The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1897-06-07

tween the university and the world; you
are at the point of discovering how far the
university has fitted you for the larger in
tereSts OF actual life; you are at the point
where you shall begin to demonstrate TO
society whether the university has helped
you to the finding OF life. Every age mas
it's own ideals, and the university has in
every age been powerful instrument in
the preservation and maintenance of its
ideals. We must acknowledge with graft
tude that the closing years of this century
in our own country are Witnessing de-
velopment of the university which is max
ing IL an adequate expression Of the demo-
cratic ideal. The university is throwing off
the scholastic robes and putting on the
garments of the athlete. 1t Is more ana
more disabusing itself of the charge of fur
nishing a culture which is special, eXclu-
sive, aristocratic, and of necessity adapted
to the few, the men of leisure, the men OF
wealth, the men of the so-called learned
professions. The university is becoming not
only universal in the scope of its material,
but in the constituencies which it draws to
itself. 1t is becoming like the gospel which
Paul proclaimed which recognized neither
bond nor free. Jew nor Gentle male nor
female The university is happily leaving
the cloister and coming out into the open.
The admission of women into almost every
college in this country and into some OF
the European universities, the spread of the
university extension principles, the null
tiplicatiOn of those courses which deal with
the arts of life which are capable of ex-
tending human happiness and welfare-all
these are Illustrations of what may call
the democrauz1ng OF the university.
Young gentlemen, you are to be twentieth
century men, and / congratulate you upon
the promise of it's dawn. Had you lived
at the close of the eighteenth century you
would have heard the calls to freedom re-
sounding in your ears; you would have
heard the appeals to enlist in the service
of human rights and liberties; you would
have felt the eXhilaration of a revolution
stirring in your veins and perhaps you
would have responded to the sentiment of
Samuel Adams, who, when he heard the
firing of the first shots of the revolution on
Lexington common, said TO Hancock:
What glorious day is this" But,
young men, if we realize the posi-
bilities of our own closing century,
Samuel Adams said: What a glorious day
is this! l say if we respond to the pos
sibilities of our own time, for II we look
specifically there is perhaps much TO de-
press and occasion doubt of the immediate
time are very intimately connected with
these possibilities for highest good. We are
having as never before a return to actual
life; the university is, never before,
serving the actual life, and this of neces-
sty is causing tremendous emphasis to
be placed upon the external and material
conditions of life And herein is both the
peril and the promise of the new century
"a well-knoWn journalist has recently ut
tered a truth important enough 10 cause
a halt for a moment at any rate lie de-
clares that the century opened with three
million Americans who loved liberty and Is
about to close with seyenty-fve million who
scription of our age, is it not record Of
infamy and recreancy to high ideals which
this new awakening of intellectual life and
the return of the university to actual
conditions is to result tera, 0 cnEydition IN
and in that accentuat d selfishness born
of absorption in mat rial interests, then
is not our condition fcarfully like that of
the son who called for his share of the
estate that he might make OF IT a r1otouS
and prodigal use. If the return to actual
conditions and the roofing of things in the
material life obscures the vision and para
lyzes the arm of service, then were not the
atmosphere of the clOister wholesome as
| that of the open? Were not the poverty of
| the opening century with its love of free
| dom Infinitely better than the riches of its
| close if that close beholdS only the blind
ing love of pelf? 1t is forever true
| young men, that where there is no vision
| the people perish The crying need of
| every age is for the man of ideals and I
| say that you fnen who are to shape the life
| of the twentieth century have the power
| to recreate the ideal out of this material
| in your hands. 1t is yours to disprOve the
! medieval fallacy that the life of the spirit
and of ideals can be nourished only in the
cloister 1t is yours to prove triumphanty
| that these material conditions to which now
we are returning with such force have in
them the possibility of transmutation into
| noble life.
If these tendencies which have pointed
| out to-day do actually exist tendencies in
| dicating that humanity is coming to its
| better self. coming to the discovery that
| this is a divine universe and IS growing
| more and more toward a divine humanity
humanity of love and service, OF great at
| you to throw yourselves into the current
| of this tendency, find your inspiration and
your hope and your ambition in what 1t
| nortends. Let it individualize itself in your
| own lives SO that perchance here upon one
| of the epochal days in your life you shall
| find your own hearts responding to the di-
| vine CALL the call to arise and go to the
house of your father-thiS great house all
! around us. in which for all true and loyal
| hearts there is endless opportunity for end
1oc- arxri0p