19163 At the Rice Institute 



nation on the side of an immediate and a lasting peace, based 

 on the principles of international justice and not dependent on 

 the fortunes of war. 

 March 21, 1916 



In April of this year, in connection with a meeting An agent 

 of the Simplified Spelling Board, I was waylaid in / 

 Chicago on my way home by one Geldesmeester, a 

 Dutch agent of Germany. He professed to be influ- 

 enced by a spirit of revenge toward England for her 

 part in the Boer War, and seemed obviously dejected 

 at the entire failure of his attempt to create sym- 

 pathy for Germany. In his judgment she was eager 

 for the cessation of carnage. But he could give no 

 evidence that the German government loved peace 

 well enough to restore stolen goods, the visible results 

 of its raid upon civilization. 



In June I went to Houston, Texas, to give the 

 address at the first Commencement of Rice Institute. 

 This visit had been promised for some time, as four 

 years before I was unable to be present at the dedica- 

 tion exercises of that vigorous establishment. Under 

 the leadership of its accomplished president, Dr. President 

 Edgar Odell Lovett, it has risen to a front rank among Lovett 

 Southern educational institutions. 



Its faculty, made up of young men of promise, con- 

 tained two in whom I was especially interested 

 Guerard, my companion in Alsace, 1 and Julian S. Julian 

 Huxley, grandson of the great naturalist, a physiol- Huxle y 

 ogist now on the staff of Oxford University. Dr. 

 Huxley is a singularly amiable man and a clever 

 investigator with a gift at exposition. During the 

 war both he and Guerard felt the call of country, 

 enlisting in service in France. 



1 See Chapter XLIII, pages 501-502. 



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