Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1910-06-07
OXFORD CONFERS
D. C. |. DEGREE
Upon ROOSEVELT
Former President Occupies
Chair, Whose First incumbent
Was w. E. Gladstone.

OXFORD, England. June Former
President Roosevelt was the guest of
oxford today. He delivered the Ro-
names lecture at the University of Ok
ford, and the university conferred upon
him the honorary degree of doctor OF
civil law.
The lecture and the conferment con-
stituted the big feature of the day, but
1t did not complete the program, which
was about as crowded as any that the
distinguished American had undertaken
In his European travels.
From the Town Hall Mr.. Roosevelt
made hurried visits to the leading col
leges and to other places of historic in
terest. He was entertained at luncheon
by the American Club, leaving soon
afterwards for the Sheldonian Theatre
for his lecture and the ceremonies that
added q d. G. L. to the other honorary
titles that have been bestowed upon
him.
The Romanes lectureship at Oxford
was named for George John Romanes,
who was born at Kingston, Canada,
on May 20, 1848, and died at Oxford
in 1894. He gained celebrity as a nat
uralist and Fullerian professor of
physiology at the Royal Institution.
The first incumbent of the chair occu-
pied this year by Mr.. Roosevelt was
William E. Gladstone, who in 1892 lee
tured on Medieval Universities" Mr..
Roosevelt said in part:
Rome fell by attack from without
only because the ills within her own
borders had grown incurable. What is
true of your country. my hearers, is
true of my own. While we should be
vig1lant against foes from without, yet
ve need nev really fear them so long
a. we safeguard ourselves against the
enemies within our own households;
and these enemies are our own passions
and follies. Free peoples car escape
being mastered by others only by being
able to master themselves. We Amer
leans and you people of the British
Isles. alike, need ever to keep in mind
that among the many qualities in
dispensable to the success of a great
democracy, INC second only to a high
and stern sense of duty, of moral obli-
cation, are self-knowledge and self
mastery.
NCNotos
You, my hosts, and l may not agree
in all our views; some of you would
think me a very radical democrat-as,
for the matter of that, l am; and my
theory of imperialism would probably
suit the anti-imperialists as little as 1t
would suit a certain type of forcible-
feeble imperialist. But there are some
points OIL which we must all agree if
we think s%oundly. The all-important
factor in national greatness is national
character.
There are questions that we of the
great civilized nations are ever tempted
TO ask of the future. Is our time of
growth drawing to an end? Are we as
nations soon to come under the rule
OF that great law of death which is it.
self but part of the great law of life?
can tell. Forces that we can see
and other forces that are hidden or
can but dimly be a~pprehended are
at work all around us, both for good
for evil. The growth in luxury,
in love of ease. in taste for frivolous
excitement, is both evident and I'M
The most ominous sign is the
diminution in the birth-rate.
Every modern civilized nation has
many and terrible problems to solve
within it's w borders, problems that
not merely from juxtaposition of
poverty n riches, but especially from
the self-consciousness of both poverty
and riches. Each nation must deal
with these matters in it's own fashion,
and yet h spirit in which the prob
lem is approached must ever be funda-
mentally the same. 1t must be a spirit
Of broad humanity and of brotherly
1T is an evil n a dreadful thing to
be callous to sorrow and suffering, and
blind to u duty to do all things pos
sible for the betterment of social con-
But it is an unspeakably fool
lsh thing to strive for this betterment
by means so destructive that they
would leave no social conditions to
better. In dealing with all these social
problems, with the intimate relations
Of the family. with wealth in private
use. and business use, with labor, with
the one prime necessity is to
heart Is a great evil, it is no greater
evil than softness of head.
Questions In
'But in addition to these problems
he most intimate and important of all
which to a larger or lesser degree
,ffect all the modern nations somewhat
alike, we Of the great nations that
nave expanded, that are now in COM