212 EFFECTIVENESS OF THE COMMITTEE ON OCEANOGRAPHY 



stricken millions, how much suffering they could have relieved. Do you not think 

 the world would have been the better for it? I tell you, that there is something 

 rotten in the condition of the world. There is still ample scope for improvement. 



The touchstone of real culture should be the feeling of solidarity and continuity. 

 You, your family, your class, your nation are only parts of the whole, passing 

 links in space and time. But of that feeling there seems to be nothing as yet be- 

 tween nations, and mighty little between classes. In their relations you still have 

 the morality of the savage, who only considers his own advantage. 



How strange that we have not yet outgrown these perpetual struggles and dis- 

 putes between different classes of the same people, that we have no more rational 

 means of settling them than brute force, strikes, and lockouts — and that we use 

 this weapon and stop working, even while there is unemployment and privation. 



I often wonder what an inhabitant of some other globe would say if he could 

 look down and see how we manage things upon this little planet of ours. Would 

 he think that there were intelligent beings on this earth? Wasn't it Bernard 

 Shaw who said some time ago that he did not know what the inhabitants of the 

 other globes were doing but he was firmly convinced that they used our earth 

 as a lunatic asylum. Yes, there can be no doubt that excessive nationalism as 

 well as class warfare are dangers, but there may be dangers on the other side too. 

 Let us not forget that national patriotism, as was mentioned by Lord Cecil on 

 the last Assembly of the League, is a necessary stimulus for the development of 

 the world. Beware of the tendency toward uniformity, toward creating a great 

 uniform human family. Desirable as it may be in some respects, I cannot help 

 seeing a great danger in it. Increasing urbanization, uniform education, the 

 rapidly improving means of transport and communication, tend to abolish dist- 

 ance, and to wipe out those characteristic differences between natures and cultures 

 which have made life interesting and beautiful, and acted as an important stimu- 

 lus to new thought. There are several ideals in vogue nowadays, which, if real- 

 ized, would lead us toward a dangerous monotony, a uniform greyness, in which 

 it would be difficult to develop one's own personality. All this may be difficult 

 to alter, but we ought not to shut our eyes to it. 



It is not a very encouraging picture which your rector has drawn of the sea 

 you have to navigate, of the stage in which you have to act your part in life. He 

 has drawn it to the best of his knowledge, well aware that it is useless to paint 

 with many colors when you will so soon be caught in the baffling grey mists of 

 reality. 



But you have the buoyant strength of youth, and when they tell you that 

 civilization is going downhill, remember it has been bad enough many times before 

 in history. In spite of its age, the world is young, and now let us trust that in 

 the spring, when a new summer is born — - 



"April for all I choose 



In it the old things tumble, 

 In it things new refresh us, 



It makes a mighty rumble — 

 But peace is not so precious 

 As that his will man shows; 

 ******* 

 In April the summer grows." 1 



What we call development goes in great waves up and down. If you are in the 

 trough you have always the possibility of rising on to a crest ahead of you. The 

 great thing in human life is not so much where we stand as in what direction we are 

 moving. And, mind you, it is not the stage that makes your actions great or 

 small. It is for you yourselves to create your role on the stage. 



"Men at some time are masters of their fates 

 The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars 

 But in ourselves, that we are underlings." 



If the world is out of joint it is for you to put it right, to make it a better place 

 to live in, each of you to the best of his ability — as I told you, there is ample scope 

 for improvement. The old beaten tracks do not take us to our goal. 



It is time to begin prospecting in new lands. 



We need you, young friends, with fresh eyes capable of seeing the simple, 

 elemental things — ready to try new trials, to run risks, and dare the unknown. 



My distinguished predecessors, Barrie and Kipling, have spoken to you about 

 courage and about independence, two heaven-born qualities for this voyage of life, 



1 Translated by A. K. Palmer from Bjoustierne Bjornson. 



