FORMATION OF CHARACTER 463 



More important even than avoiding any mere educa- 

 tional shortconiin<>' is the avoidance of moral short- 

 coming. Students are already being sent to Europe to 

 prepare themselves to return as professors. Such 

 preparation is now essential, for it is of prime impor- 

 tance that the University should be familiar with what 

 is being done in the best Universities of Europe and 

 America. IJut let the men who are sent be careful to 

 bring back what is fine and good, what is essential to 

 the highest kind of modern progress ; and let them 

 avoid what are the mere non-essentials of the present- 

 day civilization, and, above all, the vices of modern 

 civilized nations. Let these men keep open minds. 

 It would be a capital blunder to refuse to copy, and 

 thereafter to adapt to your own needs, what has raised 

 the Occident in the scale of power and justice and 

 clean living. But it would be a no less capital blunder 

 to copy what is cheap or trivial or vicious, or even what 

 is merely wrong-headed. Let the men who go to 

 Europe feel that they have much to learn, and much 

 also to avoid and reject ; let them bring back the good 

 and leave behind the discarded evil. 



Remember that character is far more important than 

 intellect, and that a really great University should strive 

 to develop the qualities that go to make up character 

 even more than the qualities that go to make up 

 a highly trained mind. No man can reach the 

 front rank if he is not intelligent and if he is not 

 trained with intelligence ; but mere intelligence by 

 itself is worse than useless unless it is guided by an 

 upright heart, unless there are also strength and 

 courage behind it. Morality, decency, clean living, 

 courage, manliness, self-respect — these qualities are 

 more important in the make-up of a people than any 



