, 1905-06-29
ADDRESS BEFORE
HARVARD STUDENTS
PRESIDENTS SPEECH AT RNNI-
vERSARY EXERCISES YES
TERDAY AFTERNOON.
Special Functions Possessed by Great
Universities, First to Produce
Small Number of Scholars of the
Highest Rank and Other to Send
Great Men Out.

when he appeared before the students
lent Roosevelt was warmly greeted
and others at the commencement OF
Harvard university and said:
A great university like this has two
special functions. The first is to pro
duce a small number of scholars OF the
highest rank, who in science, literature
and art, will dc productive work of the
first class, the second is to send out
into the world, a very large number
Of men who never could achieve and
who ought not to try to achieve such a
position and scholarship, but whose
energies are to be felt in every other
form of activity, whose development
of body and mind shall fit them to do
work, both honorable and efficient. The
ideal for the graduate school must be
the ideal of high scholarly production.
If America is to contribute its share
to the progress of knowledge and wis
dom. hen W. must put ever increasing
emphasis on the lines of the graduate
school, we must have the right sort of
students, no science, literature or art
can be built up with second classmen.
If we produce a billion scholars, they
must have brilliant positions and add
ed salary, which shall help to
indicate how high position really is.
The people are at last waking up to
the fact there must be better pay for
the average man and woman engaged
in the work of education. In business
nothing could be more healthy than
an immense reduction of the money
value Of the prizes to be won, but in
scholarship, what is needed is exactly
the reverse. The American scientist,
the American scholar has the chance
at least, Of winning such financial
prizes as are open to our successful
brother in Germany, England or
France, where the rewards paid for
first class scholarly achievement are
as much above those paid in this cOun-
| 4 as Jul " - hi'N N'ASS
achievements in business are above
those paid abroad. The normal func-
ton of the college. however, is to turn
out each year hundreds of men who
go into commercial life and do useful
service for a nation. To some, but to
very few, college life is a disadvantage.
Randolph of Roanoke, he of the biting
tongue, once remarked of an opponent,
who came from a great university that
he reminded him of certain tracts of
land which were almost worthless by
nature, and became entirely SO by cul-
tivation.' The taste for refined idle
ness, a distaste for sustained effort is
not the purpose of a college,"
The president then referred to the
growth of luxury in the universities,
which he viewed with concern. He
said: at is neither possible nor desir-
able to try to take away all social diff
%ferences from student life, but it is a
good thing to show how u%nimportant
things are compared to the bonds
which unite all men in any degree cap
able of real achievement" The presi-
dent said he believed heartily in sport,
and has no sympathy whatever with
the overwrought s~entimentality which
would keep a young man in cotton
wool. The sport sometimes goes too
far to the damage of character by the
presence Of brutality. Sport should
n t be regarded by the college men as
the serious business of life, nor should
it in any way be tainted by profession
alism. The college undergraduate in
~furtive fashion becomes a semi-profes-
sional and is IN unmitigated curse.
Mr.. Roosevelt then devoted much time
to commenting the alumni of Harvard,
whose standard of conduct is always
high. He denounced the rich man, who
did not use his wealth properly and
urged applied morality to all CONNER
cial enterprises. He closed with a
plea to the men who go out from Har-
ward into the great world in such fash
ion hat when the end of their days
comes, they shall feel that the have
actually achieved results and not mere
ly talked of a%chieveing them.