728 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



It is to be both congratulated and commiserated. The first because it strives 

 to exhibit the broad principles of fraternity and to make common cause for the 

 common good ; the second because by virtue of its advanced position it has im- 

 molated itself upon the pale of obloquy ; it has executed its own irrevocable de- 

 gree of ostracism. 



The constituents of this, its first class of graduates, will go down to their 

 chosen work as Ishmaelites. "Treat such men as gentlemen if you know them 

 to be gentlemen," said a respected physician at a recent Commencement of an- 

 other school, " but have nothing to do with them professionally." 



Such sentiments as that may be necessary to the preservation of some an- 

 cient code of professional ethics, but the common people, untrained in the discrim- 

 ination of such hypercritical refinements can discover neither necessity nor justice 

 for such unwholesome teaching. 



Without assumption, 1 think I may say to the members of this class that the 

 position you will occupy as the first representatives of this college demands of 

 you in a peculiar way the virtues of modesty and forbearance. 



By following the curriculum and receiving diplomas from a school that does 

 not acknowledge the supreme and all sufficient authority of any one principle or 

 formula, you stand committed to a practice that must be variable without being 

 fickle and persistent without being inflexible. 



Persuaded that the last word has not been said in this nor in any other 

 science you must be listeners. Persuaded that the sum of human knowledge is 

 yet incomplete, you will be patient learners. Francis Bacon compared himself 

 to the statues of Mercury, which indicate the way although they do not pass over 

 it themselves. 



Every true student, even in this age, does best who can, when his task is 

 done, point, not to the finished work his hand and brain have wrought, but to 

 the work suggested — perhaps begun — but quite too large for one life to compass. 

 To him who is willing to learn the world has much to teach. To him who listens 

 well there are many voices. 



Modesty then is the virtue I would commend, the modesty that makes men 

 teachable, the modesty that keeps the greatest learning humble, the modesty that 

 gives one respect for every man's doubt and a far greater respect for every man's 

 honest belief. By the virtue of forbearance I mean that equable temper born of 

 confidence in one's mission that renders him calm and silent under the stinging 

 lash of criticism, ridicule and obloquy. The world moves slowly, but it moves. 

 When any man leaves the beaten track to make for himself and others a new 

 way — albeit that way leads out by flowers and singing brooks — he brings upon 

 his devoted head storm after storm of bitterness. In other ages the rack and the 

 stake were the rewards that grateful people meted out to the men who thought 

 differently from their times. More than many times have God's rivers been 

 called upon to bear out to the everlasting sea the ashes of God's best interpreters 

 and humanity's best friends. 



The method has changed. The spirit remains. Persecution has been refin- 



