MANNERS MAKETH MAN 



Delivered at Brooklyn College, 1914 



THE day of final conquest has now arrived for each of 

 you and each must now put his studies to active use 

 in the world and pursue still further the roads upon 

 which he entered the kingdom of knowledge. Your gradua- 

 tion must be turned to account. It must be added to and 

 made useful, both to the possessor and those around him. 

 The college man must progress more than those who have not 

 had his advantages, if his study and his development are to 

 be of any avail. 



One of the colleges at Oxford which fascinated me the 

 most was New College. It was a college with a park; and 

 colleges which have a park attached to them have a peculiar 

 attraction for me. The college from which I graduated had 

 a dense, shady park ; and around its walks I think — or at 

 least I used to think — I got the makings of all that is best 

 within me. New College at Oxford is one of the oldest col- 

 leges there; it was founded back in 1375. New College is not 

 its real name, either; for it is the College of St. Mary of 

 Winchester. But it was founded at a time when there was 

 only one college building there; so some five hundred and 

 fifty years ago it was really a "new" college, and the name 

 has remained by it ever since. 



That College of St. Mary at Oxford, "New College," was 

 founded by one of the remarkable men of his day, William 

 of Wykeham, Bishop of Winchester. The statutes and rules 

 with which he founded and endowed it remain intact until to- 

 day. Its motto, and what the learned bishop insisted upon, 

 was "Manners maketh man." It is something which I can 

 commend to you to-day. Manners in the old thirteenth cen- 

 tury sense of the term did not mean mere outward polite- 

 ness, as we understand the word to-day. It was the sturdy 

 Anglo-Saxon for "Education makes a man," and William 



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