April 6, 1906.] 



SCIENCE. 



535 



fraternity? only in embryo, and in prin- 

 ciple as yet; liberty? yes, with only the 

 effort of emancipation from old-world 

 thraldom and old-world, old-time preju- 

 dice. The conflict is hard, there are fierce 

 lions on the path, the road is rough and 

 steep. But courage ! the devil of feudalism 

 is dying, the student and the scholar mean 

 to keep watch and ward, to fight if need be 

 for the right. The strugg'le for social and 

 economic liberty is quite as grand as that 

 for political independence or liberty, and 

 in it the meanest sweatshop worker or 

 humblest day laborer acquires the dignity 

 of his standard, narrow and selfish as his 

 personal motive may be. Moreover, he 

 knows his chance, slight as it appears; 

 though the morning siin may never rise 

 full on the plodding recruit, yet its strug- 

 gling beams are rays of hope, and if he 

 perish it will be in the dawn, with his face 

 heavenward, and with the full assurance 

 that his children may stand before kings. 

 This and only this is the reason for our na- 

 tional and civic existence. There is truth 

 in Hume's contention that all the king's 

 state, his armies and fleets, his offices and 

 treasuries, all the paraphernalia of govern- 

 ment, existed only to get twelve good men 

 into the bos, and enforce their decision. Is 

 our property to be safe 1 be just to the mil- 

 lions; are our lives to be secure? give the 

 common man his chance; is education to 

 thrive ? share it with all. Open every door 

 to every career. 



In other words, let the university set up 

 its standards and maintain them; let it 

 conquer, not by the rude force of assertion 

 nor by the leverage of society, commerce 

 and athletics, but by the soft influences of 

 precept and example, of tolerance, patience 

 and endurance. Only with regard to tem- 

 perance and moderation must there be an 

 imperious voice. Among the doctrines of 

 natural science which have become winged 

 words is 'the struggle of life.' It is true 



as the law of unregenerato nature ; so is the 

 practise of gluttony, luxury and idleness. 

 But no discipline has been so untrue to it- 

 self as science in this regard; Avitness its 

 untiring efforts in medicine, penology and 

 philanthropy generally, to preserve and 

 save the unfit in their struggle for exist- 

 ence, when by its own profession it is 

 exactly these classes who ought to perish 

 from oft' the face of the earth. It is in this 

 law of regenerate nature, in this super- 

 natural and moral law of moderation and 

 contentment, that the equal chance to all 

 may be secured. A fair field and no favor 

 is all that the toiling millions ask. This 

 moderation is not, as many seem to think, a 

 structural ornament of our social edifice. 

 It is the cornerstone of the building; the 

 university which hews and lays it truest is 

 the architect of a temple, not merely fair 

 without, but solid and foursquare like the 

 walls of the new Jerusalem in the Apoc- 

 alypse. 



There is no finer definition of life than 

 that it is the reciprocal interchange of re- 

 lations. In this exchange the university 

 attitude must be neither conventional nor 

 artificial. To combine the fixed mainte- 

 nance of undeviating standards with toler- 

 ance and self-sacrifice, we must be ever 

 alert, adroit and versatile. The habit of 

 the community must not enchain us, nor its 

 fickleness divert us. The university man 

 in the professions must be aggressively 

 honest, intellectually as well as otherwise; 

 in citizenship he must be watchful, rm- 

 selfish and unsparing ; and above all else in 

 commercial life he must be temperate and 

 self-denying. The extremes of shallow op- 

 timism and hopeless pessimism are the 

 Scylla and Charybdis of university life, of 

 university character; we must keep the 

 middle course or we stultify ourselves. 

 The excuse of legality must not be the de- 

 fense of our dealings, nor the taint of ex- 

 pediency rest on our honors and degrees. 



