FORMATION OF CHARACTER 
468 
More important even than avoiding any mere educa¬ 
tional shortcoming is the avoidance of moral short¬ 
coming. Students are already being sent to Europe to 
prepare themselves to return as professors. Such 
preparation is now essential, for it is of prime impor¬ 
tance that the University should be familiar with what 
is being done in the best Universities of Europe and 
America. But let the men who are sent be careful to 
bring back what is fine and good, what is essential to 
the highest kind of modem progress; and let them 
avoid what are the mere non-essentials of the present- 
day civilization, and, above all, the vices of modern 
civilized nations. Let these men keep open minds. 
It would be a capital blunder to refuse to copy, and 
thereafter to adapt to your own needs, what has raised 
the Occident in the scale of power and justice and 
clean living. But it would be a no less capital blunder 
to copy what is cheap or trivial or vicious, or even what 
is merely wrong-headed. Let the men who go to 
Europe feel that they have much to learn, and much 
also to avoid and reject; let them bring back the good 
and leave behind the discarded evil. 
Remember that character is far more important than 
intellect, and that a really great University should strive 
to develop the qualities that go to make up character 
even more than the qualities that go to make up 
a highly trained mind. No man can reach the 
front rank if he is not intelligent and if he is not 
trained with intelligence; but mere intelligence by 
itself is worse than useless unless it is guided by an 
upright heart, unless there are also strength and 
courage behind it. Morality, decency, clean living, 
courage, manliness, self-respect — these qualities are 
more important in the make-up of a people than any 
