io8 On the Campus 



rigation ; and the picture rises ! Men were living then ! 

 There was a city and from it stretched, far as sight could 

 reach, orchards with the green of silken fields. By these 

 were walks and highways and purling waters, where the 

 fountains of Tigris came down to make the desert bloom. 

 You might hear the voices of men, the songs of women, 

 and the shouts and laughter of happy children ; but this 

 was sixty centuries ago! Through such lapse of years 

 only the stoutest imagination avails to find its way. Yet 

 here it is; the record not to be disputed. Here are the 

 voices of our fellows sounding from that far time, and 

 the spell of our common humanity is upon us with a 

 charm we may not resist. Since that day, nearly two 

 hundred generations, as men reckon, have risen per- 

 chance and disappeared, and here at last are we, breath- 

 ing the vital air, watching in our turn the glistening 

 fields of summer, even as did they of Babylon's forgot- 

 ten plains. Not practical, this bit of clay? No, not 

 practical; we cannot eat it; we cannot burn it; we can- 

 not even sell it. But we can USE it ; we are using it ; it is 

 fascinating; we enjoy it!, and what more practical than 

 that which gives us joy? "We have opened in an unex- 

 pected place a window, a new intellectual horizon, and 

 the view is interesting, vast, wonderful, and abiding. 

 We knew that behind us were a thousand marching gen- 

 erations, and lo! we see them on the way, and their dim 

 figures live and move and speak again. A good oriental- 

 ist before this assembly would give us a year's food for 

 thought and a vision to last us the rest of our lives ! Is 

 that practical? 



People who are concerned alone with things of im- 



