated. It ought to 
 be the laudable ambition of every state, not only 
 to have great manufactories, rich farms, produc- 
 tive lands, stately public buildings, and beautiful 
 homes within its borders, but to have also its own 
 great men, its own statesmen and orators, and 
 authors and poets, its own scholars, its own great 
 teachers. We ought to recognize that civic pride 
 demands quite as truly that the men in the South 
 and West should flock to New York to sit at the 
 
 179 
 
Why the Trust Idea 
 
 feet of great teachers, as that they should flock 
 to New York to buy their fall and spring silks 
 and cottons. There is but one way in which a 
 state can secure such men for itself, and that is 
 by the estabhshment of permanent foundations, 
 which shall furnish them an honorable position 
 and a reasonable livelihood, while they pursue 
 their chosen work. It is not economy, therefore, 
 to a state with such civic pride to reduce, by 
 consolidation, its professors in Greek, and to have 
 one teacher where formerly there were two. 
 Eather should it resolve to multiply and increase 
 its educational endowments so that the state could 
 by means of them keep within its borders, those of 
 its own men who showed special promise, and 
 could at the same time attract the best from other 
 parts of the land. 
 
 But an educational institution confers good 
 upon the community apart from the product which 
 it turns out, in other ways than by maintenance 
 of professorships. There is not a college in New 
 York, however small and unimportant, which is 
 supported by gifts from, the public, which does 
 not perform a useful service as a propaganda for 
 the highest interests of life. Necessity is laid 
 upon it to interest men and women in these higher 
 things in order that it may receive from them the 
 means of livelihood. It becomes, therefore, a 
 great missionary enterprise for awakening the 
 public mind to a true conception of the importance 
 and worth of education. 
 
 180 
 
Is Not Applicable to Education 
 
 No man can serve on the board of such an in- 
 stitution without receiving indirect benefit thereby. 
 It gives him a broader outlook on the affairs of 
 life and so enlarges and enriches his soul that 
 he is thenceforth a better and a bigger man than 
 he would otherwise have been. The state uni- 
 versities and the public school systems have been 
 slow to realize and to acknowledge the debt which 
 they owe to the private institutions for thus creat- 
 ing and disseminating a knowledge and a faith in 
 things educational. We may query, whether in the 
 course of two or three generations if education 
 were to become solely a matter for the state, to 
 be supported by state appropriations, secured 
 through manipulation of state legislatures, there 
 would not be a decay of this faith and knowledge 
 among the people at large. 
 
 Thirdly, as to the argument in behalf of consoli- 
 dation, on the ground that thereby there is greater 
 specialization of function and a consequent de- 
 mand for higher and better paid skill, I am ready 
 to admit that the growth of great institutions cre- 
 ates a place for great specialists, and a demand 
 for thorough and minute scholarship in the vari- 
 ous fields of knowledge. But it is equally true 
 that the small college has created and maintains 
 a demand for a type of teacher equally valuable 
 and equally important to the state. We need the 
 specialists, but we need also the teacher who is 
 more man than scholar. It will be an unfortunate 
 day for education if the time ever comes when 
 
 181 
 
Why the Trust Idea 
 
 scholarship counts more than character, in de- 
 fining the qualifications for the position of teacher 
 of the nation's youth. 
 
 I have thus tried to set forth considerations 
 which should oppose the growing tendency to re- 
 gard the trust idea in education as unanswerable 
 upon the grounds of economy, greater specializa- 
 tion, and wider opportunity for the individual stu- 
 dent. At the same time, we of the educational 
 world may well profit by certain lessons of the 
 trust. If we are to have diversity of educational 
 enterprises they must be carried on not in the 
 spirit of ruthless competition for selfish ends, but 
 in a spirit of friendly cooperation, such as should 
 be found among laborers for a great purpose, 
 which is not to be my individual good or your in- 
 dividual good, but the good of all. An applica- 
 tion of the trust idea to education such as this, 
 we cannot but heartily applaud ; but the other ap- 
 plication, to reduce the number of plants, to cur- 
 tail the number of men involved, to handle stu- 
 dents in large masses instead of as individuals; 
 to spend less on these higher things that we may 
 spend more on the lusts of the flesh and the pride 
 of life; such an application is one to be con- 
 demned. Let those who have been bearing the 
 burden in the support and maintenance of our col- 
 leges, be not too eager to rid themselves of the 
 load, or to turn the task over to some one else. 
 Let us realize rather that, in founding and main- 
 taining colleges, they have been engaging in a 
 work which can only reflect honor upon the state. 
 
 182 
 
Is Not Applicable to Education 
 
 That they have been engaged in doing a thing 
 which is good in itself and is profitable for all 
 things. Let them not be solicitous for size. 
 Let them be solicitous for quality. Let them 
 ask themselves not for how little we can 
 secure our teachers, but how attractive a field 
 of labor can we make our foundations. Not how 
 little can we do for our students and still retain 
 their patronage, but how much can this philan- 
 thropic enterprise give to those who come within 
 its influence. If in such a spirit as this they will 
 heartily prosecute their great undertakings, there 
 will be no one so narrow as to deny them their 
 proper place in the great world of education, and 
 there will be no wise, intelligent citizen who will 
 not favor multiplication rather than subtraction 
 for such colleges in America. 
 
 183 
 
DEFINING THE COLLEGE MAN 
 
 IN coining to speak at Davidson College, I do 
 not feel that I am coming entirely to a strange 
 land, or to one with which Pennsylvania has no 
 associations. One hundred and forty-two years 
 ago, Lafayette rode from Carolina to Philadel- 
 phia; a fatiguing journey of a month. Colonel 
 William Davidson, a native Pennsylvanian, came 
 from Pennsylvania to fight for freedom in the 
 Carolinas. Lafayette College's most distin- 
 guished professor, Francis A. March, was sum- 
 moned to Easton from Virginia, and the first 
 President of Lafayette, George Junkin, gave his 
 daughter as the bride of that stalwart Presby- 
 terian soldier, Stonewall Jackson. In the old days 
 many Southern students journeyed to Easton as 
 they did to Princeton and felt at home in colleges 
 of our common Calvinism, and at my own inaug- 
 uration four years ago, we were glad to adopt as 
 an honorary son of Lafayette, a native of Char- 
 lotte, and one who I doubt not was loved here in 
 Davidson as he was throughout the country, even 
 though head of a rival institution, Edward K. 
 Graham, the only one of the twelve regional direc- 
 tors of the Student Army Training Corps who 
 paid the price of his patriotic service with his life, 
 
 Commencement address at Davidson College, North Carolina, 
 May, 1919. 
 
 184 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 and to whose memory, I could not but pay a tri- 
 bute of respect and devotion as I entered Ms birth 
 place yesterday morning. As I read the history 
 of the Revolutionary days and see how much pass- 
 ing to and fro there was between Pennsylvania and 
 the Carolinas in the days of horesback riding, I 
 cannot but feel that in this day of aeroplanes and 
 automobiles our educational relations should be 
 closer, and our scholastic interchanges more fre- 
 quent, and in this belief I have come to speak to 
 you to-day. 
 
 While this is my first view of the physical David- 
 son, Davidson College is no stranger. I know it 
 as a civil engineer knows a point on the other side 
 of the mountain which he cannot see, by triangula- 
 tion. I have looked at it from the angle of a 
 Presbyterian college in Missouri, as well as from 
 a Presbyterian college in Pennsylvania. The 
 pastor of the college church in Missouri was a 
 Davidson alumnus, and we ate at the same table 
 for the better part of four years. In the stormy 
 times of the S.A.T.C. days at Lafayette, two of 
 our twenty officers were Davidson men. When I 
 was in Missouri, I was a communicant of the 
 Southern Church, and I knew Davidson as a lead- 
 ing college of the denomination. I cannot but re- 
 gret as president of Lafayette, the only college for 
 men east of the Alleghenies legally connected with 
 the Presbyterian Church, North, that an intangi- 
 ble veil certainly not theological, and certainly not 
 geographical, should deprive us of the close fel- 
 lowship and cooperation of Davidson as fellow 
 
 185 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 Presbyterians working in the common cause of 
 Christian education. Many and varied, however, 
 as have been the lines of relation which have as- 
 sociated me with Davidson, the picture which has 
 hitherto come most prominently to my mind when 
 Davidson College is mentioned, is a picture of a 
 man. The man is John F. Cannon of St. Louis. 
 When in St. Louis week before last at the meet- 
 ing of our Greneral Assembly, I found that great 
 changes had occurred in the city during the six- 
 teen years I had been away. The Grand Avenue 
 Presbyterian Church had rebuilt itself a splendid 
 new Grothic building in the western part of the city, 
 and had changed its name, but not its pastor, and 
 I was glad to greet again the man who had served 
 them for thirty-one years with unswerving fidel- 
 ity. I found him not quite as erect as the straight, 
 tall North Carolinian pine I had known; his 
 shoulders had become somewhat bowed with the 
 weight of years and the woes of the war, but the 
 same bright eye was there ; the same kindly cour- 
 tesy ; the same ruminating intellect ; the same un- 
 hasting, unwearying devotion to duty; the same 
 singleness of purpose; and if I mistake not, one . 
 who has known John F. Cannon well for twenty 
 years has a pretty good idea of Davidson College. 
 
 I have ventured to give my address this morn- 
 ing the title, ''Defining the College Man," with 
 the purpose of calling your attention to some modi- 
 fications brought about by the war in the emphasis 
 we place on various phases of this definition. 
 
 The phrase which has been made familiar to all 
 186 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 of us by the war and which we have learned to 
 hear with general satisfaction is, "They attained 
 their objective." Definiteness of aim is three- 
 fourths of success and naming an objective gives a 
 measure of achievement. If we know what point 
 we wish to reach, we know when we have arrived. 
 If we know what we want, we know when we get 
 it, that we have the achievement to our credit. 
 Geometry is one of the most delightful of all 
 studies, because you can write at the bottom of 
 each page, Q. E. D., and the page is complete. 
 Even God himself, the eternal worker, is por- 
 trayed as moving forward step by step toward 
 definite objectives, and God said, "Let there be 
 light," and there was light, and the evening and 
 the morning were the first day. And God made 
 the firmament, and the evening and the morning 
 were the second day. Men and women who get 
 the least satisfaction out of life, are the men and 
 women who have no objectives, and who there- 
 fore never attain. They may be going forward 
 with the rest of the world's army; they may by 
 force of circumstances even be doing their share 
 of the fighting, but it is not purposeful activity, 
 and unless they have in their mind some picture 
 of a good day's work, some ideal by which they can 
 measure the day's fighting at the end of the day, 
 they lose the richest rewards life has to give. 
 
 Graduation is an objective in the life of the 
 college man. Most of you have looked forward 
 to it through four long years. Vicissitudes of 
 war have perhaps made it appear a vanishing 
 
 187 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 vision, but to-day in spite of all the '*ifs" and 
 *'buts," the "howevers" and ''neverthelesses,'* 
 you have attained your objective. Nothing can 
 alter or detract, minify or magnify that simple 
 fact. I congratulate the Class of 1919 in that 
 in this year of war, it can be said of them as of 
 good soldiers, ''you have attained your objective." 
 What is true of individuals is true also of insti- 
 tutions and of nations. If the individual succeeds 
 who has before him a definite objective, so too 
 the institution will succeed which moves forward 
 with conscious purpose toward definite aims and 
 does not sit waiting Micawberwise for something 
 to turn up. It is, I think, a just criticism which 
 has been made against the American college of 
 to-day, that it does not define clearly to itself the 
 task which it undertakes, that it does not picture 
 even in its dreams its typical product, that no 
 two members of an American college faculty 
 would agree if asked to name the young man who 
 to their minds most perfectly portrayed the ideal 
 product of the American college of Arts. Any- 
 one who has sat with the college faculty trying to 
 frame a curriculum in these days of expanding 
 knowledge, or any student who has tried from the 
 courses offered to select a course of study which 
 satisfies him in all particulars, knows that there 
 is no agreement among experts as to what the 
 ideal American college graduate ought to know. 
 Even a decade ago, the college professor could 
 satisfy himself by saying vaguely, the aim of his 
 college was to produce a cultivated lady or gentle- 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 man ready to enter a chosen calling or course of 
 training with not only a certain amount of definite 
 knowledge, but also with a degree of appreciation 
 and taste, of power of mind and of sense of method 
 such as would insure their growth into the best 
 of which they were capable, and possibly into 
 the best of their time or even of all time. A dec- 
 ade ago, a college president could write, and 
 Professor Fulton must often have been reminded 
 of the phrase as he looked on at events these last 
 months in Paris, * ' There is a program which will 
 make the college man ready to lay his mind along- 
 side the tasks of the world of educated men with 
 some confidence that he can master them and can 
 understand why and how they are to be performed, 
 but what that program is or how that degree of 
 appreciation and taste and power of mind are to be 
 attained, no one seems prepared to tell us." The 
 Professor of Mathematics cannot conceive of a 
 man liberally educated who knows no trigono- 
 metry. The Professor of Modern Languages, 
 while perhaps willing to-day to surrender Ger- 
 man, insists that it be replaced with Italian, Span- 
 ish, or possibly Eussian. The Professors of 
 Biology, Physics and Chemistry can prove be- 
 yond the possibility of a doubt the existence of a 
 large blind spot in any mental retina which sees 
 the universe only in terms of cells, of molecules or 
 of motion, and not in terms of all three, and so 
 throughout the list. There was a time when the 
 colleges tried to supply the elements which the 
 society of the day rated as essential to culture, but 
 
 189 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 there is a wider gap between the cultured man 
 as recognized and applauded by the world of to- 
 day and the product which the average college 
 can guarantee. The knowledge and appreciation 
 of art, music, and literature is perhaps the field 
 in which the disparity is most clearly seen, but 
 it is equally obvious if you test the familiarity 
 of the college graduate with his world by ask- 
 ing him to describe a modern printing press; to 
 explain how cement is made, or even to master 
 the intricacies of the McCormick reaper. So 
 rapidly has scientific . knowledge expanded ; so 
 fruitful has been the inventive American mind in 
 the world of mechanics, that there has grown up a 
 vast body of knowledge which has hardly yet got- 
 ten into books and of a large part of which even 
 the most learned men are ignorant. Certainly 
 no man could be found who could meet the demand 
 of the Wisconsin legislator, that all the books in 
 the university library be read by a student before 
 the state go to the expense of buying new ones. 
 Where could any college president or professor 
 be found who could pass all the examinations 
 offered in his own institution! The world of 
 learning to-day is a very different world from 
 the world which existed in the good old days 
 of Quadrivium and Trivium, or even in the days 
 when the College of Arts was conceived and 
 established. 
 
 The truth of the matter is that the college is not 
 a factory with a standardized product. We could 
 not if we would attain the definiteness and uni- 
 
 190 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 formity among college graduates that we can se- 
 cure for Uneeda biscuit or Domino sugar, but we 
 can at least like an army define our objectives in 
 terms of direction and distance and coordinate our 
 efforts to secure the ultimate purposes of the cam- 
 paign. Even before the war the need of a redefi- 
 nition of the college product was strongly felt. 
 The revolutions in college thought and traditions 
 due to the war, the new tasks demanded of college 
 men in war time, the re-rating of the qualities of 
 college men when confronted with new tasks such 
 as have faced them the last two years, all these 
 have caused heart-searchings and re-investi'ga- 
 tions of established creeds in the college world, 
 and we have emerged from the war, ready to listen 
 to new attempts at definitions. Like Whittier's 
 theologian, scattering flowers on ancient faiths, of 
 newer creeds which claim a place in truth's do- 
 main, we ask the title deeds. 
 
 In some ways the war itself has helped us to our 
 new definitions, and the first and greatest service 
 of the war in this direction is the restoration of 
 our faith in the indivisible, unmultipliable, human 
 personality as the unit of all our calculations. 
 Until the war came, we were finding ourselves 
 served fairly well by a psychology without a soul, 
 by a philosophy which explained the will in terms 
 of idea rather than the idea in terms of will, by 
 a philosophy which explained emotion in terms of 
 heart, and liver and bile, rather than heart and 
 liver and bile in terms of wish and desire and reso- 
 lution. The habit had grown in academic circles 
 
 ,191 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 especially of standing aside to watch the stream 
 of consciousness flow by with no clear sense of 
 responsibility for the good, the bad, the true and 
 false which the stream might bring. The slang 
 of the moment was not, what do you think your- 
 self, but, I want to get your reaction to this, — an 
 appeal not to a living choosing personality, but to 
 a bundle of habits. Upon this kind of an aca- 
 demic world, war burst in its fury. Great de- 
 cisions on which hung the issues of life and death 
 confronted men. The path of duty and the path 
 of self-interest diverged. Habits of peace time 
 were of httle assistance in precipitating reactions 
 for war. The world of idea was replaced by a 
 world of will. Eeasonableness ceased to be the 
 last word, devotion and sacrifice crowded it to one 
 side. Americans who had never felt the heavy 
 hand of Government, suddenly found themselves 
 under restraint, not free to come and go as they 
 would, or to refer their acts to their conscience as 
 a court of last resort. We grew accustomed to 
 reading of the will to conquest, of the will to 
 victory. The Emperor of Germany and the 
 President of the United States as well, talked of 
 what I want. A whole nation spoke in the impera- 
 tive, they shall not pass, and we suddenly awoke 
 to the realization that our grandfathers who 
 thought of men as will and passion were perhaps 
 nearer right than our fathers who thought of men 
 as conscious machines. In the first place, I take it 
 that in our redefinition of the ideal college man, 
 we shall lay more emphasis in the age immediately 
 
 192 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 before us upon qualities of will, upon creative 
 imagination, upon all those qualities which we sum 
 up under the word gallant, a man who sees plainly 
 his objective, and who is not likely to be deterred 
 or turned aside from reaching it. The war is said 
 to have been a war of engineers, and it was the 
 engineers who sensed the need of redefinition in 
 this direction even before the war began. The 
 careful investigation of engineering education and 
 of the work of educated engineers had brought the 
 engineering world to the conclusion that steps 
 must be taken to cultivate in the engineering 
 student, imagination, initiative, courage and 
 knowledge of men. The tendency of training in 
 modem science is to make man think of himself 
 as the subject of inexorable law. Trained in sci- 
 entific method, taught for years that inaccuracy is 
 the great sin, encouraged to deny his hopes and de- 
 sires, striving to rid himself of old preconceptions 
 and personal preferences and to wait humbly at 
 his microscope, at his test tube, at his telescope 
 for the reality that may be revealed, there had 
 grown up gradually the worship of the God of 
 things as they are and a paralysis of that function 
 of the human will which can utter what Carlyle 
 calls the everlasting ''yea," the determination to 
 have a part in the creation of reality. It was only 
 the newness of scientific discovery, however, which 
 gave it this binding power. The inexorableness 
 of day and night, the sun rising and the sun set- 
 ting, of life and death, have proved no fetter to 
 the free spirit of man and new scientific discovery 
 
 193 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 growing more familiar and better understood is 
 accepted as a matter of course, and the spirit is 
 free again to proceed on its adventurous quest. 
 As the philosophers have pointed out, we should 
 expect Mohammedanism and Calvinism with their 
 predestination and determinism to produce a fatal- 
 istic race without daring, while history shows just 
 the opposite. The man who believes most firmly 
 in the supreme divine will seems freest in the use 
 of the human will. Alfred Noyes, perhaps better 
 than any modem poet, has sensed this problem of 
 the relation; of scientific knowledge and ideals to 
 the human will and has shown how, rightly con- 
 ceived, the concept of universal law hberates 
 rather than controls the human mind. ' ' Only the 
 soul that plays its rhythmic part in that grand 
 measure of the tides and sun terrestrial and celes- 
 tial until it soars into the supreme melodies of 
 Heaven, only that soul climbing the splendid round 
 of law from height to height may walk with God, 
 shape its own sphere from chaos, conquer death, 
 lay hold on life and liberty and sing. ' ' The Hercu- 
 lean tasks of the great war came just in time to 
 show that there were ends big enough and great 
 enough for humanity to relegate knowledge and 
 science to their rightful places as servants rather 
 than masters, of willing, serving, sacrificing, tri- 
 umphant man. 
 
 The second help to our redefinition given by the 
 war comes from the important part played in 
 modern warfare by proper timing of our advance. 
 If the first lesson is to define your objective, the 
 
 194 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 second is to go over the top at the right time and 
 proceed neither too fast nor too slow. Any one 
 who has looked at a moving picture of modem war- 
 fare must have been struck by the slow movement 
 of troops advancing under fire. In this war the 
 artillery goes first and the troops follow the bar- 
 rage, not the individual attack first, supported by 
 the heavy guns. The present war could be fought 
 only by disciplined soldiers, soldiers who could 
 conform their actions to a clock. The undisci- 
 plined soldier was for the most part futile. I take 
 it that from the analogy of the barrage we shall 
 draw other arguments for restraining the impa- 
 tience of youth and making them submit to the 
 trying delays and postponements of action which 
 must be patiently sustained if there is to be ade- 
 quate preparation. You men who have stuck to 
 college through the exciting times of the last four 
 years, must know something of the mind of the 
 men who had to spend long hours of deadly wait- 
 ing in the trenches for one hour of exciting pur- 
 suit over the top. As the world has looked on 
 at the great object lesson of the war and has seen 
 the thousands of men employed to contribute to 
 the success at the critical moment of one fighting 
 man, as they have realized how vastly intricate is 
 the organization which underlies the modern 
 fighter or the aviator with his machine gun, they 
 will be less impatient with colleges in the battle for 
 truth, less ready to suggest shortcuts, more ready 
 to understand how the knowledge of truth and the 
 creation of beauty, the adaptation of new knowl- 
 
 195 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 edge to the happiness of men cannot be the imme- 
 diate work of all, even a democracy, but is the 
 finest fruit and flower of the intricate machine of 
 civilization, just as the machinery of the nations in 
 the great war existed for the sake of the fighting 
 man, and the fighting man for the sake of the 
 nations. 
 
 We have learned more than one lesson about 
 time in its application to education from the war, 
 however. We have learned not only that you must 
 take time for adequate preparation before you ad- 
 vance to your objective; not only that you must 
 start at the right time and not go too fast or too 
 slow for the barrage, but we have learned a great 
 deal also about synchronization; about all 
 branches of the service doing things at the same 
 time. Aviators, artillery, men in the trenches, 
 engineers, wire-cutters, railroad men, all must act 
 and act at the same time in a great advance. It 
 has been a telephone war, a war that could not 
 have been fought without wireless and telephones, 
 and we may expect to see education profit by the 
 lesson. We may expect to find more coordination 
 in the new curriculum. We may expect to find 
 the professor of biology concerned to know when 
 the students come to him at 11 o^clock, what they 
 have been talking about in the history room at 
 10 o'clock, and we may even look forward to the 
 establishment of that much needed telephone cen- 
 tral in education, a chair of things in general, so 
 that the college graduate of to-morrow will not 
 only know history in the history room and biology 
 
 196 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 in the biology room and Latin in the Latin room, 
 but may so coordinate his knowledge that he may 
 have some sort of a world point of view of science 
 such as the old chair of natural philosophy was 
 able to give and some world point of view of man 
 and his progress such as the old text books on the 
 history of civilization purported to present. 
 
 And the third object lesson of the war which 
 may help in our definition of the college man is the 
 helplessness of man without proper equipment. 
 This war was the war of the machine gun. As 
 President Lowell of Harvard has said from the 
 educator's point of view, the difficulty with war- 
 fare as a subject of instruction is that you have 
 to teach a man to use a weapon which is not yet 
 invented. Nobody apparently had guessed the 
 possibilities of machine gun warfare, but we 
 learned before we got through that one man at a 
 machine gun, whether he was a German, an Eng- 
 lishman, or an American, could stay a regiment. 
 It was a great object lesson for college men on the 
 value of equipment. On the other hand we learned 
 that the most impregnable defense was made of 
 plain dirt. Dirt trenches dug deep enough were 
 better than the steel forts of Belgium. Dirt 
 trenches lined with cement were more wholesome 
 places to live, but not as safe as dirt trenches 
 without the concrete. The machine gun is an in- 
 tricate piece of mechanism, and the United States 
 even after it had gone to war, thought it necessary 
 to spend some months deciding what kind of a 
 machine gun to manufacture. It could not be 
 
 197 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 picked up when the soldier needed it on a moment's 
 notice. On the other hand, the defensive weapon 
 of the dirt trench was something the ordinary 
 soldier could provide himself with on the shortest 
 notice. Age is inchned to over-rate the value of 
 tools; youth is inclined to under-rate their value. 
 Some colleges neglect the provision of apparatus 
 which might be of the greatest assistance to the 
 students. Others go to the other extreme and pro- 
 vide the student with so much apparatus and with 
 so many labor saving devices, that when the 
 student is thrown into the practical world, he is 
 helpless. The greatest discoveries in science are 
 not always made in the best appointed labora- 
 tories. In determining the value of equipment to 
 the college man, we should not be too ready to 
 judge it by its intricacy. A hole in the mud may 
 be a very useful weapon, an intricate machine gun 
 may also be a useful weapon, but neither the sim- 
 plicity and uncouthness of the one, the intricacy 
 and novelty of the other, should be the determining 
 factor in determining what arms to lay upon the 
 college David as he goes forth to meet the defiance 
 of error and superstition. But time is passing, 
 and I must hurry to my conclusion. 
 
 Two other aspects of education have received 
 emphasis from our war experience. They are so 
 obvious, that I will speak but briefly of each. 
 First is the importance of more adequate and sys- 
 tematic physical training. I think the consensus 
 of opinion is, that the college boy who went to a 
 training camp, or who received military training 
 
 198 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 at the college was almost invariably a better 
 physical animal than the college boy of peace 
 times. The slouch was gone, indifference was 
 gone sluggishness was gone, superfluous fat was 
 gone, reaction followed far more quickly on 
 stimuli. If the mind held fewer ideas, the body 
 at least responded more promptly to the few the 
 mind had. I do not think that the war persuaded 
 the more thoughtful college professors that mili- 
 tary training was necessarily the solution of the 
 problem of how to provide the student with a 
 serviceable physical machine. The truth of the 
 matter is, that the physical machine created by 
 military training was not a very serviceable 
 machine for study. The physique which looked so 
 superb was in the class room likely to be drowsy 
 and obtuse. The habits formed under military 
 training and the appetites created in the bodily 
 cells, as soon as the student reverted from the oc- 
 cupation of soldier to the occupation of student, 
 gave the student a less serviceable physical 
 machine for the purposes of study than he had had 
 before. The war to my mind did not solve the 
 problem of physical education for the student, but 
 it did undoubtedly persuade us all that it was one 
 of the problems to which American education must 
 promptly address itself, and I am convinced that 
 no definition of the ideal college man will be ac- 
 ceptable in the new era which does not include a 
 prepossessing physique and carriage, one which 
 shall be serviceable to the student and expressive 
 
 199 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 at the same time of that grace and mastery of 
 mind over body which it must be an important 
 function of a true education to create. 
 
 Finally, our definition of the ideal college man 
 will be affected by the lesson taught by the war, 
 that emotion matters. If you talk to an army man 
 he would not call it emotion, but morale. By 
 morale I understand not only what a man thinks, 
 but how he feels about what he thinks. This as- 
 pect of the mental life of men has been sadly 
 neglected by our American colleges the last few 
 years. In fact the scientist has been trying to 
 persuade us that we should have no emotions as 
 students, unless possibly the consuming fire of de- 
 votion to truth. It is because of this low rating 
 of emotion that religion and worship have been 
 receiving such scant recognition in the college cur- 
 ricula of the last twenty-five years. As our psy- 
 chology has been weak in its analysis of will, so 
 it has been weak also in its analysis and knowledge 
 of emotion. I think our more thoughtful college 
 professors have come out of the war with the con- 
 viction that in some way we must see to it that our 
 college men preserve and develop throughout 
 their college course, the capacity of feeling deeply 
 and of admiring whole-heartedly and profoundly. 
 We owe it to our Greek letter fraternities that they 
 at least in the barren years just passing have 
 stressed the value of human emotion as manifested 
 in ties of friendly fellowship. We owe it to our 
 Y. M. C. A. 's that they have found a place for the 
 
 200 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 cultivation of emotion in religion through expres- 
 sion. We owe it to our athletics, however little 
 they have contributed to the physical development 
 of the students in the bleachers, that at least they 
 have furnished an opportunity for the develop- 
 ment of their emotional qualities through expres- 
 sion. However weak William James's psychol- 
 ogy of emotion is, it was sound in this, that it 
 taught that if a man went through the physical 
 expression of anger, he could gradually arouse in 
 himself the emotion of anger. If he went through 
 the physical expression of joy, he could gradually 
 arouse in himself the emotion of joy. We have 
 then this much of a key to the solution of the prob- 
 lem of how we may cultivate and enrich the emo- 
 tional content of a man^s life. 
 
 Lord Fisher said a very wise thing in Parlia- 
 ment the other day in discussing the proposition 
 to create a commission to survey the universities 
 of Great Britain. Universities, he said, are not 
 the outgrowth of commissions, but of a great 
 moral purpose. So of the individual student's 
 emotional life, if we would see it develop properly, 
 we must preserve in the curriculum and in the 
 heart of the individual man a great moral pur- 
 pose. Because of our common Presbyterianism, 
 I may say to you of Davidson, as I say to the men 
 of Lafayette, that you cannot have complete edu- 
 cation and you cannot define your ideal college 
 man with religion left out. Call it what you 
 please, every man rates things according to 
 some scale of value, and the thing he places at the 
 
 201 
 
Defining the College Man 
 
 top, the thing to which he gives the right of way, 
 he worships as his God. Not only what our men 
 think about, not only what they know, but how they 
 feel about what they think, is an essential question 
 for the education of to-morrow. 
 
 With the objective defined, with patient prepa- 
 ration and advance well timed, with tools valued 
 only for their efficiency, with a body ready to func- 
 tion gracefully and effectively for the work in 
 hand, and with the soul aflame with a divine fire, 
 the college man will go forth into the new era and 
 furnish the wise, efficient leadership which de- 
 mocracy so greatly needs. Gradually our loved 
 America is ridding itself of the tyranny of things. 
 We think of the state as an organization not of 
 property, but of persons. Labor has shortened 
 its hours of labor and says to the colleges, we have 
 leisure now for making men, give us the pattern 
 by which to work. The ideals of our colleges 
 matter as never before in the world of to-day. I 
 know you all, whether as alumni or students, teach- 
 ers or benefactors, will share in helping to ade- 
 quately redefine the ideal college man of America. 
 
 202 
 
T 
 
 THE COLLEGE MAN AND FREEDOM 
 HEEE is an old liymn beginning, 
 
 "When I can read my title clear 
 
 To mansions in the skies, 
 I bid farewell to every fear, 
 
 And wipe my weeping eyes." 
 
 This college opening is notable in that for the 
 first time the university welcomes its students at 
 University Heights to a campus the title to which 
 is absolutely free from every incumbrance. At 
 the close of these exercises I shall hand to the 
 president of the Student Organization the univer- 
 sity's bond for $500,000, which has outlived both 
 its signers — William A. Wheelock and Israel C. 
 Pierson — for complete annihilation. Through the 
 generosity of the late John S. Kennedy, the uni- 
 versity was enabled to pay the mortgage on the 
 University Heights property in August, and to- 
 day dedicates anew this campus to the permanent 
 service of higher education, in the hope that it may 
 forever hereafter be held sacred for this purpose 
 and never again be jeopardized by debt. 
 
 This final payment on the University Heights 
 property comes as a most fitting and appropriate 
 
 Address at the opening of the College of Arts and Pure Science 
 and School of Applied Science of New York University, Univer- 
 sity Heights, September, 1910. 
 
 203 
 
The College Man and Freedom 
 
 final act in the administration of the chancellor 
 whose term of office terminates on this his seven- 
 tieth birthday. If there is an appropriateness in 
 the final payment on the property being made by 
 the money from Mr. Kennedy because the doors 
 of his house were the first to be opened for the 
 fostering of the uptown project, it is also a con- 
 summation more gratifying than the fates often 
 accord that the retiring chancellor should have 
 the satisfaction of leaving arduous work begun 
 twenty years ago so perfected. You students of 
 University Heights, who, hke myself, have known 
 him most intimately these last years, know how 
 this home of the college — true child of his own 
 spirit — held a foremost place in his affections and 
 absorbed the deepest emotions of his heart. It 
 has been given to few men to leave so marked an 
 impression of his personality on forty acres of 
 New York land. This campus will remain through 
 generations an enduring monument to his sagacity 
 and unsparing devotion. Beginning with the 
 staking of his whole bank account on the original 
 option, the felling of the forest and the grading 
 of the streets, the securing of a railroad station, 
 post office and telegraph station, the moving and 
 removing of the temporary buildings and the 
 athletic field, when the munificence of Miss Gould 
 made possible a larger campus than was originally 
 planned, through the erection of this Library 
 Building and the Hall of Fame and finally to the 
 amendment of the city map to protect the trees on 
 the Schwab Estate and render more beautiful the 
 
 204 
 
The College Man and Freedom 
 
 southern approach — every detail has had his per- 
 sonal attention and every foot of soil bears his 
 footprint. It comes to you students of the College 
 and School of Applied Science as a city university 
 campus without rival in natural beauty. Nowhere 
 within the city limits could the site be duplicated 
 to-day. Tracts of forty acres protected from di- 
 vision by streets by the city charter are hard to 
 find. Forty acres on the top of a hill with a view 
 of two rivers and the Sound and yet level enough 
 to be adapted to the requirements of a college 
 without great expense, is a unique possession. 
 New York is so immense that the present genera- 
 tion has not yet come to realize what a cause for 
 municipal pride it has in this university campus. 
 Perhaps with the increased use of airships this 
 green oasis will more often attract the attention of 
 New Yorkers than its neighbor Woodlawn, in the 
 number of its quarter-million-dollar buildings. 
 The property is, as I have said, to-day free from 
 every outside incumbrance. More than that, the 
 entire campus is held by the university free from 
 any conditions except the condition that some 
 portion of the Schwab Estate shall always be de- 
 voted to woman 's working and living. It bears no 
 donor's name and, as the chancellor pointed out 
 in his commencement address of a year ago, ''The 
 University is not under contract to do anything 
 whatsoever which the ideal university of America 
 ought not to undertake. No political interest, no 
 business trust, no economic theory, no denomina- 
 tional creed, no race, no territory, not even New 
 
 205 
 
The College Man and Freedom 
 
 York City itself, can make any legal claim upon 
 it." In its freedom from obligation, the campus 
 is a type of the American college student. To-day 
 you men of the entering class step into the free- 
 dom of your manhood. Legally, you are not of 
 age and still subject to your parents' control and, 
 under the old theory of college government, ''more 
 honored now in the breach than in the observ- 
 ance," this legal and moral right of control is 
 from this day delegated by your parents to the 
 college faculty. Indeed, the American system of 
 education differs chiefly from that of Germany in 
 providing a transitional institution in which the 
 strict control of the secondary school shall give 
 place gradually to the complete freedom of the uni- 
 versity, in which, indeed, according to the genius 
 of our whole social system, men shall learn to 
 govern themselves. There are in America still 
 two systems of educating man for self-government 
 and each has its strong adherents. The one sys- 
 tem, that takes as its motto the old maxim that a 
 man learns to rule by learning to obey, is the sys- 
 tem which finds its best exemplification and 
 strongest argument in our national academies at 
 West Point and Annapolis, and the general senti- 
 ment of the country seems to be that the system is 
 justified by its fruits. The other system is the 
 true child of democracy. It is one of the glories 
 of the world's great universities that they tend to 
 be democratic within themselves whatever may be 
 their attitude toward the world at large. The 
 theory of this system of training men for self- 
 
 206 
 
The College Man and Freedom 
 
 government is to minimize restraint from with- 
 out the student body, whether exercised by a 
 parent, a faculty, a dean, or other disciplinary 
 officer, and to leave the individual free to follow 
 the promptings of his own spirit subject to the 
 restraints imposed upon him by the presence of 
 other men of like age and passions with himself, 
 also free to follow the promptings of their spirits. 
 The result of this system has been the growth of a 
 democratic form of government within the student 
 body itself and, as happened in the pure democ- 
 racy of New England town meetings, this demo- 
 cratic form of student government has ventured 
 to extremes in regulation of private conduct which 
 no external authority would have attempted. You 
 gentlemen of the entering class will find here at 
 University Heights two governments. There is 
 the government of the faculty, which is set forth 
 in the printed rules, a copy of which each of you 
 should have received, in which you will find not 
 only the legal and theoretical government of the 
 college, but also a very real government clothed 
 with sufficient power to execute its statutes should 
 you make the mistake, which some students have 
 made, of supposing that faculty government was 
 like the tonsils or the vermiform appendix — a 
 heritage from a former life with no immediate 
 function, but you will discover also that in the free 
 democracy allowed and fostered by this faculty 
 government, there has grown up a subsidiary gov- 
 ernment with its own laws and executives. In this 
 institution, the government is known as the Stu- 
 
 207 
 
The College Man and Freedom 
 
 dent Organization. It is not, however, a condition 
 peculiar to this institution. Throughout the 
 United States we find this disposition of the stu- 
 dent body, given originally individual freedom, 
 to organize themselves to render e:ffective the 
 wishes of the stronger leaders or it may be of the 
 majority. Beginning with the common bond of 
 interest in athletics, holding mass meetings for 
 training in cheering and in chorus singing, these 
 organizations have little by httle enlarged their 
 scope until they exercise an important control in 
 all the internal affairs of college life. I believe 
 in the fostering and encouragement of such an 
 organization and that steps should be taken by the 
 faculties to keep in touch with its activities and 
 to utilize the agency as the most effective means 
 of student control. The existence of this form of 
 government, however, will bring to the entering 
 student new and serious questions, 
 'j As I have said, you have entered to-day upon a 
 
 / life which has been freed from many of the old 
 restrictions. There will be a time schedule to be 
 followed and tasks to be performed and appropri- 
 ate penalties will follow the failure to observe 
 these restrictions, but there is no such exactness 
 or narrowness to these requirements as confront 
 the average young man leaving his home or leav- 
 ing the high school to go into business. Of all 
 \ groups in our modern civilization, college students 
 are the one too free from restriction, is the ver- 
 dict which is gradually formulating itself as we 
 examine the product of the last twenty-five years, 
 
 208 
 
The College Man and Freedom 
 
 and as a result there has been a general tightening 
 of screws in all institutions the last year or so, 
 but so far as I know, there has been no wide dis- 
 position to substitute for the system of self-se- 
 lected activity the system of routine strictly con- 
 trolled from without, such as exists at West Point. 
 As we continue to believe in democracy with all 
 its failures as a more worthy form of government 
 for free men than monarchy, so we continue to 
 believe that sooner or later the life of every edu- 
 cated man must be directed from within and that 
 freedom, therefore, is essential for that most im- 
 portant of all college lessons, the lesson of self- 
 direction. The Faculty, therefore, welcome you 
 to-day to a life which, so far as the faculty are 
 concerned, has been made freer from outside re- 
 striction than you will find elsewhere in life. 
 Probably this accords with your view of college 
 life and you have come to college expecting to find 
 and to enjoy to the full this freedom. You will 
 perhaps, therefore, be somewhat surprised early 
 in your course to find your freedom restricted by 
 men, who, like yourselves, looked forward to the 
 pleasures of the freedom of college life. You will 
 find college customs and college sentiment con- 
 solidated in a strong student organization. You 
 will find that this organization, deriving its powers 
 from the consent of the governed, enforces rules 
 which seem to the outsider to interfere to an un- 
 warranted extent with the rights of the individual. 
 Indeed, there will doubtless be some of you, who, 
 not on any grounds of political economy or be- 
 
 209 
 
The College Man and Freedom 
 
 cause of any theory which you may hold regard- 
 ing the rights and duties of a democracy, but 
 purely for personal reasons, will regard these 
 rules as iniquitous tyranny. You will begin then 
 the consideration of a problem which, in its vari- 
 ous aspects, will confront and puzzle you through 
 life or at least as long as your intellect remains 
 active and until you begin to go without inquiry 
 in a rut of convention. That question deals with 
 the relative spheres of individual and social ac- 
 tivity. Of the things which I do, of the thoughts 
 which I think, how much of my life shall I live by 
 myself and in my own way and what things shall 
 I do and what thoughts shall I think and how much 
 of my life shall I live after a fashion which repre- 
 sents the resulting compromise of many minds 
 and many wills ? 
 
