THE ALUMNI JOURNAL 93 



tion of the community and the political organization of the state 

 there is inherent verity, though its actual presence may sometimes be 

 doubted. Find it, however, howsoever deeply it may at first sight be 

 iiidden, and follow it to its own good and your own salvation, for 

 the truth of all associations and combinations of men depends abso- 

 lutely upon the truth of the individuals that compose them and each 

 man and woman in human society is a factor whose sum total ol 

 influence make up the whole of ultimate result. Nobody is, or can 

 be, without influence in the community in which he lives. However 

 much he may withdraw from the active interests of social and poli- 

 tical life, there is still an influence, but an adverse one, exerted. In 

 inaction and indiflference does not lie the search for truth, and the man 

 or woman who neglects to act in the affairs of life as they surround 

 him, whatever they may be in their opportunity, their number or 

 amount, is neither true to himself nor to the society in which he 

 lives. 



And as for the things along the way, estimate them at their true 

 value. It is, I think, a besetting sin of the American people, that has 

 grown upon them under the conditions of quick material develop- 

 ment, that we judge things too quickly and offhand and without the 

 consideration, the adjudging and weighing that is often due them for 

 the correct understanding of their immediate significance or their 

 future bearing. This may be due in part to the lack of a wide his- 

 torical background against which it is possible to measure the things 

 of the present in the light of the past. A nation, like a person, must 

 arrive at wisdom through its own experience and this nation has still 

 much to learn before from some points of view at least, it even 

 arrives at the traditional years of discretion. My plea is for a greater 

 seriousness of purpose in an attitude toward the things of life as based 

 upon a more accurate and careful estimate of the truth that is inherent 

 in them. And seriousness of purpose does not mean a puritanical 

 acidity that repels. This is your life, live it to the full, but rationally 

 and with an understanding of the pit-falls that beset it. Fall in line 

 with your day and generation but be conscious where you are headed 

 and do not drift along unthinkingly with the multitude simply because 

 more may be going in one direction rather than in the other. .\ 

 policy of drift is never a policy of thrift, in personal conduct any 

 more than it is in business or in professional life. 



And in your beliefs and your disbeliefs see the inherent truth appar- 



