206 THE IDEALS OF A SCIENCE SCHOOL 



expect that you will continue to grow in numbers 

 and usefulness. I have tried to show that as a 

 Scientific Association you stand for the ideals upon 

 which the universities of the future will be built, and 

 which need not fear comparison with the noblest that 

 have been paramount in the great periods of onrush 

 of human thought. They are safe in your hands. 

 For the love of truth and the passion for its advance- 

 ment are the ideals of youth and hope, and so long 

 as the tide of youth annually rejuvenates our univer- 

 sities there at least they cannot wholly die. 



It is the birth-right of youth to start anew. Once 

 to burst out from the coffin of the past and survey 

 the world with clear and open eyes. The vision 

 may fade. The cloud-capped towers and gorgeous 

 palaces may dissolve and leave not a rack behind. 

 But not for you ! 



You come here, ostensibly to "get on" how I 

 loathe the words to win for yourself position, power 

 and importance in the world that calls itself great, to 

 train for this or that profession or calling, to enable 

 you to hew your way and distance your competitors 

 in the race of life. But what have these tawdry 

 ideals of bygone far-off unhappy days to do with 

 your Alma Mater or with you ? Leave them, at 

 least, until you are out in the world that calls itself 

 great, and, while you are here, live in the world that 

 is great, in the realm of expanding ideas and the 

 rapidly widening horizons of truth ! 



Were all the powers of darkness in dominion over 

 her, yet is the university a holy place, where year by 

 year congregate pilgrims in the greatness and 

 generosity of youth, "to learn what none may teach, 

 to seek what none may reach," to perpetuate the 

 vision of youth after youth itself is sped. When 

 this ceases to be true, then and then only will the 

 ancient universities have grown old. 