 College life as now organized tends to develop 
 the social side of the individualistic student prob- 
 ably more than it tends to make a strong person- 
 ality of the student of social impulses. There is 
 a criticism which seems to hold equally against 
 democracy in the state and democracy in the stu- 
 dent body — that democracy does not want excep- 
 tional men, does not create them and, when possi- 
 ble, destroys them. The birth of genius is a 
 thing with which a university has little to do. The 
 university does its part if it affords genius its 
 opportunity, and to this end equality of opportun- 
 ity must be forever the first principle of college 
 democracy. If, however, college democracy, as 
 manifested in its student organization, defeats the 
 
 210 
 
The College Man and Freedom 
 
 ends of freedom by exacting of all a similar rou- 
 tine, it will be doing all it can to minimize the 
 number of great men. Thus, for example, while 
 the requirement of a similar hat for all freshmen 
 may not interfere with the development of any 
 freshman's peculiar genius, I am not sure that to 
 make universal a rule requiring freshmen to con- 
 tribute a certain amount of personal service to 
 the welfare of an athletic team may not interfere 
 with the proper development of some freshman 
 whose genius lies in another direction. Just as 
 we are still seeking in vain any exact definition of 
 what the liberally educated man should know, so 
 we are without any exact definition of the social 
 life and activities in which all educated men 
 should participate. We have come to a time in. 
 our civic and national life when men have found 
 their personal activities and their most cherished 
 desires set at naught by powers outside them- 
 selves too strong for the individual to wrestle with 
 successfully. Many of the strongest believers in 
 freedom, therefore, have joined hands to restrict 
 the freedom of others and have limited their own 
 freedom in so doing. We shall see in the next 
 few years great clashes between those who believe 
 in as little government as possible and those who 
 believe in nothing but government. 
 
 As a preparation for the solution of these 
 questions, I ask you, especially the juniors and 
 seniors, to give thoughtful consideration to the 
 problems of a democracy in our college community. 
 I was impressed by the fact at the last commenoe- 
 
 2U 
 
The College Man and Freedom 
 
 ment that whereas in former days college grad- 
 uates in their commencement orations solved the 
 problems of the nation, at the last commencement 
 all the orations discussed the problems of the 
 college itself. It is, I believe, a wholesome sign 
 when reform begins thus at home. I ask you to 
 consider how far government by the crowd can go 
 without becoming tyranny. I ask you to consider 
 what are the minimum rights of the individual 
 which it is expedient for the community that the 
 majority should hold sacred. I ask you freshmen 
 to consider when submission to organized society 
 is a virtue and when insurgency becomes incum- 
 bent. I ask you to test here in your college de- 
 mocracy your theories of political party regularity 
 and insurgency. I ask you to view the college 
 community as it would be viewed by a member of 
 some other college democracy and ask yourself 
 what it requires to make it notable and give it 
 high rank among communities. Will it rank high- 
 est if all its men are ahke and do things in a con- 
 ventional way or will it rank higher if it finds 
 room for unusual men; if it encourages individ- 
 uality and variety ; if it finds room for the hermit 
 as well as the social leader; if it suspends judg- 
 ment on the ultimate contribution of the mystic 
 as compared with that of the athlete ; the man who 
 makes a perfect recitation with that of the man 
 who is so interested reading in the library that 
 he forgets the recitation altogether. I ask you to 
 make impossible the charge often laid at the door 
 of democracies of commonplaceness. College de- 
 
 212 
 
The College Man and Freedom 
 
 mocracy will always be quick to detect uniqueness ' 
 and will find satisfaction in labeling it with a nick- 
 name, but when you have given it a name, let it 
 go at that. 
 
 When I entered this college twenty years ago, / 
 1 was fortunate enough to enjoy the instruction 
 of a very able teacher of English. One of his / 
 favorite dictums has been : ''When a man enters / 
 college he thinks in words. After a time he may ' 
 be able to think in clauses or sentences and the 
 exceptional man may even attain to thinking in 
 paragraphs." I trust that with this enlargement, 
 which goes on from time to time during the | 
 college course, in your mental capacities, the / 
 critics of the college notwithstanding, there will 
 come a broader toleration for different kinds of 
 men and that your imaginations will be enlarged 
 so that you will be able to conceive places for many 
 kinds in a college democracy and will so shape 
 your student government that it may be free from 
 all tyranny toward those who differ from the aver- 
 age man. 
 
 213 
 
THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF TO-DAY 
 
 ANEW era is beginning, has already begun, in 
 the life of our American colleges. It is 
 hard to generalize, for a country with such 
 diverse conditions as our own, because standards 
 of wealth and standards of culture and ideals of 
 life are very different, in Montana, for example, 
 and in Massachusetts. And yet the intellectual 
 life of our nation is more homogeneous than a 
 stranger would suppose. Inquiries for the publi- 
 cations of a graduate school are as likely to 
 come from Oregon and Minnesota as from Con- 
 necticut or New Jersey. I find the same maga- 
 zines and books on sale in Cripple Creek, Colo- 
 rado, as on Fifth Avenue, and within the same 
 week. The newsboys cry the same issue of the 
 same weekly on the same Thursday in Seattle as 
 in New York or Savannah. Newspaper editorials 
 and contributions supplied to chains of news- 
 papers appear the same day in New York, Chicago, 
 Denver and San Francisco. Indeed the middle 
 sections of our country are so anxious to be 
 abreast of the times that they begin to show rest- 
 lessness under the present standard time system, 
 which puts Cleveland an hour behind New York, 
 and want not to keep up with the sun but to get 
 
 Address before the University Club of Reading, Pa., 1915. 
 
 214 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 ahead of it. I find college presidents and college 
 professors discussing the same problems in Los 
 Angeles, Salt Lake City and Providence. Na- 
 tional organizations, like the Carnegie Founda- 
 tion and the College Entrance Examination Board, 
 adopt standards and definitions which they apply 
 to the whole country. The Presbyterian College 
 Board, of which I am president, works with col- 
 leges in thirty-five of the states, from the Atlantic 
 to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to the Grulf, 
 and we find that the differences in social and eco- 
 nomic status between sections of our country is 
 no greater than that between large sections of the 
 population in New York City, while in intellectual 
 aspirations and ideals they are far more homo- 
 geneous. With due allowance, therefore, for 
 local adaptations, for the local twist of dialect 
 and atmosphere, we are justified in speaking of 
 national eras in education, of country-wide trends 
 in educational thought. 
 
 The age just passing has been an age of enor- 
 mous expansion in our American economic, social 
 and intellectual worlds. Economically, we think 
 to-day in millions of dollars, when a generation 
 ago we thought in thousands. The people used 
 to think the man with a million or two stood in 
 the king row. Now they know he is only a pawn 
 in the great game of finance. Socially, we think 
 internationally. A generation ago, the foreign 
 tourist returned as an adventurer from strange 
 lands. Last summer we discovered Europe to be 
 the summer resort of over a hundred thousand 
 
 215 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 Americans. It does not seem strange any more 
 that an American professor should run over to 
 China to advise the government, as a physician 
 might be called in consultation from Philadelphia 
 to the Hot Springs ; or that the American Ambas- 
 sador resident in Berlin should be a candidate at 
 the same time for the post of United States sen- 
 ator from New York. At the opera I sat next to 
 a young American girl who has won prizes for art 
 in Paris, taught for some years cannibals and 
 dwarfs in Africa, contributed to the ''Atlantic 
 Monthly, ' ' and who is equally at home in the prim- 
 itive African jungle, in the luxury of the Metro- 
 politan, or in the ethereal realms of the " Atlantic 
 Monthly." A college professor acts as United 
 States Minister at the Hague, a university presi- 
 dent spends a sabbatical year as our Government 
 representative in Greece, another tours the world 
 in the interests of world peace, while another 
 spends a summer vacation establishing cordial 
 relations with Chili, Peru, and the Argentine Ee- 
 public. We are exploring just as fast and as far 
 intellectually as we are geographically. Our edu- 
 cational horizon is no less sweeping than the moral 
 horizon defined in the commandment as ''anything 
 in heaven above, in the earth beneath, or in the 
 waters under the earth." It is only necessary to 
 read a list of the activities of the Carnegie Insti- 
 tution at Washington to see how our interest in 
 the physical world has expanded. Astronomy is 
 old, old as David and the wise men of the East, 
 but it was not until I spent a night in that modern 
 
 216 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 monastery on top of Mount Wilson in California 
 last spring, that I realized how Science was call- 
 ing accumulated science to its aid, just as labor 
 calls accumulated labor to its aid in the form of 
 capital, to help it in its work; so that whereas a 
 generation ago astronomy was a comparatively 
 simple affair of man and his telescope and his 
 mathematics, now it is a matter not only of man 
 increased to a staff, recruited from more than one 
 country and working in relays, of telescopes of 
 various kinds, of reflecting mirrors a hundred 
 inches in diameter, mounted on steel frames weigh- 
 ing tons multiplied by tons, dragged for miles up 
 specially constructed roads ; but the eye that sees 
 is no longer the human eye, but the eye of the 
 camera plate, the eye that reads is the eye of the 
 microscope, and the interpreter of the dream is the 
 magician in the physics laboratory or in the chem- 
 ical laboratory, miles below down on the plain. 
 Thus equipped the astronomer not only sees the 
 present but forecasts the future. Not content with 
 studying Being, the world as it is, science, like the 
 old Greek philosophies, wants to know Becoming 
 also, wants to see things grow, wants to observe 
 generation succeeding generation, and to ascertain 
 what is the purpose in all this ceaseless begetting, 
 and whether it can be influenced by the will of 
 man. And so the scientist sits glued to his micro- 
 scope at Wood's Hole, Cold Spring, and many a 
 college laboratory ; and the young instructor chats 
 with his wife, if he is so fortunate or unfortunate 
 as to have one, over the supper table, of frogs, 
 
 217 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 star-fish and earthworms, while she makes family 
 pets of his dogs and guinea-pigs. 
 
 Or, turning from the physical field to the activi- 
 ties of man, we find that scientific spirit, going 
 into the dusty archives at Washington, dragging 
 out long-forgotten papers, listing them, and mak- 
 ing card catalogues and bibliographies; so that 
 the historian and statistician may speak, not by 
 hearsay, not even by the book, but by the very 
 document itself. We find a paper like ' ' The New 
 York Times" spending thousands of dollars on 
 cable tolls, and giving up columns of space, in 
 order that any man may possess for a penny 
 knowledge which no chancellery of Europe could 
 buy at any price a month before. 
 
 We find the scientific spirit turning to the prac- 
 tical affairs of life, to the field which has hitherto 
 been known as the practical world, in distinction 
 to the world of learning, the world of action, as 
 distinguished from the world of thought ; and writ- 
 ing down in books just how to make a yard of 
 cloth, how to sell it when made, and how to enter 
 up in accounts the results of the transaction. 
 Business, curiously enough, is for the first time 
 beginning to be found in books ; we are inventing 
 terms and classifications, thus enabling us to think 
 abstractly of its phenomena, and to enunciate gen- 
 eral principles concerning it, and to make it a part 
 of our whole scheme of knowledge and relate it 
 to our ethics, our politics, our economics, as Aris- 
 totle tried to do, in what seems to us a rather 
 naive way, at the acme of Greek learning. 
 
 218 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 In the field of government, again, the thinker is 
 at work. When I began teaching Municipal Gov- 
 ernment, you could count on your fingers all the 
 books in English worth reading on the subject. 
 Now, hardly a week passes without the issue of a 
 new one, many of them scientific and scholarly. 
 
 Even that most complex of sciences, housekeep- 
 ing, is being put into a book, and probably is as 
 little able to recognize herself as the rural char- 
 acter who found herself in a novel. We have 
 books on sewing, and in spite of all the stitches 
 taken since the world began, it is hard to put sew- 
 ing into a book. Mrs. Jessup, Director of Sew- 
 ing in the New York City Schools, once told me 
 that while many teachers could sew, hardly one 
 could make a diagram to illustrate any special 
 kind of stitch. 
 
 And so, through all the world of practical life, 
 where we have had ability to do things but have 
 not known, like the good cook, how we do them, 
 man the thinking animal, having a little leisure 
 here in America because of the natural wealth of 
 a new country, and the blessing of international 
 peace, and a good deal of that native Yankee curi- 
 osity which ''wants to know," and whose favorite 
 expletive is ''Do tell," is taking up one by one the 
 various activities of men and women, is describ- 
 ing, analyzing, naming, putting into books. Now 
 all this expansion in our national life, economic, 
 social and intellectual, has necessarily found ex- 
 pression in the life and organization of our col- 
 leges. In fact, they are responsible for a good 
 
 219 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 deal of it, and like the boy who touches off the 
 firecracker, not surprised that it has happened, 
 only surprised that the noise and reverberations 
 are so much greater than they had supposed. 
 
 The old-time curriculum, Greek, Latin and 
 Mathematics, which in my own college days had 
 only begun to show signs of cracking, has in the 
 process been blown to pieces; or if the fuse has 
 burned out, has left an institution which is about 
 as useful and promising as a firecracker without 
 a fuse. 
 
 What Physics began. Chemistry and Biology 
 completed. English once firmly planted in the 
 fort has helped in her allies. History, Politics, 
 Sociology ; while Psychology has assumed the role 
 of mediator, between the insurgent sciences on 
 the one side and the completed philosophy of man, 
 life and civilization, which long held sway. War, 
 however, is in itself never profitable. Times of 
 transition are times of opportunity; they are 
 rarely times of satisfaction. Ships without rud- 
 ders don't make very good headway. It is what 
 we believe, as Carlyle points out, not what we 
 doubt, that gives us life. When machinery comes 
 in, the hand weaver finds it hard to adapt him- 
 self to new conditions. When the automobile re- 
 places the horse, some coachmen learn to be chauf- 
 feurs, others starve. 
 
 And so the expansion which has been taking 
 place in the college world, while tremendously in- 
 teresting and stimulating, has brought along with 
 it a great deal of waste and wreckage, and we 
 
 220 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 are anxious to get back to more settled times. 
 The result is, that here and there you will find 
 the curriculum builder again at work, trying to 
 gather up the experience of the generation of 
 college boys just passing, for the benefit of the 
 generations to come; and if we have any faith 
 in knowledge at all, we must believe that it is 
 just this which we ought to do, and that it can be 
 done. We wonder why American youth does not 
 have a deeper reverence for learning. There are 
 many answers to the question. But surely if the 
 college professor who spends his whole life teach- 
 ing boys, who watches them after graduation, and 
 teaches their sons after them, cannot generalize to 
 the extent of naming at least some of the things 
 which the prospective preacher, lawyer, physician 
 ought to study, there is good reason for the Amer- 
 ican inclination to rank native wit above the 
 knowledge of the expert. I believe, therefore, that 
 the curriculum builders have taken up an import- 
 ant task, and that we should follow and, so far as 
 possible, participate in the experiments which are 
 being made in that direction. 
 
 The past era, however, has been a time of ex- 
 pansion in other aspects of college life, besides 
 that of the content of courses. Student bodies 
 have grown so that the number which fills the 
 small college to-day would have satisfied the uni- 
 versity a generation ago. Buildings have in- 
 creased sevenfold. Provision for the student has 
 kept pace with the demand for conveniences in 
 the modern home. Only last June I spent a night 
 
 221 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 in the dormitories at Princeton, and had an op- 
 portunity to compare the old dormitories with 
 their double-deck beds, water no nearer the fourth 
 floor than the basement, with the luxury of the 
 new Graduate College, with its suites of bedroom, 
 sitting-room, entry and private bath. 
 
 College presidents, college trustees, college 
 alumni are to-day, however, confronted with a 
 clear-cut alternative, which is this : shall we seek 
 success in terms of quantity or of quality; shall 
 we seek popular applause or discriminating ap- 
 proval? To maintain a college of liberal arts and 
 pure science or a technological school of high 
 grade is expensive, relatively far more expensive 
 than in the last generation. We know now pretty 
 accurately just how expensive a good college is. 
 For the first time in the history of colleges, a com- 
 mittee has sat down with a pencil, and put down 
 in black and white the minimum cost at which a 
 college can be maintained at all. They have put 
 down also what the cost would be were the best 
 of everything combined in one institution, and 
 they have supported these estimates by figures 
 from colleges actually in operation. The report 
 was presented for the first time at the meeting 
 held in Chicago last month, to organize the Asso- 
 ciation of American Colleges. We are safe to 
 say, therefore, that a college of the highest grade 
 requires three million dollars ; a million dollars in 
 grounds, building and equipment, and two million 
 dollars in productive endowment. Technological 
 schools are still more expensive. The great in- 
 
 222 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 flux of students which began sweeping into the col- 
 leges twenty-five years ago, because of the great 
 expansion in wealth and the social prestige given 
 by college education is somewhat receding, or 
 being diverted to more specialized schools. Pros- 
 pective students of medicine twenty-five years ago 
 who had six years to give to study beyond the 
 high school, could give four to the college and two 
 to the medical school, because that was all the 
 medical school demanded. Now' the medical school 
 demands four or five years, and there is a disposi- 
 tion, therefore, to leave the college at the end of 
 the second year. To meet the increasing pres- 
 sure, and make it possible for the professional 
 man to begin at an earlier age, all sorts of short 
 cuts have been devised. At the same time, col- 
 leges have been multiplied. The States have 
 opened their treasuries, and college education has 
 been made free. High schools have improved 
 their curricula and strengthened their courses, so 
 that the boy learns in high school much of what 
 he formerly learned in college ; and as the high 
 schools have pushed up from below, the universi- 
 ties have let down their nets from above, and en- 
 couraged the student to take a combined course 
 in the university college and university profes- 
 sional school. 
 
 The college then, feeling the tide sweeping out 
 rather than rolling in, asks : what must we do to 
 be saved; what must we do for success? The 
 temptation is to meet the free tuition of state 
 institutions and the competition of other colleges, 
 
 223 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 by waiving tuition charges, by unduly multiply- 
 ing scholarships, in order that numbers may be 
 maintained at any cost. Another temptation is 
 to offer cheaper lines of goods, or as the news- 
 papers say — to give the public what they demand, 
 meaning what will command the largest circula- 
 tion. Summer schools without entrance examina- 
 tions, short courses for teachers, courses in com- 
 merce and finance are multiplied because they in- 
 crease the number of students, because the public 
 wants them, and because they come nearer paying 
 their way; while Greek, if maintained at all, is 
 maintained as an expensive luxury for a select few, 
 and Latin shrivels from a four-year subject to a 
 two-year one. The alternative which confronts 
 the colleges is not one, however, which is peculiar 
 to education. It is one which confronts the busi- 
 ness-man and the literary man quite as truly as 
 the educational administrator. An established, 
 business which finds\its clientele diminishing in a 
 given location and with a given class of goods 
 may do one of several things. It may resolve to 
 remain in the same location, but to cheapen its 
 grade of goods ; and to use the prestige of the past 
 to attract a new and larger patronage of a lower 
 grade. It may be successful in this, if it adver- 
 tises wisely, buys closely, and sells on very narrow 
 margins of profit. Or it may go on, according to 
 the precedents of the past century, selling high- 
 grade goods to a constantly decreasing number of 
 patrons, while its trade dmndles and finally dis- 
 appears. Or it may ask itself — what and where 
 
 224 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 do the people buy who formerly bought here, what 
 is it they want, and what do they pay for it? 
 And if it finds them preferring a new location, 
 more convenient methods, costlier goods, more 
 luxurious shops, along with a willingness to pay 
 a higher price for all these things, the business 
 man, if daring and progressive enough, may enter 
 the new field, increase his capital, incur larger ex- 
 pense, and succeed or fail, according to the sagac- 
 ity and diligence which guide the venture. 
 
 So with a newspaper, when confronted with the 
 question of remaining a three cent or two cent 
 paper, or becoming a one cent paper, and seeking 
 a larger circulation at the expense of selectness 
 and dignity. 
 
 So with the author, when confronted with the 
 alternative of writing a novel which will have an 
 enormous circulation at once, or a novel which will 
 take three or four times as long to write and will 
 take three or four times as long to win its way. 
 
 In these dilemmas there is no practical rule to 
 guide, no maxim of experience. It may be pos- 
 sible to have a paper for one cent, quite as good 
 in quality as the three cent paper, and with the 
 advantage of larger circulation besides. It may 
 be that the novel or the play written to meet the 
 popular appeal will have so much of eternal hu- 
 manity in it, that it will live and become a classic. 
 It may prove that the course instituted by the 
 college as a pot-boiler will reveal an unexpected 
 need in the community, and contribute something 
 valuable to human progress. But because the 
 
 225 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 temptation is to seek immediate success, rather 
 than to endure the privations and obscurity which 
 is the lot of most idealists, college presidents, col- 
 lege alumni, college trustees will do well to be on 
 their guard against the alternative which prom- 
 ises the quickest returns. We must believe that 
 in a moral universe, the good and the profitable 
 eventually coincide, that the laws of morality jus- 
 tify themselves in the experience of the race, if not 
 in the experience of the individual ; and therefore, 
 in the life of an institution, what is good and right 
 will also prove in the long run profitable. We do 
 not ask, therefore, that in making plans for edu- 
 cation you ignore or stifle the instinct for success ; 
 but only that you do not deal in too small units, 
 or insist that the harvest come over night. 
 
 There is, I have said, no maxim or precept which 
 will decide any such alternative off-hand. There 
 is, however, one principle which we should never 
 lose sight of in such dilemmas, and that principle 
 may be called sincerity. In our veneration for 
 institutions, whether the institution be a form of 
 church government, a college or a college cur- 
 riculum, a political party or a national constitu- 
 tion, a particular shape or price of newspaper, or 
 an accepted style of architecture, we are apt to 
 lose sight of the fact that these were created orig- 
 inally as practical means for attaining definite 
 ends; and were good not in and for themselves, 
 but because they accomplished something which 
 men wanted, in a pleasant and efficient way. Vin- 
 dicated by the experience of generations, hallowed 
 
 226 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 as the source of untold benefactions, we have come 
 to esteem them for themselves, and to regard as 
 profane the man who would apply practical tests 
 to that which we have come to regard as inher- 
 ently sacred. The study of history is the surest 
 correction of this attitude, when carried to im- 
 proper extremes. If we trace the birth of institu- 
 tions and find how they are the outgrowth and sur- 
 vival of many attempts made by men — quite as 
 much puzzled and perplexed by their current prob- 
 lems as we are to-day — to find the proper means 
 to reach the end they had in view; and if we will 
 try to imbibe their spirit rather than worship their 
 work, we shall approach the problems of the col- 
 lege and the curriculum in a new spirit of sincer- 
 ity, and with not less reverence for the ideal. 
 
 The creed expressed by Jesus, when he declared 
 that the Sabbath was made for man, and not man 
 for the Sabbath, is characteristic of the thought 
 of our own day. Institutions are made for man, 
 not man for institutions. The school exists for 
 the sake of the child, not the child for the sake 
 of the school. If we seem to find a contradiction 
 of this creed in the present sacrifice of a million 
 men in Germany to the idea of the state, in the 
 sacrifice of a whole nation like Belgium to a con- 
 cept such as national dignity and integrity, it is 
 only temporary and apparent; and when society 
 sums up the values of the present conflict, its unit 
 of measurement will not be this or that nation, 
 but man the individual, including all his larger 
 relations as a political animal. Unless the Bel- 
 
 227 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 gian of to-morrow is or has something which the 
 citizen of Luxembourg is not or has not, Belgium 
 will have suffered in vain. There is, therefore, 
 but one sure method of measuring results, of test- 
 ing current practice or new experiment in the edu- 
 cational world, and that is by the pupil. College 
 faculties, torn this way and that by conflicting 
 interests, alumni reminiscent of their own college 
 days, trustees interested in deficits and cost units, 
 college presidents eager to make this year better 
 than the last, and to justify their membership in 
 the great brotherhood of optimists, may promul- 
 gate theories, may decree hall-marks of value, may 
 dress up this or that subject in fine array, hoping 
 thus to determine its station; but the problem of 
 what makes a good college education will never 
 be settled that way. 
 
 Nothing is more illuminating to a student of 
 educational administration than to see how 
 quickly the point of view of a professor, with 
 relation to the curriculum, changes the minute the 
 professor has a son in college, and he looks at the 
 curriculum with his son's eyes. We regard this 
 as personal partiality, but after all, enlarged and 
 generalized, it is the only true method. If we 
 would know the excellencies or defects of our pres- 
 ent system, we must go with the freshman to the 
 Eegistrar's office and enroll, with him we must 
 pay our term bills and establish ourselves in the 
 dormitory; with him we must face the question 
 of athletics and of fraternity life ; and with him, in 
 spirit if not in body, we must map out the hours 
 
 228 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 of the day and the days of the year, and go the 
 round of the class-rooms. If it be true that ''ex- 
 cept ye become as little children, ye shall not see 
 the Kingdom of Heaven," it is also true that 
 the college professor or the college president that 
 dwells in a world remote from the world of the 
 student, and has little or no knowledge of how that 
 elaborate scherre of compromise known as the 
 college curriculum works out in the case of an 
 individual freshman, has not even started on the 
 road to the kingdom of ideal education. 
 
 Nature they say is careless of the individual, 
 careless even of the type. I, for one, do not be- 
 lieve it. I take the other view of the universe; 
 that not a sparrow falls to the ground without our 
 Father's notice, and that men are of much greater 
 value than they. And fortified with this faith in 
 the unique significance of each man, I return again 
 and again to the task of so shaping and modifying 
 our institutions, that in the credit and debit ac- 
 count between the individual and organized so- 
 ciety, in the college and in the larger world with- 
 out, the balance of profit shall remain with the 
 individual. 
 
 I wish the time would permit me to take you 
 with me, step by step, through the ideal college as 
 I picture it. But perhaps it would be a waste of 
 time, after all; for the Lord has so arranged the 
 world, that all the good things are not found in 
 any one institution, nor all the desirable attributes 
 in any one man or woman, as the college presi- 
 dent discovers every time he seeks a professor, 
 
 229 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 and as you, perhaps, discovered when you sought 
 a wife. Besides, you have each of you, as college 
 men, probably in a more or less conscious way, 
 pictured an ideal college, each for himself, espe- 
 cially if you have a son. The only thing is, that if 
 you have a son, you probably have much more 
 definite ideas as to what you do not want him to 
 spend time on at college, than as to what subjects 
 you do want him to study ; and it becomes the task 
 of the college president and of the college faculty, 
 therefore, to substitute for old dislikes and re- 
 sentments, for disproved theories and hypotheses 
 that have not worked, new ideals and hypotheses 
 which shall at least have the merit of not contra- 
 dicting your experience. 
 
 James Bryce has said that two salient character- 
 istics of the mass of the American people are — 
 "A fondness for bold and striking effects ; a pref- 
 erence for larger generalizations and theories 
 which have an ail* of completeness." And second, 
 — "An inadequate perception of the difference be- 
 tween first-rate work in a quiet style, and mere 
 flatness." And these characteristics of the mass 
 of our people have militated against quality in our 
 colleges. There is growing up, however, in a 
 small circle, a more intelligent comprehension of 
 what the college really is, and what a difference 
 there may be between a good college and a poor 
 college. 
 
 Hence thinking men favor quality as against 
 quantity. They favor thoroughness as against 
 speed. They favor teachers who are good teach- 
 
 230 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 ers, rather than good advertisers, or publishers, or 
 publicists. One of the weakest points in college 
 administration has been that we have had no fixed 
 criteria by which to measure good teaching. If 
 we want good teaching, we must find some way of 
 knowing it when we have it, and of giving it its 
 due meed of fame, and proper financial reward. 
 Yet we would not if we could remove the college 
 teacher from participation in the life of his times. 
 President Meiklejohn has said: "I believe it to be 
 the function of the teacher to stand before his 
 pupils and before the community at large as the 
 intellectual leader of his time. If he is not able 
 to take this leadership, he is not worthy of his 
 calling. If the leadership is taken from him and 
 given to others, then the very foundations of the 
 scheme of instruction are shaken." And yet, in 
 this day of popular interest in all things, of pub- 
 licity agents, and newspaper reputation, how shall 
 the college teacher come to be a recognized leader 
 in his community, if he sticks to his last ? Recog- 
 nized by his associates he may be, recognized in 
 other universities and in other countries if he is 
 an author; but now as ever it is true that the 
 prophet (and the great college leader is a prophet) 
 is likely to be a man without honor in his own 
 country and in his own age. 
 
 In spite of what Bryce has characterized as the 
 average American '^s love of generalization and ap- 
 parent completeness, the college of the New Era 
 must be content to be one-sided. It must be con- 
 tent to specialize. It must aim to be the best of 
 
 231 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 its kind in at least one field; to be known as giv- 
 ing the best course in the country in English or 
 Chemistry, or History, as the case may be. Even 
 one great man confers distinction on an entire 
 faculty, and all his contemporaries shine with re- 
 flected luster, while the fame of an Agassiz, a 
 Francis Wayland, a Francis March outlasts his 
 own generation, and confers on his institution the 
 good-will of generations as yet unborn. 
 
 To honor the great teacher will put a premium 
 too on all good teaching. But we shall need also 
 more radical reforms to alter the present point of 
 view. We have come to have too much German 
 irresponsibility in our college faculties, too many 
 teachers who not only do not regard themselves 
 as responsible for what the student learns or does 
 not learn, but who expressly maintain that it is 
 not their affair, that it is the function of the 
 scholar to know and to speak what they know, 
 that it is the business of the man with ears to 
 hear, or not to hear at his own cost. 
 
 This has resulted in a false antagonism between 
 the professor and the average student. They lack 
 a common aim. If some means can be devised for 
 the whole faculty to test what students learn 
 under any given instructor, that common interest 
 will be supplied, the success of the student will 
 be also the success of the teacher, and his failure 
 will reflect discredit upon the teacher as well as 
 upon himself. Professor and student will then 
 feel that they are cooperating for a common end, 
 and the college professor will feel the same con- 
 
 232 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 cern for the success of his students as the pro- 
 fessional school does for the record of its grad- 
 uates who take state examinations for the prac- 
 tice of law or of medicine. 
 
 The faculty must enlarge its point of view also 
 with regard to all those activities which go to 
 make up a healthy and normal life for the young 
 human animal. The function of sleep American 
 colleges have long recognized alongside of study, 
 and immortalized it in the name of dormitory. 
 Athletics have been tolerated or encouraged, but 
 as solely a student affair, not as a faculty affair 
 in any positive and constructive way, until re- 
 cently. If the college cannot find scholars who 
 are interested in sports and physical manhood as 
 well as in intellectual culture, then it must employ 
 specialists who are interested in sports and ath- 
 letics from the educational side, and make them a 
 constituent part of the college faculty. So with 
 the social life and the religious life of the students, 
 the faculty must know the whole man, must plan 
 for the whole man ; not in any too intimate or per- 
 sonal way, not in any way that will deprive the 
 student of the freedom of self-direction, but 
 neither in the laissez faire spirit of the individual- 
 ism of the past century, which in the larger com- 
 munity of the state, as well as in the smaller com- 
 munity of the college, felt it wise to throw all the 
 responsibility on the individual. To Plato it 
 seemed worth while to discuss athletic exercises 
 at considerable length, as a part of the training 
 of both men and women in his ideal state. And 
 
 233 
 
The American College of To-day 
 
 thanks to the increasing knowledge biology has 
 given us of the laws of growth, of the relations 
 of physical and mental conditions, and to the 
 saner theology of to-day, which does not regard 
 the flesh as inherently evil, but prays *'Thy 
 Kingdom come" on earth, in healthy human be- 
 ings, the way is open for college faculties to take 
 up the athletic training of youth in as scientific 
 a spirit as that in which they approach their in- 
 tellectual training. 
 
 We have to reconcile the mass of the American 
 people to the maintenance of an intellectual at- 
 mosphere in our colleges, at the cost of other 
 things. Some colleges at least must resolve to be 
 more intellectual than the average society around 
 them. Their interest in things intellectual must 
 exceed the interest in things intellectual of even 
 a bowlful of their own alumni. The contents of 
 books or lectures must bubble out in campus con- 
 versations, at least with as great frequency as 
 comments on automobiles. But this will never 
 come until the colleges secure faculties clever 
 enough to show the relation of the knowledge they 
 are giving to life. The answers to problems are 
 never interesting, except to those who ask the 
 questions or hear them asked. 
 
 The college which is to survive must regain 
 more of seriousness of purpose, so that the train- 
 ing it gives will be real discipline. Instead of 
 planning short cuts, we shall recognize that knowl- 
 edge is growing by such leaps and bounds that 
 the m.an who would master merely the rudiments 
 
 234 
 
The American College of To-day \ 
 
 will have but little leisure in four full crowded, , ] 
 happy years. 
 
 And so in the new era of our colleges, big and | 
 
 little, to quote MacMechan, *' season will follow^ S 
 
 season, the years slip away, and the college which , \ 
 
 is not a building or a staff of teachers, or a body | 
 
 of students, or all combined, but a spiritual ideal, " I 
 
 which you thinking men must help to mold, "will | 
 
 strike its roots deeper into all hearts concerned \ 
 with it." 
 
 235 
 
BUSINESS SIDE OF COLLEGE ADMINIS- 
 TRATION 
 
 THERE was a time when the college presi- 
 dent, like the chnrch pastor, was supposed 
 to be free from worldly cares and avocations, but 
 that time has long since passed — if it ever existed. 
 As a matter of fact, the head of a college, like the 
 head of a church, is always apt to share the finan- 
 cial responsibility of his concern. It is said that 
 the noted divine who resigned this year the presi- 
 dency of a theological seminary to accept a pro- 
 fessorship of biblical literature, resigned for the 
 reason that his trustees had not been able to carry 
 out their agreement to relieve him of responsibil- 
 ity for the finances of the institution, although 
 this was one of the conditions understood and 
 agreed to when he took the position. 
 
 Even in the days when college presidents were 
 preferably clergymen, they were still business 
 men — and many of them very excellent business 
 men. This is not to be wondered at when we 
 realize that Mr. Rockefeller has selected as his 
 shrewd business agents in the philanthropic world 
 — clergymen. 
 
 But, while business has always been intermin- 
 gled with teaching and administration, it is corn- 
 Address before the Rotary Club, Easton, Pa., 1916. 
 
 236 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 paratively recently that business has begun to out- 
 weigh the teaching and administrative functions. 
 To such proportions indeed has the business side 
 of college administration grown, that a new ten- 
 dency has set in which has manifested itself in the 
 appointment in many institutions of a second ad- 
 ministrative officer, with the title of Provost, Con- 
 troller, Business Manager, Secretary, Vice Presi- 
 dent, or what-not, for the purpose of relieving 
 presidents as far as possible of routine business 
 administration. This is a tendency which is 
 likely to go very much farther than it has yet 
 gone, and we need not yet despair of rescuing the 
 college presidency from the present position of 
 "man-of-all-work" and general ''chore boy" to 
 which it has fallen. 
 
 The college, as a business, is distinguished from 
 other businesses by two important facts : 
 
 (1) A college president, like the Hebrews in 
 Egypt, is expected not only to make his bricks, 
 but to find his own straw for his bricks, or, failing 
 to find it, make his product hold together as best 
 he can. 
 
 (2) The more successful the college president is 
 in his business, the greater tends to be his deficit 
 at the end of the year. Increasing the output 
 does not reduce production costs, nor is the price 
 of the article particularly affected by the quality 
 of the product. No under-graduate college which 
 deals in liberal culture can to-day, in America, ask 
 or secure what the course costs the college. No 
 college of liberal arts in America, so far as I 
 
 237 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 know, charges its students more than $200.00 a 
 year, exclusive of room and board, and the major- 
 ity of them do not charge more than $100.00 a 
 year, exclusive of room and board. 
 
 The Carnegie Foundation published this sum- 
 mer a report showing the increase in college tui- 
 tion fees during the last ten years. In general 
 these charges have increased about one-fifth in 
 that time. Outside of the technical schools the 
 highest charge is the new fee of Harvard, $200. 
 
 The most notable increases were : 
 Amherst from $110 in 1909 to $190 in 1915 
 Bowdoin from $75 in 1909 to $100 in 1915 
 University of Wisconsin from $30 in 1909 to $100 
 
 1915 
 "Wesleyan from $108 in 1906 to $190 in 1915 
 Oberlin from $75 in 1910 to $100 in 1915 
 Columbia from $150 in 1913 to $198 in 1915 
 Union College from $75 in 1910 to $90 in 1915 
 
 Since the report the fee at Princeton has been 
 increased from $160 to $175, and at Harvard from 
 $150, the fee charged since 1869, to $200. Yale 
 has adopted a system by which the charges are 
 based upon a charge of $40 for overhead expenses 
 per student per year, plus $8 per hour of instruc- 
 tion per year, the university stating that this is 
 approximately the actual cost of the teaching. 
 
 At Lafayette, a student pays approximately 
 $160 a year outside of technical courses, where he 
 pays $210. The cost to the college per student is 
 approximately $275 per year, allowing nothing for 
 interest on plant. If this were added, the col- 
 
 238 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 lege would have to secure an additional one hun- 
 dred dollars per student, or approximately 
 $375.00, to come out even. What the student now 
 pays, is, roughly speaking, the teachers' salaries, 
 leaving the heating, lighting and cleaning of build- 
 ings, care of grounds, repairs, insurance, admin- 
 istration, advertising and printing to be provided 
 from some other source. 
 
 It is conceivable if the state were doing nothing 
 for liberal education that there might have 
 sprung up here and there, a self-supporting col- 
 lege where the charge for tuition would be $500.00 
 per student, and the president might, therefore, 
 make both ends meet, or even find himself in the 
 position of the ordinary business man — the larger 
 his trade, the greater his profits. In other words, 
 the college might be in the same position as the 
 preparatory schools that are conducted on a pro- 
 prietary basis, yet it is to be noted that even the 
 best of our preparatory schools are inclined to 
 fashion themselves after the colleges rather than 
 the colleges after the preparatory schools in this 
 matter of money-making. Several of the best 
 girls' schools have recently sought incorporation, 
 in order that they might not only secure perman- 
 ence, but might also appeal to their graduates for 
 financial support. So long as the state stands 
 ready to offer a liberal education free for boys 
 and girls, either by maintaining a state college, 
 as in Pennsylvania, or by offering competitive 
 scholarships, good at any institution approved by 
 
 239 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 the state, as in New York, it is not likely that a 
 college can ever be made profitable from the busi- 
 ness point of view. 
 
