Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-06-23
The Opening Address.

Mr.. President, Classmates and
Friends of Bowdoin:
1t has indeed become a truism that
those who have enjoyed the advantages
OF a college education are become of
that fact expected to bear the brunt of
the nations burdens, are looked to, to
b. the solvcrs of it's problems, it's re-
formers, its leaders and its guardians
should be the responsibilities of the
college graduate, and yet it is very
proper that III these commencement
days we should pause and consider
wherein lies lis superiority, Just what
characteristics he has derived from IL
college training which thus fits him for
position OF superior responsibility.
We may very well ask, in other words
, what constitutes the educated man?
The reply to the question:; the popular
reply of the age, cannot be more truly
or more tcrscly put than in the words
of EN-Prcsidcnt Eliot of Harvard:
THAT man is best educated who is
most useful" The age is applying to
all men the practical test of the utili-
tartan. The questions which one face
are rot: What rank did YOU get? or
How much do you know? but rather,
To what use can your knowledge be
put? or of what service can you be
| to society? What can you do that will
| add to the happiness and the welfare
of the world? The college man is,
| more than any other capable of fulfill
| Ing the ideals which these questions
imply. and his superiority is due to
the fact that his training has been de-
signed to secure for him, not mere
knowledge of the subject but to develop
| III him the broad and general powers
| to observe, To imagine, to feel, to think;
and to Will, powers which are ever at
his command and ready to be applied
to the countless details and varying
situations which life presents. He
lacks the technical knowledge which
makes one an expert in any special
business or profession but he has that
broader knowledge called wisdom
W mich enables one to see the funda-
mental and essential relations of men
and things to themselves and to each
other) and to determine ones conduct
accordingly. He does not have in hand
the immediate details of fact which
may apply in given situation but he
knows the fundamental truth, the I'M
! DERIVING law of principle in the life of
| which that situation must be deter
| mined.
| Men of technical training arc hold
! ing positions of responsibility and are
| performing a part which are absolute
| ~ essential in the work of social Or
ganization: but men of liberal train
| ing are holding positions of equal re-
| sponsibility and are doing that work
| of re1a ting parts to wholes, of relating
| the immediate to the remote, of dis
covering not mere symptoms, but the
basal faults Of present methods and
, organizations and of devising ways
and means for their correction; they
| are doing, in short, that industrial and
| creative work without which reform
ard progress would be impossible. The
combination of both liberal and tech
nical training is especially valuable
and the growing tendency of profess
! sonal schools to require a bachelor
! d. gree as a condition. of admission will
make their graduates far more efficient
agencies in advancing the welfare of
| society.
One of the most distinguishing char
acteristics of the educated man is the
power of judgment, the ability to think