The evening times. [volume] (Grand Forks, N.D.) 1906-1914, 1906-06-21
DIR. FAUNCE ON8WEALTH.
Attacks Tendency TO Put It First
!, Condemns Muck. Rakers. Z:

Attacks Tendency TO Put It First
Condemns Muck Rakers.
Providence, r. /, June 21.-Dr.. w.
II. z. Faunce, president Of Brown. uni
versity, preached the annual baccalau-
reate sermon today to the two hundred
students who will be graduated from
the various departments of the univer-
sity on Wednesday,. The First Baptist
meeting house, where the sermon was
delivered at $3.50 o'clock in the after
noon, was crowded. The seniors of
the college and Of Pembroke Hall, the
women's department., marched from the
front campus to the church, wearing
mortar boards and gowns.
Thou hast thought that the gift of
God may be purchased with money"
text from acts viii, 20, was chosen by
President Faunce for his baccalaureate
sermon. He said, in part:
II 1t be the function of commence
ment time to bring us something more
than banquets and banners and
pageantry, II 1t be It's purpose to
search and try our life and recall us to
ideal standards. we may we'll consider
how Peters Indictment Of one man is
really a reproof Of our own genera
tion. We men of the twentieth century
have imagined too often that success Is
a matter of financial resource, that
happiness and power can be quoted
at market rates. and that the things
that are excellent are knocked OF to
the highest bidder.
Many times we have seen such
standards applied in education, with
the result Of not only overemphasizing
the bread and butter" studies, but of
building all efforts upon an unworthy
foundation. Every school or college
must indeed b managed on sound
business principles but where the
noblest group Of college buildings be-
comes the plant where the daily
question regarding tny study is Does
1t pay?" where the president becomes
a business manager and the faculty
hired men, we have simply converted,
or rather perverted, education into
trade.
First Need Not Money.
The first need Of a college is never
money. The first need is lofty idea;
the second need is insight into the real
needs of society and the function of
the teacher in supplying them; the
third need is wise, vigilant, honest adj
mfnistratfon, and the last need Is f1nan-
cial resources. Everywhere wealth is
needed; everywhere it is subordinate.
Money cannot build university. The
most enduring assets are invisible.
When Brown university had q total
endowment of $31, 900 she had Francis
Wayland. When Bowdoin had no
laboratories she had Longfellow and
Hawthorne. 1t is not brick and mortar,
In,,A <In %I,4
This idea of wealth as the source Of
all success had it's extreme illustration
recently in college athletics, where we
have seen in the last fifteen years the
full dominance of commercial methods.
far beyond us In some things as we are
beyond the American Indian, made
more of athletic pre-eminence than
does any American city or school. But
the Greeks saw no connection whatever
between athletic victory and financial
speculation. The games were open to
every man who loved his country, were
begun with religious sacrifice, and the
reward Of the victor was a wreath Of
wild olive. Do we imagine that by
hiring men of sinew to come to college
we can create a sound and wholesome
athletic life? Athletic Hessians never
yet brought permanent growth in num-
bers, fame or character to any insti-
tuition.
The same principle applies in all
public service. h. I. But how shall
one get to the place of power? BY
mastery of our political history and
institutions? By genuine understand
ing of the social and industrial con-
ditions about him? BY resolute cour-
age in speaking and acting the truth?
These methods often seem tame, slow
and ineffective to the modern man.
They would possibly suffice, he thinks .
in the days of Clay and Webster and
Summer, but now they would not
elect a Sunday school superintendent.
The man knows OF one universal
medium, one vehicle of power, which
the dullest can recognize. He believes
that money talks" and he sets 1t talk
in. In other words, he debauches the 4
electorate. He, the statesman and
legislator, takes advantage Of the
ignorance of the immigrant, of the
cupidity of the rural voter. and at
tempts to buy for himself the coveted
position. And when he has secured it
he wakes up to find that the nation
has rated him at his true value.
!. tsMuck-Rakesr Hindrance.
President Faunce continued to point
out the same principles in business
life, the pursuance of which principles
resulted In a coarsening of moral fibre,
the fading out of faith in man and
God and the slow reduction OF all
standards to one sordid level. He said
further:
The events Of the last twelve months
have been perceptibly refashioning our
American ideals of success in life. 1t
is true that the reform has been late-
ly hindered by the literature of ex-
posture, undertaken for precisely the
same purposes as the enterprises
which 1t lays bare When sensational
writer's exploit the exploiters there is
no result. When all business men are
denounced in public prints the real
criminal rejoices in his safety. But In
spite of temporary hindrances the good
work goes On-the work of bringing
society face to face with the conditions
which society itself has created; the
work Of seeing things as they are, In
ledger and ONCE and store, in railroad
and mine and packing house: vast
national self-appraisement that we,
may learn whether we are fitted, as
We thought, for the moral and indus
trial leadership of the world.
Have we forgotten that In other
ages the gifts OF God were supposed to
be purchased by poverty? Have we
forgotten that In the thirteenth cent
ury. famous for its art and architecture
ann chivalry and nobility men tembrac-