 The college president, therefore, so far as he is 
 a business man, is a business man in the same 
 sense in which the manager of a hospital is a busi- 
 ness man. He is conducting the business side of 
 philanthropy, not the business side of productive 
 business. The fuller he keeps his beds with pa- 
 tients, the greater will be his deficit at the end of 
 the year. 
 
 There is, however, a strictly business side to 
 philanthropy. Experts have studied the cost per 
 bed at various hospitals, for construction and 
 maintenance, so that one well-informed on the sub- 
 ject can tell in a moment whether a given hospital 
 is costing more or less than it should. So, the 
 experts are beginning to > make studies of college 
 buildings. Yale, for example, can tell not only 
 what the cost of each dormitory is per student, 
 but also what the annual cost of upkeep is per 
 student, and what the relation is between first 
 cost and cost of annual upkeep. 
 
 This is a side of business administration in the 
 colleges which has not yet received sufficient at- 
 tention. We know in general that in the long run, 
 the cheapest is not likely to be the cheapest to 
 maintain. On the other hand, we do not know 
 that the most expensive costs the least in the long 
 run, and as yet no one has given us the scientific 
 information which will enable us to say, for ex- 
 
 240 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 ample, what kind of a flooring, or what kind of 
 a chair is the cheapest in the long run for a col- 
 lege. 
 
 There was a time when the instruction given by 
 the college was determined entirely on scholastic 
 or theoretical grounds. This is no longer the 
 case, especially in our largest institutions. Nowa- 
 days, the college president is expected to have 
 some financial standard by which he may deter- 
 mine such things as how small a class may be and 
 not be an extravagance. 
 
 The college president to-day is expected to talk 
 as glibly of overhead charges and per capita 
 costs, as the efficiency expert, and is supposed to 
 be able to measure the productive capacity of the 
 professors by multiplying the number of students 
 that a professor can teach efficiently at one time 
 by the number of hours a week the professor's 
 physical strength will permit him to teach. 
 
 As yet the college president has not been as 
 much bothered in his business by trades-union 
 rules as the business man, but the same tendencies 
 begin to manifest themselves in the college world. 
 There is a disposition to standardize among the 
 members of the faculty, to fix twelve or fifteen 
 hours a week as the standard number of lectures 
 to be given, and to see that all members of the 
 faculty are treated the same in this respect. 
 There is a tendency to standardize the number of 
 students in a class and to see that every class con- 
 sists of twenty or twenty-five, irrespective of the 
 nature of the subject. The result of these tenden- 
 
 241 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 cies is further to standardize the professors' pay 
 because it is easy to see if the number of hours 
 of class room work is fixed, and the pay of the 
 professors is substantially the amount paid by 
 the student in college fees, that mathematics will 
 determine the professor's salary. Thus, for ex- 
 ample, if a student pays at the rate of $10.00 an 
 hour for a course one hour a week running 
 through the college year, and the number of stu- 
 dents in each class is limited to twenty, it is evi- 
 dent that the professor's compensation per hour 
 per year will be twenty times ten, or two hundred 
 dollars. And if he gives twelve hours a week per 
 year his compensation will be twelve times $200.00, 
 or $2400.00. 
 
 This tendency toward trade union standardiza- 
 tion works in college business as in other trades, 
 obviously to the disadvantage of the superior 
 man. There are men who can teach 40 students 
 as successfully as some other man can teach 20. 
 At the same time, there are exceptional men 
 who can lecture profitably to 200 students at one 
 time, and where the tendency toward standardiza- 
 tion prevails this superior ability cannot be util- 
 ized, nor can the superior man secure the supe- 
 rior rewards which are likely to keep him in the 
 teaching business. 
 
 From the administrative point of view, it is 
 desirable, therefore, to avoid too much standard- 
 ization and to introduce, at least, the distinctions 
 recognized in the civil service of various grades. 
 "With such arrangements, it should be possible to 
 
 242 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 pay the exceptional man who can teach 200 stu- 
 dents profitably, perhaps not ten times the com- 
 pensation paid to the man who can teach 20, al- 
 though that would not be too great a differentia- 
 tion in reward to promote the best interests of the 
 teaching profession, but at least five times as 
 much, which would give him instead of a salary 
 of $2400.00 a salary of $12,000.00. In the same 
 way, there is the same objection to piece work du 
 the part of college professors that is found with 
 trade unions. There has grown up mth us the 
 theory borrowed from Germany that teachers in 
 institutions of higher education are not responsi- 
 ble for the results of their teaching. That is, if 
 I am a professor of history, and I teach one hun- 
 dred freshmen and sixty of the class do not learn 
 enough to pass the examination at the end of the 
 term, the responsibility must be supposed to rest 
 with the students, not with the professor. 
 
 College administrators, from the business point 
 of view, have devised two methods of correcting 
 this tendency, but neither of them is as yet very 
 widely used. As a result of extended studies, it 
 has been found possible to say that in any given 
 group of men approximately 5 per cent, may be 
 expected to grade "A," 20 per cent. ''B," 40 per 
 cent. ''C," 20 per cent. '*D," and accordingly a 
 curve can be drawn which illustrates this fact. 
 The modern president accordingly when the re- 
 turns of examinations are filed can make up a 
 record showing what the proportionate number of 
 grades of each kind, given by each professor is, 
 
 243 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 and from this establish the curve which, on com- 
 parison with the normal curve already estab- 
 lished, will indicate whether too many men are 
 receiving ''A," too many men ''E" or "F" in 
 the courses of that particular professor, and if 
 there appears to be a wide divergence from the 
 normal curve, he can make inquiry to ascertain 
 whether it is the marking or the teaching which is 
 at fault. You may recall the college boys ' rhyme 
 quoted by President Foster: 
 
 "There was a professor named Bray 
 Who forgot the reflection on Bray ; 
 
 When in two of his classes 
 
 He gave out few passes 
 And frightened good students away. ' ' 
 
 Another device is to have the examination given 
 by a joint board or by some one other than the in- 
 structor, so that the examination becomes not 
 only a test of the student's knowledge, but a test 
 also of the teacher's ability to impart knowledge. 
 These are some instances of business methods in 
 modern college administration. Others will sug- 
 gest themselves to all of you, investigations, such 
 as those conducted by the Carnegie Foundation 
 with reference to the use made of class rooms, 
 the study of laboratory methods by the Carnegie 
 Foundation, etc., are examples which I might 
 name. 
 
 At Lafayette last year Professor Lyle and Pro- 
 fessor Fitch prepared a report showing the num- 
 ber of chairs in each class room, the number of 
 
 244 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 cubic feet to each student, the number of square 
 feet of window glass, the number of square feet 
 of black board, and the number of hours each 
 room was in use. 
 
 Various attempts have been made to measure 
 the more intangible products of the college life. 
 Professor Kunkel at Lafayette is now conducting 
 an investigation along the lines of an investiga- 
 tion conducted at Harvard to determine whether 
 there is any relation between high grades in col- 
 lege and success in life. 
 
 The various engineering societies in connection 
 with the Carnegie Foundation are trying to dis- 
 cover whether a curriculum can be devised which 
 will promote individual initiative, inventiveness, 
 thoroughness, reliability and those qualities of 
 character which we either ascribe to inheritance 
 or to moral training outside the school. 
 
 It is said that our colleges to-day have no clear 
 conception of the kind of man whom they wish 
 to produce, and therefore, no standard by which 
 to judge their product, that you must first know 
 what you want to do before you can go to work 
 to do it. There is a good deal of truth in this 
 criticism. We have been passing through an age 
 of experimentation — the sudden growth and de- 
 velopment of modern science overwhelmed the old 
 curriculum, in which every student could cover 
 all the branches of knowledge, and in which every 
 professor felt that his branch was the most im- 
 portant. For a time there was a consensus of 
 opinion that certain branches were essential and 
 
 245 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 that of other branches one was as good as another. 
 As the number of subjects clamoring for recogni- 
 tion grew, the only way to make room for all was 
 to throw down the bars and make it a free field 
 with no favor. This led to what was known as 
 the Free Elective System. The responsibility 
 which no faculty was willing to assume was thijs 
 thrown upon the student, and he must decide for 
 himself what subjects to take and what subjects 
 he could safely ignore. No two professors would 
 advise a student the same way regarding his 
 course, and it followed naturally that there was 
 no picture, common to all, of the ideal college 
 graduate. The geologist knew what a good 
 geologist was, and the chemist a chemist; the 
 professor of German, a good linguist, and so on. 
 At the same time, American society lost its co- 
 herence and become too broad and extensive a 
 thing to have any recognized leadership, social, 
 financial or intellectual. There was nobody to 
 state authoritatively what constituted a man of 
 culture. The arts and graces particularly prized 
 by certain sections of society, as for example, 
 knowledge of art, knowledge of music, ability to 
 speak French and Italian correctly and to dance 
 well, were the branches for the most part ignored 
 by the college of culture. On the other side, the 
 college boy himself set up a new ideal of culture, 
 which further divorced the actual product of the 
 college from the ideals of refinement of the Victor- 
 ian age which thought that the gentleman should 
 stand up straight, keep his hands out of his 
 
 246 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 pockets, brush his hair smoothly and wear incon- 
 spicuous clothes. 
 
 The college of America, however, is not alone 
 in not knowing just what it wants. It is charac- 
 teristic of the foreign policy of the American 
 people and of their domestic policy as well. The 
 truth of the matter being that so many different 
 elements and races have been introduced into our 
 civilization that there are all kinds of cross-cur- 
 rents and there are as many different wants and 
 ideals as there are different kinds of people 
 among us. 
 
 The most hopeful sign looking toward the solu- 
 tion of the question is that here and there institu- 
 tions are beginning to show signs of being content 
 with having an idea of their own, even though it 
 may not be shared by other institutions. They 
 begin to see what the good business man has long 
 seen — that there are great advantages in having 
 a trade-mark, even though your goods may be 
 practically the same as those sold in the shop 
 across the street. Domino sugar may be no 
 better than sugar out of the barrel, but at least 
 the man buying it feels that he has a certain as- 
 surance as to what he may expect. There was a 
 time when oat meal was oat meal to the whole 
 country, but now oat meal is Homsby Oats to 
 one, and Quakers Oats to another, and so on down 
 the list. So with education — until the present, 
 college courses have been college courses with a 
 great many people in general, but from now on 
 we are likely to have greater differentiation. 
 
 247 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 The American does not know the difference be- 
 tween a Balliol man at Oxford and a Christ 
 Church man, but to an Englishman there is as 
 much difference as between a lawyer and a doctor. 
 
 Amherst College has tried to introduce in Amer- 
 ica the distinctive trade-mark idea for education, 
 so that hereafter an Amherst man shall be known 
 as a classical student, but as a man can graduate 
 at Amherst without Greek, the idea does not make 
 very rapid progress. 
 
 There may be no money in the trade-mark idea 
 in American education, but to my mind it is the 
 only road to distinction in a democracy and the 
 only way of escape from a paralyzing sameness 
 of mediocrity. 
 
 Besides these business problems, which are 
 business problems for the college president to 
 solve, there are other business problems which be- 
 long to the manager of a large institution or 
 great estate. There are the business problems 
 relating to physical plant. The president of La- 
 fayette, for example, is concerned as well as the 
 director of Highways of the State over the ques- 
 tion of what is the cheapest and most durable 
 roadway for automobile traffic, or like the Park 
 Commissioner over what will kill the elm beetle 
 or protect his chestnut trees. He is supposed to 
 be something of an architect and builder. He has 
 an interest in all building materials; he is sup- 
 posed to know what is the best brand of white 
 lead, Atlantic or Dutch Boy; whether two 100 W. 
 or one 200 W. Mazdas is the more economical 
 
 248 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 light. He is supposed to know as well as any 
 housewife in Easton what will take cement dust 
 and acid fumes off window glass. He must be 
 familiar with the price of coal, and know whether 
 Lehigh is worth the difference in price. He is 
 supposed to be familiar with the market rates and 
 wages of laborers, gardeners, scrub women, car- 
 penters, firemen, engineers, painters, tinsmiths, 
 night watchmen, etc., etc. He is supposed to keep 
 an eye on the investments of the college and to 
 learn that the first rule of wealth is how to buy 
 when things are cheap and to sell when they are 
 dear. He is supposed even to have the valuable 
 qualities of a good credit man and to be able to tell 
 by looking at a student how long and how much he 
 is to be trusted with credit for his college charges, 
 and finally he must know something of what a re- 
 cent writer of the '* Saturday Evening Post'^ de- 
 scribed as the ''Fine Art of Hiring and Firing." 
 Or perhaps, the college president is not supposed 
 to fire any one in these days of professors ' unions. 
 Perhaps we ought to say in the gentle art of 
 dividing $5,000 available for salary increases any 
 one year among the twenty appHcants, and to 
 their mutual satisfaction. 
 
 President Eliot says that the most important 
 work the college president has to do is to discover 
 and secure good professors, and he adds, never 
 appoint a professor until you have seen his wife. 
 President Hyde of Bowdoin says that he con- 
 siders he has earned his year's salary when he 
 has found three good men for his faculty. 
 
 249 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 College presidents are expected^ too, to do a 
 good deal of traveling. They belong, indeed, to 
 the great army of drnnuners. As Dr. Warfield 
 said this week, their favorite book is the mileage 
 book. 
 
 The President of Lafayette has recently had 
 added to his other business activities, a branch of 
 business administration of which the college presi- 
 dent generally knows less than any small boy in 
 a college town — namely, the administration of the 
 financial side of college athletics. Last year La- 
 fayette took in nearly $26,000.00 on its athletic ac- 
 count, and paid out $28,000.00, and every cent of 
 the $28,000.00 had to be paid out on the presi- 
 dent's 0. K. Only yesterday the bursar was 
 pointing out what a lot of space athletic pay- 
 ments are taking in the voucher records. From 
 my own experience, I feel sure that it would be 
 a liberal education to any college president to 
 enjoy the same experience. 
 
 It goes without saying that the college president 
 must be something of a bookkeeper, and be able, 
 like the heads of other great corporations, to make 
 the figures of his annual report tell the story he 
 wishes to tell. He must also be enough of a busi- 
 ness man to be able to persuade banks and trust 
 companies to let the institution have money at 5 or 
 6%, for which the stock broker pays 3 or 4, and not 
 to require more than 200% margin for collateral. 
 Above all he must be an apostle of publicity in 
 corporation affairs, and thoroughly imbued with 
 the lesson which the Grovernment has been trying 
 
 250 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 to hammer into the heads of the American busi- 
 ness man, ''However private the affairs of an 
 individual may be, the affairs of corporations are 
 necessarily public." And the college president, 
 as a business man, therefore, if he is to be suc- 
 cessful, plays with all his cards on the table. 
 They do not only publish all the information they 
 work out regarding their institution, but if no one 
 comes to investigate, they will create their own 
 investigating committees to smell out and spread 
 abroad odors of sanctity, or otherwise, which he 
 did not even himself suspect. And this reminds 
 me that we had almost forgotten to mention that 
 ever important aspect of business administration 
 — advertising. 
 
 The college president in these days must al- 
 ways be himself something of an advertisement. 
 As Dr. Pritchett said to me when I came to Lafay- 
 ette — "If you can do good work, and in the second 
 place, if you can let people know what you are 
 doing." This is not a simple problem for the 
 business man of the college. If you are making 
 shoes, you can tell the people about shoes in your 
 advertisement; if you are making crackers, you 
 can tell them about crackers; if you are making 
 automobiles, you can tell them about automobiles. 
 But, while the college president can tell the people 
 a lot about football, and a lot about a "cane rush," 
 a lot about some scandal or some sensational ut- 
 terance of a professor, it is very difficult to tell 
 them about the serious solid work in the college. 
 
 Advertising, as such, is not supposed to be good 
 251 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 form for colleges of the higher grade. College 
 bulletins as a rule find the quick road to the trash 
 basket. In New York, we published a half -million 
 new bulletins each year in the hope that perhaps 
 one per cent, would find a reader. Some things 
 will reach the public if the college president says 
 them, by reason of his representative position, 
 with the result that college presidents are put in 
 a position of talking of a great many things of 
 which some other member of the college staff is 
 much more competent to speak. 
 
 The president of a great corporation in Phila- 
 delphia said to me last winter, *'It is the business 
 of you college presidents to try out new theories 
 on the public, as you are expected to be somewhat 
 daring and erratic. Then we business men can 
 come along using for our speeches — things you 
 say which the people approve.^' I was glad to 
 know that the large amount of talking which the 
 college president is expected to do, would serve 
 even this useful purpose. 
 
 The college president, as a business man, when 
 it comes to a question of raising new capital for 
 a larger business, is to be classed rather with min- 
 ing adventurers than with the managers of recog- 
 nized solid business concerns. He finds few who 
 will take stock in a concern whose dividends are 
 intangible. Here and there he may find some one 
 who will grub-stake him as a gamble in human 
 welfare. I know a college president who went to 
 one of our millionaire New York merchants to ask 
 a subscription to his college. *'Do you give stock 
 
 252 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 in your university for a subscription?" he asked. 
 "No," the president replied, "when we give we 
 give." "Well," said the merchant, "when we 
 build a synagogue, we issue stock. It don't pay 
 much dividends, but then you feel you have some- 
 thing for your money." Sixty-five years ago La- 
 fayette got a hundred thousand dollars by offer- 
 ing perpetual free tuition for every gift of $500, 
 but it was not good business. 
 
 I have named three considerations which differ- 
 entiate the college president's work as a business 
 man from that of other business men. There is, 
 however, one fact which is more fundamental than 
 any of the other considerations. In most busi- 
 nesses the important thing is the product, not the 
 process, and in the college the important thing is 
 the process. I do not know that I can make this 
 entirely clear in a word, but perhaps this example 
 may suggest what I have in mind. 
 
 If my business is the manufacture of crackers, 
 any new invention applicable to the business may 
 be measured as to its desirability by the number 
 of crackers it will turn out at a given cost. The 
 question of five companies, or one company, may 
 be measured in the same way. If it had been pos- 
 sible to show beyond a doubt that the Standard 
 Oil and American Tobacco had made oil and to- 
 bacco cheaper than they could have been under 
 competition, from the business point of view, the 
 argument would have been entirely in favor of 
 the trust. If you are manufacturing crackers and 
 can get all the work done by machinery and elimi- 
 
 253 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 nate human contact, it is desirable to do so. None 
 of these things are true in education. The school 
 cannot be measured by the number of boys it turns 
 out, nor is the process necessarily the best which 
 costs the least for the human product. Machinery 
 cannot replace the human element, so that the 
 phonograph is not of much use in education. 
 
 iWe maintain colleges, not only that the boys 
 may be educated, but that the colleges may be liv- 
 ing among us, that the community may have 
 learned men in its midst to leaven and influence 
 society. If we can devise a machine which will 
 make it possible for one man to do the work of 
 two, it is an advantage to the ordinary business, 
 but it is not necessarily an advantage to the future 
 if we can so arrange things that the future can 
 get along with one professor in Latin instead of 
 two professors. In other words, as we approach 
 education, we are getting away from things which 
 are means to ends, and approach the things which 
 are ends in themselves. We ask for what pur- 
 pose is all our commercial efficiency. We answer 
 that men may have more time to live and enjoy 
 life. To what end an eight and ten hour day? 
 That the laborer may have some time for enjoy- 
 ment and improvement, and life with his family. 
 If we try to make these theories specific, we have 
 to ask ourselves what is it we want society to be 
 doing in the spare time which our improved effi- 
 ciency is to make available. Shall we say we want 
 society to go to the moving picture shows, to 
 motor, to dance, and to eat? These are all pleas- 
 
 254 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 "arable occupations, and we want society to shari 
 as much pleasure as may be wholesome. 
 
 But, if we think further, we must have it in 
 mind that there is something more than this for 
 society — something which we designate by the 
 vague term, progress, so that the American of 
 to-morrow will be stronger, larger, wiser than the 
 American of to-day. And it is through education 
 that we expect this progress to come. For the 
 mere imparting of knowledge we want only enough 
 teachers to make sure that the next generation 
 knows all that we know, but for inspiration, in- 
 crease of knowledge, and leadership, we can use 
 all the true scholars and teachers which society 
 will support. In those nations which rest upon 
 a military basis, the business man is thought of 
 strictly as a means to an end. In Japan the busi- 
 ness man exists that the Samurai may lead his 
 heroic life; in Germany the business man exists 
 that the soldier and the scientist may advance Ger- 
 man Kultur; in America, not having very many 
 definite national ideals, we are in danger as a 
 nation, as we are in danger as individuals, of mak- 
 ing the increase of wealth our national ideal, 
 being content to ''hand it to our womenfolk after 
 we are gone" to express our ideals with the help 
 of the wealth we have accumulated. There never 
 was a generation like the last generation, which 
 contained so many notable examples of men who 
 testified by their wills, *'we do not know what 
 money is good for, but perhaps our wives do." 
 
 American education will lose much and gain 
 
 2?? 
 
Business Side of College Administration 
 
 little if her college presidents become such busi- 
 ness men that they know better how a dollar may 
 be saved or made, than they know how a dollar 
 may be spent to the welfare and progress of man- 
 kind. 
 
 We grumble and rebel at the constant call upon 
 our purses for community enterprises, but they 
 are only growing pains. Society if growing is 
 always finding new interests. It is doing more 
 things in common, more things by voluntary con- 
 tribution. Its interests are wider and less selfish 
 to-day than twenty years ago, as this Eotary Club 
 testifies. We are doing what the political phil- 
 osophers have said we must do, finding in hos- 
 pital campaigns, park campaigns, college cam- 
 paigns, moral substitutes for war, with some slight 
 reflection of war^s heroism and sacrifice. They 
 still lack the thrill and splendor of war, perhaps, 
 because unlike war they do not demand a willing- 
 ness to make the supreme sacrifice, the sacrifice 
 of life itself for a great cause. When I first saw 
 the Rotarian motto, it was hanging on the wall 
 of a hotel dining room, and I thought ' ' He profits 
 most, who serves best," was a good waiter's 
 motto, but in its wider application to business, it 
 invites all business men to share the joys which 
 the college president long ago discovered as a 
 business man, for there is no pleasure comparable 
 to working unselfishly for great ends. 
 
 256 
 
COLLEGE FELLOWSHIP 
 
 EMERSON begins one of his essays by saying : 
 ' * The search after the great man is the dream 
 of youth and the most serious occupation of man- 
 hood. We travel into foreign parts to find his 
 works; if possible, to get a glimpse of him, but 
 we are put off with fortune instead. The English 
 you say are practical, the Germans are hospitable, 
 in Valencia the climate is delicious, and in the hills 
 of the Sacramento there is gold for the gather- 
 ing. Yes, but I do not travel to find comfortable 
 rich and hospitable people, or clear sky, or ingots 
 that cost too much. But if there were any mag- 
 net that would point to the countries and homes 
 where are the persons who are intrinsically rich 
 and powerful, I would sell all and buy it, and put 
 myself on the road to-day.'^ 
 
 I have not found such a magnet, but I have 
 come gladly to-day to the hills and valleys of the 
 Sacramento and San Gabriel, not for gold, but to 
 join with you in throwing open these halls for the 
 breeding of persons "intrinsically rich and power- 
 ful." 
 
 For what is a college? It is distinguished from 
 the school on the one hand, which deals with the 
 child by strict discipline and teaches the elements 
 
 Eesponse at dedication of new buildings of Occidental College, 
 Pasadena, Cal., 1914. 
 
 257 
 
College Fellowship 
 
 of knowledge, and from the university on the 
 other, which is concerned for knowledge and truth 
 for their own sake, with little reference to the 
 individual. It shares with the school its care for 
 the individual; it shares with the university its 
 reverence for truth as the great pedagogue. Its 
 chief business is to make men and women, but 
 to make them not by blind discipline and dog- 
 matic teaching, but by unfolding to them the won- 
 drous stores of the household of knowledge, show- 
 ing the interrelations of truth, and leading the 
 young man and young woman to a true apprecia- 
 tion of themselves, of their f ellowmen, and of the 
 universe of which they are a part. Because the 
 college is essentially an organization of people, 
 because it is an organization of people who live 
 with the true, the beautiful, and the good, because 
 it is the home of the picked youth of our country 
 in their prime, and with all the glowing possibil- 
 ities of the future germinating within them, it is 
 not strange that the American people regard the 
 American college as the most attractive institu- 
 tion of the world. Even crabbed old Carlyle, 
 when he was offered a professorship at Edinburgh, 
 said; ''Cannot I make for myself a university in 
 any quarter of the Saxon world, by simply hir- 
 ing a lecture room and beginning to speak? Yet 
 the movement of these young lads is beautiful, is 
 pathetic to me, a young generation calling me 
 affectionately home (and I already across the 
 irremedihilis unda).^^ 
 
 1 bring then to Occidental College, greetings 
 258 
 
College Fellowship 
 
 with a glad heart, and urge you to make the most 
 of your calling, and to be always — no matter how 
 rich or how learned — a place of, by, and for per- 
 sons, a company not of units or things, but of in- 
 dividuals. 
 
 There are signs that the learned world is about 
 to recover its faith in the unique reality and in- 
 dissolubility of individuality. We find the signs 
 even in the kindergarten. The greatest contribu- 
 tion made to modern pedagogy by Dr. Montessori 
 is a revival of the belief in the creative energy of 
 the human soul. The stress laid upon science and 
 scientific method the last century had well-nigh 
 reduced us to thinking that the individual was 
 like a picture puzzle, whose existence depended 
 entirely on a proper fitting together of the pieces, 
 and which could only transmit such energy as 
 itself first received. We disregarded all that 
 seemed insignificant for scientific study, and then 
 like Hamlet, apostrophized a skull, as if it were 
 the. living person. We planned college curricula, 
 as if college men were merely students, and as a 
 faculty, put on the goggles of science and ignored 
 all the other aspects of the college student. We 
 had a sort of hearsay notion that college boys 
 must play, must exercise, must organize, must 
 strive physically and even dance and eat, but it 
 seemed mse to ignore these aspects of the col- 
 lege man, so that these things came to be known 
 as extra-curricula activities. The one other activ- 
 ity besides study which even a faculty could not 
 ignore was sleep, and the recognition of that fact 
 
 259 
 
College Fellowship 
 
 is forever immortalized in the name dormitory, 
 which was as far as the American college was 
 prepared to go in recognizing life. But a more 
 wholesome age is dawning. Even Darwin was 
 ready to admit that there is more in man than the 
 breath of his body. 
 
 Politics too is awaking to the fact that this is a 
 nation of persons, not primarily of property. 
 Our fathers did not want government to concern 
 itself with persons lest their freedom be impaired, 
 and consigned to government, therefore, the less 
 important task of looking after property. It has 
 been a sad awakening, therefore, to find — 
 
 ' ' 'Tis the day of the chattel, web to weave, corn to grind, 
 Things are in the saddle and ride mankind, ' ' 
 
 but having discovered it, we propose to readjust 
 the emphasis. Dr. Oppenheimer of the Univer- 
 sity of Berlin, who has recently been lecturing at 
 Johns Hopkins, is hailed as a second Locke or 
 Rousseau, because he enunciates the theory that 
 the state is not an organization of property, but 
 of persons. 
 
 So too in the Church we see the same redis- 
 covery of the importance and uniqueness of the 
 individual. We hear the cry back to Christ, the 
 gospel of a person. A recent writer says: ''The 
 message intrusted to the Son of God when he 
 came to be the Savior of mankind was not only 
 something which he knew and taught, it was some- 
 thing which he was. ' ' Our faith is faith in a liv- 
 
 260 
 
College Fellowship 
 
 iiig person, not in a dead event or an imprisoned 
 force. 
 
 And because the college is personality at its 
 best, because it holds and molds our picked men 
 and women in the very flower of their strength, 
 we may look for new faith and enthusiasm for the 
 college which is true to its function. 
 
 What are some of these persons of whom, by 
 whom, and for whom the college is? We think 
 to-day first of the men and women who have made 
 possible these new buildings. Of the men and 
 women whose magnificent gift for endowment 
 crowns a life of helpfulness. They are not to be 
 pitied, but envied. They have parted with wealth, 
 they have gained personality. ''What we do," 
 says a lecturer at the University of Wisconsin, 
 ''makes us what we are." "We have studied the 
 eft'ect of material surroundings upon character, 
 and find it to be deep and constant; but man is 
 modified far more by exertion than by environ- 
 ment. To be surrounded by beauty and right con- 
 struction is of value, but far more valuable is it 
 to make things beautiful and right. Better make 
 palaces and live in a hut, than to make huts and 
 live in a palace." Well may we congratulate to- 
 day, therefore, the fortunate donors who have 
 had a hand in the building of these splendid build- 
 ings. Well may we congratulate Occidental that 
 it begins its new era with friends thus rewarded 
 and enriched. 
 
 Second, we think of the president, planner and 
 261 
 
College Fellowship 
 
 creator both of the material college and of that 
 immaterial atmosphere which molds the souls 
 of students. Nowhere is the power and reality of 
 personality more manifest than in the college pres- 
 ident. I have found reproduced in the humblest 
 employee of a great industrial organization like 
 a railroad the attitude and point of view of the 
 president of the system. In the same way, if one 
 sits long with a college faculty, he will find in 
 the president's personality the key to many a 
 psychological attitude. Eeal personalities are 
 not as plentiful as Ph.D.'s, and Occidental is rich 
 in its president. 
 
 Third, we think of the faculty. The alumnus 
 and the learned world think of them first. Lucky 
 indeed is the college which has more than one man 
 to whom its students can point and say in later 
 years — Because of that man, I am what I am. 
 And wise is the college president who so conceives 
 his fellowship of persons, as to realize, as Presi- 
 dent Eliot has said, that the selection of profes- 
 sors is his first and most difficult task. 
 
 And fourth, the students, men and women, I 
 trust, prepared to work at their job. 
 
 Sentiment in the East has veered sharply the 
 last few years. College authorities have been 
 under fire. The community is not prepared to 
 tolerate inefficiency in its colleges any more than 
 in its railroads. If college is primarily a place 
 to study, the community demands that the college 
 man be a student. If colleges exist to teach men 
 to think, the community demands that the college 
 
 262 
 
College Fellowship 
 
 man learn to think clearly and with precision. 
 If colleges are to mold character, the community 
 demands that discipline, whether imposed from 
 within or without, which distinguishes between 
 the man that is there and the man that is not 
 there, which tightens fiber and sinew and frowns 
 on moral flabbiness. 
 
 Finally, as we survey the college, the company 
 of persons thus assembled, the builders, the presi- 
 dent, the professors and the students, if we are 
 of those who have tried their hand at making with 
 these persons a true home of the intrinsically 
 rich and powerful, we shall be ready to admit the 
 circle still incomplete, and to say with Browning — 
 
 ' ' But I need, now as then, 
 Thee, God, who mouldest men. ' ' 
 
 Only then do we reach the highest development 
 of personality, when His spirit testifies with our 
 spirit that we are the sons of God. 
 
 The cry to-day, as ever, is God give us men. 
 And God answers the cry. Sometimes the school 
 is the carpenter's shop, sometimes the forge, some- 
 times the farm, and we ask, ''How has this man 
 learning, having never learned?" More often 
 to-day the school is the college, a college like Occi- 
 dental. So noteworthy of late has been its con- 
 tribution, that we think of the college as represent- 
 ing and perpetuating the intellectual interests of 
 the community, and are ready to say with a recent 
 writer: ''Without the proper protection and en- 
 dowment of these interests the Church would lan- 
 
 263 
 
College Fellowship 
 
 guish, its altar fires burn out, and its pulpits be- 
 come dumb; life become narrow, literature die." 
 
 The college then is made by persons who give 
 and grow in the giving, of persons who teach and 
 learn in the teaching, for persons who learn and 
 live in the learning. For the college — men are 
 at once material, tool and product. 
 
 To such high uses these buildings are opened 
 to-day, and to so great a work I bring the greet- 
 ing and Godspeed of the College Board and of the 
 Presbyterian colleges scattered throughout the 
 states. 
 
 264 
 
THE COLLEGE PRESIDENT 
 
 LIFE, Mr. President, has been defined as the 
 power of adjustment to new conditions. 
 
 A son of Illinois, you found an Alma Mater in 
 Ohio, and tarried long enough in that state to see 
 a cycle of high school students pass, and to claim 
 not only an Alma Mater, but a bride. 
 
 Thus dowered and equipped, you sought the far 
 Pacific and for a decade have worked arduously 
 laying foundations for an enduring civilization, 
 where rolls the Oregon. But it is not prodigal 
 sons alone who take their journey into a far 
 country and who return, nor for them alone do we 
 bring out the new gown and hood, and kill the 
 fatted calf. In a single stride you have stepped 
 across two-thirds of a continent. 
 
 And we, your friends, who have watched you 
 grow through these years, who have watched your 
 power of adjustment to new conditions, are here 
 to give our encouragement and to bid you God- 
 speed in this new life upon which you are enter- 
 ing. 
 
 We want to see you safely and snugly fitted into 
 these new surroundings. 
 
 There is always danger in taking the fly wheel 
 off one engine and placing it upon another. If 
 
 Address a,t the inauguration of Harry Means Crooks as Presi- 
 ident of Alma College, Alma, Michigan, November, 1916. 
 
 265 
 
The College President 
 
 there is not proper balance, it may fail to move the 
 engine, or race so fast that it flies itself into pieces. 
 It is risky to borrow a demountable rim from a 
 passing car and transfer it to your own. When 
 you fit it, it may be too small for your wheel, or 
 may prove so big that its demountableness is un- 
 duly developed and while big and splendid in every 
 way, you find it will not stay with you long enough 
 to pay you for the time you spent tightening up 
 the wedges. 
 
 But they know a good deal about such things 
 out here in Michigan, at least, so I have been told 
 in Detroit, and are taking no risks. When they 
 want a Presbyterian college president, they select 
 one made in a Presbyterian foundry and tested 
 out on Presbyterian proving grounds, and the re- 
 sult is, it fits. 
 
 And we who have been called on to turn a screw 
 here, or adjust a bearing there, have little to do 
 that really matters. Charge the president! He 
 is already charged and surcharged with routine 
 of ten long successful years. It is left for us to 
 oil the machine, to advance or retard the spark, 
 or perhaps to pump a little more air into the shock 
 absorbers. 
 
 Dr. Foulkes, I hope, is going to look into the 
 gasoline tank of the machine, and warn the trus- 
 tees of the dangers of letting the supply get low. 
 I am expected to explain the mechanism of the 
 steering wheel. If Dr. Foulkes is to talk about 
 the gasoline that makes the car go, I am to talk 
 about ignition and pressure gauge, in a word, 
 
 266 
 
The College President 
 
 about the president that makes the car go faster 
 (or slower, as sometimes happens) and determines *" 
 the direction. 
 
 Some of you, no doubt, think that I have my 
 metaphors mixed, that it is the president's job to 
 keep the tank filled and crank the car, and when 
 he has the engine running to jump into the rumble 
 and fold his arms and watch which way the trus- 
 tees and faculty in the front seat go. Or, per- 
 haps, if it is a larger touring car and there are 
 seats for four, the alumni and football coach may 
 have a share in its operation. But this idea of a 
 driver to fill the tank, crank the car, wash it when 
 it is dirty, and put on new tires when there is a 
 puncture, smacks of aristocracy. We are believ- 
 ers in democracy and in that kind of democracy 
 lauded by the scripture, ''For that the leaders 
 took the lead in Israel, for that the people offered 
 themselves willingly. Bless ye the Lord." 
 
 First then, Mr. President, I charge you, lead 
 Alma, or to stick to our motor metaphor, steer 
 Alma. The responsibility for steering implies of 
 course responsibility for steerage way. Whether 
 the wind will fill your sails, if there is any wind, 
 will depend upon the way you hold your helm. 
 How many miles you will get from a gallon will 
 depend on your manipulation of your throttle, and 
 on your judicious admixture of the proper propor- 
 tion of air and gas. 
 
 Of course, if there is no wind stirring at all, it 
 is idle for you to stay at the tiller, you may as 
 well go out and raise the wind ; if there is no gas- 
 
 267 
 
The College President 
 
 olirie in your tank, you cannot steer by sitting at 
 the wheel, you must either get out and fill the tank 
 or get some one to fill it for you. That is inci- 
 dental to leadership of any kind. The bravest, 
 most original, most daring general at the front 
 can do nothing in the present war, unless his sup- 
 ply of munitions is well organized. 
 
 But, remember, if you can remember it through 
 the toilsome days, that putting the gasoline into 
 the tank is incidental. We put gasoline into the 
 tank that the car may go, and go whither we would 
 have it go. We do not run the car for the purpose 
 of finding gasoline at the next garage. 
 
 If there is danger of America being absorbed 
 in money getting for its own sake, there is also 
 danger that college presidents may catch the same 
 disease. College presidents in these days are 
 necessarily business men, but American education 
 will lose much and gain little if these college presi- 
 dents become such business men that they know 
 better how a dollar may be saved or made, than 
 they know how a dollar may be spent to the wel- 
 fare and progress of mankind. The American 
 business man may say, ''I enjoy winning the 
 money, but I will leave it to my wife to find out 
 what it is good for." But no true college presi- 
 dent can ever say, ''I have a dollar and no way 
 to spend it that seems worth while." 
 
 If, then, my first charge is steer Alma, my sec- 
 ond is steer Alma somewhere. Have a destina- 
 tion in view. Don't merely go for a ride. The 
 police president in Berlin last week forbade the 
 
 268 
 
The College President 
 
 use of taxicabs for joy riding. You may ride to 
 business in a taxi or to a train, but you cannot 
 ride to a theater or moving picture show in a taxi. 
 And the remarkable thing, as the papers remark, 
 is that it is left to the chauffeur to decide whether 
 you are riding for pleasure or on business. It 
 would be a good thing if our American public 
 were a little more willing to leave it to our presi- 
 dential chauffeurs to say what is joy riding and 
 what is legitimate progression for college boys 
 and girls. 
 
 A Philadelphia lawyer who had been debating 
 the curriculum of the University of Pennsylvania 
 with the faculty said to me last spring, * ' The more 
 I talk with the faculty, the more I realize that 
 while I have a pretty clear picture of the kind of 
 man that I want the university to produce, the 
 members of the faculty have no such vision. They 
 are content each to do his particular work and 
 let the resultant product prove what it will." 
 
 Decide, Mr. President, what kind of boy or girl 
 you want Alma to turn out, and having decided, 
 adapt your means to that end. No matter whether 
 it be the same kind of product as that of the Uni- 
 versity of Michigan, or Albion, or Olivet, pro- 
 vided it is what it professes to be, provided it is 
 the true Alma brand. 
 
 It is not enough to be on the go, you must be 
 going somewhere if it is to be worth while. It has 
 been said that the favorite book of the college 
 president of to-day is the mileage book, with whicJi 
 he can travel equally well in either direction. J5e- 
 
 269 
 
The College President 
 
 ware of the autometer habit. Your credit as a 
 college president will not be measured by the num- 
 ber of miles your institution reels off. It will be 
 judged by the character of the destination to which 
 you bring your young men and women, be the 
 journey long or short. The name of the institu- 
 tion you are to guide suggests that old poem of 
 Matthew Prior, written over two hundred years 
 ago, entitled, "Alma or the Progress of Mind," 
 which begins as some of you may recall : 
 
 ''Alma in verse — in prose the mind 
 By Aristotle 's pen defined 
 Throughout the body squat or tall 
 Is bona fide, All in All. 
 And yet, slap dash, is All again, 
 In every sinew, nerve and vein. 
 Runs here and there, like Hamlet 's ghost. 
 While everywhere she rules the roast. ' ' 
 
 Now it is not the college president Prior is re- 
 ferring to in those lines : 
 
 "Runs here and there, like Hamlet's ghost, 
 While everywhere she rules the roast, ' ' 
 
 but to Alma which is poetry's word for mind, and 
 he goes on to discuss the two theories, the one 
 that the mind is to be found in all parts of the 
 body, the other that the mind has its own peculiar 
 seat in the brain, and must receive the informa- 
 tion and execute its decrees through the mediation 
 of the nerves. 
 It reminds us of that most perplexing problem 
 370 
 
The College President 
 
 of the college president of to-day, what is educa- 
 tion, does it reside in the toe of the football player 
 or in the voice of the glee club singer or in the 
 brain of the student? 
 
