The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-06-26
COMMENCEMENT OPENS
 WITH BACCALAUREATE
ANNUAL ADDRESS TO GRADU. ATING CLASS DELIVERED BY
 PRES. HADLEK.

eousness of the scribes and Pharisees
 The Broader View of Christian
 Duty as Applied to the College Man
 His Duty to the Future.
 The annual baccalaureate address at Yale was delivered yesterday morning by President Hadley in Woolsey hall. The galleries, parquette and extreme rear of the hall were filled with the relatives and friends of the candidates for degrees. On the stage, about the keyboard of the Newberry organ, was seated the. regular college choir, the members. of which have remained in town for commencement.
 Just before 1o:30 o'clock Prof. Harry JeDson began the organ prelude, and soon after the academic seniors enter ed by the leeft aisle, taking the seats on that side in the front of the hall. Following them, in the other aisle, came the scientific school men, and then those of the other departments. These in turn were followed by those who are candidates for graduate hon. ors, among them being few co-eds. The dark gowns made a pleasing ap- pearance in the white hall, here and there being relieved by the colored bands of those already having higher degrees.
 After all had entered the door at the side of tn stage was opened and Presi- dent Hadley, with the deans and direc- tors of the various departments pro- ceeded to their seats along the front of the platform,
 The order of the service was as fol- lows:
 I.-Organ prelude.
 II-Venite .......... .... 'GTegorian
 III-Lord's prayer.
 IV.-scripture lesson.
 VAnthenl-E -Ecce Jam Noctis....
 ........ ...... ............ ChadWlck
 VI-Prayer.
 VII-Hymn.
 X VIII-Address
 Ix.-Hymn.
 X-Doxology.
 -Benediction.
 The address by the president was one of the strongest and best delivered in recent years. President Hadley spoke right to the students and made every word tell. The address follows:
 Except your righteousness shall ex- ceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in mo case en- ter into the Kingdom of heaven
 What was the essential characteis- tic of the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees?
 It was this: The scribes and Phari- sees made morality, and even religion, a matter of rules and conventions. They looked for nothing higher and cared for nothing better than system of observances which they had inheri- ted from their fathers. This system was not in itself a bad one. The Pharisees had a more enlightened code of conduct than any of their contem- poraries or than most of the peoples who have come after them. This code inculcated in a high degree the vir- tues of cleanliness and religious obser- vance and of obedience to public and private law. It laid some emphasis on the more fundamental virtues of jus x tiee and reasona bleness. It was based, on philosophy in which God and a future life were essential articles of faith. Doubtless there were among the ranks of the Pharisees many hypo- critics, who used the forms oe religion and of morality as a cloak for their vices and sins; but there is no reason to believe that the proportion of such men was greater than has always ex- isted in any society where righteous ness has been sufficiently valued to make it worth while to put counter feits into circulation.
 Why, then, does devotion to a good system of rules and observances like that of the Pharisees lead its followers astray?
 Partly because the practice of rely ing upon rules and conventions, how ever good. lessens a mans power of meeting the unforeseen emergencies and crises of life. Next to the boy who comes to college with bad habits, the one who is in most danger is he who has had such ssuperlatively good habits that an infraction Of single ons of them breaks down the barrier upon which he has relied, and leaves him without system of inner de- lenses. There are two kinds of degen- eracy; one which comes from too little reliance upon law, another which 5 comes from too much. The man whom we commonly call a degenerate suffers from the former cause. He has broken so many laws that law as a whole ceases to have authority over him, and he becomes powerless to resist tempta- tion from any quarter. But there are and always have been degenerates of the opposite type-men who have kept the laws that they were taught to obey < until such laws become the only au- thority which controls them and the only standard which they recognize, and they are powerless to feel the stimulus of anything better. There is < a point beyond which drill ceases to be a help and becomes hindrance there is a set of circumstances where the person who has been subjected to too much control is as helpless as the one who has been subjected to too lit- tie. g# a,n
 Every college man, as he goes out into the world, is exposed to a change of atmosphere not unlike that through which he passed in coming from school