The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1907-02-24

and that no amount of second-class work
can atone for failure in the college to
produce this first class work. a course
of study is of little worth if it tends
to deaden individual initiative and cramp
scholars so that they only work in the
ruts worn deep by many predecessors.
American scholarship will be judged, not
by the quantity of routine work pro-
duced by routine workers, but by the
small amount of first class output of
those who, in whatever branch, stand
in the first rank.
Value of Original Work.
mo industry in compilation and in COM
bination will ever take the place OF this
first hand original work, this productive
and creative work, whether in science, in
art, in literature. The greatest special
function of a college, as distinguished
from its general function of producing
good citizenship, should be so to shape
conditions as to put premium upon the
development of productive scholarship, of
the creative mind, in any form or in
tellectual work. The men whose chief con-
Germ lies with the work of the student
in study, should bear this fact ever be-
fore them.
$50 much for what I have to say to
you purely as Harvard men. Now
word which applies to you merely as 1t
applies to all college men, to all men III
this country who have received the bene-
fits of a college education; and what L
have to say on this topic can properly be
said under the auspices of your Political
club. You here when you graduate Will
take up many different kinds of work;
but there Is one work in which all of you
should take part simply as good Amer
lean citizens, and that is the work of
self-government.
Holding Office.
Remember in the first place, that to
take part in the work OF government does
not in the least mean of necessity to
hold office 1t means to take an intell-
gent, disinterested and practical part IN
the everyday duties of the average cit
izen, of the citizen who is not faddist
or a doctrinaire, but who aDhors cor
ruption and dislikes inefficieney; VINO
wishes to see decent government prevail
at home. with genuine equality of OPP
portunity for all men so far as 1t can
be brought about; and who wishes, as
far as foreign matters are concerned,
to see this nation treat all other nations,
great and small, with respect, and IL
need be with generosity, and at the same
time show herself able to protect herself
by her own might from any wrong at
the hands of any outside power.
No Excuse for Failure.
each man here should feel that he
has no excuse, as a citizen in demo-
cratic republic like ours, II he falis TO
do his part in the government. 1t is not
only his right so to do, but his duty;
his duty both to the nation and to HIM
self Each should feel that III he 1ails
in this, he is not only failing In his duty
but is showing himself in contemplate
light A man may neglect his poiitical
duties because he is too lazy, too selfish,
,l,tn cd ar tiIntd.
ever the reason may be it is certainly an
unworthy reason, and it shows either
weakness or worse than a weakness III
the mans character. Above all, you col
lege men, remember that If your educa-
ton. the pleasant lives you lead, make
you too fastidious, too sensitive TO take
mart in the rough hurlyburly of the actual
work of the world, II you become so
overcultiyated so overrefined that you
cannot do the hard work of practical pol
itics. then you had better never have
been educated at all.
Weaklng and Coward.
''The weakling and the coward are out
of place in a strong and free community.
In the republic like ours the governing
class is composed of the strong men who
take the trouble to do the work of gov
eminent: and If you are too timid or too
fastidious or too careless to do your
right to be considered one of the gov
erning and your become one of the gov
erned instead-one Of the driven cattle
of the political arena. I want you to
feel that 1t Is not merely your right to
take part in politics, not merely your duty
to the state, but that it is demanded by
your own selfrespect, unless you are con-
tent to acknowledge thar you are unfit
to govern yourself and have to submit to
the rule of somebody else as master
and this is what it means II you do not
do your own part in government.
Like most other things of value, educa-
tion is good only in SO far as 1t Is used
Alright. and If 1t misused or II 1t causes
the owner to be so puffed up with pride
as to make him misestimate the relative
values Of things it becomes a harm and
not benefit.
Arid Cultivation.
"There are few things less desirable
than the arid cultivation, the learning
and refinement which lead merely to that