 ' ' Alma, they strenuously maintain, 
 Sits cock horse on her throne, the brain, 
 And from that seat of thought dispenses — 
 Her sovereign pleasure to the senses. 
 The scholars of the Stagyrite, 
 "Who for the old opinion fight, maintain. 
 The mind as visibly is seen 
 Extended through the whole machine. 
 Why should all honor thus be taken. 
 From lower parts to load the brain, 
 "When other limbs we plainly see. 
 Each in his way, as brisk as he?" 
 
 Prior, being a broad-minded president, suggests 
 a comproniise: 
 
 "That Alma enters at the toes 
 That then she mounts by just degrees 
 Up to the ankles, legs and knees, thighs. 
 And all these under regions past 
 She nestles somewhere near the waist. 
 Gives pain and pleasure, grief or laughter 
 As we shall show at large hereafter. 
 Mature, if not improved by time. 
 Up to the heart she loves to climb, 
 From thence compelled by craft and age 
 She makes the head at latest stage. 
 From the feet upward to the head 
 Pithy and short says Dick proceed. ' ' 
 
 As yoTir blue book for the journeys upon which 
 371 
 
The College President 
 
 you must guide this modern Alma I suggest to 
 you this rich old rhyme of Prior. He willed his 
 poems, you may remember, to the college of St. 
 John the Evangelist at Cambridge, of which Mr. 
 Austin Dobson remarks, even with the copy of 
 1718, Johnson might have knocked down Osborn 
 the book seller. 
 
 If Alma College, because of its radiant youth, 
 can be the practical synonym of mind, you will 
 have a trade-mark brand worth while, and if your 
 presidential tour can enter in at the toes of your 
 football team, and journey with the mind upward 
 through the whole frame, so that all of college 
 life shall be pervaded with mind, be wise and be 
 reasonable, it will be a royal progress indeed, an 
 automobile trip for which even a college president 
 need not be ashamed to act as chauffeur. 
 
 And my third and last charge is not only to 
 steer Alma, not only to steer Alma somewhere, 
 but to select the society of Alma, and if possible 
 stir and inspire their souls. 
 
 We may jest if we will, with mechajiical meta- 
 phors. We may talk of our educational shop, of 
 our diploma factory, of our refectory or our dor- 
 mitory, the fact remains that what makes the 
 work of the college president important and pecu- 
 liarly worth while, is that it is a work with, by 
 and for persons, nay more, that it is a work with 
 the choicest spirits at their most attractive age. 
 This is at once its greatest responsibility and its 
 greatest reward. Not the road we go then, not 
 the city at which we arrive, but the companions 
 
 272 
 
The College President 
 
 of our journey and the songs of their hearts should 
 be our great concern. 
 
 If you ask then what is the college president's 
 greatest work, I answer, 'determining the spirit- 
 ual atmosphere of his college." When I was a 
 college president in the West, and traveled long 
 distances over many railroads, I used to think 
 that I could detect in the attitude and spirit of 
 the brakeman or conductor the attitude and spirit 
 of the president of the road. So it is in every 
 organization. There is a dominant spirit which 
 sets the key. If material gain, if more endow- 
 ment, more buildings, larger enrollment, dominate 
 your thought, the acquisition of the material things 
 of life will dominate the thought and lives of your 
 faculty and your students. If victory in sports, 
 if popular applause, if ephemeral honors weigh 
 with you, these things will weigh with the last 
 freshman. If truth and beauty and righteousness 
 are the supreme concern of your life, they will 
 not be lacking in the spirits of your companions. 
 
 If you look forward to a city which has foun- 
 dations whose maker and builder is God, those 
 who ride with you, while they may doubt your 
 making it before nightfall, will ride with brighter 
 eyes, and more radiant faces, and will dwell less 
 on the roughness of the roads, the poor food, the 
 crowded inns. 
 
 Because too of this transforming power of the 
 spirit, the college president will regard the selec- 
 tion of his associates in the faculty as his most im- 
 portant task. If he can fill his faculty with men 
 
 273 
 
The College President 
 
 and women of right stamp, and spirit, the rest 
 will come of itself. Like President Hyde of Bow- 
 doin, you can feel that you have earned your year's 
 salary when you have secured three good men for 
 your faculty. And having found them, live not 
 only for them, but with them. 
 
 In Spenser's ''Fairie Queene," Alma is Queen 
 of Body Castle, is the soul dwelling in the body of 
 the House of Temperance. Preserve if you can 
 such a vision of the Alma you are to know here. 
 Never think of her as land and buildings and en- 
 dowments, but think of her as a spirit animating 
 the souls of her men and her maidens, molding 
 her material equipment to spiritual ends, a spirit 
 which through her alumni and her faculty shall 
 pervade and energize this commonwealth for prog- 
 ress and for righteousness. 
 
 274 
 
THE EDUCATION OF WOMEN 
 
 UNLIKE my brother, the President of Vassar, 
 I know little of the education of women, and 
 I should not have ventured to accept the invita- 
 tion to speak to the graduates of Queens College, 
 had the invitation come from any one else than my 
 old friend, Dr. McGeachy. In the closing days of 
 the century. Dr. McGeachy used to shoot quail and 
 I used to help him eat them, out in the Kingdom 
 of Calloway. He used to preach and I used to 
 practice, and both of us used to be petted and ex- 
 ceedingly well cared for by our delightful adopted 
 mother, a charming lady of the good old South. 
 For these reasons, I am in this predicament to-day, 
 not that I have anything of great worth to say 
 to you, but in token of my regard for my foster 
 brother. Dr. McGeachy, and in recognition of the 
 debt I owe him for the fellowship of many years 
 ago. 
 
 It has never been my fortune to teach even in 
 a coeducational college, let alone in a college for 
 women. We had two girls' colleges in that Mis- 
 souri town, but I cannot recall that I ever ad- 
 dressed them, while Dr. McGeachy was, I know, 
 very much in demand as a speaker before them 
 both, and though I have been a teacher of psychol- 
 
 Address at the commencement of Queena College, Charlotte, 
 K. C, May, 1919. 
 
 275 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 ogy and taught the President of Vassar all the 
 psychology he learned as an undergraduate, he 
 would, if he were here, tell you quite as frankly as 
 I do, that I do not understand female psychology. 
 I, however, would be willing to go further than he 
 would go, and add that I do not believe anybody 
 else does, for that matter. 
 
 I feel, therefore, that I am perhaps rash in 
 venturing the statement, which I propose to make 
 the subject of the few remarks I have to make 
 this morning, that if we were to gather up the 
 aspirations and thoughts and ambitions of the 
 young womanhood of America, who like you of 
 Queens College are completing their college 
 courses, and attempt to name these desires, often 
 imperfectly understood, rarely ever defined even 
 to yourselves, in a single word, that single word 
 would not be knowledge, or wealth, or love, or 
 power, or fame, but life. Robert Grant in his 
 recent article on the limits of feminine independ- 
 ence rather misses the point and shows an extra- 
 ordinary ignorance of styles for a Boston judge, 
 when he says, "Women's nature has not changed 
 as the result of the war, she has merely ceased to 
 wear hobbles." Something much more funda- 
 mental has happened. More than in any preced- 
 ing age, because more intelligent and freer from 
 restraint, because, too, rendered economically in- 
 dependent by the many occupations opened to 
 women, the number of which has been greatly mul- 
 tiplied by the war, the young women of our age 
 are determined, as they say, to live, to run the 
 
 276 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 gamut of the emotions, to test the heights of 
 human joy and the depths of human suffering, 
 to help unflinching in the pursuit of truth, to win 
 again for woman that equal standing among the 
 divinities of Olympus which ancient Greece was 
 so ready to yield to Juno, to Venus and to Diana. 
 
 If I were called upon not as a theologian, but as 
 a psychologist to write the creed of American 
 womanhood, I should be tempted to write it in the 
 words of John Euskin, "There is no wealth hut 
 life. Life including all the powers of love, of joy, 
 and of admiration. That country is the richest 
 which nourishes the greater number of noble and 
 lofty beings; that man (or woman) is richest who 
 having perfected the functions of his own life to 
 the utmost has also the widest helpful influence, 
 both personal and by means of his possessions, 
 over the lives of others." 
 
 There is no wealth hut life, that is what the 
 American woman is saying to herself again and 
 again, as she hurries on from experience to expe- 
 rience. And because woman naturally expresses 
 life in emotion rather than in idea, in feeling 
 rather than in thought, in concrete rather than in 
 abstract terms, she is less content to take her expe- 
 rience at second hand than is her brother. A 
 second-hand idea is a very serviceable thing. In- 
 deed, according to Plato and his school, all ideas 
 are second hand except the prototype from which 
 they spring; but a second-hand emotion is stale 
 and profitless. The emotions which are provoked 
 by novel reading or by motion pictures are not as 
 
 277 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 poignant or as vital as the emotions which spring 
 from your own immediate experience in the world 
 of sense, but at least they are first-hand emotions. 
 The tears may be provoked by a fairy tale, but 
 they are real tears, and even in supreme tragedy 
 Mary perhaps by the wonderful power of womanly 
 sympathy feels even more keenly than Jesus the 
 piercing sword in her breast. 
 
 No one who fails to understand that woman 
 measures life in terms of emotion, where man 
 measures it in terms of action or of idea, can, I 
 think, comprehend very clearly the social move- 
 ments of our time. And any one who wants to 
 write a philosophy of education for women must 
 be prepared to tell us how you can label, and 
 classify and store away in books emotions, so 
 that they will still remain emotions when intro- 
 duced as the lessons of to-morrow. Words are a 
 convenient legal tender for the circulation of the 
 silver of ideas; are they equally serviceable as a 
 legal tender for the precious gold of emotions? 
 Can we rely as much on the printed page, or must 
 we use living leaders and teachers? 
 
 Now the first danger which to an outsider seems 
 likely to lie in wait to entrap an adventurer guided 
 by the philosophy, ''there is no wealth but life," 
 is the assumption that any experience which comes 
 along in life, with an emotional content, just be- 
 cause it is life is wealth. To he, in other words, is 
 according to this philosophy so infinitely superior 
 to not being that other petty distinctions of value 
 sink into insignificance. Just to be alive is in- 
 
 278 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 finitely more significant and of far greater value 
 than to be true or to be beautiful or to be good. 
 
 Life according to this view is a two dimensioned 
 affair, it is long and it is wide. It is to be reached 
 by movement and travel, the mud holes taken 
 with the macadam, the hills with the valleys, the' 
 swamps with the sands, the jungles with the moun- 
 tain tops. Ancient philosophers used to point out 
 the absolute uniqueness of the right hand and the 
 left hand in that they defied absolutely the phil- 
 osopher's attempt to reduce all things to unity, 
 because laid upon a flat surface no juggling would 
 convert a left hand into a right hand. There was 
 an irreducible difference which could not be got- 
 ten rid of. So of this surface philosophy of life. 
 The interesting thing about land is that every bit 
 has its own position on the surface of the earth. 
 Here is not there, and there is not here, and how- 
 ever much two fields may look alike, they differ in 
 this ineradicable quality of location. It is the 
 same sort of an ineradicable quality of location 
 in the surface of experience, which the womanhood 
 of America urges as giving to all experience, how- 
 ever trite in the history of the race, a claim to 
 uniqueness and to value, and nothing is gained by 
 denying this fact. My joy is not your joy. My 
 sorrow is not your sorrow. Consequently woman 
 is apt to be impatient with the educator or school 
 master who would fence off the bogs of life and 
 leave only the safe highways to serve for her jour- 
 neyings. Man has been a little too ready to assert. 
 You may make the kitchen fire, but the ballot 
 
 279 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 would soil your hands. It is not for the lower 
 animals alone that a fence adds peculiar sweetness 
 to the pasture just outside. And in the case of 
 woman it is sheer waste of time to try to build 
 them. You must put your trust rather in guiding 
 stars or in haunting pipes of Pan. 
 
 As you all know we have recently passed through 
 a period in literature, in art, in music, if indeed, 
 we are through it, which we dubbed realism, which 
 was based on the kind of a two dimensioned phil- 
 osophy to which I have referred. A thing need 
 only be, according to this philosophy, to be worth 
 while. Other scales of values sank into insignifi- 
 cance before this stupendous fact. Making edu- 
 cation universal was Hke removing the scales from 
 the eyes of the bhnd, and the same thing hap- 
 pened. The novitiates saw things flat. 
 
 It was against this art destroying two dimen- 
 sioned philosophy that Whistler wrote so elo- 
 quently in protest : 
 
 ''Nature contains the elements in color and form 
 of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes 
 of all music. But the artist is born to pick and 
 choose, and group with science these elements, that 
 the result may be beautiful — as the musician gath- 
 ers his notes, and forms his chords, until he brings 
 forth from chaos glorious harmony. To say to the 
 painter that Nature is to be taken as she is, is to 
 say to the player, that he may sit on the piano, ' ^ — 
 which was, by the way, about what Strauss did. 
 
 Nor is it strange that a period which overvalued 
 reality, should have been followed by the futurists 
 
 280 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 who deny reality all significance and declare all 
 that matters is the way you see it. The world of 
 art and literature and music, somewhat in advance 
 of the broader world of womanhood's hopes and 
 aspirations, has passed, I trust forever, beyond the 
 fallacies of a two dimensioned philosophy, and in 
 view of that fact in the twenty minutes allowed me 
 by Dr. McGeachy, I want to set up at the cross- 
 roads of life at which you now stand a bit of a 
 danger sign in the form of a question mark after 
 the creed, Life is Wealth, lest you choose inad- 
 vertently the way to this arid desert and lose time 
 in the pursuit of life thereby. 
 
 William Hard in his striking editorial on Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt at the time of his death, pointed out 
 that the great characteristic of Roosevelt was that 
 with all his zest for life and his readiness to live 
 life to the full, with all the many sidedness of his 
 genius, he knew poisons and displayed no militant 
 interest in testing them. His experience was a 
 discriminating experience. He was content to 
 submit for example to the bounds of family life. 
 Moral morasses held no appeal to him as a moral 
 naturalist. He would hunt big game in Africa 
 and trace unknown flora and fauna in South Amer- 
 ica, but his adventurous spirit never tempted him 
 to flirt with evil, or pursue unclean spirits to dis- 
 cover the sociological status of their foul smelling 
 homes in the swamp. 
 
 There was a teacher nineteen centuries ago, too, 
 who had a creed that Life was Wealth. ''I am 
 come," he said, ''that they might have life and 
 
 281 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 might have it more abundantly," — and yet so nar- 
 row were the limits of the way of this abundant 
 life, that his disciples came to be known as pre- 
 eminently those ''of the way." What made it a 
 way? Not a fence but a goal to be reached. In 
 order that this life you see may be worth while, 
 you must have some sort of an ideal or guiding 
 star. A man may roam at random on a prairie, 
 but to climb a mountain you must stick to the trail. 
 Your college bears the proud title of Queens — 
 a title somewhat at a discount, perhaps, just now, 
 but the idea behind the title was never more widely 
 cherished than to-day. When the Presbyterians 
 abolished bishops they did it by making all min- 
 isters bishops. When it was proposed to abolish 
 titles in the French Eevolution, the suggestion was 
 made that a more effective way would be to give 
 every one a title. It is not so much that the world 
 of to-day does not want kings and queens as that 
 all want to be kings and queens. But remember 
 noblesse oblige, — nobility binds. You are all fa- 
 miliar with the doctrine of sovereignty here in 
 North Carolina. The old political scientists used 
 to contend that a nation restricted by anything but 
 its own will was not a true nation, and a lot of our 
 statesmen are echoing this old outworn cry in 
 connection w^ith the League of Nations. It was a 
 doctrine of sovereignty worthy of a simpler age, 
 but not worthy of our complex age. Cut all your 
 relationships which bind you to your fellowmen 
 to-day and how helpless you would be ! Let even 
 the most powerful nation isolate itself from inter- 
 
 282 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 national relations and would its freedom, its great- 
 ness, its power, be increased thereby ? On the con- 
 trary in this day greatness is in proportion to 
 complexity of relationship. Only the man who ac- 
 cepts the relationships in which he finds himself, 
 only the man who is willing to enter new relation- 
 ships of the greatest variety, can rise to true great- 
 ness in this modern world. And what is true of 
 man is true also of women, and of sovereign states. 
 
 The miser who puts his gold in a stocking is 
 more completely in control of his wealth than the 
 man who puts it in a bank, but the man whose 
 money is in the bank is more powerful than the 
 man with money in his stocking, because he can 
 pay bills in New York or Richmond more easily. 
 So with every relationship into which we enter. 
 
 We need to preach a new doctrine of sover- 
 eignty. Sovereignty is not folded hands, sover- 
 eignty is service. He that would be great among 
 you, let him be servant of all, is as true of states 
 as of individuals and gives to a college bearing the 
 name of Queens, a new significance. Robinson 
 Crusoe on his island was a sovereign if ever there 
 was one, but who wants to be Robinson? and even 
 if you did you could not turn the clock backward. 
 America a member of the League of Nations will 
 find fewer obstacles to the accomplishment of 
 her purposes than America isolated. Therefore, 
 America bound in a league is more sovereign in 
 the only attribute of sovereignty that really mat- 
 ters, the power to achieve her aim, than America 
 outside restricting alliances. This is a hard doc- 
 
 283 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 trine for woman, of whom it is said that what she 
 chiefly wants is to have her own way, but it is also 
 easy for her because she has so long been used to 
 enter into the sovereignty of her womanhood 
 through the restricting covenant of marriage. 
 
 I ask you young ladies of Queens to adopt this 
 Christian doctrine of sovereignty for the state, and 
 then to re-read your creed, Life is Wealth, in its 
 light. 
 
 I think we all sympathize with the womanhood 
 of to-day as it seizes upon life, with new avidity, 
 with a new determination to wring from it the last 
 drop of both the bitter and the sweet, as it pushes 
 out to join her brothers in the wide fields of civic 
 and political action. If we join as we all do for 
 our young men in the prayer of Tennyson, ''Let 
 knowledge grow from more to more,'^ we also, I 
 am sure, would acclaim a poet who would phrase 
 the enrichment of human emotion, the greater joys, 
 the deeper griefs, the intenser longings, the more 
 perfect truth for which we look with confidence 
 to the educated woman of the new day. But let 
 me warn you not to make the mistake of Germany. 
 There was a day when predatory fighting and im- 
 perial aspirations were regarded as the legitimate 
 ideals of the state. For the pursuit of such ideals, 
 Germany had the misfortune of being born too 
 late. 
 
 Man once knew a world of two dimensions. To- 
 day he knows three and looks for a fourth. A 
 philosophy which measures life by distance and 
 variety of experience only, which looks out over 
 
 284 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 the world as you do to-day from the threshold of 
 this school, and says the more varied experience 
 I have, the more things I do, the more flavors I 
 taste, the more of life I shall be having, will find 
 herself like Germany, born too late. Had Ger- 
 many been willing to follow Goethe rather than 
 Nietsche, and to say with him, Restriction by vol- 
 untary choice is the mark of the master spirit, 
 Germany had been great to-day. 
 
 In a psychological as well as in a theological 
 sense your kingdom is within you. The great soul 
 may taste life in its fullness, live life in its full- 
 ness, find itself the peer and congenial friend of 
 the master spirits of life, in what one of your two 
 dimension philosophers would call a two by four 
 existence. You cannot very well avoid sharing 
 the belief of your day, Life is Wealth, and inter- 
 preted aright it is a very wholesome psychological 
 creed, far better certainly than the creed of so 
 many Americans, Wealth is Life; but strive to 
 pass beyond the primary grade in which the new 
 woman tarries with her naive valuation of every- 
 thing that is, because it is, and to enter those 
 higher grades of life's school, where pupils have 
 the time and the initiative to appraise lights and 
 shadows, to think more of quality and less of quan- 
 tity, to accept restrictions and limitations because 
 they help you to self-mastery and to the attain- 
 ment of that perfection without which life turns 
 stale and meaningless. 
 
 ' ' Forenoon and afternoon and night — Forenoon, 
 And afternoon and night — 
 285 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 Forenoon and — what ! 
 The empty song repeats itself, no more? 
 Yea that is Life, make this forenoon sublime, 
 This afternoon a psalm, this night a prayer. 
 And Time is conquered, and thy crown is won. ' ' 
 
 And above all do not dwell so much in the din 
 of the world that you will have no share in that 
 life of the spirit which properly nourished comes 
 to fruition as the life of sense and of emotion and 
 of ambition fail. 
 
 "Very early," says Margaret Fuller, ''I per- 
 ceived that the object of life is to grow. " Growth 
 doubtless has been more or less in your thoughts 
 these last recent years because of your physical 
 growth. Perhaps you have said to yourselves, I 
 am now grown up, and have dismissed the idea of 
 growth from your mind. If so remember growth 
 has only begun. If a piece of land has been 
 burned over, nature has a way of covering it 
 quickly with blackberry briars, then with poplars 
 or birches or maples, but all the time underneath, 
 the slow growing pine is germinating and growing 
 steadily, ready to take its place and stand when 
 the others are over and gone. So with the human 
 soul, sheltered first under the physical growth, 
 emerging slowly in the shadow of the more quickly 
 growing intellectual life, comes the slow growing 
 spiritual life, if not trampled upon or uprooted. 
 In the turmoil of life's excitements, upon which 
 you are about to enter, if at any time you should 
 be tempted to look for something more beautiful, 
 more gratifying than anything you may have 
 
 286 
 
The Education of Women 
 
 found in the wide travels of experience, don't for- 
 get when you have looked everywhere else, to look 
 within, and then may you have the poet's experi- 
 ence : 
 
 ''To feel a poem in your heart to-day a still thing 
 
 growing 
 As if the darkness to the outer light a song were owing, 
 A something strangely vague and sweet and sad, 
 Fair, fragile, slender, 
 Not tearful, yet not daring to be glad, 
 And oh so tender 
 
 It may not reach the outer world at all 
 Despite its growing ; 
 Upon a poem bud such cold winds fall 
 To blight its blooming. 
 But, oh, whatever may the thing betide. 
 Free life or fetter, 
 
 My heart, just to have held it till it died 
 Will be the better." 
 
 I wish for you graduates of Queens not only 
 life in its fullness, but life at its best. I wish for 
 you that true culture, that true womanly experi- 
 ence so well described by Van Dyke as ''The Light 
 of seeing things clearly and truly. The sweet- 
 ness of imaginative vision by which we behold 
 things old and new, and enter into other hearts 
 and lives. The joy of free and sane thinking for 
 ourselves, and above all, the power of resolutely 
 choosing out of all that knowledge and experience 
 bring the best, to love, admire and follow." 
 
 287 
 
BEOADER EDUCATION OF ENGINEERS 
 
 IT is a great pleasure to me to be present this 
 evening, and to see this large body of engi- 
 neers gathered in the interests of the School of Ap- 
 plied Science. 
 
 When I entered college at Washington Square, 
 the School of Engineering was a room, a professor 
 and an assistant. Before I became a sophomore, 
 they had added to this School an associate pro- 
 fessor; and ever since, during the twenty-two 
 years which have elapsed, I have been interested 
 in the successive expansions of the School and of 
 the man who then became associated with it and 
 who is now our honored Dean, to whose devoted 
 service we owe so much of what the School has 
 been able to accomplish. 
 
 Some time ago I met a man who employs a 
 large number of engineers in his office, taking them 
 from a half dozen engineering schools; and he 
 said that, on the whole, the men of the School of 
 Applied Science had given him better satisfaction 
 than the men of any other school. I am glad that 
 our training in engineering produces good men, 
 because I have been especially struck recently by 
 the expanding horizon of engineering as a profes- 
 sion, and by the demands which other professions 
 
 Address before the alumni of the School of Applied Science, 
 New York University, 1912. 
 
 288 
 
Broader Education of Engineers 
 
 are coming to make upon it. We are somewhat 
 puzzled to know, for example, whether the new 
 profession of Public Health Officer — the advance 
 agent of that preventive medicine whose business 
 it will be to keep people well instead of curing them 
 when sick — should find its roots in engineering and 
 belong with water supply and drainage, or whether 
 it should find its roots in medicine and begin with 
 cadavers and calomel; or whether the sanitary 
 expert and public health officer should be propa- 
 gated in the common garden of the microbe and 
 then transplanted to their respective professional 
 schools. The Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nology thinks that the public health belongs to 
 them, while Harvard conceives it as a post-grad- 
 uate function of the medical school. 
 
 Recently we have heard that only an engineer 
 is competent to say when a transfer is not a trans- 
 fer, and when a strap will serve as a seat ; though 
 the claim seems to have fallen on barren ground, 
 and it has been shown that the less one knows 
 about municipal ownership or engineering the 
 better qualified one is to care for public transpor- 
 tation. It is a hopeful sign, however, as showing 
 ambition on the part of engineers to enlarge their 
 part in the public service. 
 
 In connection with the subject of city planning, 
 upon which I have been conducting a research 
 course this winter, I have been interested to note 
 the claim of an engineer, that because the problem 
 of city planning is a problem of motion, not of 
 static conditions, it is a problem for the engineer 
 
 289 
 
Broader Education of Engineers 
 
 rather than for the architect; and this view has 
 been borne out by the fact that of the score or 
 more of plans which have been provided by ex- 
 perts for cities of the United States, perhaps the 
 most far-reaching and thorough, and the one pre- 
 pared with the least delay, was the plan of the 
 City of Seattle, and that plan was prepared by a 
 city engineer. And yet the engineers took no 
 part in the original organization of the City 
 Planning Conferences; and as Professor Swain, 
 Professor of Civil Engineering at Harvard Uni- 
 versity and himself a member of the Boston Tran- 
 sit Commission, said at the last conference: ''Not- 
 withstanding the prominence of engineering prob- 
 lems among those which city planning has to solve, 
 the engineer has not as yet become sufficiently 
 identified with the movement or the organization. ' ' 
 It is interesting to note, however, that ten engi- 
 neers have now been associated with the general 
 committee, of whom New York furnishes five. 
 "When this winter the Fifth Avenue Association 
 wanted to form a committee of expert advisers, 
 we had much greater difficulty in naming engineers 
 of national reputation who had manifested any 
 interest in the larger civic problems, than in nam- 
 ing architects with such qualifications. 
 
 Take this matter of city planning, as a matter 
 now very prominently before the public, — it deals 
 primarily with land, the same material with which 
 the civil engineer deals. And yet, what is the con- 
 tribution which the engineers of this city are 
 making toward a revision of our notion of the 
 
 290 
 
Broader Education of Engineers 
 
 rights of private ownership in land with a view 
 to the city's highest welfare? How many engi- 
 neers have said a word for the Excess Condemna- 
 tion Bill, now before our Legislature the second 
 time, without which new streets in the crowded 
 parts of the city are a practical impossibility? 
 We know that Mr. Lewis and Mr. Tuttle have 
 been leaders in the matter, but have they been 
 backed up by a profession with large views of 
 civic life and civic responsibility? Is the profes- 
 sion so organized that it can make sure that the 
 responsible posts in our city engineering depart- 
 ments are filled by competent men? And when 
 a good man is secured, are they protecting him 
 and his profession against the insidious encroach- 
 ments of the Comptroller's office — the misguided 
 effort for efficiency, and against politicians seek- 
 ing spoils? Do you think the chief engineer of 
 a city borough ought to be a man honest enough 
 to say how many drawing tables he needs, without 
 having his statement questioned and a separate 
 investigation made by the Comptroller's office? 
 What is your view of a city government which 
 tests the work done by an engineer entrusted with 
 the designing and layout of great boulevards, by 
 checking up the miles of maps made by him with 
 the number of miles made by his predecessor in 
 a given number of days, and which tells him to 
 ** speed up," because the mileage is less per day 
 and per hour? What do you think of a city which 
 turns over the designing of a great boulevard 
 to a young man who does not even know where 
 
 291 
 
Broader Education of Engineers 
 
 the Champs-Elysees is, and has only a hazy recol- 
 lection of having heard of Unter den Linden? 
 
 I believe in enlarging the sphere of the engi- 
 neering profession. There is something in the 
 drill of an engineering education, just as there is 
 in the drill of a West Point education, which fits 
 a man to do great tasks well. The mathematics 
 of the engineer has immediate application and is 
 tested by experience. Accuracy is vital; inaccu- 
 racy fraught with grave consequences. The infin- 
 ite detail of the engineer's work teaches patience 
 and persistence. And these three qualities — ac- 
 curacy, patience and persistence — will carry a man 
 far. If to these we add a constructive imagina- 
 tion, without which no great engineering feats 
 are accomplished, we shall have men well quali- 
 fied for public service of wide range. It was an 
 act of deep significance, and a high compliment 
 to the engineering profession, when the erection 
 of our new Municipal Building was placed under 
 the supervision of our Department of Bridges. 
 
 The broader the sphere of the profession, how- 
 ever, the more necessary that we see to it that the 
 engineer be broadly trained. As the Dean has 
 often said — ^it is as important that an engineer 
 know men as that he know materials. It is im- 
 portant that he know something of economics, of 
 theories of land tax, of unearned increment, and 
 of the taxation of improvements, if we are to 
 consult with him on the tenure of land; — that he 
 study the housing problem and the science of city 
 planning, the relation of factories to labor mar- 
 
 292 
 
Broader Education of Engineers 
 
 kets, if he is to represent us in our Public Serv- 
 ice Commission ; that he know the history of trade 
 and commerce, if he is to plan our docks, build 
 our bridges, and dredge our rivers ; that he know 
 something of what the new English Town Plan- 
 ning Law calls amenity, which in England has as- 
 sumed sufficient definiteness to be made a legal 
 concept, so that he will not put one gas tank be- 
 side Grant's Tomb on the Hudson Eiver, and 
 outdo it with a larger one between Webb's Acad- 
 emy and New York University on the Harlem 
 River. 
 
 It is quite as important that the engineer should 
 be in touch with the best thought and aspiration 
 of his day, as it is that our Court of Appeals 
 should keep its library of economic and sociologi- 
 cal books up to date. And toward this ideal there 
 is great opportunity for our School of Applied 
 Science to contribute. Our great corporations 
 are beginning to look toward the universities for 
 help. The president of the United Electric Light 
 & Power Company is proud to refer to the fact, 
 that in building the power plant on the Harlem, 
 they have availed themselves of the advice of ex- 
 perts from the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- 
 nology, from Sheffield and other scientific schools, 
 on questions of smoke, stoking and water cur- 
 tains. And if we can find the necessary endow- 
 ment to insure a reasonable livelihood, we may 
 be sure that there will be none who will do more 
 for the profession and the public welfare than the 
 expert professors of New York University, kept 
 
 293 
 
Broader Education of Engineers 
 
 in touch with stern reality by the terrific life of 
 this metropolis, in touch with the humanities by 
 the students and professors of Liberal Arts — 
 with whom they share a common campus, and 
 with art and amenity by the beauty of site and 
 buildings, to which we trust Engineering will soon 
 make its own appropriate contribution. 
 
 ■I 
 294 \ 
 
EDUCATIONAL EESEARCH 
 
 IT is a great pleasure to me to be present at 
 this luncheon of the Doctors of Pedagogy, to 
 recall to you the objects for which the School was 
 organized, to review its work and to consult re- 
 garding the future. Although not an alumnus of 
 this School, I feel a strong personal attachment 
 to it. The School of Pedagogy began its work 
 in the university as a fully organized professional 
 school at the same time that I began my work as 
 a freshman, both entering the university circle 
 in the fall of 1890 in the old building at Wash- 
 ington Square. The undergraduate of those days, 
 it is true, was not brought into close touch with 
 the work of the School of Pedagogy and there 
 was no provision such as exists to-day by which 
 seniors looking forward to the profession of teach- 
 ing could take work in the School of Pedagogy. It 
 was our good fortune, however, as juniors and 
 seniors to profit indirectly from the establish- 
 ment of the School and I still recall with peculiar 
 pleasure the hours spent in the study of logic 
 with the first Dean of the School, Dr. Jerome 
 Allen, and hours in rhetoricals with that other 
 great teacher who followed Dr. Allen as Dean, 
 Dr. Edward R. Shaw. If I add to this knowledsre 
 
 Address before the Society of the Doctors of Pedagogy, New 
 York City, 1911. 
 
 295 
 
Educational Research 
 
 as a scholar of two members of the original fa- 
 culty, my acquaintance with Dr. Shimer, who was 
 the third member of the original faculty dating 
 from almost the same time, you will admit that I 
 am justified in regarding the School of Pedagogy 
 as a contemporary and an old friend. 
 
 A recent writer in the '^ Educational Review," 
 under the title "The Temptations of a College 
 President," gives this interesting cross section of 
 the daily mail of a college executive: 'inquiries 
 from candidates for the freshman class with many 
 intellectual and financial weaknesses about which 
 advice was needed ; from candidates for places on 
 the faculty to fill vacancies existing or hoped for ; 
 from an uneasy professor of another college who 
 inclosed a blank, which he said he had sent to 
 five hundred others asking for information as to 
 the best place to purchase frying-pans for the col- 
 lege refectory and the number, shape, and size in 
 millimeters of those most needed; from the best 
 lecturer in America who would for ten dollars 
 give his unrivaled effort on 'The Psychology of 
 the Forward Pass'; from a lady who desired his 
 name as honorary vice-president of an association 
 to supply anti-bacterial bacteria to the children of 
 immigrants ; and from a miscellaneous assortment 
 of seekers of detailed advice on subjects unin- 
 teresting to himself or any one else but the 
 writer. ' ' 
 
 We all recognize it as true picture. There is, 
 however, another side to it. As all of us find the 
 morning newspaper of perpetual interest as a 
 
 296 
 
Educational Research 
 
 cross section of the world's doings, so the man ot 
 a college office retains perpetual interest because 
 it is a cross section of what the world is think- 
 ing. If we take it altogether — publishers' an- 
 nouncements of new books, invitations to in- 
 numerable banquets with the topics assigned to a 
 great array of speakers, letters of cranks with 
 here and there an occasional genius, scholarly 
 monographs of the new generation of college 
 teachers, reports of conventions, newspaper clip- 
 pings of a thousand and one things of supposed in- 
 terest, the speech of a Congressman, the plea of a 
 candidate for city office, a pamphlet on peace, a 
 pamphlet on woman's suffrage, a pamphlet on 
 conservation, a pamphlet on the education of the 
 negro, a pamphlet an rapid transit, a pamphlet on 
 deep waterways, a new governmental map of 
 Saskatchewan, a bulletin on schools in the Philip- 
 pines — while we may not have time to give any 
 careful examination to the rapidly dissolving 
 view, we find a perpetual interest in observing 
 the ever changing kaleidoscope of human thought, 
 and the thoughtful observer will detect here and 
 there an idea or a creed which promises to furnish 
 events for the newspaper of ten years hence. 
 
 The same mail which brought a request from 
 your secretary to name a subject for my remarks 
 to-day, brought a card which was in many re- 
 spects unique and which doubtless many of you 
 have seen, setting forth that John Peter Huf- 
 nagel, born in St. Louis, Mo., 1867, was a Repub- 
 lican candidate for the office of United States Sen- 
 
 297 
 
Educational Research 
 
 ator for Missouri on the platform of a national 
 certificate for teachers and a national diploma for 
 graduates. It struck me as remarkable that the 
 status of the teacher should be a question of para- 
 mount importance in the election of a United 
 States Senator, and it struck me as still more re- 
 markable that it should be a question of para- 
 mount importance in Missouri, where, ten years 
 ago, I used to attend teachers' conventions and 
 talk in percentages of illiteracy and where stu- 
 dents of our preparatory department frankly ad- 
 mitted that they were studying algebra so as to 
 keep at least a week ahead of the class which they 
 were teaching in the public school. 
 
 The same mail brought me a newspaper from 
 Buenos Ayres, South America, which had an illus- 
 tration showing one of our university instructors 
 addressing a large audience on commercial educa- 
 tion in the United States. 
 
 At the same time, there came to me from my 
 mother an account of her visit to a public school 
 held in an old Buddhist temple at Karuizawa, Ja- 
 pan, with a photograph by herself of a hundred 
 of the bright, intelligent Japanese faces and an 
 account of the difficulty she had had in making the 
 Japanese teacher understand the significance of 
 the word ''breeze" in the line of America ''Let 
 music swell the breeze." From my mother's de- 
 scription, I judge that what impressed her most 
 in this elementary school was the fact that the 
 children held their heads up when they read, hold- 
 ing the books by the lower comers, and that there 
 
 298 
 
Educational Research 
 
 was not a single dog-eared book in the school. 
 The accounts which I have received since of their 
 visits to the great technical school at Port Arthur 
 and to many other colleges and schools, and the 
 Japanese and Chinese papers printed in English 
 and the Y. M. C. A. bills announcing the Chan- 
 cellor's addresses half in English and half in 
 Chinese, have all helped to make me realize as I 
 have not realized before, how in the education of 
 their children, the world has a common interest 
 which is universal as perhaps no other interest 
 is universal. I heard this summer that a man of 
 large wealth had declared that he felt that one of 
 the things that would be best worth while would 
 be an international investigation of school sys- 
 tems and a promulgation for the benefit of all 
 nations of any improvement in method or peda- 
 gogical fact discovered in one country. It was 
 the feeling of his keen mind that there was waste 
 of human energy in putting professors in Ger- 
 many to solve educational problems for the Ger- 
 man people and professors in America to solve 
 educational problems for the American people 
 without provision for some systematic exchange 
 of results. We shall doubtless see some time soon 
 a world conference on education. The educational 
 horizon is broadening. When I was in Missouri, 
 they were striving to convince the independent 
 school districts and the county managements that 
 state requirements and supervision of a state 
 superintendent were not an abridgement of the 
 freedom of the American citizen. They were try- 
 
 299 
 
Educational Research 
 
 ing to widen the horizon from the local school dis- 
 trict to the width of the county and the state, 
 and they met, I can assure you, with a great deal 
 of opposition in those good old Bourbon counties. 
 Ten years later the candidate for United States 
 Senator appeals for the suffrage of the people 
 of Missouri on a platform which declares the state 
 horizon too narrow a horizon for the educational 
 world. 
 
 The importance of a wide horizon in education 
 has been realized by the School of Pedagogy from 
 the beginning. While the course of study for the 
 year 1891 stopped short with a critical examina- 
 tion of national, state, county, city and district 
 systems, the course of study for 1892-3 added a 
 course on the school systems of Europe and Amer- 
 ica. The horizon is broadening when the Secre- 
 tary of the Interior acts favorably on the request 
 for an appropriation of $75,000 for national re- 
 search in education. The horizon is broadening 
 when the desire to know takes such a strong hold 
 of the Board of Estimate of this city of New 
 York that it is willing to spend $50,000 for a 
 single course of study of the local school system. 
 If there is any one here who has found in the 
 smaller number of students in the School of Peda- 
 gogy a reason for believing that the work of the 
 School has been accomplished and that the neces- 
 sity which brought it into existence no longer 
 exists, that one is as far astray in his judgment 
 of the field of knowledge as one would be who 
 should argue that the microscope being so small 
 
 300 
 
Educational Research 
 
 as compared with the telescope, the knowledge 
 to which it gives access must be correspondingly 
 unimportant. It is a day of monoplanes and bi- 
 planes, of Antoinettes and Zeppelins. That an 
 island is a body of land surrounded by water is 
 becoming of less geographical importance than 
 that skyscrapers discharge strong currents of air 
 heavenward. The imaginary birdseye view has 
 become a reality. The university, as well as the 
 individual, must be up and doing would it keep 
 abreast of truth. 
 
