L6 vr Alumni Address BY Raymond Walters, '07 AT H! COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES OF LEHIGH UNIVERSITY June 15, 1920 Supplement to the Lehigh Alumni Bulletin of June, 1920 . : • ■ • '.'.;.■'• -. ■■■ • ■ . ■.. - ; ACTION AND REFLECTION Alumni Address to the Class of 1920, Lehigh University by Raymond Walters, '07 June 15, 1920 At the outset of this address to you, gentlemen of the graduating class of Le- high University, I want to disavow any aim of presenting thought that is essen- tially new. My only hope is to serve, as did the soldiers of David, in drawing water out of the well that is in Bethlehem and also from distant wells. My only assur- ance is that I myself have tasted of these wells and, finding the waters exceedingly clean and sweet, now hold up a cup for your refreshment and stimulus before you start out on a hard road. In this our study of the past for guid- ance in the future let us begin with a word about the debate between two conceptions of man. Classic philosophers from Aris- totle down have proclaimed that action is secondary, that man's greatest glory is to be a rational thinker, "to apprehend things noble and divine," to know the absolute. Walter Pater summed up this conception thus: "The end of life is not action but contemplation — being as dis- tinct from doing." Modern science views man as a product of evolution, whose primary concern in life is action. No one has better phrased this view than America's greatest philosopher, who by no means accepted it as the final word. Said William James, of Harvard: "Deep in our own nature the biological foundations of our consciousness persist, undisguised and undiminished. Our sensations are here to attract us or to deter us, our mem- ories to warn or encourage us, our feelings to impel, and our thoughts to restrain our behavior, so that on the whole we may prosper and our days be long in the land. * * * The brain, as far as we understand it, is given us for practical behavior." Now, although generalizations are dan- gerous, I shall risk a generalization and proceed upon it without preliminary com- ment as to the wisdom of the conception. My two-fold generalization is this: First, that life in the United States during the past fifty years has exemplified the con- ception that man's primary concern is action; and, second, that Lehigh Univer- sity during these fifty years has been a typically American educational institution in preparing for action. This emphasis upon action was a natural consequence of the geographic and eco- nomic situation of America. From the hazardous discovery of the continent, through the arduous settlement of the colonies, through the trying revolutionary period, through the pioneer winning of the west, through the mining craze and the railroad expansion of the forties and fifties, America called from the Old World not the philosophic type of man but the adventurous, dynamic man whose motto was Westward Ho! The Civil War further bred action into the national character. And when, at the close of "the iron days" of '61 to '65, a new group of educational institutions was born in the United States, it was almost inevitable that their courses should diverge from the classical system as represented at Harvard and Yale, and should respond to the demand for the 2 training of men to resume the material conquest of the continent. The new group included the Massa- chusetts Institute of Technology, Lehigh University, and Cornell University, begin- ning in 1865, 1866 and 1868 respectively. The "Memorial" laying the foundation of the Massachusetts Institute planned a polytechnic college "to equip its students with every scientific and technical principle applicable to the industrial pursuits of the age." In the first Lehigh "Register" the purpose was set forth to provide, in ad- dition to liberal courses, training for the "young men of the Valley, of the State and of the Country, for those industrial pursuits which tend to develop the re- sources of the country." Said Ezra Cor- nell: "I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study." The nation needed up-building. A generation of young builders responded. Lehigh, along with the institutions cited and others, furnished a notable share of these builders. Thus Lehigh has been molded and in turn has helped to mold national life of the past half-century. Lehigh has been American to the core, with the virtues and the shortcomings of America. Foreign critics used to take care that the United States should not be unaware of its shortcomings. Doubtless there were crudities, callowness, lack of interest in intellectual matters in portions of our population which merited the criticism received. Doubtless there was at Lehigh in certain periods some disregard for the urbanity and refinement of older seats of learning, some neglect of the philosoph- ical aspect of life. These shortcomings 3 were the shortcomings of a young nation, of a young institution. The virtues of the nation have been Homeric directness and force, of which Lincoln stands as the finest exponent; with Theodore Roosevelt, I risk saying, as the typical exponent of our own day. The virtues of Lehigh have been similar, with this characteristic, that she has in- sisted upon scholastic first-rateness and clean execution, and in so doing she has trained her sons to meet difficulties and to master them. The doctrine and the practice from the first have been: Here, student, is your problem. If you shirk, you do not pass. If you are unqualified for any reason, you do not pass. Lehigh guides and helps. But you solve the prob- lem. Thus, bred by no over-indulgent mother, Spartan sons have been developed. During the war I knew a very able army officer, a graduate of West Point, who declared: "I have noted that when a Le- high man has a job to do he doesn't come back With an alibi; he comes back with the bacon." It would be easy to starch and iron the phrasing into prettier shape, but the tribute is there and it rings true. Two practical tenets issue from these traditions of Lehigh. The first is decisive thorough action as a fundamental for the conduct of life. The besetting sin of most of us is dawdling. We ought to attack our tasks promptly. We ought to see them through to a finish. Trite words, these; but unless we make them a living formula there can be no effective strength in us. Your courses at Lehigh have been so ordered as to give you a start in this fundamental. According to the law of the modification of the nerve cells of the brain, you are assured a return with interest 4 upon the tendencies to act with prompt- ness, concentration and diligence, which you have learned here. But you must pay the daily price of exercising these tenden- cies in concrete tasks. You should re- gard every piece of work that comes to your hand as an opportunity to gain power. It is a scientific fact that all work well done today modifies the nerve cells and helps to insure success tomorrow. Achievement begets achievement. Some qualifications are necessary, of course. You should not confuse this doc- trine of achievement with worship of suc- cess in the sense of "getting there," at any cost; but neither should you fall into the reverse-Philistinism which scorns wealth and position as such. You must not ordinarily count upon exceptional achieve- ment in those realms of effort about which poor Wagner in "Faust" sighed: "Ach, Gott, die Kunst ist lang (Art is long);" but you ought to remember that "the age when men are eager about great work is the age when great work gets itself done." We should cultivate the enjoyment of success in doing. When night comes we ought to find our reward, not in the praise of others, although that is pleasant, but in the approval of our critical consciences as we say "Today I achieved," or, in Brown- ing's words, "Today I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole." The second tenet based on Lehigh tradi- tions is closely connected with the first. The French have an apt phrase for the thinker who fails in sustained attention; they designate him as one incapable of work, de longue haleine, — of long breath. During the war it was demonstrated how much longer is the breath which the aver- 5 fl