COMMENCEMENT EXERCISES 313 



COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS JUNE 21, 1901. 



PROFESSOR J. B. JOHNSON. 



THE PERSONAL AND NATIONAL BENEFITS OF EDUCATION IN APPLIED 



SCIENCE. 



[Abstract of address.] 

 INTRODUCTIOX. 



The begiuuinj:: of the twentieth century marks the most significant 

 era in the world's history. Westward tlie star of empire has coursed 

 its triumphal way until West and East have come together in a life and 

 death struggle the end of which cannot be foretold. Wholesale cor- 

 porate production, also, has swallowed up nearly all individual capital 

 and enterprise, and has captured the world's markets, by the greater 

 perfection and the diminished cost of the products. 



In South Africa the attempt of a medieval Christian people to shut 

 out from their beclouded land the wave of nineteenth century progress 

 has ])roved as futile as it was foolish. Progress is in the air, and as the 

 air, it engulfs the globe. Nature does not more abhor a vacuum Ihan 

 she does permanence of form. What ceases to change and grow ceases 

 to live. Even the rocks of the eternal hills- are changed to claj' and are 

 dissohed in Ihe surrounding seas. To attempt to scotch the wheels 

 of progress, therefore, is but to invite destruction. One must "accept 

 the universe'' as it is and make the best of it. And our social world 

 is changing with such marvelous speed it is almost bewildering to the 

 most progressive races. It is with the greatest difficulty that these can 

 keep the i)ace, while the less progressive nations are being left abso- 

 lutely behind. A little slowing up of one peo]>le, therefore, is now 

 equivalent to losing the race. "We think we are driven to death already, 

 but the gait is ever speedier, and if our lives become shorter in years 

 Ihey will be ever longer in accomi)lishment. If we <-au but find i)leasure 

 in our work, then the greater the work the greater the hapjiiness. 

 >\nd why should we not find ])leasure in our work'.' Never before were 

 so many intei-esting ]»roblems ojXMiing uj) feu- solution. The most stimu- 

 lating- and soul-satisfying exjierience in the world lie in the over-coming 

 of ditVirnltics and in the solution of new i)roblems. And these ju-obiems 

 come trooping u]K)n us. They are of all kinds — material, political, 

 commercial, social. A\'1i<mi in the ])ast has the ])olitics of every coun- 

 try been whole-world i)olitics as it is today'.' It is no longer an Amer- 

 ican (juestion, or a European question, or the Eastern (question — it. is 

 a world question with which statesmen of all countries are having to 

 deal. In business, also, the field of o])eralions is no longer the town, 

 or city, or state, or nation; it is the whole inhabited globe. Aiuil socially 

 our ]U'oblems are no longer i)urely domestic; tlH\v include the whole 

 human race. Such (piestions as the relation between labor and capital; 

 the relative rights and duties of the sexes; the control of business cor- 

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