 I nominate to you to-day, therefore, the School 
 of Pedagogy as an efficient agent for a broader 
 study of education than the world has yet under- 
 taken. On the platform of mankind's common 
 interest in the education of its children, I nomi- 
 nate to you a national school of pedagogy with 
 an international vision as a powerful factor in 
 the world's unity and peace. I ask you to con- 
 sider if it costs the city of New York $50,000 
 to learn the truth about its own school system, 
 what sums might profitably be employed by 
 such a national school of pedagogy in the inves- 
 tigation and comparison of the systems of the 
 world. I ask you to consider what sum might suit- 
 ably be employed in a world conference on educa- 
 tion if the preliminary fund for a world confer- 
 ence on Christian unity is given a hundred thou- 
 sand dollars as a start. It is a day of large things. 
 It is a day of national interchange of professors. 
 It is a day of pilgrimages of students from coun- 
 try to country, a day when the reformer from In- 
 
 301 
 
Educational Research 
 
 dia studies in America to prepare for the over- 
 throw of English rule, when the Japanese studies 
 in America to be the better equipped for controlling 
 Russia and runs typewriters in Tokio and automo- 
 biles in Manchuria. When I was in Cripple Creek, 
 Colorado, I saw the same new novels and the same 
 weekly publications on sale at the stationer's store 
 that I had seen in New York. When I was in 
 Vancouver on the Pacific and in Halifax on the 
 Atlantic, I found a paper published in Philadel- 
 phia placed on sale on the same day on which it 
 was placed on sale in New York. It is a day when 
 a thing worth reading by one English speaking 
 person is worth reading, and can be read, 
 by a hundred million English speaking persons. 
 There never was a time when research was bet- 
 ter worth while or when truth found a larger audi- 
 ence. Is not the time ripe, therefore, to take 
 a broader view of the work of the School of Peda- 
 gogy, to remember that the miscroscope holds 
 sway in the world of science to-day and that in- 
 vestigations to be valuable must be minute and 
 exact, that it is worth while to measure by the 
 millimeter when the results are for the millions 
 and at the same time to remember that this age 
 of the miscroscope is also the age of the airship 
 which knows no geographical boundaries and 
 which has added a third dimension to the lines of 
 travel? I for one am anxious to see the School 
 of Pedagogy enter this larger field. I want en- 
 dowments which will make it possible for men to 
 give their whole time to knowing our American 
 
 302 
 
Educational Research 
 
 school systems as they exist to-day, so that New 
 York may boast a man of encyclopedic knowledge 
 and a recognized international authority on all 
 questions of fact relating to American school sys- 
 tems. I want endowments so that the School of 
 Pedagogy may have a professor who will be as 
 familiar with the details of the New York pub- 
 lic school system and the personnel of its teach- 
 ing force as our professor of chemistry is with the 
 contents of his laboratory. I want endowments 
 for traveling fellowships which shall make it pos- 
 sible to bring back to the students of the School of 
 Pedagogy first hand knowledge of foreign school 
 systems. I want endowments for visiting lecture- 
 ships so that students of the School of Pedagogy 
 may study foreign school systems not only through 
 American eyes but from the lips of those officials 
 of Japan, China or India, as the case may be, best 
 qualified to speak. I want fellowships for for- 
 eigners so that the teacher from Germany, India 
 and Japan may study in the same class with the 
 teacher in America and so create among Ameri- 
 cans an interest in things foreign and a cosmo- 
 politan point of view such as springs only from 
 the interest which centers around a personality. 
 Perhaps you will think these presumptuous 
 dreams for a poor institution like ours, but I have 
 always held with Plato as against Aristotle, that 
 the small things of to-day are real in what they 
 borrow from great ideals rather than that great 
 ideals are real in proportion as they are common 
 to the things of to-day. The University was 
 
 303 
 
Educational Research 
 
 founded in an atmosphere of great ideas and it is 
 always refreshing when the endless round of de- 
 tail becomes overwhelming, to get back into the 
 atmosphere of those early educational discus- 
 sions. I trust, therefore, that when you look in 
 on the School of Pedagogy, while you may find it 
 using its microscope with care and precision in 
 the discovery of exact truth in its own domain, 
 you will also find that the telescope has not been 
 laid aside but that with its own present small 
 share in scientific investigation go larger dreams 
 and visions of the time when the School shall be 
 not local but national and its knowledge and its 
 helpfulness worldwide. 
 
 304 
 
EDUCATION FOE BUSINESS 
 
 ARCHBISHOP CHICELE, who founded All 
 Souls' College at Oxford, made it a condi- 
 tion of his gift that the Fellows of the College 
 should forever care for his tomb at Canterbury- 
 Cathedral. He died before the discovery of Amer- 
 ica and no tomb is more likely to receive perennial 
 care, in the future as in the past, than the tomb of 
 the wise ecclesiastic who rested his faith in the 
 permanency of a school. Mr. Haskins left the 
 school, of which he was one of the principal 
 founders, no building and no endowment, nor is 
 the school bound by any deed of gift to cherish 
 his memory. His bequest to the School of Com- 
 merce, Accounts and Finance was an idea, and be- 
 cause this idea has proved potent and fruitful 
 beyond the most sanguine expectations, the stu- 
 dents and friends of the School turn naturally to 
 perpetuate his memory. The university authori- 
 ties gladly accept the custody of this memorial, 
 and wish me to express to those who have been 
 instrumental in establishing it, their hearty ap- 
 preciation of the thoughtfulness and generosity 
 which have inscribed here the name of the first 
 Dean, for coming generations of students to read 
 
 Address at memorial services of Charles Waldo Haskins, Dean 
 of the School of Commerce, New York University, 1910. 
 
Education for Business 
 
 and revere. We trust that the bronze tablet un- 
 veiled this evening will outlive the building in 
 which it finds a temporary home, and have an 
 .honored place in the statelier halls which the gen- 
 erations will bring. 
 
 It has been said that the first rule for success is 
 to select the right grandfather. If you students 
 and alumni of the School of Commerce have shown 
 wisdom in selecting this School as your fostering 
 mother, you may congratulate yourselves also that 
 this fostering mother was the child of a man so 
 clear in vision and so strong in faith as Mr. Has- 
 kins. It was never my good fortune, like the other 
 speakers of the evening, to know Mr. Haskins per- 
 sonally. At the time the School was founded I 
 was in the West, enjoying the wide perspective of 
 the Missouri prairies. I recall, however, that 
 when I joined my father in the Catskills in the 
 summer of 1900, he outlined to me the plan of the 
 School and we discussed together the name 
 ''Commerce, Accounts and Finance." For ten 
 years, therefore, the name of Mr. Haskins has 
 stood to my mind for an idea rather than for a 
 personality; and as it is the idea as well as the 
 man that we celebrate to-night, I leave to others 
 the pleasant task of speaking of Mr. Haskins as a 
 friend, and will say a brief word only regarding 
 the idea for which his name stands. 
 
 I was struck by the fact in that early conversa- 
 tion with the Chancellor, that Mr. Haskins and 
 his associates who proposed the organization of 
 the new school were men more interested in sub- 
 
 30O 
 
Education for Business 
 
 stance than form. They did not begin with a 
 name and then decide what the School was to do, 
 but began with a concrete task and permitted the 
 organization to assume a form adapted to the task. 
 As I understand it, those who proposed the or- 
 ganization of the School wanted first of all the 
 help of an educational institution in creating and 
 maintaining a new profession — the profession of 
 Certified Public Accountant; and secondly, they 
 wanted instruction which should widen the out- 
 look of young business men, enrich their lives and 
 fit them for the wider opportunities which modern 
 industrial organization affords. I recall that the 
 Chancellor said more than once that this School 
 differed from all other university schools of busi- 
 ness in that it had "as its backbone," as he ex- 
 pressed it, the task of preparing men for a defin- 
 ite profession, the profession of the accountant. 
 Mr. Haskins saw ten years ago what the rest of 
 the world has come to see more clearly since, that 
 the intricacies of modern corporate organizations 
 and the multiplying of governmental activities 
 were destined to create a new profession or give a 
 new significance to one already existing in a 
 minor way. Mr. Haskins probably did not fore- 
 see, nor could any one have foreseen at the time, 
 the sudden growth of the demand on the part of 
 the public for publicity of corporate affairs. He 
 would have been an extraordinary prophet who 
 could have predicted that this appetite, whetted 
 by the gas and insurance investigations, would 
 have become so insatiate in so short a time. 
 
 307 
 
Education for Business 
 
 Just as the great corporations have created a 
 new jReld for lawyers, giving them an opportunity 
 to apply their trained brains to knotty business 
 questions and to show business men how the thing 
 can be done which they want done, so the crea- 
 tion of great corporations has created a new field 
 for the man with expert financial knowledge, in 
 interpreting to owners and stockholders and the 
 public at large what it is that the corporation has 
 done in carrying out the wishes of the business 
 man in the way suggested by the lawyer, and 
 what the result is in dollars and cents. Account- 
 ing, as Mr. Haskins expressed it, is the conning 
 tower of modern business. 
 
 I am not gifted with prophetic insight and can- 
 not foresee the future development of this pro- 
 fession. From my own experience, however, with 
 the work of certified public accountants in the cor- 
 porations with which I am connected, I see clearly 
 one thing — that the future of the profession will 
 depend on the intellectual power and breadth of 
 the men who compose it. It is a comparatively 
 simple thing to train men to prepare a report of 
 the financial affairs of this, that, or the other 
 corporation, according to a formal routine laid 
 down in the accountant's ofiice. It is a much more 
 difficult thing to secure accountants who have had 
 such preliminary training that they show the same 
 analytical power possessed by a great corpora- 
 tion lawyer, and are able to adapt their methods 
 to the specific problems and necessities of the par- 
 ticular corporation. No man of limited training 
 
 308 
 
Education for Business 
 
 can do this. It requires imagination to know 
 what term to substitute for capital in a School 
 like this which has no capital. It requires sagac- 
 ity born of a wide experience and considerable 
 reflection to pick out the important factors of a 
 business and distinguish the essential points of 
 view for the managers and for the stockholders 
 from the unessential points. Accountancy as a 
 profession has seemed too ready to give up the 
 task of attempting to analyze corporation re- 
 ports and certify to their accuracy, preferring the 
 easier task of preparing a report of their own in 
 accordance with fixed formulae, so reducing the 
 risk of error in the report and minimizing the 
 amount of intense analytical mental activity which 
 the examiner must exercise. To let some one else 
 do the thinking may make a profession safe ; it will 
 never make it great. I see far enough ahead, 
 therefore, to realize that Mr. Haskins has left us a 
 larger task than we have yet been able to perform. 
 In Mr. Haskins ' own words — ' ' so far we have just 
 begun to approach the foot of the professional 
 ladder. But as we look up and ask for further 
 educational guidance, we realize that we have 
 come to a lonesome place where few meet us, and 
 these but newcomers and inquirers like ourselves." 
 For one thing, I should like to see the School of 
 Commerce provided with endowments, so that it 
 could do what the new government commercial 
 school of Japan does — limit the number of its 
 students in accountancy to 200, selecting these as 
 the best qualified from among a thousand appli- 
 
 309 
 
Education for Business 
 
 cants. I should like to see the course of study 
 made so intensive and extensive, that the posses- 
 sion of a degree from this School would be prima 
 facie evidence that the man could do any of the 
 tasks of an able Certified Public Accountant in a 
 superior way. At the same time, I would not cut 
 off the wider influence of the School, but would 
 endeavor to carry out Mr. Haskins' second idea, 
 of widening the outlook and improving the effi- 
 ciency of young business men. 
 
 Mr. Crane of Chicago has recently published a 
 book to prove that America is all wrong, and that 
 money spent on Higher Education is all wasted. 
 He has given it the title, ''The Utility of All Kinds 
 of Higher Schooling," but the fitter title would 
 be, ''The Futility of All Higher Schooling." He 
 is quite convinced that in the Crane shops he has 
 a better university than Mr. Eockefeller's mil- 
 lions can ever build. But even Mr. Crane seems 
 to believe in books and the efficacy of the pen. 
 One of the tasks of this school — a task for which 
 Mr. Haskins himself pointed the way in his book 
 on Business Education and Accounting — ^is and 
 will continue to be, to describe business processes 
 in scientific terms, to observe and classify and 
 name the phenomena of modem business, so that 
 the human mind may grasp them, discover their 
 significance, and generalize regarding them. It is 
 astonishing to find how little scientific knowledge 
 we possess of the great business world which is all 
 about us. That there exists here a fruitful field 
 for university research was recognized even in the 
 
 310 
 
Education for Business 
 
 early days of this university, when provision was 
 made in the original plan for a professorship of 
 commerce. The task belongs preeminently to this 
 school, because no place in the world offers so 
 great opportunities for this study as this richest 
 city in the world, itself an epitome of the world's 
 business. 
 
 As I have said, Mr. Haskins left no building and 
 no endowment to the School he was instrumental 
 in founding. He left, however, a fruitful idea, 
 and unless the history of the world in this genera- 
 tion is to differ from the history of the world in 
 all other generations, this idea must eventually 
 clothe herself with a home and with material sub- 
 stance. The record of the endowments of the 
 University of Cambridge, England, shows that 
 back in medieval days it was not uncommon for 
 money to be left to the colleges and along with the 
 money a chest to keep the money in. The chests 
 outlasted the money, but none of them, unfortu- 
 nately, developed the quality of the widow's barrel, 
 and the money taken from the chest did not re- 
 turn. We trust that we shall not have to wait 
 long for the adequate housing of the work of the 
 School of Commerce, but better that we should 
 have a fruitful, multiplying idea, which at the end 
 of ten years cries for more room, than that we 
 should find ourselves at this time the possessors 
 of an empty shell, its golden store all spent. It 
 is, therefore, with sincere appreciation that the 
 university joins in paying tribute to Mr. Has- 
 kins and his large part in the establishment of 
 
 311 
 
Education for Business 
 
 this School of Commerce, Accounts and Finance; 
 and as we recall the first Dean, we think of his 
 ideal of perfect accountancy: ''forethought, 
 friendliness, artful getting at things, fire of rea- 
 son, mathematical accuracy, adherence to truth." 
 
 Si-i 
 
A GRADUATE SCHOOL FOR THE 
 METROPOLIS 
 
 THE dedication of the splendid dormitories 
 and dining-hall of the Graduate School of 
 Princeton, on a site entirely distinct from the site 
 of the undergraduate college, has focused attention 
 anew on this aspect of university work in Amer- 
 ica, and has so objectified ideas long current 
 among American universities, that even the public 
 at large is beginning to inquire as to the nature 
 and aim of graduate work. The public has been 
 familiar for some time with the Ph.D. and his 
 peculiarities, has joined more or less seriously in 
 the discussion as to his availability for practical 
 life, and has hesitated between an attitude of ad- 
 miration and of ridicule. The teacher in all 
 grades, however, has discovered that the degree 
 has at' least money value, and an ever increasing 
 number are seeking it as a practical means of ad- 
 vancement in their profession. Recent statistics 
 published in ' ' Science ' ^ show that in the last six- 
 teen years the degree of Doctor of Philosophy or 
 Doctor of Science has been secured by 5,237 per- 
 sons in forty-four American universities, besides 
 all of those who have secured the degree abroad. 
 Of this number, 461 were given in 1913. If the 
 same proportion holds for the other institutions 
 
 313 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 as for New York University between the number 
 of students in the Graduate School and the num- 
 ber attaining to the highest degree, we should not 
 be far wrong in placing the number of graduate 
 students this year at 10,000. Dr. Oilman, first 
 president of Johns Hopkins University, has told 
 very graphically the difficulty he had when he 
 graduated from college, of finding any opportunity 
 in America to pursue advanced studies in the sub- 
 ject in which he was interested. In the first half 
 of the nineteenth century, there were a good many 
 college professors in America who knew a great 
 deal more than they had opportunity to teach 
 their students, but there was little or no systematic 
 provision for giving this instruction to the excep- 
 tional student who wanted it. The result was 
 that our most ambitious young men necessarily 
 went abroad to study, and few student lists are 
 more interesting or significant than the list of 
 young Americans who studied at German univer- 
 sities in the first half of the last century, from 
 Henry W. Longfellow to J. Pierpont Morgan. 
 
 When the foundation of New York University 
 was under discussion in this city in 1829, one of 
 the arguments used for its establishment was that 
 it ought to be possible to find in America the 
 knowledge which at that time could only be found 
 abroad. At the conference which met in New 
 York City in 1830 to discuss the aim and methods 
 of university instruction, papers were presented 
 that discussed university education not only in 
 England, Scotland and Ireland, but in Germany, 
 
 314 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 France, Switzerland and Spain. As a result of 
 the discussions at this convention, the ideas of 
 the founders of this university were broadened, 
 and whereas the earlier argument for the estab- 
 lishment of the university laid stress upon extend- 
 ing to every boy opportunity to pursue the ac- 
 quisition of knowledge in any department of liter- 
 ature or science, according to his own preference 
 or that of this parents or guardian, free from the 
 control of any sect either in religion, politics or 
 education, the later appeals laid emphasis as well 
 on what we should now know as graduate instruc- 
 tion. Thus in the memorial addressed to the 
 Legislature of the State of New York, unanimously 
 adopted by the University Council, when apply- 
 ing for a charter in 1831, it was stated : 
 
 ''An anxiety has long been entertained by men 
 of letters, that a seminary should be furnished 
 by this country, presenting the same advantages 
 for a finished education which are enjoyed in the 
 great universities of Europe. The attempts here- 
 tofore made have undoubtedly been attended with 
 some degree of success and encouragement, but 
 no institution of the kind has yet risen to great 
 preeminence. Your petitioners are aware of the 
 impediments to any immediate or great success in 
 such undertakings, arising out of the commercial 
 character of our citizens, the small number of 
 those who make letters a profession, and the dis- 
 ability of such institutions under the laws as they 
 exist with us, to introduce their graduates into 
 the learned professions. Your petitioners, how- 
 
 315 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 ever, are persuaded that the City of New York 
 affords advantages which give greater assurance 
 of success in this respect, than can at present be 
 looked for in any other part of the country. In- 
 dependent of the numbers who may be expected 
 out of 213,000 inhabitants to avail themselves of a 
 course of instruction in the highest departments of 
 learning, the position of the city is most advan- 
 tageously adapted to attract students and men of 
 letters from other states and from abroad to an 
 institution of this character. This city will always 
 offer opportunities for men of science, whilst pur- 
 suing their studies at the university, at the same 
 time to obtain profitable employments as instruc- 
 tors, writers, or otherwise, thus securing an im- 
 mediate profitable recompense for the time and ex- 
 pense devoted to their own improvement. Your 
 petitioners can speak with no precision upon this 
 subject, but if they may be allowed to draw con- 
 clusions from a consideration of circumstances 
 commonly connected with a university course of 
 instruction, they would feel great confidence in 
 the anticipation that this department would be 
 speedily filled, and that it would dispense blessings 
 of inestimable magnitude to all parts of our com- 
 mon country." 
 
 The fourfold division made by the founders of 
 the university in 1831, into first what we know 
 as the regular college course; second, college ex- 
 tension, "where persons of various ages and de- 
 grees of preparation may connect themselves with 
 the university, may pursue at their election any 
 
 316 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 branch of study taught there, so that the mechanic 
 can obtain for his son who is destined to continue 
 his calling an opportunity of learning what the 
 sciences have discovered in aid of his business, 
 and so that young men may go from the halls of 
 the university to the counting-house with the con- 
 viction that everything they have learned will be 
 of ready and useful application in the business for 
 which they are preparing themselves, so that 
 crowds of youths will acquire and carry with them 
 into their various employments a just appreciation 
 of learning in its application to the business and 
 enjoyment of life"; third, the professional schools, 
 law, medicine, etc.; and fourth, the graduate 
 schools and research, — is a division which can 
 hardly be improved upon to-day. 
 
 A Graduate School for New York, as thus con- 
 ceived by the founders of the university, differs 
 somewhat from the ideal of a Graduate School 
 which has found expression at Princeton. The 
 Princeton Graduate School will be the child of the 
 English university, while the New York Gradu- 
 ate School will be rather the child of the German 
 university. The Princeton Graduate School in 
 the first place lays stress on the home for the stu- 
 dents; the buildings to be first erected are resi- 
 dence halls and a dining-hall where all may eat 
 together. The location is a beautiful, healthful 
 one, because of the high ground on which it stands, 
 and opportunity for golf and tennis is immediately 
 at hand. The new Graduate College is a beauti- 
 ful home, but for the present at least it is some- 
 
 317 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 what at a disadvantage as a workshop, because it 
 is over half a mile from library, laboratory, or 
 recitation room. Of the money which the student 
 of the Princeton Graduate School pays to the uni- 
 versity, $300 or more goes to the expense of food 
 and shelter, while only $15 or $25 goes to the 
 expense of instruction. The Princeton idea, like 
 the Oxford idea, is the man as a man first, as a 
 student second. The Princeton ideal is rather the 
 ideal of living with knowledge, particularly the 
 knowledge which is the accumulation of past ages, 
 than the creation of new knowledge in a laboratory 
 or at the forge. The Princeton Graduate School, 
 as stated by Dean West in his address last week, 
 aims to correct certain defects in graduate stu- 
 dies that now exist elsewhere, namely the wor- 
 ship of degrees, the estrangement of special knowl- 
 edge from general knowledge, the lack of care 
 for the physical well-being of students, and the 
 lack of adjustment of students to future occupa- 
 tions. The object of having the men live together 
 in a separate institution is, according to Presi- 
 dent Hibben, to provide human intercourse, not 
 to exclude it; and if the manner of life produces, 
 as Dean West hopes and as I believe he has a 
 right to hope, men companionable, magnanimous 
 and free, who recognize that in learning is one 
 of the great pleasures of life, it will have justified 
 its existence. 
 
 And yet, as a result of the discussion which has 
 raged about the founding of this new school, even 
 the advocates of the home idea themselves have 
 
 318 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 felt that the ideal of the life according to reason, 
 which might have satisfied the Stoic philosopher, 
 would not satisfy the Christianized conscience of 
 the America of to-day ; and curiously enough, this 
 fact has found physical expression in the addition 
 to the residence halls of the Cleveland Tower, 
 built on broader proportions, dominating — some- 
 what dwarfing the earthclinging quadrangle, and 
 symbolizing service to the community. 
 
 One effect of the establishment of the new 
 Graduate School at Princeton has been to give a 
 new front to the property of the Princeton Theo- 
 logical Seminary, and as you walk past the Semi- 
 nary to the Graduate School, the question natu- 
 rally suggests itself : in what respect is the Gradu- 
 ate School to be different from the Theological 
 Seminary? For years the Seminary has been the 
 home of students of the same scholastic grade, 
 namely, graduates of an undergraduate college, 
 as the new Graduate School is to accommodate. 
 As in the case of the new Graduate School, it has 
 seemed to the friends of the theological students 
 that a comfortable home was of the essence of a 
 theological seminary, and churches all over the 
 country have taken an interest in the Theological 
 Seminary as have the friends of the Graduate 
 Scnool, in furnishing the rooms, even to the sheets 
 on the beds. The Seminary has been a company 
 of students, free from worldly cares and avoca- 
 tions, enjoying many of them, like the scholars of 
 the Graduate College, the aid of endowed scholar- 
 ships. They have given three years — approxi- 
 
 319 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 mately the same time as will be given by the stu- 
 dents of the Graduate School — to advanced study, 
 mostly in languages, and to familiarizing them- 
 selves with great writers of the past. What is it 
 then that makes the Graduate School new and 
 modern, while the Theological Seminary is old, 
 and some would say out-of-date? The first obvi- 
 ous distinction is, that one is a professional school, 
 which has definite future work in view. The 
 Graduate School will try to keep professionalism 
 outside its gates, welcoming knowledge only be- 
 cause it is knowledge, searching out truth for the 
 sake of truth and not as a gospel for human wel- 
 fare. And yet even Dean West expects the studies 
 to be adjusted to the future occupations of the 
 students. Perhaps after all, then, we shall find 
 that the Graduate School is not so different from 
 the Theological Seminary as we had at first sup- 
 posed, and that it but illustrates the differentia- 
 tion that has come in the teaching which was all 
 performed by the dominie in the early days, when 
 John Knox gave to every parish a school-house, 
 but which has shared the expansion which the 
 twentieth century has brought to the field of knowl- 
 edge itself. 
 
 The Graduate School which the founders of New 
 York University had in mind for this city, when its 
 population numbered 213,000, and which it is the 
 ideal of the university still to create when the 
 city's population numbers 5,000,000, is of a some- 
 what different order. It is as I have said the child 
 of the German university rather than the child of 
 
 320 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 the English university. It does not begin with the 
 idea of the home. Practically no dormitory foun- 
 dations have been provided for German university 
 students, except for theological students. This is 
 not because it would not be desirable to have com- 
 fortable homes for the students, but because the 
 universities have been concerned with what from 
 the university point of view is more important. 
 Nor has the University of Paris approached the 
 subject of university instruction from the stand- 
 point of a home for students. As was stated at 
 Princeton last week, the University of Paris was 
 originally a residence college, but that was in the 
 days when it was a church institution, and shared 
 the provision which the Church made for its 
 orders. At the present time, the Latin Quarter 
 is probably more famous than the University of 
 Paris; but Kke Boston, the Latin Quarter is 
 rather a state of mind than a physical habitation. 
 The German and French idea of the university 
 may be said to begin and end with the individual 
 university professor; and if we are to have a 
 Graduate School in New York, which is to be what 
 the founders of 1830 expected it to be, we must 
 begin at that end of the problem. It is the appre- 
 ciation of this fact that has made Harvard great 
 in graduate work. When confronted with the al- 
 ternative between a respectable man or a man 
 whose eccentricity may prove to be either genius 
 or failure, it has risked the failure in the hope of 
 securing a possible genius. The fame of Harvard 
 rests rather on Kittredge and Eoyce than on 
 
 321 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 Conant and Eandall. To solve the problem of the 
 greatest Graduate School for the City of New 
 York, is only to solve the problem of securing and 
 holding the twenty greatest experts in twenty sub- 
 jects, who add to a national reputation rugged 
 character and reasonable teaching ability. The 
 only thing that will make men study in New York 
 rather than Berlin, will be the fact that the New 
 York professor is reputed the greater authority 
 than the Berlin professor. When you go to Ger- 
 many and are told that the best book on Psychol- 
 ogy is that written by William James of Boston, 
 it reverses the tide of graduate students. When 
 you go to Vienna and are told that the best instru- 
 ments for throat manipulation are those in use in 
 New York, it reverses the tide of graduate stu- 
 dents. It will not do it all at once, because you 
 will remember that William James himself 
 studied in Germany, and that the physicians who 
 invented the instruments studied in Germany, so 
 that a generation will be required for the rule to 
 work itself out ; and there will always remain truth 
 in the saying: 
 
 ''How much the goose who has been sent to roam 
 Excels the goose who always stays at home." 
 
 The best graduate student is the one who is not 
 content with second-hand goods ; it is the one who 
 is dissatisfied until he has traced knowledge to its 
 fountain head, has seen for himself those things 
 which rest upon seeing, and has heard for himself 
 those things which rest upon authority. So long, 
 
 322 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 therefore, as Ms teachers cite foreign authorities 
 as the conclusive word in the agrument, he will 
 look to the foreign authorities as the fountain head 
 of knowledge. This axiom — that the first, last and 
 only task of the university administrator who 
 would make a great graduate school is to find and 
 keep the right professors, has been given prac- 
 tical application in America in more than one in- 
 stance. It governed the formation of the first 
 faculty at Johns Hopkins. It was the newest and 
 most notable thing in the inauguration of Chicago 
 University, that it tempted with salaries of $7,000 
 — at that time unheard of in university circles — 
 teachers of national prominence to throw in their 
 lot with the new institution. The history of these 
 institutions, however, shows that the problem is 
 not as simple a one as might be supposed. The 
 authority of to-day is not the authority of to- 
 morrow. The achievements of the young make the 
 fame of yesterday the empty pretense of to-day, 
 and the university has no method of scrappitig its 
 out-of-date machinery, as the factory and street 
 railway have. The establishment of the Carnegie 
 Pension Fund has somewhat accelerated the pro- 
 cess, but even with that fund in existence, the uni- 
 versity administration must face the fact that in 
 selecting a professor it is entering into a connec- 
 tion more indissoluble even than the marriage tie 
 in these days, and that the chair of Greek, Latin 
 or English, once filled, is filled for better or worse 
 once for all, so far as the present generation is 
 concerned. It was Dr. James McCosh, I believe, 
 
 323 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 who said of college professors that few died and 
 none resigned. It is right that university pro- 
 fessors should enjoy this security of tenure. Uni- 
 versities are, of all philanthropies, the most long 
 lived, and they can afford, therefore, to use 
 longer units in measuring their efficiency than 
 more ephemeral institutions. But because of this 
 security of tenure, all the professorships of the 
 new foundation should not be filled at once, with 
 the result that the faculty grow old together. A 
 graduate school which is to maintain its reputa- 
 tion and authority must grow like a palm, not like 
 a watermelon. Its life will be manifested by fresh 
 new shoots overtopping the old, not only by the 
 swelling girth and mellowness of its choicest fruit. 
 If some one were to give me to-morrow, without 
 restriction, a sum equal to that at the disposal of 
 Princeton for its graduate school, namely three 
 million dollars, to build a graduate school for New 
 York University, I would set apart the entire 
 amount for the permanent endowment of profes- 
 sorships, and would devote every cent of the in- 
 come to the salaries of instructors and investi- 
 gators. It would be a good thing to have resi- 
 dence halls for graduate students, but it would not 
 be essential for the efficiency of such a graduate 
 school as I have in mind. With $150,000 a year 
 to devote to professors' salaries, we could make 
 of the whole Washington Square section of this 
 city a Latin Quarter. We could make the Gradu- 
 ate School not national but international, and draw 
 our students from every nation of the globe. In 
 
 324 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 this way we should hope not so much to mold the 
 lives of individuals as to mold the destinies of 
 nations, to a greater extent even than was dreamed 
 of by Cecil Rhodes. We have seen the last year 
 the effect of American teaching in the Balkans and 
 in China. It is to make a great difference in the 
 history of future civilization, whether the young 
 men of the Orient study in America or in Ger- 
 many, just as it will make a great difference to 
 America, whether the young men who are to shape 
 its thought study in Germany, in France, or in 
 England. As the nations of the world turn from 
 physical force to reason as the determining factor 
 in progress, the significance of the dominant uni- 
 versities is to be greater even than it has been in 
 the past. Just as Germany selected a university 
 as the best instrument for turning Alsace from a 
 French province into a German province, just as 
 our churches are coming to recognize that in the 
 Orient it is the schools which are to cast the deter- 
 mining vote between the religions of different peo- 
 ples; so in the determination of which type of 
 civilization is to survive, as the nations of the 
 world are brought into closer and closer relation, 
 the civilization which holds the key to the uni- 
 versities will command the battle-ground. The 
 reason such great results might be anticipated 
 from the expenditure of such a sum of money for 
 this purpose in New York is not because New York 
 produces wiser or abler men than other localities, 
 but because it is the metropolis of the New World, 
 its financial and social capital, and, therefore, an 
 
 325 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 irresistible magnet for the more ambitious. The 
 very instinct which makes the best graduate stu- 
 dent — namely, to be content with nothing less than 
 the best — would operate to bring these best stu- 
 dents to New York, provided the greatest teachers 
 of the country were to be found here. 
 
 New York ought to have endowed professor- 
 ships, which in the amount of salary as compared 
 with the amount of salary in other cities, would be 
 proportionate to the amount New York spends for 
 other things compared with what other cities 
 spend. As I pointed out in my last annual report, 
 we ought to have endowed research professor- 
 ships in medicine, paying at least $10,000 a year, 
 comparing in dignity and in opportunities for 
 service with the bishoprics of churches. We 
 ought to have professorships in other depart- 
 ments, which would yield something more than the 
 average standard of living of the professorial 
 grade. The benefit of such liberal foundations 
 would not be confined to the individual holder. It 
 is a well-known fact that what draws talent into 
 a profession is not the average reward, but the 
 existence of great prizes which may be obtained 
 by the exceptional few. Thus in the hearings 
 held by the Royal Commission on the University 
 of London, Dr. Edouard Rist of Paris gave it as 
 his opinion that the reason why smaller German 
 universities — Marburg, Erlangen and Wurtzburg 
 — can command the services of able young men 
 as teachers of medicine, is that when a man has 
 worked a few years at Marburg or Erlangen, if he 
 
 326 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 is successful he is quite sure to go to Munich, Ber- 
 lin or Vienna, to become one of the glories of the 
 day. Thus the effect of the great prizes of the 
 metropolis is felt to the most remote corner of the 
 educational system. Nor is the benefit enjoyed by 
 the provincial university a temporary one. Often 
 the freedom from distraction of the smaller uni- 
 versity gives a great teacher such great scientific 
 satisfaction that men of world-wide reputation 
 remain in the small university, resisting all at- 
 tempts to remove them to the larger cities, like 
 Erb at Heidelberg, Kollisker at Wurtzburg, or 
 Behring at Marburg. No New Yorker need hesi- 
 tate, therefore, to set up great foundations in New 
 York, for fear of weakening other parts of our 
 educational system. The benefit of such great 
 prizes would not be confined to New York, but 
 would strengthen the profession of teaching, wher- 
 ever found. 
 
 The business men of New York are perhaps too 
 much inclined to think of New York in relation to 
 universities, as they think of it in relation to their 
 great business corporations, as a good place for 
 a central office, like the Carnegie Foundation, 
 Presbyterian College Board, or the General Edu- 
 cation Board, but a poor place for a factory or a 
 home. This feeling is increased by the fact that 
 so large a proportion of the successful men of New 
 York have come to it from outside, and their 
 stronger affections center around the home of their 
 youth, whether it be Ohio, Massachusetts, Ken- 
 tucky, Canada, Scotland, or Germany; so that 
 
 327 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 when they come to make great gifts, they prefer 
 to build in the peaceful atmosphere of home 
 rather than on the battlefield. No city, however, 
 can be truly great which does not provide a place 
 for the greatest living teachers. If it is true that 
 no prophet can perish outside of Jerusalem, it is 
 equally true that Jerusalem cannot continue to ex- 
 ist without its prophets. It is only a superficial 
 view that thinks of a great city as no place for 
 study. There is no solitude like that of a great 
 city. As a man said to me last week, he never 
 knew what study was until he saw the students of 
 Paris, who thought nothing when absorbed in their 
 subject of studying the whole night through, with 
 no thought of sleep. Great research institutions, 
 like the Pasteur Institute in Paris and the Rocke- 
 feller Institute in New York, having no students 
 do not require large populations, yet take their 
 place by preference in the large cities. So the 
 university in the large city must necessarily find 
 inspiration in the intensity and vigor of city life, 
 and here alone can it find a sufficiently complex 
 civilization to warrant the high degree of special- 
 ization which modem scholarship demands. Chi- 
 cago, St. Louis, Nashville, Denver, San Francisco, 
 and almost every town of ten thousand people in 
 our great West, has thought of a great school as a 
 great civic asset. Even the citizens of Brooklyn 
 have recently turned to the idea of a university as 
 a way to magnify their place in the great metropo- 
 lis. The King of England has appointed succes- 
 sive commissions to take testimony and determine 
 
 328 
 
A Graduate School for the Metropolis 
 
 how the University of London, which was born of 
 the same university movement as New York Uni- 
 versity and four years after New York University, 
 may be raised to the position of a truly imperial 
 university. There does not exist as yet in our 
 city, as a whole, any such civic consciousness of 
 the importance of securing for New York a pre- 
 eminent place in the world of learning; and New 
 York is so big and its population so new and ever 
 renewing itself, that it is almost impossible to 
 create or to crystallize any such sentiment. But 
 as New York University was created in the first 
 instance by a small group of men, with the cooper- 
 ation of a small group in the New York Historical 
 Society and in the Lyceum of Natural Sciences; 
 and as the great Princeton Graduate College is 
 not the work of any considerable number but 
 only of a bare half dozen persons, so we may ex- 
 pect that it will be the courage and generosity 
 of some single individual, or at most of not more 
 than half a dozen, who will lift New York to the 
 commanding position which she ought to occupy in 
 the world of learning. 
 
 329 
 
SCIENTIFIC METHOD AND THERAPEUTIC 
 IMPULSE 
 
 THE university welcomes you to the study of 
 medicine and the unlimited possibilities 
 which the field of medical science affords at the 
 present day. You are beginning a course of 
 study which is the most exacting and arduous of 
 any offered by any part of the university. In the 
 number of hours required and in the intensity of 
 application, the medical curriculum surpasses all 
 others. When once embarked in medical study, 
 you will have little time for reflection on the gen- 
 eral problems of your professional life. The time 
 for reflection will come later when you sit in your 
 offices awaiting the arrival of patients. I may, 
 perhaps, therefore, as one outside the profession, 
 on this opening day, venture to make two sugges- 
 tions. 
 
 Those of us who have been studying the prob- 
 lems of medical education created by the recent 
 developments in scientific medicine and the intro- 
 duction of laboratory methods, recognize as one 
 of the serious problems of to-day the coordination 
 of laboratory and clinic. From the standpoint of 
 university administration, the problem is how to 
 differentiate laboratory investigation and re- 
 
 Address to the first year class of the University and Bellevue 
 Hospital Medical College, New York City, October, 1910. 
 
Scientific Method and Therapeutic Impulse 
 
 search, which, directly or indirectly, contribute to 
 the art of healing, from laboratory research, which 
 sets no bounds to its search for truth and treats 
 facts as in themselves valuable. The problem is 
 difficult because it is hard to see in advance what 
 investigations will yield facts which will have 
 practical value. There is a disposition on the part 
 of scientists, therefore, to say that research and 
 investigation must be unrestricted. The physi- 
 cian, on the other hand, is interested in a concrete 
 problem and makes his most valuable contribution 
 to the advance of medical science when he formu- 
 lates his problem clearly and asks the laboratory 
 scientists for an answer. When the clinicians are 
 apt at stating a problem and when their faith is 
 increased so that they regard it as reasonable to 
 expect the medical science of to-day to solve prob- 
 lems which it has never solved before, the two 
 branches of medical education will fall into proper 
 correlation. They are somewhat disorganized at 
 present because the laboratory men are in large 
 measure both formulating the problems and an- 
 swering them. 
 
