The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-06-22
THE BACCALAUREATE
BY PRESIDENT ARTHUR TWIN
 ING HADLEY,
Delivered at wOOIsey Hall, Yale UnI- versiiy, sunday Morning. June 2I.

And David longed, and said. Oh that one would give me to drink of the wa ter Of the well of Bethlehem, which is by the gate.
 And the three mighty men brake through the host of the Philistines and drew water out of the well of Bethle- hem, that was by the gate, and brought 1t to David; nevertheless he would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the Lord.
 And he said, Be it far from me, o Lord. that I should do this: is not this the blood of men that went in jeopardy of their lives? Therefore he would not drink it.
 Judged by material standards, this is a tale of folly from beginning to end. It was soolish :or David to utter his wish; it was doubly foolish for his cap tains to risk their lives to compass it.; 1t was trebly foolish for him to waste the gift which had been won at so much risk.
 I do not mean that all who read the story would criticise it in this way. In an episode like this, we instinctively feel that there is something which makes such criticism inadequate and impertinent. But when we are dealing, not with some exceptional matter of an- cient history, but with this everyday world of the twentieth century, and are valuing little deeds of heroism instead of great ones, we are prone to use ma terial standards, and cali them by the spacious name of common sense. We are apt to judge work by it's definite and measurable results; to make these results the motive of service and the criterion of success; and to condemn as misplaced sentiment anything which sacrifices or risks a tangible chance of physical comfort and security for an Intangible manifestation of loyalty or devotion. Amid much that is good in our twentieth century spirit, this over- valuation of material enjoyment and of tangible success constitutes a grave danger. All the achievement of modern science and of modern democracy will be worth little if, in the long fun, they teach people to regard knowledge for the sake of the return which it will bring, and to measure success in life by the concrete results with which men can credit themselves.
 am not going to make this materi- al view of life the subject of argument or criticism. I am going to call your attention to the fact that we do not really hold it; and that when we allow ourselves to be carried on with the cur rent of popular judgment so as to pre- tend that We hold it, we are letting the best side of our nature be suppressed and our best possibilities of personal growth and public service be stunted and withered.
 do not believe that there is a single man in this audience who values life primarily as means of securing com fort We value it as field of action. We care for the doing of things quite as much as for the results. A thing which we thus enjoy doing is play; and to the well constituted man play mingles with work in such a way that he can- not tell where one stops and the other begins, Signal achievement in itself appeals to our imagination and interest. We admire Nansen because he succeed ed in getting so much nearer the North Pole than anybody ever did before him; and it is one of the most discouraging testimonies to the false standards of the nineteenth century that Nansen feels compelled to justify his expedition on the basis of its scientific results. A man who tries to go to the North Pole is engaged in glorious play, which iustifies more risk and more expendi- ture of life than would be warranted for few miserable chronological spec imens, however remote from the place where they had been previously found. It is of far less material use to go to the North Pole than to raise hundred thousand bushels of wheat; but every man of you, if he had the choice be- tween going to the North Pole and rais- ing a hundred thousand bushels of wheat. would take the former.
 Turn back over the pages of history to the stories which have most moved mems hearts, and what are they? They are stories of action, deeds of daring, where the risk habtually out weighed the chance of practical results. Nay, the most inspiring of them all are often manifestations of hopeless brave ", where the likelihood of success was absolutely nothing. When we read of the soldiers of Gustavus Adolphus reg iment at Lutzen, who after the loss of their king stood firm in the ranks until the line of dead was as straight and complete as had been the line of the living on dress parade; when we hear of the Cumberland at Hampton Roads, waging the hopeless fight of wood against iron, and keeping the flag af1oat at the mainmast head when the vessel and all who remained in her had sunk; when we remember the tale of the Ala mo, in whose courtyard and hospital handful of American frontiersmen fought against the army of Mexico, without hope of victory but without thought of retreat or surrender till they earned by the very completeness of their annihilation the glory of that monumental inscriptions: "Thermopylae had it's messenger of defeat; the Alamo had none: :"-then do we see how hollow is our pretense of valuing things by re- suits when we are brought face to face with the really heroic struggles of life. It is the doing that makes the deed worthy of record, not the material out come.
 This is my point: that we value life as a field of action. The second point that I want to make is that we value those