28 Presidential Addresses 



of which he spoke of what the university can con 

 tribute to the state as being scholarship and service. 

 There are only a limited number of men of any uni 

 versity who can add to what has been so well called 

 by Professor Munsterberg "productive scholarship." 

 Of course each university should bend its energies 

 toward developing the few men who are thus able 

 to add to the sum of the nation's work in scholarly 

 achievement. To those men the all-important doc 

 trine to preach is that one piece of first-rate work 

 is worth a thousand pieces of second-rate work ; and 

 that after a generation has passed each university 

 will be remembered by what its sons have produced, 

 not in the line of a mass of pretty good work, but 

 in the way of the few masterpieces. I do not in 

 tend, however, to dwell upon this side of the uni 

 versity's work, the work of scholarship, the work 

 of the intellect trained to its. highest point of pro 

 ductiveness. I want to speak of the other side, 

 the side that produces service to the public, service 

 to the nation. Not one in a hundred of us is fit to 

 be in the highest sense a productive scholar, but all 

 of us are entirely fit to do decent service if we care 

 to take the pains. If we think we can render it 

 without taking the pains, if we think we can render 

 it by feeling how nice it would be to render it 

 why, the value of that service will be but little. 



Fortunately to-day those who addressed you had 

 a right to appeal not merely to what they had spoken, 

 but to what they had done. When we are inclined 

 to be pessimistic over affairs, and especially public 