 As relates to you students, the problem of labor- 
 atory and clinic takes the form of an inquiry as to 
 how the therapeutic impulse and the desire to cure 
 your fellow men of their ills may be kept warm 
 and unchilled throughout a long course of scien- 
 tific study. It has been a maxim of modern 
 science that the true student and the true lover 
 of truth must, so far as possible, divorce his in- 
 tellect from emotion. In some way, he must dis- 
 
 331 
 
Scientific Method and Therapeutic Impulse 
 
 connect his perceptions from hopes and fears and 
 from the normal reactions which attach values to 
 ideas. Just as it has always been true that a 
 surgeon too greatly concerned for his patient's 
 pains does not perform the best operation, so, to 
 a greater extreme (has it been insisted by the 
 scientist), is the seeker after truth handicapped if 
 his observation is accompanied by interest in a 
 practical problem or concern as to the life or death 
 of a patient. In the first place, therefore, while I 
 would urge you to acquire the scientific habit of 
 mind, which discriminates clearly between what it 
 sees and does not see, what is definitely known 
 and what is not definitely known, what can be ac- 
 curately weighed, and measured, and tested by 
 chemical reactions, and what is of necessity 
 hypothetical, — I would, at the same time, urge you 
 to nourish within you as a sacred flame what I 
 have called the therapeutic impulse, the desire to 
 heal and to do good to the whole man. 
 
 This carries with it a corollary which is the 
 second suggestion I would urge on you at this 
 time, and that is throughout all your dealing with 
 facts and tissues and chemical elements, to re- 
 member that, after all, you will find yourselves 
 called to minister not to tissues or bones as such, 
 unless some of you are so unfortunate as to be 
 made coroners and to find autopsies an important 
 part of your profession, but you will be called to 
 minister to living men who are not, as the old 
 psychology would have us believe, bodies with a 
 soul placed inside of them, or souls temporarily 
 
 332 
 
Scientific Method and Therapeutic Impulse 
 
 hampered by a somewhat troublesome body, but 
 who are a unity in their being, manifesting their 
 life in both physiological and psychological phe- 
 nomena. For this reason, the physician who en- 
 ters upon his practice in the spirit in which he 
 would begin work in a morgue, is only half 
 equipped. You will find that in addition to your 
 scientific knowledge, personality will count for 
 much in practice. Do not throw away, therefore, 
 during your course any vitality or strength of 
 personality which you may possess, but on the 
 contrary, seek to strengthen in every way possible 
 those moral fibers which go to make up what we 
 call character and which you will find a valuable 
 asset in healing. A great man is not necessarily 
 a great physician, but you will find it hard to 
 discover an eminent medical career which had not 
 the backing of strong manhood. 
 
 The university this summer, at a cost of about 
 $120,000, has increased the facilities for labora- 
 tory research and instruction and we have large 
 plans for further improvements which may, I 
 trust, sometime see fulfillment. I do not feel, how- 
 ever, that the university will be doing its full 
 duty in the matter of medical education until it is 
 able also to provide a suitable place of residence 
 for students from a distance and to do its part 
 toward making its men not only well informed ac- 
 cording to the latest scientific methods, but strong 
 and well equipped on all sides of their person- 
 alities so that they may carry with them in the 
 personal contact which their profession requires, 
 
 333 
 
Scientific Method and Therapeutic Impulse 
 
 strength and healing for both mind and body. 
 I congratulate you upon entering this college at 
 a time when it is better equipped than ever before, 
 both in instructors and plant, to give the best 
 medical education. I congratulate you on coming 
 to this college better prepared in point of pre- 
 liminary education than any class which has en- 
 tered in the past. I congratulate you on your 
 Dean — a man whose hearty interest in your wel- 
 fare is as big and broad, as strong and kindly, as 
 his corporal presence. I congratulate you on be- 
 ginning your first year 's work under such a master 
 of his art as the new head of the Department of 
 Anatomy, Professor Senior. I congratulate you 
 upon entering upon the study of medicine at a 
 time of stress and controversy; at a time when 
 medical education is being subjected to investiga- 
 tion and criticism ; when it is being attacked within 
 by its friends and assailed from without by its 
 foes ; when animal experimentation, the very basis 
 of modern medical science, is being misrepresented 
 and misrated; when the profession Avhich has re- 
 tained preeminently the professional spirit of 
 service and which is probably the freest as a whole 
 of any body of men from the spirit of greed and 
 personal aggrandizement, is attacked as a trust, — 
 for unjust and harmful as are these attacks, they 
 will raise up friends as well as foes. They will 
 direct public attention to a subject which has been 
 too long ignored. They will mean a burning away 
 of dead tissue and new life and vigor, and, as it 
 is said that more male children are born to a 
 
 334 
 
Scientific Method and Therapeutic Impulse 
 
 nation in time of war, so doubtless will these times 
 of stress and criticism send forth from this uni- 
 versity more than the average number of men of 
 marked strength. 
 
 There is enough of the fire of battle in the air, 
 enough of the romance of discovery in the labora- 
 tories about us, to stir the pulses and kindle the 
 eyes, I am sure, of every one of you. On behalf 
 of the university, I wish you success. 
 
 335 
 
FRATERNITY IDEALS 
 
 TO one who left the chapter almost eighteen 
 years ago, the Delta seems more at home in 
 this neighborhood than in the strange fields in 
 which it has lately wandered. If you were to seek 
 the center of the triangle formed by the three loca- 
 tions of the Delta — on Broadway, University 
 Place and Eleventh Street, and South Washington 
 Square — you would find that the committee on 
 this reunion had fixed on a very fair compromise. 
 
 The active men of the chapter of that day are 
 widely scattered. Brother Adams, who acted as 
 my guide to the first meeting of the Delta which 
 I attended, is in Syria. Brother Frost, in whose 
 charge I was placed as an initiate, is or was in 
 Shanghai, China. Last month I had a letter from 
 him, saying that probably it would be necessary 
 for him to discontinue the practice of law in the 
 United States Court at Shanghai, because the revo- 
 lutionists had left no court to practice in. As 
 spectacular evidence of the overthrow of the gov- 
 ernment, he enclosed a banknote of the old regime, 
 which he said was one of many hundreds thrown 
 out on the streets, without value. 
 
 It is rather an age of overhauling and upturn- 
 ing, of stock-taking, surveys and estimates, and 
 
 Address to graduates of Delta Chapter of the Psi Upsilon Fra- 
 ternity, 1912. 
 
 / 
 
Fraternity Ideals 
 
 fraternities have come in for their share of the 
 general investigation. The most notable critical 
 examination of fraternities is that of Mr. Birds- 
 eye in his book on ' '■ The American College. ' ' You 
 may have noticed that last week a committee re- 
 ported on high school fraternities, stating that 
 whatover might be the merits of the system in 
 colleges, fraternities were an unmitigated evil in 
 high schools. Even the university which sought 
 to avoid the problems of fraternities by banishing 
 them from the campus, has had a battle lost and a 
 battle won over the question of eating clubs or 
 near-fraternities. A notable serial is now run- 
 ning in one of our leading magazines, in which the 
 discussion centers about the effect of the society 
 system at another leading university upon the 
 manhood of the students. 
 
 Along with criticism has gone a great deal of 
 self-examination. I received last month a request 
 from a general officer of the Zeta Psi Fraternity 
 for a report upon the scholastic standing of the 
 members of their local chapter. President Schur- 
 man of Cornell announced at the beginning of the 
 semester this month, that he would hereafter at 
 the beginning of each term make public a list, 
 giving the relative rating of fraternities in point 
 of scholarship. The President of Harvard Uni- 
 versity has taken the lead in propounding the ques- 
 tion of how to secure the interest in the things of 
 the mind for which the college properly stands, 
 and a great deal of thought is being given to the 
 answer to the question by college officers at the 
 
 337 
 
Fraternity Ideals 
 
 present day. As yet we have reached no agree- 
 ment as to a definition of liberal education, but I 
 think we are all gradually coming to the conclu- 
 sion that liberal education, as some one has ex- 
 pressed it, does not consist in being able to read 
 a speedometer and write a check. 
 
 There are certain hopeful signs of the times. 
 The establishment of the Elizabethan Club at Yale 
 by Alexander Smith Cochran by the gift of 
 several hundred thousand dollars, in order that 
 there may be a place at that university where an 
 interest in things literary may seem normal and 
 not the eccentricity of a grind; the aims and 
 methods of our own Andiron Club, and other 
 similar organizations throughout the country, in- 
 dicate that there will be a renewal of brotherhoods 
 in which a common intellectual interest is the 
 bond of union. The monogram of the City Club 
 of this city is made up of a small c inside of a 
 large C. The Club, they say, is divided into two 
 parties ; those who say the large C stands for City 
 and the small c for club, and those who say the 
 large C stands for Club and the small c for city. 
 We are all agreed that the U of Psi TJ. stands for 
 Union, but some would interpret the Psi as stand- 
 ing for supper, the union being based entirely on 
 social tastes ; while others conceive that it was in 
 the minds of the authors of our noble liturgy that 
 there should be also union in the finer things of 
 the spirit. 
 
 I trust our fraternities will never become pri- 
 marily eating clubs. In our old days we dined 
 
 338 
 
Fraternity Ideals 
 
 together but rarely, and I doubt if any subsequent 
 class of Psi U's ever became more closely knit 
 than were the Psi U's of '94. The Delta was one 
 of the first Greek Letter chapters of the country 
 to be made the beneficiary of a legacy and the good 
 example of Ogden Butler was followed by Brother 
 Webb last year. I trust the custom may grow, 
 and lest any of you should feel that when the 
 House is free of debt the only bequests acceptable 
 will be fine paintings and table services of gold 
 and silver, I want to suggest that the way is open 
 to endow teaching fellowships in connection with 
 the Chapter. I cannot, of course, speak for the 
 Council or Faculty, but I feel confident that a plan 
 might be worked out to the mutual advantage of 
 the College and Chapter, by which if the Chapter 
 fell heir to $10,000 or $20,000, it would nominate 
 to the university a Psi U alumnus as a teaching 
 fellow, who should be appointed by the university 
 as a member of the Faculty, but who should be 
 paid by the fraternity, live in the Fraternity 
 House for one or two years, and represent in the 
 life of the fraternity the scholastic side of college 
 life. The stipend should not be so large as to 
 make the financial inducement a primary one, be- 
 cause the success of the plan would depend on 
 securing a man with an irrepressible thirst for 
 knowledge, and the kind of effulgent character 
 which disseminates an interest in things intellec- 
 tual as naturally and irresistibly as some other one 
 whistles "rag." 
 Mr. Birdseye in his book has insisted that the 
 339 
 
Fraternity Ideals 
 
 fraternity shall be regarded as the home of the 
 student, while the college is regarded as his place 
 of business. If, however, we are to produce our 
 share of great scholars and thinkers in America, 
 our share of the great poets, authors and scien- 
 tists, we must return to the older idea of the col- 
 lege as the common home of the students. To 
 my mind, it is carrying the doctrine of specializa- 
 tion too far to make fraternities exclusively social 
 organizations. The fruit of such a theory of 
 fraternity was shown at the last convention of our 
 fraternity in this city, when no subject on the long 
 list of toasts carried any hint that the fraternity 
 was in any way connected with an institution of 
 learning, or set any store by the increase or diffu- 
 sion of knowledge. 
 
 340 
 
DEDICATION OF BAKEE HALL 
 
 IT is my agreeable duty, Mr. Chairman, to report 
 on behalf of the building conamittee the comple- 
 tion of the Cornelius Baker Hall of Philosophy. 
 Mrs. Kennedy's generous offer was first an- 
 nounced to the council of the university by the 
 Chancellor Emeritus, at a special meeting held 
 May 13th, 1912. The council at once accepted the 
 offer, and entrusted the erection of the building 
 to the building committee of four, one of whom — 
 the late William F. Havemeyer — was removed by 
 death after the award of the contracts, but before 
 the completion of the building. The committee 
 was fortunate in securing as architect Mr. Wilham 
 D. Crow, of the firm Crow, Lewis & Wickenhoef er, 
 who had been associated with Mr. Stanford White 
 in the erection of Language Hall and the Library ; 
 and who was, therefore, thoroughly familiar both 
 with the general scheme for the quadrangle, as 
 conceived by Stanford White, and also with the 
 details of construction of Language Hall, of which 
 it was intended the Hall of Philosophy should be, 
 architecturally, a reproduction. The committee 
 were also glad to avail themselves of the offer of 
 the firm of McKim, Mead & White, to act as con- 
 Address at dedication of the Cornelius Baker Hall of Philos- 
 ophy, New York University, University Heights, New York City, 
 October, 1914. 
 
Dedication of Baker Hall 
 
 suiting architects. Plans were matured during 
 the summer; and on November 6th, 1912, not quite 
 two years ago, the general contract for construc- 
 tion was awarded to the E. E. Paul Company, who 
 have again earned the gratitude of the university 
 for the careful and workmanhke manner in which 
 the present contract has been carried out. Work 
 progressed rapidly, and we confidently hoped the 
 building would be finished within a year, and that 
 these exercises of dedication might have been held 
 in November, 1913. The spring floods of 1913 in 
 Ohio, however, destroyed the factory which held 
 the contract for the roof-tile, and caused a delay 
 of six months in the execution of the order, the 
 tile not being obtainable elsewhere in the United 
 States. The building in the meantime was fitted 
 with a temporary roof, which permitted its use 
 by classes ; and the tile having finally been secured, 
 the building was completed, accepted by the com- 
 mittee, and the final payments made on May 25th, 
 1914. Owing to the absence of the donor in 
 Europe, the dedication, however, has been de- 
 ferred until this time. The donor's original offer 
 was to provide the cost of the building, not to 
 exceed $90,000. The committee is glad to be able 
 to report that the building is completed for the 
 sum of $90,042.45. This includes the cost of light- 
 ing, fixtures, and steam main connections ; but does 
 not include any heating plant or dynamos, the 
 building being connected with the university heat- 
 ing and lighting system already installed, nor 
 the cost of excavation, nor the foundations — which 
 
 342 
 
Dedication of Baker Hall 
 
 were put in place at the time of the erection of 
 the Library some years since. On Thanksgiving 
 Day, 1912, when the contract prices and estimates 
 for the new building were reported to the donor, 
 Mrs. Kennedy most generously offered to add to 
 her original gift $5,000 for furniture, and $10,000 
 conditioned on securing $20,000 for the completion 
 of that section of the colonnade of the Hall of 
 Fame adjoining the Hall of Philosophy, in order 
 that the work might, if possible, be carried on at 
 the same time as the erection of this building. 
 Gifts were later secured to meet Mrs. Kennedy's 
 conditional offer ; and our guests to-day are invited 
 not only to inspect this building, but also to inspect 
 the colonnade about the quadrant, which serves as 
 a frame to enhance the picture. The Hall of Phil- 
 osophy thus completes a group of educational 
 buildings which is generally conceded to form 
 one of the notable creations of American collegiate 
 architecture. You will see that the building is 
 severely plain, in accordance with the dictates of 
 Mr. White's classic genius; and depends for its 
 beauty entirely upon its proportions and upon the 
 warmth of its color. It is — as a college building 
 ought to be — a workaday building. Its stairway, 
 for example, is not and does not profess to be any- 
 thing but a convenient way for boys to get up and 
 down. The size of the building is determined by 
 the size of the classes required; and the size of 
 the windows by the demands for light made by 
 modern eyes. The rooms are rectangular, the hall 
 spaces are no larger than are needed to permit 
 
 343 
 
Dedication of Baker Hall 
 
 the dispersal of classes ; and the building is, there- 
 fore, economical to heat and to clean. At the same 
 time, it provides private offices for instructors, 
 which are the envy of instructors who teach in 
 more pretentious structures. There are nine of 
 these offices, besides nine class-rooms, two labora- 
 tories, the museum room, and this auditorium. 
 When fully occupied, instruction can be given to 
 over 600 students in this building at one time. 
 In 1891, when Mrs. Kennedy lent a helping hand 
 to the uptown movement by offering her house for 
 a parlor meeting, University Heights was only a 
 philosopher's dream. To-day, thanks to Mr. John 
 Stewart Kennedy, the campus on which this build- 
 ing stands, valued at over a million dollars, is 
 free of debt ; while t*he buildings already here rep- 
 resent another million and a half. We could not 
 trade the entire grounds and buildings for one 
 model battle-ship; but then we do not want to. 
 The two and a half millions are, we believe, more 
 permanently and efficiently invested in their pres- 
 ent form. 
 
 This Hall of Philosophy is a memorial to 
 Cornelius Baker. It thus not only bears an 
 honored name, but is by that name linked closely 
 with the early history of the university. Mr. 
 Baker was not only one of the founders of this 
 university, a member of its Council during the 
 five trying years 1834-1838, a subscriber to its 
 first $100,000 endowment fund, the first donor of 
 books to its library ; but was also one of the build- 
 ing committee which had charge of the erection of 
 
 344 
 
Dedication of Baker Hall 
 
 the Gothic building on Washington Square. We 
 have no report of that building committee to serve 
 as our precedent to-day ; but I learn from the diary 
 of the eldest son of Cornelius Baker^ — William 
 Edgar Baker, who entered the university in 1833, 
 and who was one of three out of a class of twenty 
 who completed the course, that when he entered 
 in September, 1833 — ''Buildings had not yet been 
 erected, but a house in Chambers Street, near 
 Chatham Street was used as a temporary accom- 
 modation." (In giving courses this year, there- 
 fore, in the new Municipal Building, astride Cham- 
 bers Street, the university is but re-occupying an 
 earlier position.) In 1835, however, William 
 Edgar Baker writes — "I commenced my Junior 
 year with my class at the University, the building 
 on Washington Square being sufficiently com- 
 pleted to admit of entering it, which although 
 unfinished, we found more commodious than the 
 cramped place in Chambers Street. In July fol- 
 lowing the University session closed as usual ; but 
 the commencement was postponed until the next 
 session in October, in order that it might be held 
 in the new chapel, which, however, they were not 
 able to accomplish, as it was not finished. In 
 June 1837 my collegiate studies drew to a close. 
 We had our Commencement on the 20th of July 
 in the chapel of the university, which having been 
 lately finished, this was the first time that it had 
 been used for that purpose. According to the 
 appointment of the Faculty, I delivered the Latin 
 salutatory on that occasion." We have, there- 
 
 345 
 
Dedication of Baker Hall 
 
 fore, no greater delay in completion to report, 
 than the building committee on which Cornelius 
 Baker served. 
 
 I learned from this same diary that not only 
 was Cornelius Baker a practical business-man, 
 serving on the building committee which com- 
 pleted the Washington Square Building, in spite 
 of strikes, delays, the great jEire of 1835, and the 
 financial panic of 1837; not only did he serve 
 as Chairman of the Finance Committee and of the 
 committee which prepared the plan for the Medical 
 School ; but that he was a lover of books, and that 
 he supplemented his own education as a young 
 man by extensive reading. This appreciation of 
 books he handed down to his son, who records with 
 exactness in his diary, as he visits the various col- 
 lege towns in vacation, the number of volumes 
 then to be found in the libraries of Harvard, of 
 Amherst, of Dartmouth and of Union. I learned 
 too that he was a man of broad civic interests, 
 so that when he took a journey for the sake of his 
 health in the vacation of Junior year, he tarries in 
 Kentucky and calls upon Henry Clay, not hitherto 
 known to him, and talks with him of slavery and 
 politics. He was a man too of a fine sense of 
 duty; so that when his son and other members 
 of his family removed to the Spring Street Church, 
 which was up town, and nearer their house on 
 Greenwich Street, the son recorded — ''My father 
 continues at Dey Street, as that church is in need 
 of the assistance of some able men. ' ' Of the per- 
 sonal appearance of Cornelius Baker, we have the 
 
 346 
 
Dedication of Baker Hall 
 
 testimony of his grandson, who writes — *'I 
 distinctly remember the personal appearance of 
 my grandfather Cornelius, who died in 1868, when 
 I was twelve years of age. He was above the 
 average height, rather slender in build, with a 
 wealth of white hair; dignified in his manner," 
 
 Mindful of the important part Cornelius Baker 
 played in the beginnings of this university, grate- 
 ful for the magnificent legacy of his son-in-law, 
 encouraged and enriched by the kindly interest 
 and faith in this university cherished by his daugh- 
 ter through all the vicissitudes of its history, we 
 rejoice that this building is to bear the name of 
 Baker Hall. 
 
 The committee was instructed, however, not only 
 to build a building which should bear the name of 
 Cornelius Baker, but instructed also to build a 
 Hall of Philosophy, where the ideals of liberal 
 culture in which Cornelius Baker believed might 
 flourish and find expression. We have built it 
 therefore for Philosophy, but in no narrow sense, 
 including with Philosophy, Political Science, 
 Sociology, and the sciences of History and 
 Economics, upon which Political Science is so de- 
 pendent. It has not been our intention to stretch 
 the term so as to include all that counted under 
 the term Philosophy in the days of Cornelius 
 Baker — the subdivisions of Mental Philosophy, 
 Moral Philosophy, and Natural Philosophy. 
 The accommodation which the Hall of Philosophy 
 offers to Biology and Geology is intended to be 
 temporary; and these sciences will withdraw from 
 
 347 
 
Dedication of Baker Hall 
 
 Philosophy's all-inclusive roof, as they have in 
 the larger world of thought, so soon as they can 
 find for themselves an independent home. 
 
 And yet, as we examine the college world of to- 
 day, we cannot but be impressed by the fact, that 
 the great task for Philosophy as a college disci- 
 pline, if not for a Hall of Philosophy, is a task of 
 inclusion rather than exclusion, of synthesis rather 
 than analysis. We have been busily engaged the 
 last half century in parceling out the field of 
 knowledge in small sections, where every part 
 may be thoroughly and painstakingly studied by 
 specialists. One by one the various sciences have 
 fenced in their own ground, and have left Philos- 
 ophy's parental roof, building for themselves 
 larger and more richly furnished homes. So 
 rapid has been the expansion of knowledge that 
 the modern student feels lost among so many new 
 and extensive buildings, and inquires anxiously at 
 each door — "Is this the home of Truth; or can 
 you tell me in which house she lives?" We need, 
 therefore, for this new city an inquiry desk, a 
 bureau of information, and a porter's lodge; or 
 as one college president has suggested, we need a 
 Professor of Things-in-General, large enough to 
 fill the chair which Philosophy once assumed to 
 fill. 
 
 Certain it is, that the college needs to-day a 
 teacher of values, who will show the significance 
 and meaning of various kinds of knowledge, and 
 will attempt an answer not only to that modern 
 question — ^''What knowledge is of most worth?", 
 
 348 
 
Dedication of Baker Hall 
 
 but to that older question — "What are the mutual 
 relations and relative values of thought and of 
 action, of faith and of sight? ^^ No building on 
 the college campus therefore, in this day of science 
 and of science applied to business and to welfare, 
 should play a more important part in shaping the 
 world's destinies than a Hall of Philosophy. The 
 significance of the American college itself in the 
 past has lain largely in the fact that it molded 
 a man's philosophy of life. If the college of the 
 future is to retain an important place in our 
 scheme of education, alongside of schools of ap- 
 plied science, of commerce and of education, or 
 interpose between high schools and schools of 
 theology, law and medicine, it must have men 
 qualified to teach a philosophy of knowledge, to 
 teach even a philosophy of life ; to teach not dog- 
 matically, and yet with authority, as the seer 
 revealing a vision, arousing faith, teaching men to 
 believe, and believing, greatly to dare. 
 
 The task which the donor and the Council set 
 the building committee is to-day complete ; and as 
 we report the building ready for final dedication 
 to university purposes, we express the hope that 
 those who teach within these walls may ever be 
 reminded that the windows are large, in order that 
 all possible light may enter; the doors are broad, 
 open to both East and West, and never to be 
 closed to any discoveries in the world of fact, for 
 fear the rush of new facts may smother rather 
 than fan the truth; that the building stands not 
 isolated, but linked by the colonnade with the other 
 
 349 
 
Dedication of Baker Hall 
 
 buildings of the group, to emphasize the unity of 
 all knowledge and the oneness of all who seek 
 after truth. It stands, a sort of interpreter's 
 house, between the halls both of other peoples and 
 other times, and the Library — storehouse of the 
 world 's accumulated wisdom, on the one side, and 
 the workhouses of scientific research which are to 
 add constantly fresh facts to the world's knowl- 
 edge, on the other ; and finally, that it stands upon 
 a hill, for the purpose that what is done here may 
 not be hid, but that what is done here, and done 
 rightly, may give light to all that are in the larger 
 household of knowledge. 
 
 350 
 
RELIGION AND EDUCATION 
 
 THE College Board and the Presbyterian col- 
 leges of the United States rejoice with you 
 in this coming of age of Occidental College and 
 the successful ending of its first era. So signifi- 
 cant has been its history these twenty-five years, 
 so full of promise the new era just opening, so 
 cordial the welcome of your sterling president, 
 that it seems worth while to have crossed a con- 
 tinent to join in commemorating your quarter cen- 
 tennial. 
 
 The California of yesterday is more celebrated 
 for religion than for education. The religion of 
 the missions had little respect for profane learn- 
 ing. To the Franciscan fathers of your pastoral 
 era, as to many of our business men to-day, the 
 whole duty of man might be summed up in the 
 words work and worship; a sound creed econom- 
 ically, if success may be measured by the tempo- 
 rary accumulation and increase of wealth, without 
 much concern for the generations to follow. As 
 one of your own poets has said : 
 
 "Where are they now, Tower, 
 The locusts and wild honey ? 
 Where is the sacred dower, 
 That the Bride of Christ was given ? 
 
 Address as President of the College Board of the Presbyterian 
 Church of the U. S. A. at Occidental College, Pasadena, Cal., 1914. 
 
Religion and Education 
 
 Gone to the wielders of power, 
 The misers and minters of money ; 
 Gone for the greed that is their creed — 
 And these in the land have thriven. 
 What then were'st thou, and what art now. 
 And wherefore hast thou striven ? " 
 
 The California of to-day is more celebrated for 
 education than religion. We know more of your 
 great educational system culminating in your 
 great State University, more of your Leland Stan- 
 ford, more of Occidental College than we do of 
 any cathedral or church which to-day may be try- 
 ing to regain for religion the place in the com- 
 munity once held by the missions. 
 
 Work and worship were not enough, are not 
 enough to-day to perpetuate a civilization. The 
 God of the pastoral Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is 
 also the God of David the statesman, of Solomon 
 the sage, but above all of that Jesus Avho lingered 
 in the Temple among the teachers, both hearing 
 and asking them questions. No son of man rises 
 to the full dignity of manhood who has not some- 
 thing of this inquiring spirit. It is this inquiring 
 spirit which has built your colleges and universi- 
 ties, and has revealed you to the world as sharing 
 the joy in existing knowledge and the desire to 
 know more, which characterizes all those civiliza- 
 tions to which the future seems to belong. 
 
 None of you need regret, therefore, as you look 
 back over the sacrifices and struggles of the last 
 twenty-five years, the cost in money or even in 
 anguish of Occidental College. Certainly the Col- 
 
 352 
 
Religion and Education 
 
 lege Board does not regret the $30,000 which it 
 has had the privilege of transmitting to you from 
 the church. As you abandon the old site and to- 
 morrow open your splendid buildings, you and 
 we, counting the cost and not unmindful of the 
 sacrifices of those who are not here to enjoy this 
 celebration, may say without reservation: "It has 
 been worth it all. ' ' 
 
 You have outgrown the old home, built with 
 much care and pride. You have attained major- 
 ity, and doubtless are saying with Paul: ''Forget- 
 ting what is behind, putting away childish things, 
 we will press forward." With that zest for the 
 new so characteristic of our glorious American 
 youthfulness, we would avoid at all hazards being 
 found old-fashioned. This has been a Presby- 
 terian college and a Christian college. Is religion 
 one of the old-fashioned things to be left behind 
 as the college moves to its new home? Shall we 
 say, as they say in Japan : ' ' Christianity seems to 
 be authoritative up to the university, but he who 
 enters the university rises above"? Even in our 
 own country there is abroad in the educational 
 world to-day a sentiment that religion is a good 
 thing for the young, that it is perhaps from the 
 politico-economic point of view even a necessary 
 thing for the rank and file, if any respect for au- 
 thority is to continue in our civilization. In the 
 realms of science there is being fostered a sort of 
 gentlemen's code, which believes, as one of our 
 eastern university presidents has phrased it re- 
 cently, that ''a gentleman understands that it is 
 
 353 
 
Religion and Education 
 
 neither necessary nor expedient to teach to the 
 young everything which the experience and reflec- 
 tion of an older man may have taught him to be- 
 lieve." We are reminded of the esoteric doc- 
 trines of India, and of Rome's augurs going about 
 their task with a wink for each other. 
 
 There is another group less indifferent to the 
 fundamental truths of religion, who think the ques- 
 tion is simplified if we define religion as worship, 
 and say the schools shall teach but not worship, 
 the church shall worship but not teach. The 
 church may bow down like the heathen in its 
 blindness, but the essential thing is that it bow 
 down ; the college will stand erect and do the see- 
 ing. 
 
 Both of these doctrines are insidious and per- 
 versive. The Lord Jehovah is one God ; He is no 
 God of Humbug, but the God of Truth. He is the 
 same God for the scientist and for the college 
 cook. Democracy is already doomed when its 
 leaders whisper in the lobby a different faith and 
 a different fact from that which they declaim to 
 the people on the platform. Granted that teach- 
 ing must be progressive, that there are things 
 which even the Divine Teacher deferred telling, 
 because His disciples could not yet bear them ; we 
 must remember at the same time, that He made no 
 secret of His intention, which was to send the 
 Spirit which should lead them into all truth. He 
 acknowledged no harmful knowledge. With His 
 death the veil of the Temple was rent, and religion 
 and all truth became not the esoteric possession of 
 
 354 
 
Religion and Education 
 
 any priestly order, but the House of our Father, 
 into which whosoever will may enter. 
 
 But it is said, this is an age of specialization. 
 IWhy not then the school for teaching, the church 
 for worship? Will not both then be better done? 
 But specialization may be carried too far. Simon 
 Stylites on his pillar carried specialization in re- 
 ligion as far as any one, and we hardly regard 
 the result a success. No, religion as we know it 
 is a ''way," a method — to use a pedagogical term. 
 He that pursues happiness loses it. He that seeks 
 religion, as such, withers. 
 
 As Winston Churchill said in an address in New 
 York just before I left the coast — a true religion 
 demands unity of the soul. We can't have our 
 religion one thing and our business another, and 
 our scientific beliefs another. Religion, if it be 
 true religion, must permeate and energize every 
 department of life; the home, the office, the fac- 
 tory, the laboratory of the scientist, and the work- 
 shop of the literary man, as well as the synagognie 
 and the church. 
 
 Whether you will it or not, religion will go with 
 you from your old to your new home. Some sort 
 of a Weltanschauung will permeate the atmos- 
 phere of your new buildings, no matter how good 
 the ventilation, before you have been there very 
 long. Religion cannot be left behind in the mov- 
 ing. The earthem vessel in which we hold our 
 treasure may be shattered in moving from genera- 
 tion to generation, by some iconoclastic Luther or 
 Calvin or Wesley; the Ark of the Covenant may 
 
 355 
 
Religion and Education 
 
 itself go astray or be profaned ; you may, if you 
 will, even destroy the Temple itself, and before 
 you can speak of a yesterday, a to-day or a to- 
 morrow men will again be pointing their steps by 
 something which they hold supremely dear. 
 
 The College Board but reflects the spirit of the 
 church which it represents, when it says it is not 
 concerned for the form; it is very greatly con- 
 cerned for the essence. We want Occidental to 
 be Christian, we want Occidental even to be Pres- 
 byterian, in the future as in the past. We Avant 
 its faculty to believe and to teach that men cannot 
 live by bread alone, but need every word that pro- 
 ceedeth out of the mouth of God. We want them 
 to believe in the sacredness of the individual, and 
 to teach that his very hairs are numbered; and 
 that, therefore, no man may be used as a thing, 
 nor the same laws of economics held applicable to 
 wheat and to the laborer who raises the wheat. 
 We want them to believe that God is knowable, and 
 to teach that He has not left Himself without a 
 witness, and that He is revealing Himself to the 
 pure in heart, who seek Him. We want them to 
 believe and to teach that no calculus of earth's 
 chances is complete which stops at the grave, that 
 it is not necessarily only the fool or the knave who 
 dies a failure on the cross, or ruins his life by 
 fantastic sacrifice. We want them to be Presby- 
 terian enough to believe in the dignity of the sons 
 of God, so that because they fear God and serve 
 Him alone, they shall be without fear even of their 
 
 356 
 
Religion and Education 
 
 own college president. We want them to be Pres- 
 byterian enough to believe that God is a Spirit, 
 and that worship to be acceptable must not be 
 childish, but the worship of the intelligent man 
 wise enough to be humble, must be bound by no 
 formula of time or place, neither in these Cali- 
 fornia mountains nor in our AUeghanies; to be- 
 lieve and teach that he who w^or ships the Father 
 must worship Him in spirit and in all the fullness 
 of all the truth which his Father has revealed to 
 him. Ah, if we could have but one college in the 
 United States permeated with the spirit of Christi- 
 anity at white heat, free with the freedom for 
 which our Presbyterian fathers have struggled 
 and paid, there would be no need to speak of 
 Christian education or to talk of synods or col- 
 lege boards. 
 
 And to you, Occidental, we look to work with us 
 in your new home as in your old, to realize that 
 ideal we have in mind, when we speak of a college 
 as Christian and even as Presbyterian. 
 
 Then may it be true of you as of the children of 
 Joseph, that not only shall you outgrow this Mount 
 Ephraim which is too narrow for you, seeing you 
 are a great people, for as much as the Lord has 
 blessed you hitherto ; but you shall be able to say, 
 ''the hill of the land of the Perizzites and of the 
 giants is not enough for us, but to us shall belong 
 the towns of the Canaanites and the Valley of Jez- 
 reel; seeing thou art a great people, thou shalt 
 have not one lot only. ' ' 
 
 357 
 
THE FORWARD LOOKING PRESBY- 
 TERIAN 
 
 THE topic assigned to me this evening is ' ' The 
 Forward Looking Presbyterian.'^ In the 
 early days of Pennsylvania, Presbyterianism was 
 the frontiersman's religion. It satisfied and sus- 
 tained the new settler, whose hope was in the fu- 
 ture. It encouraged individual initiative, inde- 
 pendent thought. With God's book in his hand, 
 and God immediately accessible in prayer, the 
 Presbyterian walked resolutely into the future, 
 awaited the coming of the new day without mis- 
 giving, secure because of a firm grasp upon cer- 
 tain rock-ribbed principles tested by fire and per- 
 secution in the years of leagues and covenants. 
 
 We miss something of this independent fear- 
 lessness and joyous confidence in our ability to 
 deal with the problems of the new day as they 
 arise, in the Presbyterianism of to-day. There is 
 more talk of holding the fort and standing on the 
 burning deck. We speak of the God of Paul, of 
 Calvin, of Knox, and forget the teaching of Christ, 
 that the fact that God is the God of Abraham, 
 Isaac and Jacob, proves that Abraham, Isaac and 
 Jacob are of the hving, not that God is a God of 
 the dead. 
 
 Address before the Presbyterian Social Union of Philadelphia. 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 There have been periods in the history of the 
 church when the highest conception of God was 
 a God at rest, a God of dignity who had under- 
 gone the labor of creation and who rested in one 
 eternal Sabbath. The God which Jesus knew was 
 a God of whom he could say, ' ' the Father worketh 
 hitherto, ' ' a God from whom proceedeth the spirit 
 of Truth which abideth with men, not a little 
 while as did Jesus, but forever, teaching all things, 
 and guiding into all truth. If the Presbyterian 
 looks forward, into the future, with satisfaction, it 
 is because he sees God at work there, and is look- 
 ing toward God. If the Presbyterian could not 
 believe the doctrine of transubstantiation, it was 
 not because he did not believe that God could be 
 present in the communion but because his God was 
 present in so much besides. Like David, alone 
 with his flocks, he had found Him on the Scotch 
 hills, in the stars, suffusing the firmament, where 
 two or three were gathered together, leading the 
 fighting clans, consoling the stricken and the dy- 
 ing. He could say to God, with the Psalmist, 
 God my God, God my exceeding Joy. 
 
 This consciousness of God as Immanuel, as God 
 with us, of God as real and present to the individ- 
 ual soul without formula and without intermediary 
 has been at all times a characteristic of the Scotch 
 Presbyterian. It has added a mystical element to 
 the life of the stem Presbyterian little understood 
 by those who looked only on the outside. And this 
 consciousness of God as living with us, as thinking 
 with us and in us as a mind which like the human 
 
 359 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 consciousness cannot stand still without disappear- 
 ing in coma, has made the Presbyterian skeptical 
 of the worth of all tendencies in religion which 
 seek to run the molten stream of religious experi- 
 ence into fixed molds and to leave them there 
 to cool and to harden that the form may not be 
 lost for future generations. 
 
 Presbyterianism which began with liturgies and 
 directories of worship has, for the most part, been 
 too busy pioneering to make much use of them. 
 An organization which seeks its genealogy in an 
 Apostolic succession rather than traces its rela- 
 tion direct to a hving God seems to the Presbyter- 
 ian an unnecessary circumlocution. He clings to 
 his eldership, presbyteries, synods and assemblies 
 but is willing to discuss whether the eldership 
 should be for life or a term of years, whether the 
 presbytery should be composed of all resident 
 clergymen or only those with charges, whether the 
 synod should be comprehensive or representative ; 
 and whether the assemblies should meet every 
 year or every four years. He resists any attempt 
 to give him any standardized hymn book and re- 
 jects as essentially irreligious the view that when 
 the church closed the canon of the scriptures, no- 
 tice was thereby served on the Spirit of Grod which 
 was to lead into all truth, that his work in the 
 world was done. To a church of this mind, the 
 forward look has more to show than even the 
 backward look. We have no single symbol which 
 gathers up the significance of the forward look as 
 the cross gathers up and radiates light over the 
 
 360 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 backward look. The key of Peter, the harp, the 
 crown, the lamp ; no one of these weighs in signifi- 
 cance in the Christian mind comparably with the 
 cross. Even John's picture of Jerusalem as a 
 perfect city with a perfect city life, significant as 
 it is to the modern urban mind, lacks the simplicity 
 and unity of the backward looking symbol. The 
 future always labors under this disadvantage com- 
 pared with the past. In the religion of the 
 Jewish church preceding the time of Christ, 
 Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were much more defin- 
 ite figures than the coming Messiah. The law of 
 Moses could be much more definitely grasped than 
 the exhortations of Isaiah, "Ho, every one that 
 thirsteth. ' ' And yet the two factors were always 
 present in the Jewish religion, God the Source and 
 Creator, God, the Eedeemer and Messiah to come. 
 At all times and in all ages there has been a con- 
 flict in the philosophic world between those who 
 conceived of Being and those who conceived of Be- 
 coming as the highest category; between those who 
 viewed the world statically and those who viewed 
 it in terms of process or movement. In our own 
 age it would appear that science has thrown her 
 weight with the latter view and the younger gen- 
 eration begins to think of what is to be, as more 
 important than what is. The younger generation 
 is particularly interested, therefore, in forecast- 
 ing the future development of Protestant churches. 
 To them the significance lies not in ''What have 
 you done!" but in ''What do you set before your- 
 self as worth doing f'^ Why are we here, means 
 
 361 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 to them not what historical evolution produced us, 
 but what picture of a future church, what vision 
 of efficient service to coming generations knits us 
 together in common fellowship to-day. 
 
 Prophets and seers have not been plentiful in 
 America the last generation. Here and there has 
 been one who has had a vision of the world evan- 
 gelized in one generation. Here and there has 
 been one who has had a vision of a Christian state 
 characterized by social justice, by intelligence, by 
 prevention of poverty. But they have been com- 
 paratively few. It has not been an era of cru- 
 sades, with all eyes fixed in one direction, with one 
 object alone worthy of attainment. 
 
 Soon there may come a great change. Even 
 we, in the United States, removed as we are from 
 immediate contact with the great world conflict 
 raging in Europe, expect to share with the Euro- 
 peans in some measure the burden and the oppor- 
 tunities of the new era which all believe must fol- 
 low the war. Has the Presbyterian church medi- 
 tated and wrestled with God as have the men in 
 the trenches through the long hours of the night, 
 and is it ready to give a strained sinew for a 
 spiritual vision and a blessing as the new day 
 dawns'? 
 
 The Presbyterian church, perhaps more than 
 any other church in modem times, has been closely 
 identified with political theory. When the scale 
 hung in the balance as to whether Episcopacy or 
 Presbyterianism should be the state religion of 
 Great Britain, the maxim "no Bishop, no King" 
 
 362 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 turned the scale. When the scale hung in the bal- 
 ance in America as to whether there should be 
 divorce of church and state, the support of Pres- 
 byterians from the North of Ireland desiring 
 above all else freedom to worship God, turned the 
 scale. The Presbyterian has never been very suc- 
 cessful at forgetting on Sundays or at church con- 
 ventions what he sees and hears on Saturday at 
 political conventions or in congress. The Pres- 
 byterians of the South at the time of the Civil 
 War tried to bring this fact home to the conscience 
 of the Northern church, but without much success. 
 Conversely, some Presbyterians would not vote 
 in a nation which left God out of its constitution. 
 The forward looking Presbyterian therefore will 
 recognize in the tirst place that the future of the 
 church is bound up in considerable measure with 
 the future of the state. Our political theory as 
 citizens is likely to re-act on our ecclesiastic theory 
 as churchmen. We already see signs of such re- 
 action. The movement toward pure democracy 
 which has taken place in America the last twenty 
 years has found its reflection in the church. The 
 old distinction between a republican form of gov- 
 ernment and a pure democracy so hotly debated 
 by our ablest men in the early days of this repub- 
 lic has ceased to have very great significance for 
 the average Presbyterian of to-day. So fixed in 
 his mind is the doctrine of the utilitarians, that 
 every one shall count for one and no one for more 
 than one, that when assembled in congregational 
 meetings, in synod, or in assembly he feels per- 
 
 363 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 haps unconsciously that the majority may do what 
 it will; certainly that the majority may do what 
 it will in all matters not covered by specific rules 
 of procedure. That the majority favor a given 
 course is sufficient warrant for action, and there 
 seem to be no restraining principles or recognized 
 concepts defining the proper sphere of legislative 
 action by which the individual may shape his 
 course. The generations which reflected on the 
 bounds to be observed in "government by popular 
 opinion, ' ' have passed, and their conclusions have 
 been forgotten. At recent meetings of the Gen- 
 eral Assembly resolutions have been passed which 
 violate the Presbyterian theory of the rights of the 
 individual conscience and of the proper functions 
 of church government. At recent general assem- 
 blies, resolutions have been passed without regard 
 to whether they lay within the proper province of 
 the assemblies or whether the church had machin- 
 ery for enforcing the resolutions. In other words 
 the Presbyterian church which was distinguished 
 from the Puritan and Independent churches of 
 England by its regard for institutions and for 
 orderly forms of procedure, is in danger of for- 
 saking its middle ground and going over from 
 republicanism to pure democracy. It prefers the 
 democracy of a steel pier as a place of assembly. 
 It dechnes to fix those limitations in the number 
 of members which would be essential to an efficient 
 legislative body. Swayed by orators, it votes two 
 ways on the same subject the same week. ' 
 
 As long ago as Aristotle it was pointed out that 
 ' 364 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 one of the weak points of pure democracy was the 
 fact that it could devise no place for the excep- 
 tional man. The argument as presented by 
 Aristotle was, if the man is exceptional and we 
 admit that he is superior to us, we ought to accept 
 his guidance. But this would be to be ruled by him 
 and not to rule ourselves. Therefore, the only al- 
 ternative is to expel the exceptional man if we are 
 to remain a democracy. One of the weak points of 
 Presbyterianism to-day is its apparent inability to 
 find a place of usefulness for the exceptional man. 
 Only the man that does things as the majority are 
 accustomed to do them, only the man who sees 
 things as the majority have been taught to see 
 them, can be tolerated. Because, if a man be cast- 
 ing out devils, who follows not us, there may be 
 some question as to whether authority rests in us 
 or in God. This is a danger which threatens our 
 colleges quite as much as our churches, the ten- 
 dency to decry the exceptional man because he 
 will not follow the mob. The absence of a pro- 
 per respect for personality may perhaps account 
 for the fact that America is not producing her 
 share of great poets and authors and for the 
 fact that the Presbyterian church when it wants 
 an exceptional man so often crosses the border to 
 Canada or goes across the ocean to Scotland or to 
 England, When by some mischance the church 
 finds in a position of influence within its own fold 
 a man making a stir in the world because he is 
 original, criticism and badgerings begin and the 
 inventive spirit finds it easier to do his work out- 
 
 365 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 side the church. This is what philosophers in all 
 the ages have recognized as the tyranny of democ- 
 racy, and the forward looking Presbyterian will 
 stop and ask himself "do I want pure democracy 
 in Presbyterianism?" "Shall I lend my support 
 to the 'rule of the majority' idea?" "Is the cure 
 of democracy more democracy f'^ or "Shall I de- 
 fine within somewhat narrow lines, the functions 
 of church governing bodies and seek to retain the 
 good of democracy without its evil? " 
 
 Another question is one which has been brought 
 to a head by the war and by the clash of German 
 philosophers with Anglo-Saxon philosophers. 
 This is the question, is Christianity a philosophy 
 for the world, or is it a philosophy for a select 
 few who are to live separate, in a world governed 
 by other laws? Are Christian principles applic- 
 able to the affairs of the state as well as to the 
 life of the individual? Or as Aristotle put it, 
 are the principles of goodness the same for the 
 good man and the good ruler? Certain prominent 
 German philosophers have stated very frankly 
 that in their view Christianity is for the individual 
 and presupposes the state and the powerful nat- 
 ural laws and instincts which operate in the nat- 
 ural man. Did not Christ himself say, "render 
 unto CsBsar the things that are Caesar's"? This 
 question has been brought home to the American 
 citizen very sharply the last year in the discus- 
 sion over peace and preparedness. And if Pres- 
 byterianism is to go forward triumphantly it must 
 come to some conclusion on this debated question. 
 
 366 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 There was a time when a large part of the Chris- 
 tian church believed that a sharp line could be 
 drawn between the affairs of Caesar and the affairs 
 of God and that the affairs of Caesar lay outside 
 the more immediate province of the Christian. 
 With the long continued peace which we have en- 
 joyed in America, with the inheritance of our Puri- 
 tan forefathers, and with the strong religious 
 character of our people, American thought has 
 come to identify the two spheres more closely and 
 to think of a kingdom of God on earth. There 
 are those who say that this dream makes us in- 
 efficient in worldly things and compromising and 
 spotted with the evil of the world in heavenly 
 things. For myself, I cannot see how a church 
 which daily prays, ' ' Thy kingdom come, Thy will 
 be done on earth as it is done in heaven," can con- 
 sistently take any other view than the view that 
 God wills the ultimate Christianizing of human 
 society here on earth and that it is our duty as citi- 
 zens to try and conform our political activity to 
 Christian principles as rapidly as we may. To 
 my mind there are no greater difficulties theoreti- 
 cally in a Christian state than in a Christian in- 
 dividual. If aggrandizement, if self-expression, if 
 the will to live, if self-interest, must still be the 
 controlling principle of the state, it is also a con- 
 trolling principle of the great majority of Chris- 
 tians in their business life. If the Christian in^ 
 dividual can substitute service for aggrandize- 
 ment and find it an efficient business principle for 
 the individual, doubtless the state can do so with 
 
 367 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 equal success. A very great deal hangs, as you 
 will see, on the conclusion which Presbyterianism 
 reaches on this momentous question. The whole 
 scope and purpose of the church's work will be 
 different if Christianity is a philosophy for the 
 state as well as for the individual, from that which 
 it will be if it is merely a philosophy for the in- 
 dividual. 
 
 Another important aspect of the question of the 
 church and nationalism, regards the forms of the 
 church's organization. Ought the Presbyterian 
 church to be as broad as the nation, as high and 
 as low as the nation? Ought it to try to reflect 
 in its councils the thought of all the states! 
 Ought it to try and include in the individual church 
 people of all classes in society? General Wood's 
 strongest argument for universal, compulsory 
 military service is the unifying influence upon our 
 national life of requiring all men to do some one 
 thing at the same time. Cannot Presbyterianism 
 perform a larger service in this direction? It is 
 unfortunate that as Presbyterians we perpetuate 
 the differences of the Civil War. Few realize 
 probably how much unifying influence there is 
 merely in the forms of organization and how 
 forms of organization tend to isolate those on the 
 two sides of the line, so that the leaders of the 
 Southern church are hardly known to the leaders 
 of the Northern church, much less the rank and 
 file. The Presbyterian church has not grappled 
 effectively as yet with the question of how it can 
 piake itself in truth a national church. It has 
 
 368 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 not solved the problem of how to make the church 
 boards national agencies. The Pacific coast 
 complains with some truth that the boards of the 
 church are largely local affairs. The Forward 
 Looking Presbyterian will give some consideration 
 to devising boards and councils made up of rep- 
 resentatives from all parts of the land. It will 
 make provision for leave of absence for a year 
 for its moderator, freeing him from any local duty 
 so that he may belong for the time at least to the 
 whole church, and be free to swing around the 
 circle at least as much as the apostle Paul. 
 
 Again, the Presbyterian church, in view of the 
 present war, and of the questions which it has 
 raised, will set itself with new resolution to the 
 solution of the question, ''how can the Presbyter- 
 ian church do its part toward enlarging the 
 boundaries of loyalty, toward bringing in the in- 
 ternational mind, toward bringing in a kingdom of 
 God which is not a kingdom of Americans or Ca- 
 nadians, or Scotch, or Huguenots, or Reformed, or 
 Waldensians, or Hussites, or even Armenians 
 or Japanese ; but which will be a kingdom of God, 
 our common Father. A step has been taken in 
 this direction in the federation of ^ the churches 
 holding the Reformed faith, another step in the 
 World Conference on Faith and Order, a more re- 
 cent step in the Panama conference, but what has 
 been done in these ways, has been largely the work 
 of great individuals and not a work for which the 
 church has officially made provision. If the Cath- 
 olic church can survive the antagonisms raised by 
 
 369 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 the war between the Catholic bishops of Belgium, 
 Germany and France, it will behoove Presbyter- 
 ians to look to their foundations and to ask them- 
 selves whether they have built broadly enough for 
 the kingdom of God to whose coming they con- 
 fidently look forward. 
 
 The Christian church alone holds the key to the 
 problem of Internationalism and World Peace. 
 Will it use it? Will it teach a divine doctrine of 
 sovereignty"? Will it teach the teaching of Christ, 
 *'He who would be great among you, let him be 
 servant of all"? or will it take the view of the 
 so-called Chinese official that Christ, while a great 
 spiritual leader of individual souls, knew noth- 
 ing of political theory, of economics, or the life of 
 the state, and the view of Bernhardi, — ''Christian 
 morality is based on the law of love. This law 
 can claim no significance for the relations of one 
 country to another. Such a system of politics 
 must inevitably lead men astray"? 
 
 Whatever conclusion he may reach, the For- 
 ward Looking Presbyterian should have, at least, 
 as clear cut convictions as these upon the relations 
 of nation to nation. 
 
 The Forward Looking Presbyterian, in addition 
 to the problem of democracy, the problem of na- 
 tionalism and the problem of internationalism, 
 sees another question closely connected with polit- 
 ical theory which concerns the church. This is 
 the question of Woman Suffrage. Women al- 
 ready vote in a number of States. The last elec- 
 tion showed that a considerable portion of the men 
 
 370 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 of Pennsylvania were willing that they should 
 vote in this commonwealth. Even those most 
 vigorously opposed to the change, feel that they 
 are fighting a losing battle and the most sagacious 
 students of society believe that the stars in their 
 courses fight for suffrage. This being true, the 
 Forward Looking Presbyterian asks himself 
 *'How the church of the future will recognize the 
 changed relations of the sexes and reflect the poli- 
 tical equality of men and women." Even in the 
 past, the Presbyterian church has ministered more 
 successfully to men than to women as compared 
 with some of the other Protestant denominations 
 and has made slow progress in organizing the 
 energy and devotion of its women as a part of the 
 church structure. We have many women teachers 
 in our Sunday Schools, but few, if any, women su- 
 perintendents. We have church boards and syn- 
 odical societies of women, but they are not listed 
 as coordinate agencies of the General Assembly 
 in the annual minutes, and although allowed, like 
 a wife, to hold property in their own name, may 
 not invest their own property without the consent 
 of the finance committee of the men's board. No 
 woman is now eligible to membership on any 
 board nor to office in the local church unless it be 
 as Sunday School teacher, Parish Visitor, or 
 Deaconess, and even the office of Deaconess, recog- 
 nized by the church as scriptural, has been, for 
 the most part, neglected and not organized in any 
 systematic way. The greatest opportunity for 
 women has been given them in the foreign field 
 
 371 
 
The Forward Looking Presbyterian 
 
 where they are permitted to hold appointments 
 from the Foreign Board substantially on a par 
 with the appointments of men. If the Presbyte- 
 rian church looks forward, it must foresee serious 
 problems for the church in connection with the 
 organization of the religious activity of women 
 as a result of the change in the political status 
 of women. The Department of Correction in 
 New York City has been in charge of a woman 
 for a time. The schools of Chicago have been in 
 charge of a woman. Only last week it was sug- 
 gested that the supervision of all the charitable 
 institutions of the State of New York should be 
 in the hands of women. The Young Women's 
 Christian Association, largely through the help 
 of one or two Presbyterian women, have built 
 themselves a great organization side by side with 
 the Young Men's Christian Association. Even 
 the Christian Science church has made a crude at- 
 tempt to solve the problem of the sexes in the or- 
 ganization of the church, while Catholicism, even 
 in its earlier days, as we all know, gave to woman 
 recognition in its theology. The Presbyterian 
 church, if it is to be the church of the future for 
 our college women as well as for our college men, 
 cannot afford to shut its eyes to changing condi- 
 tions. 
 
 372 
 
THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENT IN EDUCATION 
 — A NECESSITY 
 
 w 
 
 HEN the great Jowett was Master of Bal- 
 liol, the Jowett of whom the rhyme ran 
 
 "My name is Jowett, 
 
 I 'm Master of Balliol College, 
 
 What there is to know, I know it. 
 
 And what I don't know, isn't knowledge," 
 
 one of his students in a conference on Philosophy 
 one Smiday said: *^ Master, I have been studying 
 the arguments for the existence of a God, and after 
 considering the matter thoroughly, have been un- 
 able to find sufficient grounds for belief in a God." 
 
 "Young man," said Jowett, "if you don't find 
 a God of some kind before Monday night, you go 
 down. ' ' 
 
 Now that was an instance where the religious 
 element was a necessity in Education, but in a 
 little different sense from that intended by your 
 committee. And yet Jowett was right, because, 
 whether he chooses it or not, consciously or un- 
 consciously, every man who is a student at all, 
 every man who thinks to any degree, has a God of 
 some sort. 
 
 The student may be a devotee at the shrine of 
 reality. Trained in scientific method, taught for 
 years that inaccuracy is the great sin, encouraged 
 
 Address at First Methodist Churcli, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., 1916. 
 
 373 
 
The Religious Element in Education — 
 
 to deny his hopes and desires, striving to rid him- 
 self of old preconceptions, and personal prefer- 
 ences, and to wait humbly at his microscope, at his 
 test tube, at his telescope, for the reahty that may 
 be revealed, gradually there has grown up in his 
 soul a religion, the worship of Truth, the abhor- 
 rence of error, and consciously or unconsciously 
 he worships *'the God of things as they are." 
 
 Or consider a man of artistic temperament 
 strangely stirred by harmonies of sound or of 
 color, filled with ecstasy by the shadings of a sun- 
 set or the proportions of a Parthenon or soothed 
 in blissful rapture by the cadence of an Ovid or 
 a Keats, his soul revolts at all that is distorted, 
 abrupt, unlovely, it seeks out and basks in the 
 beautiful, and consciously or unconsciously wor- 
 ships Beauty, sacrifices all for Beauty, and for- 
 gets the sacredness of human life, and the signifi- 
 cance of homely joys and sorrows. To him ''the 
 Glory that was Greece and the grandeur that was 
 Eome," become the ''regions which are Holy 
 Land. ' ' 
 
 Or the Will rather than the Heart or the Intel- 
 lect may be the dominant force of the man. He 
 may have discovered that when his will comes into 
 conflict with other wills, his will can override. 
 He begins to enjoy the satisfactions of power. He 
 looks about for more worlds to conquer. He asks 
 what are the most effective tools. Why did this 
 man win in this case ? Why did this man triumph 
 in the election, that man go down to defeat ? Why 
 was this man chosen to a fraternity, that man re- 
 
 374 
 
A Necessity 
 
 jected? Was it because of his check book, then I 
 must reenf orce my natural will power with a check 
 book. Was it because of social graces, then I 
 must cultivate social graces. Was it due to some- 
 thing beyond my reach, heredity, blood; — then I 
 must plan for my children what I cannot hope to 
 win for myself. And he worships at the throne of 
 the Great God Success, and sends his missionaries 
 over a thousand seas, that they may magnify his 
 power. 
 
 What is it to have a God? To have something 
 that your soul clings to, that is, to it, the supreme 
 reality, that is alone worth while. 
 
 Religion in this sense is a necessary element in 
 Education, because whether we will have it so or 
 not, our hopes, our desires, our valuations, irre- 
 sistibly arrange themselves in order, and one and 
 another are subordinated, and one becomes su- 
 preme. 
 
 But religion involves another factor, than su- 
 preme love or highest valuation. It involves sub- 
 ordination. 
 
 To be religious you must be able to say, some- 
 thing or some one is greater than I, and to say it 
 consentingly, not rebelliously. The scientist as a 
 rule has this humility, this reverence. The unde- 
 vout astronomer, it is said, is mad. The great 
 physicians feel it toward the mysteries of life. 
 
 The great artists have it, because they are con- 
 scious of how far short their performances fall 
 of the beauty even which they imagine. 
 
 The man who worships success is not likely to 
 375 
 
The Religious Element in Education — 
 
 have it. He trusts in his own right arm, his own 
 clever brain, his own purse. 
 
 The college boy is not likely to have it, because 
 he is in the first flush of youth, he feels new life 
 pulsing within him, the future is his, he knows 
 nothing as yet of the limitations of his environ- 
 ment, or the bitterness of defeat. If he worships 
 a God, it is likely to be a God like the God of the 
 Psalmist, who fights on his side, a fellow victor, for 
 whom the fight is the thing, the lust of conflict; 
 not in a God who gives or expects personal help, 
 or a God who is too exacting or one likely to lay 
 much stress on salutes or polite recognitions from 
 brother fighters. 
 
 I heard two mothers discussing the other day, 
 which were the mser course, to let the young child 
 grow up in the glorious bravery of ignorance, free 
 of all fear of dogs, ready to stroke or to pull the 
 ear or tail of any dog it sees, protected certainly 
 in some measure by its very assurance, or to teach 
 the child a mistrust, even a fear of dogs, that it 
 may exercise caution in approaching strange ones. 
 We who have to do with children of a larger 
 growth, hesitate over a somewhat similar ques- 
 tion. Shall we mar youth's confident belief in its 
 own powers, and so cripple somewhat his energy 
 and force, in order to drive home the lesson of 
 submission and dependence, or shall w^e leave this 
 element of religion to make its appearance when 
 experience demands it I 
 
 A boy becomes a man, not when he discovers his 
 own powers, and feels his freedom, but when he 
 
 376 
 
A Necessity 
 
 discovers the limitations of his life. A boy may 
 graduate from college without ever knowing 
 physical hunger, or having discovered what a driv- 
 ing force the necessity of having food and of hav- 
 ing it now, may be. A boy may graduate from 
 college without ever having found himself in a 
 completely helpless condition or even having ex- 
 perienced the sensations of one about to drown, 
 or of one lost in a fog. A boy may graduate from 
 college without ever having known a desperate 
 and unavailing remorse. And a boy may not 
 only graduate from college, but may go out into 
 the world and live a score of years without ever 
 having forced on his attention by the death of any 
 one near to him, or his own serious illness, the fact 
 that man has not forever, that his part in the 
 great glorious universe, whether it be to him a 
 universe of truth, of beauty, or of power, is but a 
 passing one of relative insignificance. 
 
 These are some of the reasons that make it 
 difficult to give religion its proper place in col- 
 leges. 
 
 Did you ever take the ordinary hymn book and 
 go through it, to see how many hymns there are 
 which could have been written as the sincere ex- 
 pression of the soul of the normal healthy college 
 boy, or which portray attitudes of mind which you 
 would like to inculcate at that age, if you could? 
 
 We have a different preacher at Lafayette every 
 Sunday, and about every third preacher, out of a 
 collection of a thousand hymns feels driven to 
 select ''The Son of God goes forth to war." 
 
 377 
 
The Religious Element in Education — 
 
 But if you cannot expect that feeling of depen- 
 dence, of the need of help, which forms so large a 
 part of the religion of those who are younger, and 
 of those who are older, to be a very large element 
 of the religion of the college boy, you can secure 
 something of the same result, and give the boy 
 a religious consciousness by leading him to see 
 the reality of inexorable law. 
 
 In a different sense from that of Paul, the laiv 
 is the school-master, for the college boy of to-day, 
 to lead him to Christ. 
 
 His training in modern science prepares him 
 for a belief in inexorable law in other fields, for 
 a belief in himself as a subject of law, for a vision 
 of himself as part of a divine scheme of things. 
 As his knowledge of other fields grows, he begins 
 to question whether after all it is not braggadocio 
 to declare, "I am master of my fate," ''I am 
 captain of my soul," at any rate outside narrow 
 limits. If he thinks of the ordered universe of 
 which he recognizes himself to be a part, as a uni- 
 verse of matter, as essentially unthinking, without 
 heart or conscience, as a great machine of which 
 he is a cog, and of human emotion, hope, fear, and 
 desire, as efflorescences, as insignificant in the real 
 march of events as the bleat of the lamb about to 
 be slaughtered, then his awakening to the realiza- 
 tion of law is an awakening to find himself a 
 prisoner. If, on the other hand, he awakes to a 
 broader vision of law, a vision of an ordered uni- 
 verse in which the hopes, and fears, and desires of 
 
 ,^78 
 
A Necessity { 
 
 men are an essential part of the scheme of things, 
 not human error, and weakness, and delusion, but 
 the highest fruit of the orderly universe that he 
 knows, then he is ready for religion out of his own 
 experience, and then if ever the educational pro- 
 cess must be ready to step in and interpret and ex- 
 plain and illumine the minds groping after God, 
 and supply a divine explanation of souls and 
 things. 
 
 Alfred Noyes as the young man's poet has 
 taught this more and more in his last poems. 
 
 * ' Only the soul that plays its rhythmic part 
 
 In that grand measure of the tides and sun 
 
 Terrestrial and celestial, till it soar 
 
 Into the supreme melodies of heaven, 
 
 Only that soul climbing the splendid round 
 
 Of law, from height to height, may walk with God, 
 
 Shape its own sphere from chaos, conquer death, 
 
 Lay hold on life and liberty, and sing, 
 
 "Glory that would be glorious ^ I 
 
 Must keep thy law to find its own, 
 Beauty that would be beautiful 
 Must keep thy law to find its own, 
 Might that would be omnipotent 
 Must keep thy law to find its own, 
 And mercy that is merciful 
 Shall keep thy law and find its own. 
 Thy law, thy law is liberty 
 And in thy law we find our own." 
 
 But some perhaps feel that when your college 
 379 
 
The Religious Element in Education — 
 
 boy has awakened to a conception of law dominant 
 in the universe, he is farther off from God than 
 before. 
 
 When every shaking tree, every bubbling spring, 
 every fleeting cloud, might hide an arbitrary in- 
 dividual will, man had little difficulty in finding 
 a God. With a universe immeasurably extended, 
 with a knowledge of impersonal forces and rela- 
 tions so universal as to overshadow individual 
 spirits, can we still show God to the immature and 
 bewildered college boy? Especially can we still 
 show a good God, can we still show a moral pur- 
 pose in the universe, can we still show that right 
 wins, that right has cosmic significance, that ''this 
 universe is not dead and demoniacal, a char- 
 nel house with specters but Godlike and our 
 Father's"? 
 
 This is the great question which religion and 
 religious instruction must answer for the college 
 boy. Huxley, high moralist that he was, took the 
 pessimistic view, you will remember, that "what 
 is ethically best, involves conduct which in all re- 
 spects is opposed to that which leads to success in 
 the struggle for existence." The college boy na- 
 turally wants to be on the winning side. He wants 
 to guess right. He wants his judgment to be in 
 accord with things as they are. He is willing to 
 take a knightly chance, to go through trial and 
 suffering, and defeat, if need be, to see his reward 
 postponed. He does not reject the search for the 
 grail as an unreasonable use of life. He is ro- 
 mantic. He is brave. He is sentimental. But 
 
 380 
 
A Necessity- 
 he does not want to show ignorance, he does not 
 want to choose wrong. 
 
 Is, then, right forever on the scaffold, wrong 
 forever on the throne? Does it recompense a 
 man hereafter to be good, or are goodness and 
 success alternatives? These are questions which 
 must be answered for the student, not only by 
 the formal teacher of religion, but also by the 
 institutional life of the college. 
 
 If the Christian college is not willing to apply 
 Christian principles to its institutional life, it can- 
 not hope to make them principles of action for its 
 students. If any man is qualified to serve as trus- 
 tee no matter what his moral life, provided only he 
 have money enough, the college is teaching more 
 forcibly the worship of the God Mammon than 
 could any course in the curriculum. 
 
 If the college says to its teachers, hold your 
 tongue, preach no new doctrines either in reli- 
 gion or in economics, lest you jeopardize good 
 gifts, it is eloquently teaching a doctrine very 
 different from the doctrine of Jesus. On the other 
 hand, if it says to its professors, we will main- 
 tain you as teachers, provided you teach what you 
 think is truth, regardless of its effect in the lives 
 of men, it is a very different doctrine from that 
 which says, ''it were better for him that a mill- 
 stone were tied about his neck, and that he should 
 be cast into the sea, than that he should cause one 
 of these little ones to offend.'^ 
 
 The religious element in education is a necessity, 
 yes. But you will not succeed in teaching a reli- 
 
 381 
 
The Religious Element in Education — 
 
 gion very extensively to your students, unless it is 
 a religion which you are willing should take and 
 operate your institution. 
 
 If we can be sure when we organize a college, 
 that we are two or three truly gathered together 
 in the name of our divine Lord, we may be sure 
 that there will be God in the midst, and that all 
 that we do will be to His honor, and will proclaim 
 the presence and the practice of God. 
 
 In scholastic circles we are perhaps prone to 
 overemphasize the intellectual side of religion. 
 To think of religion as knowledge. To sum up 
 religion in texts with the verb to know. 
 
 ' ' This is life eternal that ye may know. ' ' 
 ' ' Ye shall know the truth. ' ' 
 
 The past generation has undoubtedly both in 
 its national psychology and national theology, ex- 
 alted the intellect unduly above the will. What 
 has been true of the nation, has been doubly true 
 of the college student. Agnosticism is the appro- 
 priate disease of a religion which emphasizes 
 knowledge to the exclusion of conscience, which 
 forgets the categorical imperative, and the Thou 
 Shalt of the divine. 
 
 No education is complete which does not restore 
 the imperative to its rightful place in the con- 
 sciousness and appreciation of the student. Com- 
 mands admit no verdict of doubtful, not to obey 
 is to disobey. 
 
 To the elements added by religion to the stu- 
 dent's complete equipment, which I have named 
 
 382 
 
A Necessity 
 
 knowledge of relative values, cordial submission 
 to a higher power, the recognition of law and of 
 the binding force of the imperative, we may add 
 finally the mystic or devotional element of re- 
 ligion, or what has been called the practice of the 
 presence of God. 
 
 The omnipresence of God is a fact which nine 
 tenths of all students believe theoretically. It is 
 a fact which does not have practical significance 
 in the lives of one tenth. Here is a rich heritage 
 into which the twentieth century student can enter, 
 to a degree, not possible for the student of the 
 nineteenth. What religion was to Enoch, of whom 
 the scripture says, ''He walked with God," 
 religion may be to the student of to-day because 
 Philosophy, Science, all the trend of modern 
 knowledge make it easier for us to think of God 
 as immanent in the world than to think of Him as 
 apart from it. 
 
 God's favor and our American optimism have 
 led us to catch glimpses of the possibiKty of the 
 divine in human affairs, and to pray with more 
 faith, Thy kingdom come on earth. The teacher 
 of religion in our colleges to-day cannot do better 
 than to repeat Paul's address to scholars that they 
 should seek God, if haply they might feel after 
 Him and find Him, though He is not far from each 
 one of us, for in Him we live and move and have 
 our being. This then is the supreme contribution 
 that religion can make to the college man, as it is 
 the supreme end of liberal culture. The end of a 
 liberal education is to make a man at home in all 
 
 383 
 
The Religious Element in Education 
 
 the world of knowledge and of men. The end of 
 religion is by making man sensible of his divine 
 origin, and being, to make him ready and able to 
 interpret God's voice speaking in his own spirit, 
 to prepare him to be at home both here in his 
 Father's creation, and after a time also in the 
 mansions prepared within his Father's house. 
 
 384 
 
THE CHRISTIAN COLLEGE 
 
 THE American nation is to-day taking stock. 
 It is performing 'the task mnch more 
 thoroughly than for many years. Stirred by the 
 upheaval in Europe which burst upon us so un- 
 expectedly, rendered thoughtful by the discovery 
 that the America of to-day is not identified with 
 the ideals which hold first place and claim a first 
 allegiance with many of her citizens; sobered by 
 the realization that the daily press is a, very im- 
 perfect pair of spectacles for discerning important 
 and significant events, the American has decided 
 to stop a bit and look around him, to do a little 
 listing of stock on hand on his own account and a 
 little figuring to see how assets stand as against 
 liabilities. Preparedness of one kind and another 
 is in the air, — not .military preparedness alone. 
 Capital and labor are preparing for the great 
 struggle which they foresee. Newspapers are 
 laying in their stock of local color. Politicians 
 are taking in a reef here, or shaking out a reef 
 or two there, ready for the breeze. Speculators 
 are cashing in, for their own benefit, the nation's 
 vision of good times coming, and those, who like 
 the prophetess Hulda of old, dwell in the colleges, 
 interpret to those who inquire, the ancient writ- 
 ings as a warning to the present, holding out the 
 
 Address before the Ministers' Association of Philadelphia, 1917. 
 
 38? 
 
The Christian College 
 
 cold comfort that "because of your tender heart, 
 ye shall be gathered to your graves in peace and 
 shall not see the evil that is to come upon this 
 place. ' ' 
 
 To a world thus taking thought of the morrow, 
 education appears as important a factor as muni- 
 tions to the general in the trenches. Education 
 is not a subject of interest to the man who must 
 have his results to-day. It is not even a subject 
 of much interest to the man of wider vision when 
 the machinery of the world is working smoothly 
 and sons are found prepared to carry on the work 
 of their fathers as a result of the established 
 routine. But to men who see a new era about to 
 begin, a new era likely to mark as great and sig- 
 nificant a change in thought as the renaissance, 
 the reformation or the French revolution, the 
 future looms large, and they ask, who are the men 
 of this new future, from what schools are they to 
 come, what steps are being taken even now to pre- 
 pare them for the task which awaits them? 
 
 As a nation, Americans have always believed 
 in education. Whether we judge by their words 
 or by the budgets of state and municipal govern- 
 ments, the evidence is not wanting that education 
 holds a first place in the affections of the American 
 citizen. Expenditures for schools is the largest 
 single item in the budget of all our great cities. 
 In Pennsylvania, no less than in our great west- 
 em states where the flame of American life burns 
 so intensely, the state gives generously to higher 
 education. We may safely say therefore that the 
 
 386 
 
The Christian College 
 
 increase and dissemination of knowledge occupies 
 a foremost place among American ideals. 
 
 We believe with Jefferson that "Knowledge 
 must forever govern ignorance, and that a people 
 who propose to be their own governors must arm 
 themselves with the power knowledge gives." 
 The American state creed begins "I believe in 
 Man," quickly followed by "I believe in Educa- 
 tion. ' ' But to urge the importance or significance 
 of education before a company of ministers is to 
 waste time. Ever since John Knox prescribed 
 for the local parish a teacher of Latin side by side 
 with the parish minister, Presbji;erians especially 
 have been friends of education, and it would be 
 diflBcult in many instances to tell whether the 
 school or the church would claim first place in the 
 affections of Presbyterians should occasion arise 
 to choose between them. 
 
 Taking for granted therefore that the interest of 
 this body in education in general is quite as great 
 as that of the average citizen, and assuming that 
 your interest in higher education is somewhat 
 more than that of the average citizen, may I ask 
 your attention to one phase of the college prob- 
 lem? Colleges have a deeper significance to the 
 thinking man than any other form of educational 
 enterprise, because it is from the colleges that the 
 leaders of thought go forth, and thought eventu- 
 ally determines action. To this we are all agreed. 
 But some of us will part company and certainly 
 we will all part company with a large number of 
 our friends, when we ask, whether we can mold 
 
 387 
 
The Christian College 
 
 the character of a college or so shape its ends or 
 its destinies as to determine the Christian char- 
 acter of its product, and make it a useful instru- 
 ment for the advancement of God^s Kingdom, 
 without thereby injuring its character as a college. 
 Special regard has been paid to the doctrine of 
 laissez faire of recent years, not only in the world 
 of economics, not only in the world of individual 
 education, but also in the institutional world. We 
 have been disposed not only to leave the individual 
 child free to develop his own personality, but also 
 to leave the institution free in its corporate exist- 
 ence to develop from within or to become the 
 football of circumstance as the course of human 
 events might determine. In a time of upheaval 
 and change, the voice of authority has become 
 strangely silent and diffident. We have wanted to 
 test everything in the light of our own brief ex- 
 perience, to put everything, from the Ten Com- 
 mandments down, into the test tube to see if they 
 will not yield to modem reagents. We have been 
 disposed to reject external authority not only for 
 the individual but for the institution. 
 
 We have gone to the extreme of individualism, 
 we have been disposed to throw overboard even 
 our belief in * * children of the covenant, ' ' our faith 
 that ''the promise is to you and to your children," 
 at least so far as institutions are concerned, and 
 to say the history and antecedents, the blood re- 
 lations of a college have nothing to do with defin- 
 ing its Christian character. Individual repen- 
 tance and confession, with works meet for repen- 
 
 388 
 
The Christian College 
 
 tance, are the only index of institutional character. 
 Some have even gone so far as to urge that as 
 ministers' sons are proverbially bad so the 
 church's colleges are the last place to look for 
 pure religion. Some even question whether a 
 classification of colleges according to their Chris- 
 tianity, supposing that we could determine their 
 Christian character, would be a significant class- 
 ification to the father about to send his boy to 
 college. At Oberlin thirty years ago no student 
 was permitted to board at a house in the town, 
 where daily family prayers were not maintained. 
 Not many of us, however, would select our board- 
 ing house by the devotional quality of its prayers, 
 rather by the wholesomeness of its food. 
 
 To most of us the distinction drawn in Enghsh 
 households between Church of England and dis- 
 senting servants seems far fetched. To most of 
 us, the distinctions now being drawn between pro- 
 German and pro-ally servants in American house- 
 holds seems far fetched. We do not expect to taste 
 in a pudding, the flavor of Scotch Irish Presbyteri- 
 anism, or to find the quality of an omelet affected 
 by high or low Anglicanism. We sleep as com- 
 fortably in a bed made by a pro-German as in a 
 bed made by a pro-ally, and find the radiator 
 equally hot or equally cold, whether the stoker be 
 German or Italian. Evidently then some char- 
 acteristics of the physical, intellectual or spiritual 
 man affect the particular product, others do not. 
 
 Some accordingly argue, there is no Christian 
 mathematics, there is no Christian biology, there 
 
 389 
 
The Christian College 
 
 is no Christian physics. What I want my boy to 
 get at college are the facts ; truth is truth wherever 
 taught. If the faculty are concerned for the in- 
 crease and spread of Christianity, I fear truth may 
 be perverted. In other words, the college will not 
 be as much of a college if it is Christian as it will 
 be if it is just college. As the average American 
 prefers to have public schools teaching secular 
 learning without religion, rather than not to have 
 the secular learning for his children, so there are 
 many who argue in this age of specialization let 
 us have colleges that are schools, and churches 
 that are churches, but let us not confound the two 
 lest we have both an inferior school and an in- 
 ferior church. 
 
 The question how can you ensure the Christian 
 character of a college, must be answered the same 
 way as the question how can you ensure the salva- 
 tion of your son or daughter. Some things you 
 can do to this end; the final outcome is in the 
 hands of God. If of the very Temple itself of 
 which it was written My house shall be called a 
 house of Prayer, it might be said but ye have made 
 it a den of thieves, we cannot expect to find the 
 Christian college more sacred. The spirit of God 
 makes the college Christian, and the spirit of God 
 is like the wind, it bloweth where it listeth. It is 
 no new discovery, therefore, to say that the col- 
 lege which according to certain external charac- 
 teristics would fall in the class of Christian col- 
 leges, may on closer examination, at any time, be 
 found to be less Christian than another college. 
 
 390 
 
The Christian College 
 
 But because there is no infallible rule for assur- 
 ing the salvation of our children, shall we there- 
 fore throw around them no safeguards, take no 
 care for their moral and spiritual education, but 
 leave them to develop unhampered by us accord- 
 ing to their physical inheritance and the environ- 
 ments in which they are thrown ? Shall the church 
 merely preach and leave it to the individual church 
 members to put in practice the teaching as it re- 
 lates to education in the same way in which it 
 leaves it to individual church members to put in 
 practice the preaching of the church as it relates 
 to business? 
 
 Why is it that schools and colleges are any more 
 the business of the church than counting houses 
 and factories? Obviously, because the church 
 itself professes to be in the teaching business. 
 Because it claims not only the right to teach but 
 claims the subordination of all other teaching to 
 its teaching. Because it claims for itself the most 
 important branch of knowledge, What is God? and 
 what duty does God require of man? A teacher 
 itself, a teacher which claims subordination of all 
 other knowledge to its knowledge, it cannot re- 
 main indifferent to the rest of the educational 
 process. If the church will cease appealing to the 
 intellect of man, and appeal only to his aesthetic 
 sensibility, to his imitative instinct, to his love of 
 mystery, to his emotions, it may perhaps safely 
 ignore the college. But so far as the Presbyte- 
 rian church is concerned when the Presbyterian 
 church forsakes the appeal to the intellect,, no 
 
 391 
 
The Christian College 
 
 Presbyterian church will remain. With no priest- 
 hood, no liturgy, no miraculous sacraments, it has 
 tried to live solely by and for the divine truth it 
 had to teach. When it ceases to teach, or to be 
 interested in the teaching of its youth, it will have 
 become something other than that we know as 
 Presbyterian. 
 
 What can the church do, what can anybody do, 
 toward the determination of the kind of secular 
 education our boys are to receive, toward the de- 
 termination of the conditions under which they 
 are to receive it ? Why should the church as such 
 found any colleges and how far, having founded 
 them, is it helpful to go in controlling them? 
 
 The church founds colleges first as a part of its 
 mission of enlightening the world. This is one 
 reason why we found them not only in America 
 but also in China, Syria, India. In the early days 
 the church in America founded colleges to pro- 
 vide itself an educated ministry, and still the 
 church draws its supply largely from its own col- 
 leges. Secondly in a broader sense, the church 
 founds colleges, because the general law holds 
 good here as elsewhere. Give and it shall be given 
 you. The church which sows education, intelli- 
 gence, leadership, shall reap education, intelli- 
 gence, leadership, whether it protects the crop 
 with a mortgage or not. The church which casts 
 its bread of education upon the waters shall find 
 it after many days in most unexpected places, and 
 at most opportune times. The Episcopal Bishop 
 of Bethlehem found it hard to get workers for his 
 
 392 
 
The Christian College 
 
 diocese. He started a hospice under his immedi- 
 ate care, where students might prepare for col- 
 lege and live while at college. Friends of the 
 church gave him scholarship aid for the men, and 
 he told me last fall that this httle personal hobby 
 of his would at the present rate soon more than 
 supply all the workers his diocese can use. Not 
 only that, but he is himself bigger and happier 
 because he has multiplied himself in his disciples. 
 As the old proverb says, he who pays the piper 
 calls the tune. Whether the relation of the church 
 to the college be legal or historical, immediate or 
 indirect, the creature will bear the stamp of its 
 creator. A college is first of all a piece of ground 
 and a shelter, loaned, rented or owned, secondly 
 money to support teachers and scholars, while en- 
 gaged in teaching and study, and thirdly a com- 
 munity of persons, few or many, teachers and 
 taught. All the rest is incidental and accessory. 
 The character of the institution in the long run 
 will be determined more by the selection of the 
 men who teach than by any other factor or con- 
 dition. If the church is interested, therefore, in 
 insuring its Christian character, let it make sure 
 of the character of the teachers, and the rest will 
 follow. A department of Bible, important and 
 desirable as such a department is, will not make a 
 college Christian, which is pagan in its department 
 of Greek or agnostic in its department of Geology. 
 That is one reason why it is so idle to talk of 
 maintaining a complete divorce of secular and re- 
 ligious education in America. Though the word 
 
 393 
 
The Christian College 
 
 religion be never mentioned, by virtue of the warp 
 and woof of the teachers' character, the schools 
 will be either predominantly Christian, or Jew- 
 ish or agnostic as the case may be. 
 
 The business of the Christian college is not so 
 much to teach religion as to teach science in a re- 
 ligious spirit. The school is not a substitute for 
 the church. There is something subtler than a 
 textbook, more effective than regulations and laws, 
 and that is personality. The personality of the 
 teacher determines the character of the school. 
 No matter what the subject, whether Cicero or 
 calculus the man behind the teacher shines 
 through. The student learns to admire the man 
 and admiring the man he forms his ideals and 
 opinions according to his model. 
 
 And if we can shape our college so that it will 
 be Christian, what will it do for us? No one, I 
 fear, knows, because the ideal we have in mind 
 has never been realized in its perfection. But we 
 have caught glimpses of what such an institution 
 might mean to us, to the church, to the world. We 
 should see it combining the knowledge of the 
 school with the inspiration and enlightenment of 
 the church ; we should see it teaching values, chart- 
 ing directions, giving prophets and seers to our 
 generation. Even under present conditions, if 
 soldiers are wanted, those in authority look to the 
 colleges, if peace pilgrims are wanted those in 
 authority look to the colleges, if the Standard 
 Oil Co. wants men for China it sends its agent 
 to the colleges, if the National City Bank wants 
 
 394 
 
The Christian College 
 
 men for South America, it sends to the colleges, if 
 the Church wants missionaries, it sends its agent 
 to the colleges, if we would promote civic reform 
 we appeal to college men, and whether it be a 
 good lawyer, a skilled physician, an able engineer 
 that we want, we have learned to demand the col- 
 lege man as raw material from which to fashion 
 him. 
 
 ''Are we preparing ourselves as a nation in 
 intelligence f asks Dr. Coffin. "Leadership 
 among the nations requires an unusual amount 
 of brains. The late Bishop of London, Dr. 
 Creighton, told his countrymen some years ago, 
 'true patriotism consists in desiring to be wiser. 
 If we perish, we shall perish of sheer stupidity 
 from which we show no desire to deliver our- 
 selves, ' and he held up to them their two favorite 
 policies, the pohcy of Muddle and the policy of 
 Dawdle." "Divorce religion and education," 
 says Josiah Strong, ' ' and we shall fall a prey 
 either to blundering goodness or to well schooled 
 villainy. ' ' 
 
 Some way, some how, some where, as we take 
 stock for the future of America, we must make 
 provision for that ideal college, where knowledge 
 shall be exact and complete, character robust and 
 gracious, and Christianity not only a welcome 
 guest, but the ruling spirit within its walls. 
 
 395 
 
A NEW WESTMINSTER 
 
 IN rising to-night to respond to the toast of 
 ' ' The Founders, ' ' after having been the unwill- 
 ing cause the past week of a good deal of pro- 
 test and turmoil among the friends of Westmin- 
 ster, I am reminded of a saying which was cur- 
 rent some years ago in New York, — ''The New 
 York Tribune, Founded by Horace Greeley, Con- 
 founded by Whitelaw Reid." I sincerely regret, 
 Gentlemen of the Alumni, that the peace and pros- 
 perity of Westminster should have been even 
 slightly disturbed by any act of mine. Though a 
 comparative newcomer among you, I yield to none 
 in my concern for the welfare of Westminster, 
 and in laying down the office of president at this 
 time, I do so only because compelled to the step 
 by a duty which I cannot disregard. Any con- 
 founding or confusion which such an act may occa- 
 sion will I am sure speedily pass away and be for- 
 gotten and I ask you all to-night to believe with 
 me that in the providence of God before the time 
 comes for the change of administration, Westmin- 
 ster will have found a man who will do for her all 
 and more than any of us could even have hoped 
 to do. 
 
 It is one of the great consolations vouchsafed to 
 
 Founders' Day address, Westminster College, Fulton, Mo., Feb- 
 ruary, 1903. 
 
A New Westminster 
 
 the man who works for an enduring institution 
 like a college, unlike the man who works as an 
 individual, that however brief may have been his 
 work, and however small a part he may have ac- 
 complished of that which he has attempted and 
 hoped, his work does not stop when he lays down 
 the tools, but is taken up by another hand, and 
 goes on through generations. As we meet to- 
 night to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of 
 Founders' Day we can not only say with Webster 
 ''the past at least is secure," but with large- 
 hearted faith and with prophetic vision of the im- 
 portance and magnitude of the work in which we 
 are engaged, rest in the well-grounded belief that 
 Westminster College is too great an enterprise to 
 be dependent in any considerable measure on this 
 man or that. 
 
 At the recent meeting of the Association for the 
 Advancement of Science in Washington, the Pres- 
 ident of the Department of Physical Science, Prof. 
 William S. Franklin, was discussing the definition 
 of Physics, and in conclusion said, ''I think that 
 the sickliest notion of physics, even if a student 
 gets it, is that it is the science of masses, molecules 
 and the ether; and I think that the healthiest 
 notion, even if a student does not wholly get it, 
 is that Physics is the science of the ways of tak- 
 ing hold of bodies and pushing them." However 
 accurate a definition of Physics that may be, it 
 seemed to me when I read it, an admirable defini- 
 tion of the college presidency. Prof. Franklin 
 thinks it perhaps too deep for ready comprehen- 
 
 397 
 
A New Westminster 
 
 sion as a definition of Physics, and as applTed fo 
 the presidency it will bear carefnl study and 
 analysis, but I commend it to you as worth bear- 
 ing in mind, and trust that Westminster will find 
 a man who is an adept in ' ^ the science of the ways 
 of taking hold of bodies and pushing them. ' ' And 
 since to-night as Alumni and Trustees you con- 
 front the necessity of inaugurating a new epoch 
 at Westminster, it is well that the completion of 
 the half century turns our thoughts back to the 
 founders of the institution, and that we are thus 
 led to consider what were the motives and ideals 
 which influenced our fathers to assume the burden 
 of planting and nurturing a new institution, to 
 the end that we upon whom their mantle has fallen 
 may comprehend more clearly the work in which 
 we find ourselves engaged. 
 
 The great characteristic of the Puritans, Sen- 
 ator Beveridge once said, may be expressed in 
 three words, ''Build, Build, Build." They had a 
 genius for construction, for founding, and it is 
 true in general that the man who is born into a 
 time of revolution and reformation in religious 
 and political faiths, or who as a pioneer maps 
 out a new civilization, and is forced therefore, in- 
 stead of taking things on trust to think them out 
 for himself, going clear back to first principles, 
 if he be of sufficient intellectual vigor to carry 
 through the task, and not become stranded on the 
 sandbar of doubt, and if with intellectual vigor 
 goes moral vigor, courage to follow where truth 
 and duty lead, naturally plans his life on a larger 
 
 398 
 
A New Westminster 
 
 scale. He is likely to reject current appraisals 
 and to weigh things and forces at their true value. 
 Living in the light of first principles, sub specie 
 aeternitatis, he is not content with the dazzling 
 baubles of to-day, but seeks the enduring, is not 
 content to limit himself to a small circle but 
 handles by preference the mightiest forces which 
 operate among men. 
 
 Some such consciousness of forces which though 
 unseen are eternal, shaping, controlling, directing 
 the destinies of men, is as a rule present in the 
 minds of men like the Founders of Westminster 
 College. They themselves may be but dimly con- 
 scious of such motives. The immediate needs of 
 the community, the needs of their sons and daugh- 
 ters, the financial benefit derived by the town from 
 the location of the college, the need of the church 
 of an educated ministry, these motives may be the 
 more obvious ones. And yet if you examine more 
 closely the men who do the large things for educa- 
 tion, in nine cases out of ten you will find this 
 constructive mind, this ambition to handle large 
 forces, the desire to leave one's impress not on a 
 family or a town, but on a state and country, not 
 on a single generation but on centuries. 
 
 Our own age presents a curious paradox. Side 
 by side with an intense materialism, a firm belief 
 in money as a good, and as an incomparable power, 
 lives and flourishes an equally strong Idealism — 
 a belief in the power of thought, of ideas, to trans- 
 form and control mankind. It is this materialis- 
 tic age of ours which has seen Kitchener attempt 
 
 399 
 
A New Westminster 
 
 that most idealistic of educational enterprises, the 
 planting of a college at Khartoum — within the dec- 
 ade the home of the howling dervish. It is our 
 own age and in a region where we should expect 
 to find materialism rampant^ in mining camps and 
 at the jumping-off places of the world, that we 
 see spring up a scheme of education which some 
 call visionary, and some the fruit of consummate 
 insight and wisdom. 
 
 Here is a man who has been an empire-builder. 
 Who has handled nations as a child does his 
 blocks. Who has changed the map of the world. 
 Who did not scruple to use armies to accomplish 
 his ends when other means failed. And when he 
 comes to die, and is concerned for the carrying 
 out of the great dreams for which his own life- 
 time is all too short, what instrument does he call 
 to his aid? Not armies, not commercial indus- 
 tries, not brute force, not wealth as such, but the 
 apparently ineffective school teacher. The great 
 man of affairs, the man who has lived strenuously 
 among men, admits that after all the mightiest 
 forces in civilization are the forces of education, 
 and Cecil Ehodes testifies by his will that his 
 dream of world-wide empire and world-wide peace 
 are to be sought if at all, through the shaping of 
 the ideals and lives, while still in a plastic period, 
 of the young men, who are to be the intellectual 
 leaders of their respective races. 
 
 We find it hard in our modem civilization to 
 escape from the overwhelming consciousness of 
 the greatness of the world of things. Nowhere is 
 
 400 
 
A New Westminster 
 
 this thought borne in upon ns with greater power 
 than when we watch the buildings of a great 
 World's Fair fill with the innumerable products 
 of industry and art from the four quarters of the 
 globe, and yet man is greater than the things he 
 makes. When the psalmist surveyed man amid 
 the works of nature, he exclaimed, ''What is man 
 that thou art mindful of him?" but viewing man's 
 work in such a great exposition our minds are 
 directed rather to the second part of the psalmist's 
 thought, ''Thou madest him to have dominion over 
 the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things 
 under his feet," and impressed with the greatness 
 of man, we ask that question which Socrates re- 
 garded as the question par excellence, "If mak- 
 ing good shoes is what makes a shoemaker a good 
 shoemaker, what is it which makes a man as a 
 man good — when is a man as a man of the highest 
 class, what would be ideal man?" Proud indeed 
 may the states of the Louisiana Purchase be of 
 their empire building, of their commercial enter- 
 prise, of their farms, their mines, their manufac- 
 tures, their beautiful homes, their stately public 
 buildings. All these indicate a citizenship cap- 
 able beyond measure in those industrial pursuits 
 without which the most splendid civilization is im- 
 possible. But what has been the product of this 
 territory this hundred years in the highest spheres 
 of human endeavor? Has it had its share of great 
 poets, great preachers, great statesmen, great au- 
 thors, great teachers, great prophets? Is it not 
 true that the very wealth of tlie goil has so lured 
 
 401 
 
A New Westminster 
 
 men to money making, has so accustomed its citi- 
 zens to luxury and ease in return for slight expen- 
 diture, that unlike rocky, frugal New England it 
 has hardly produced its quota of men of great 
 minds, willing and able to wrestle with great ideas 
 and to penetrate with spiritual eyes heavenly vis- 
 ions? 
 
 How and where shall such minds be trained on 
 these rich prairies inviting to intellectual indolence 
 and earthliness of life, and thought? In large part, 
 gentlemen, they will be nourished in the small col- 
 leges like Westminster. Escaping the dangers of 
 riches, idealism will there abound, the life will still 
 be held more than meat, and man of more import- 
 ance than the complicated civilization in which he 
 has clothed himself. Nourished continually by the 
 inspiration of the thought of God, and by the 
 heavenly wisdom of His word, the eternal verities 
 will not be obscured by an omnipresent opportun- 
 ism. While the loneliest places in the world, it is 
 true, are great cities, and there the soul which 
 wishes may dwell apart, and shut out the world 
 which is likely to be too much with us, while you 
 may be a hermit in a city like Diogenes as well as 
 in a desert cavern, yet the city hermit is too likely 
 to be misanthropic and cynical. So gigantic and 
 overwhelmingly great is the society of men about 
 him, oblivious to his truth and yet happy and 
 successful, that after honestly battering for a 
 while without effect upon the impervious armor 
 of this world-wise mass, he confesses his weakness 
 and impotence, by dipping his arrows in the venom 
 
 402 
 
A New Westminster 
 
 of satire and bitterness. While the thinker who 
 lives nearer to nature and in a simpler society, 
 who sees seed time follow harvest and the laws of 
 God work out inexorably though it take genera- 
 tions for their fulfillment, launches his truth clear- 
 eyed and confident, content if it be but cast upon 
 the waters of the world's thought. 
 
 The benefits which flow from such an institution 
 as Westminster College are not merely those 
 which come through her teachers and her sons. 
 There must be counted also the benefits to society 
 through the creation of a higher life and interest 
 among her patrons. It has been one of the glories 
 of our free America, that men have been free to 
 interest themselves directly in these lofty enter- 
 prises, as individuals. When the state as a state 
 takes them in hand, while theoretically it makes 
 it possible for a greater number to interest them- 
 selves in the promotion of these higher things, 
 practically there is danger that with the growth 
 of a bureaucracy, education will become a matter 
 of professional mechanism rather than of individ- 
 ual enthusiasm and faith. 
 
 The law of interest is a reflex one. Not only 
 does one spend in proportion to his interest but 
 his interest is also in proportion to his spending. 
 There is danger therefore that were education 
 purely a state affair, supported by taxes which 
 we do not feel directly, an interest and regard for 
 the higher purposes of education would not be 
 widespread. Just as interest in a church is less 
 when it is a state church, than when it is a church 
 
 403 
 
A New Westminster 
 
 for which we pay the bills, and for which we select 
 the minister. 
 
 Gifts to education are like mercy, blessing both 
 him that gives and him that takes. May the great 
 exposition then force home on the men of St. 
 Louis and Missouri the thought as to what is to 
 be the end and purpose of all our luxurious civili- 
 zation. Is man to become a slave to things'? 
 Shall wealth breed only wealth? Or has not the 
 time come to set apart a portion of this wealth 
 that by means of such endowments Missouri may 
 both invite men within its borders and may keep 
 within its borders its own sons, who are willing 
 to give their lives to these higher employments 
 of the mind which are the crown and chief glory 
 of the ripest civilization! 
 
 404 
 
GEOEaE TAYLOE— PATEIOT 
 
 TO get into the Hall of Fame, a man must have 
 been dead ten years. To become enshrined 
 in the hearts of his countrymen, he must have been 
 dead a hundred years. It is not without prece- 
 dent that we should gather here two hundred years 
 after his birth to do honor to George Taylor. 
 The statute of limitations runs against the law, 
 *^A prophet is not without honor save in his own 
 country," and the prophet often secures a tardy 
 recognition even in his own country when one or 
 two centuries have elapsed. 
 
 It is a sign of health in a community when it 
 cherishes its local history. "Eemember the days 
 of old, consider the years of many generations," 
 said Moses. The community which looks a long 
 way backwards, is generally the community also 
 which looks a long way forward. It is worth- 
 while then to turn aside even in these strenuous 
 times, to place a portrait of George Taylor, the 
 Signer of the Declaration of Independence, here in 
 the Easton Public Library. Easton has not been 
 without memorials of the famous citizen — the 
 shaft in the cemetery was unveiled a half century 
 ago, and his residence, that quaint house on Fourth 
 Street, is still carefully preserved by the Daugh- 
 
 Address at the unveiling of a portrait of George Taylor, Easton 
 Public Library, 1917. 
 
 405 
 
George Taylor — Patriot 
 
 ters of the American Revolution. And to these 
 is now to be added this portrait authenticated with 
 such painstaking care. 
 
 We all wish doubtless that we had a better 
 mental picture of the man the artist has sought 
 to portray. The outlines of his history are 
 familiar to all of us. He was one of that great 
 company of sons who, like the present President 
 of the United States, owed his philosophy of life 
 to a ministerial father. Destined for the medical 
 profession, restlessness, love of adventure, am- 
 bition, or some cause of which we know nothing, 
 drove him to give up his studies and come to the 
 new world. Too poor to pay his passage, he ar- 
 rived in Philadelphia, a boy still in his teens, in 
 debt to the ship. Mr. Savage, proprietor of 
 Durham furnace, ten miles below Easton on the 
 Delaware, needed a boy to shovel coal, and was 
 glad to pay the passage money, and take the boy 
 under contract to work out the sum. The Irish 
 boy must have ''had a way with him,^^ for he soon 
 became clerk of the works, and when Mr. Savage 
 died a few years later in 1738, the young appren- 
 tice of 23 married the widow, and as manager of 
 the furnaces rose to a position of responsibility 
 and prominence in the community. Later, he 
 bought a farm at what is now Catasauqua, but 
 soon sold it and settled in Easton. He handled 
 the moneys for the erection of the Court House, 
 was made a Justice of the Peace, was chosen to 
 represent the county in the Provincial Assembly. 
 We know little of his personal character. A 
 
 406 
 
George Taylor — Patriot 
 
 signer of the Declaration of Independence, he was 
 a slave owner and did not hesitate to sell a 
 crippled slave for $75. After the death of his 
 wife, he took his housekeeper for his mistress, 
 and when he died divided his estate equally be- 
 tween his legitimate and illegitimate heirs. He 
 was reputed a fine man and a furious Whig. He 
 had courage, he had foresight, he had a lively 
 sense of justice. Nothing perhaps reveals his 
 character more clearly than the remonstrance he 
 addressed to the Grovernor of Pennsylvania be- 
 cause no steps were taken to punish those guilty 
 of the massacre of a number of Indians in 1768. 
 "There is a manifest failure to justice some- 
 where," said the Committee. "It must be either 
 from debility or inexcusable neglect in the execu- 
 tive part of the government to put their laws in 
 execution. ' ' 'What seemed a presumptuous act in 
 peace time even for a man of 52, and doubtless an 
 unpopular one, convinced all that he was just the 
 man in 1777 to try and negotiate a treaty with 
 the Indians to offset the attempt of the English 
 to use them in the Revolution. And he sat as one 
 of the Commissioners in the old Third St. Church, 
 among the braves for that purpose. He had fore- 
 sight. When a member of the Provincial Assem- 
 bly, he was made a member of the Committee on 
 Defense, and he did not wait until war was de- 
 clared, and three or four months after, before 
 urging the ordering of cannon balls, and the drill- 
 ing of men. If he had lived in our day, he would 
 doubtless have been charged as a munitions maker, 
 
 407 
 
George Taylor — Patriot 
 
 with favoring war for his own profit. He had, in- 
 deed, at first some profitable government con- 
 tracts, but at that time he was only a partner in 
 the business, and the other partner and owner of 
 the property decided for the Tory cause, and the 
 furnace was sequestered by the Oovernmeijt, and 
 Taylor lost his chance of a fortune. 
 
 We do not know how much he had to do with 
 swinging sentiment in Pennsylvania in favor of a 
 break with England. He was not a member of 
 Congress on July 2, 1776, when the Declaration of 
 Independence was passed, and Pennsylvania was 
 swung into the affirmative by only a narrow 
 margin, but before the Declaration had been en- 
 grossed and was ready for the complete signatures 
 in August, George Taylor had been elected, and 
 was ready to add his name, and risk his neck for 
 Independence. And he signed the famous paper, 
 as a late comer, with a small modest signature 
 down in the lower right hand corner. 
 
 We know little of the part he played in the 
 Revolution. He was already a man of 60 when he 
 signed the Declaration, but he was not too old to 
 act as a signal officer or intelligence officer of 
 the Government, and keep watch of the British 
 fleet over in New Jersey. He did not live to see 
 the Revolution crowned by success by the sur- 
 render of Cornwallis, but died in 1781 at the age 
 of 65, having already outlived both wife and son. 
 
 It is a strange hour for us to live again the 
 scenes of that Declaration. The traditional atti- 
 tude toward England, in which we were reared, 
 
 408 
 
George Taylor — Patriot 
 
 has given place, under the compulsions of a com- 
 mon menace, to the closest and friendliest rela- 
 tions. Unity, not independence, is the watchword 
 of the hour. Any fellow Irishman of George 
 Taylor's who to-day should raise his voice against 
 England's King, would at once be mobbed as un- 
 patriotic. "We are rather glad that Congress 
 would not adopt Jefferson's original draft of the 
 Declaration which spoke of the last stab given to 
 expiring affection, and the duty of forgetting all 
 love to our unfeeling brethren in England. 
 
 And yet there are points of similarity between 
 the war of to-day and that of 1776 against the 
 Hanoverian King. As Trevelyan says, ''Save 
 and except for the system of personal government, 
 which George the Third had laboriously built up 
 ever since 1760 Americans and Englishmen would 
 not have been slaughtering each other in 1776." 
 The King's policy, like the Kaiser's, caused the 
 war, the King, like the Kaiser, kept it going long 
 after everybody except himself was weary of it, 
 and in 1782 that war was terminated against his 
 will, as this war will be against the will of the 
 Kaiser, by nothing except a peremptory injunction 
 from the English people, who if they had been 
 properly represented in Parliament, as in the case 
 of the German people to-day, would have brought 
 it to an end long before. 
 
 There was as great difference of opinion in this 
 country as to the wisdom of the Declaration of In- 
 dependence, as there was as to the wisdom of the 
 declaration of war against Germany. Dr. Wither- 
 
 409 
 
George Taylor — Patriot 
 
 spoon, of Princeton, said then, as many say now, 
 that the country was not only ripe for Independ- 
 ence, but was in danger of becoming rotten for it. 
 The country was so long making up its mind that 
 the very day John Adams made the decisive 
 speech, which caused him to be hailed as the Atlas 
 of Independence, he wrote a letter to Samuel 
 Chase, describing the time spent in the debate as 
 wasted, because nothing was said but what had 
 been repeated and hackneyed in that room a hun- 
 dred times over for six months. The arguments 
 for Independence which had weighed with the peo- 
 ple were not lofty, idealistic or theoretical. As 
 the historian says, 'Hhere was one Tom Paine 
 who knew if men are to fight to the death, it must 
 be for reasons which all can understand, and in 
 the name of Common Sense he argued that Amer- 
 ica would flourish as much and probably much 
 more if no European power had anything to do 
 with her Government. She gained no profit from 
 the English connection and she suffered in her 
 dignity. A greater absurdity could not be con- 
 ceived than three million people running to their 
 sea coast every time a ship arrived from London, 
 to know what portion of liberty they should en- 
 joy. The period of debate is closed. Arms 
 in the last recourse must decide the contest. A 
 new era for politics is struck. A new method of 
 thinking has arisen. All plans and proposals prior 
 to that nineteenth of April, when the embattled 
 farmers stood at Lexington, are like Almanacs of 
 last year.^' 
 
 410 
 
George Taylor — Patriot 
 
 We have no Tom Paine to put this war of ours 
 into plain English — no engrossed parchment for 
 prominent Rotarians to sign, except Liberty Bond 
 subscriptions, and Red Cross memberships, and 
 here and there an enlistment card. But truths 
 outlast the centuries. If Independence was worth 
 fighting for then, it is worth fighting for now. If 
 it was true then, that all men are born free and 
 equal, and are endowed with certain inalienable 
 rights by the Creator, then it is true now, and no 
 Kaiser has the right to use men against their 
 own best interests for his imperialistic purposes. 
 If it was true then, as Lafayette declared with the 
 approval of George Washington in a later Declara- 
 tion of Independence that he drew up, that ''there 
 are natural rights so inherent in every man's ex- 
 istence that all society united has not the right of 
 depriving him of them, among them liberty of 
 opinion and the communication of thought in every 
 possible manner, ' ' then it is true to-day, and Dem- 
 ocracy no more than the Kaiser can be justified 
 when it violates inalienable rights on the plea of 
 military necessity. 
 
 We do well to celebrate George Taylor. He 
 was probably regarded as a rather wild and con- 
 tumacious Irishman in his day, but his faith in a 
 greater freedom for men was justified by the 
 event. We shall do well to profit by his example, 
 to remind ourselves that the obvious is rarely the 
 right course, that easy going compromise in high 
 places often fails to do even handed justice, and 
 deserves rebuke, that docility to constituted gov- 
 
 411 
 
George Taylor— Patriot 
 
 emment is not necessarily a virtue, but that for 
 the great privileges of freedom of speech and ac- 
 tion, whether it be freedom from the outrageous 
 interference of a Kaiser, from the thoughtless 
 tyranny of democratic majorities, or from the in- 
 solent presumption of well organized minorities 
 it is praiseworthy to risk reputation and life it- 
 self. 
 
 When the Jubilee of Independence was cele- 
 brated July 4, 1826, the year of Lafayette's visit 
 and of the founding of the college in his honor, 
 they tried to arrange a meeting of the two surviv- 
 ing founders of the Eepublic, John Adams and 
 Thomas Jefferson, but the meeting was not in this 
 land of freedom for which they had done so much, 
 but on that glorious Fourth those two heroes both 
 tasted for the first time the free air of that other 
 country, where the whole truth makes men free 
 indeed, and they need no light, not even Liberty's 
 torch, to enlighten their world. 
 
 But before John Adams set out for that coun- 
 try, they asked him for a toast that they might 
 offer at the Fourth of July banquet. "I will give 
 you," said he, ''Independence forever." ''Will 
 you not add something to it?" he was asked, and 
 the noble old statesman replied, "Not a word." 
 To-night in the midst of a world war of independ- 
 ence, and in honor of George Taylor, and I am 
 sure, with his approval, could this portrait speak, 
 I give you the same toast and battle cry, "Inde- 
 pendence forever!" 
 
 412 
 
THE LESSON OF VALLEY FORGE 
 
 PERHAPS no picture of the Revolution is more 
 firmly fixed in the minds of the American 
 people than the picture of Valley Forge in that 
 cruel winter of 1778. 
 
 Whether it is because, as Trevelyan suggests, 
 nations, like readers of fiction, love a sad story 
 which ends happily, — or because all nations de- 
 mand something of personal asceticism in their 
 heroes, — or because Valley Forge was the crisis 
 in the career of that great general whose fame 
 gathers luster with the passing years, and who 
 remains to-day for all American, first in war, first 
 in peace, and first in the hearts of his country- 
 men^ — I shall not attempt to say. In any event 
 this fair hillside beside the charming Schuylkill, 
 which borrowed in those early days a name from 
 the local foundry, has become a world famous 
 shrine. A character was hammered out on the an- 
 vil of the forge that bitter winter into the immor- 
 tality of undying fame, and Valley Forge, as time 
 goes on, bids fair, in the opinion of the observant 
 English historian, to be the most celebrated en- 
 campment in the world's history. Whatever the 
 future may bring. Valley Forge is to-day one of 
 Pennsylvania's proudest possessions, and in ask- 
 
 Addresg before the General Assembly at Valley Forge, May, 
 1920, 
 
The Lesson of Valley Forge 
 
 ing you to share with us its beauties and its pre- 
 cious memories, we are asking you to partake of 
 our best. 
 
 Valley Forge commended itself to Washington 
 as the site for his winter camp, first because the 
 rising ground made it possible to render the camp 
 impregnable against any sally which might be at- 
 temped by the British troops in Philadelphia; 
 secondly, because it was near enough Philadel- 
 phia to confine the raiding expeditions of the 
 British to a narrow area and preserve rural Penn- 
 sylvania for the American cause ; and thirdly, be- 
 cause it was readily accessible from York, the seat 
 of Congress, and from the Moravian settlement 
 of Bethlehem, where the general military hospital 
 had been located, and commanded an open road to 
 both New Jersey and to the sea. Apart from 
 these reasons, there was little to commend it as a 
 place of winter residence. The Marquis Lafay- 
 ette, writing to his young wife, January 6, 1778, 
 said: ''Powerful reasons are requisite to induce 
 a person to make such a sacrifice — as to spend the 
 winter at Valley Forge in barracks scarcely more 
 cheerful than dungeons, ' ' and yet Lafayette found 
 those powerful reasons, and as late as June 16th, 
 writing to Madame Lafayette from Valley Forge, 
 he said, ''The opening campaign does not allow 
 us to retire. I have always been perfectly con- 
 vinced that by serving the cause of humanity and 
 that of America, I serve also the interest of 
 France." Would that Valley Forge might con- 
 vince the Presbyterian church to-day that by serv- 
 
 414 
 
The Lesson of Valley Forge 
 
 ing the cause of humanity and the cause of sister 
 nations and denominations, she serves also the in- 
 terest of America and of true Presbyterianism. 
 
 Perhaps one reason that Valley Forge has such 
 a hold upon the imagination of Americans is to be 
 found in the list of the personages that played a 
 part upon this stage. George Washington was 
 soon joined at Valley Forge by Martha Washing- 
 ton, and here through the dark winter days she 
 cared fpr officers and men, so that an observer 
 recorded **I have never known so busy a woman." 
 Here was Mad Anthony Wayne, the Pennsylvania 
 surveyor, much at home in his native country. 
 Here was General Nathanial Green and his wife, 
 who made it the rule through the long winter days 
 that no one who had a good voice should be al- 
 lowed to refuse to sing. Here was not only the 
 Frenchman Lafayette — one of the few men whom 
 Washington could trust implicitly, but also the 
 Prussian drillmaster von Steuben, who had re- 
 fused splendid offers from the Emperor of Ger- 
 many, determined never to draw his sword again 
 except in the cause of liberty, and who threw 
 himself so whole-heartedly into the task of turn- 
 ing raw recruits into seasoned troops, that his 
 leaven was soon felt throughout the American 
 army. Here too was Light Horse Harry Lee 
 learning the art of war with his dragoons, and un- 
 consciously preparing to shape the destinies of 
 the Republic through the still more famous son, 
 who came to him when he was past fifty, and 
 whom he named Robert E. Lee. 
 
 415 
 
The Lesson of Valley Forge 
 
 But it is not a picture of fair women or great 
 leaders which we associate first with Valley Forge. 
 It is rather a picture of bleeding feet and of 
 barren stretches of snow marked with the red 
 streaks of blood. It is a picture of emaciated 
 men, drawing their belts tighter and huddling 
 around a fire through the night watches, because 
 it was too cold to lie down to sleep without 
 blankets. It is a picture of generals sharing the 
 privations with their troops and of troops remain- 
 ing loyal to their general, in spite of intrigue in 
 the political world without, in spite of cold and 
 hunger, lack of clothing and no pay. 
 
 To this period history has given the name, 
 "The Winter of Discontent.'' Washington's 
 fame stood at its lowest ebb, he was subject to the 
 criticism even of such men as John Adams, and his 
 enemies well-nigh succeeded in driving him from 
 the public service. John Adams indeed expressed 
 the hope ''that Congress would elect their gener- 
 als annually, and then some great men would be 
 obliged at the year's end to go home and serve 
 the nation in some other capacity not as necessary, 
 and better adapted to their genius." The Penn- 
 sylvania Legislature lectured Washington for re- 
 tiring into cantonments among the luxuries of 
 Valley Forge. It was the time of Washington's 
 supreme trial, and we prize Valley Forge and the 
 snows of Valley Forge as the Jews prized the 
 fiery furnace and the lion 's den of their Danielj be- 
 paiise here the moral fiber of those Americau men 
 
 416 
 
The Lesson of Valley Forge 
 
 and of their leader was made manifest under the 
 severest tests. 
 
 Americans have drawn many moral lessons 
 from Valley Forge. Endurance of privation and 
 bodily hardship without complaint, loyalty to the 
 nation's leader, patience under what seemed a 
 policy of unwarranted delay, and even cowardice 
 — these are some of the lessons which every school 
 boy knows. But we who are older ought to look 
 deeper. We have been taught to believe that the 
 sufferings at Valley Forge were due to the poverty 
 of the revolutionists, and to the severity of the 
 winter. Trevelyan shows clearly that the suffer- 
 ings were due primarily to the mistakes made by 
 the representatives of the people in Congress the 
 preceding summer. It is not generally known 
 that the lack of supplies was due principally to 
 the fact that Congress, by interfering with the ad- 
 ministration of Colonel Trumbull, a competent 
 Commissary General, had driven him and his as- 
 sistant, the Quartermaster General, from the pub- 
 lic service the previous summer, and that the 
 office of Quartermaster General remained unfilled 
 from September, 1777, to April, 1778. The Com- 
 mander-in-Chief himself had warned Congress 
 that ''military arrangements, like the mechanism 
 of a clock, must necessarily be imperfect and dis- 
 ordered by want of a part." It was not poverty, 
 it was not the severity of the winter, it was pri- 
 marily the failure of Congress to appoint and trust 
 a Quartermaster General, that left the Continental 
 
 417 
 
The Lesson of Valley Forge 
 
 Army without shirts or shoes, at Valley Forge, 
 while hogsheads of raiment and footgear lay spoil- 
 ing at different places along the roads and in the 
 woods. 
 
 Armies do not feed and clothe themselves spon- 
 taneously, and neither do nations — as the Russians 
 are learning to their cost, and as this nation will 
 soon learn through bitter experience, unless they 
 profit by the lesson of Valley Forge, and place a 
 higher premium on the services of great leaders 
 and intelligent experts in a democracy. America 
 has had warnings enough of the impending short- 
 age of food and fuel next winter, yet paralysis 
 binds our governmental machinery, and heedless 
 of the lessons of Valley Forge, we hasten toward 
 a winter of suffering and mutual recriminations. 
 Republicans and Democrats alike scan the horizon 
 for the approaching dark horse who is to save 
 the nation, and at the same time, men go up and 
 down and to and fro through the nation belittling 
 their leaders, sowing distrust, stirring up envy, 
 and fettering, in every way in their power, the 
 effectiveness of the strong men who would give 
 their services for the public weal, if we would but 
 trust them. 
 
 America has now, as it had at Valley Forge, a 
 winter of discontent. Cabals are as ripe as they 
 were in Conway's time. Good men are as be- 
 wildered as was John Adams. 
 
 We must look to the men of the churches to 
 preach a gospel which will temper and inspire 
 our patriotism with that spirit of love ''which 
 
 418 
 
The Lesson of Valley Forge 
 
 seeketh not her own, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth 
 not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth, which 
 hopeth all things, endureth all things, believeth 
 all things." And at length the long Winter of 
 Discontent will break for us as it broke at Valley 
 Forge, the glad news of the signing of a treaty 
 in Paris will come to us as it came to the watchers 
 at Valley Forge that May day in '78; the petty 
 jealousies and machinations of Congress which 
 have cost the nation the services of competent men 
 will be overwhelmed, and the nation will follow a 
 chosen leader into the dawn of a new day wherein 
 dwelleth righteousness. 
 
 We do well to revisit the altars of national sacri- 
 fice; to rekindle our faith in national leaders; to 
 remind ourselves of the price at which our liberty 
 was purchased; and to resolve that these dead 
 shall not have suffered and died in vain. The 
 Pilgrim Fathers who sought afar freedom to wor- 
 ship God, quickly forgot how precious a boon they 
 had attained, and drove out the Quakers and 
 burned their witches. We Presbyterians, the 
 children of those Scotch-Irish who in the days 
 of constitution making stood firm for the doctrine 
 that that government is best which governs least, 
 must recover our faith in the individual, must 
 stop looking to legislation as a universal panacea, 
 'must again raise our voices for individual free- 
 dom and initiative, against the onsweeping doc- 
 trine of pure democracy and mass tyranny. We 
 shall do well, as Mr. Latimer suggests, to take as 
 our campaign slogan, DO IT YOUESELF, and 
 
 419 
 
The Lesson of Valley Forge 
 
 clinch our argument by such stirring instances as 
 that of Dr. Burke, who has given us here such a 
 remarkable example of what one man can do. 
 We, who like Washington love and admire Lafay- 
 ette, must remember that Lafayette was the most 
 consistent individualist and believer in human 
 freedom that the world has ever known (unless 
 it was He who walked in Galilee). The faint- 
 hearted Americans of this generation who muzzle 
 the press, who distrust the people, who would 
 license education, who would bind their Samsons, 
 behead their John the Baptists, stone their 
 Stephens, and imprison their Sauls, should come 
 to this shrine of Valley Forge, and in prayer 
 and fasting ask themselves what Valley Forgo 
 would have been without Washington, what Wash- 
 ington would have been without Lafayette and 
 von Steuben, what Valley Forge might have been 
 if Colonel Trumbull had been left free to work with 
 Washington. After the cruel tyrannies enforced 
 by war, we need a new birth of freedom, a new 
 baptism with the spirit of Lafayette, a new em- 
 phasis on the teaching of Christ, Ye shall know 
 the truth and the truth shall make you free. 
 
 Let uS/OiTthis consecrated ground, undismayed 
 by the Mistory of the past five years, unite again 
 in the prayer. Thy kingdom come, the kingdom of 
 righteousness and peace and joy, let us pray with 
 Elisha, ILord, open the e^es of the young man that 
 he mayisee the horses and chariots of fire about 
 us. \ 
 
 ' THE END 
 
 420 
 
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