The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1910-06-07
AN OMINOUS SIGN.
DiminutiOn of the Birth Rate
Threatens the Nations.
Declares Col. Roosevelt in a
Lecture at Oxford.
TAKES FOR HIS THEME.
The Biological Analogies of the
Worlds History.
Nations That Seemingly Die
May Be Born Again."
TAKES FOR HIS THEME.

Oxford, England. June Former
President Roosevelt was the guest of
Oxford today. He delivered the Rom
anes lecture at the University of OK
ford and the university conferred
upon him the honorary degree of doc
tor of civil laws
The lecture and the conferment con-
stftuted the big feature of the day,
but it did not complete the program,
which was about as crowded as any
that the distinguished American has
undertaken in his European travels
Oxford was glad to see the former
president and made the fact known,
First there was a reception given by
the mayor of the corporation at the
town hall. The auditorium was filed
and when the guests appeared the au-
dience joined in singing For He's a
Jolly Good Fellow"
From the town hall Mr.. Roosevelt
made hurried visits to the leading
colleges and to other places of historic
interest He was entertained at
luncheon by the American club, Ieav-
ing soon afterward for the Sheldonian
theater for his lecture and the cere-
monies that added a D. c.. L. to the
honorary titles that have been be-
slowed upon him.
The Romanes lectureship at OK
ford was named for George John
Romanes, who was born at Kingston,
Canada, on May 20, 1S48, and died at
Oxford, in 1894. He gained celebrity
as naturalist and Fullerian profess
sor of physiology at the royal institu-
ton. The first incumbent of the chair,
occupied this year by Mr.. Roosevelt,
was William E. Gladstone who in
1892, lectured on "Medival Univer-
sities.'
Lord Curzon, chancellor of the uni
versity and who delivered the Rom
anes lecture in 1907, presided at the
exercises today. Mr.. Roosevelt's SUBJ
ject was Biological Analogies in His
tory"
He said:
The Lecture.
An American who, in response to
such an invitation as l have received,
speaks in this university of ancient re-
nown cannot but feel with peculiar
vividness the interest and charm of
his surroundings, fraught as they are
with thousand associations. Your
great universities, and all the memories
that make them great, are living real
tiles in the minds of scores Of thou
sands of men who have never seen
them and who dwell across the seas in
other lands. Moreover, these associa-
tions are no stronger in the men of
English stock than in those who are
not. My people have been for eight
generations in America: but in one
thing 1 am like the Americans Of to-
morrow rather than like many of the
Americans of today, for 1 have in my
veins the blood of men who came from
many different European races. The
ethnic makeup of our people is slowly
changing, SO that constantly the race
tends to become more and more akin
to that of those Americans who, like
myself. are of the old stock but not
mainly of English stock. Yet I think
that, time goes by, mutual respect,
understanding, and sympathy among
the English-speaking peoples grow
greater and not less. Any of my an
cestors, Hollander or Huguenot, Scotch
man or Irishman, who had come to OK
ford in 'the spacious days of great
Elizabeth" would have felt far more
alien than I, their descendant. now
feel. Common heirship in the things
of the spirit makes a closer bond than
common heirship in the things Of the
body.
More than ever before in the worlds
history, we of today seek to penetrate
the causes of the mysteries that sur
round not only mankind but all life,
both in the present and the past. We
search, we peer we see things dimly;
here and there we get ray of clear
vision as we look before and after. We
study the tremendous procession Of the
ages, from the immemorial past when
in "cramp elf and saurian FORMS the
creative forces ''swathed their too
much power,'' down tc the yesterday,
few score thousand years distant only,
when the history of man became the
overwhelming fact in the history OF
life on this planet; and, studying, we
see strange analogies in the phe-
nomena of life and death, of birth,
growth, and change, between those
physical groups of animal life which
we designate as species, forms, races,
and the highly complex and composite
-, 1Nofr Mi MI
when we speak of nations and civiliza-
tions.
Applied Science.
1t is, this study which has given
science its present-day prominence. In
the world of intellect, doubtless the
most marked features in the history
of the past century have been the eX-
traordinary advances in scientific
knowledge and investigation and in
the position held by the men of
science with reference to those engag-
ed in other pursuits. l am not now
speaking of applied science-of the
science, for instance, which, having
revolutionized transportation on the
earth and the water, is now on the
brink of carrying it into the air; of
the science that finds its expression
in such extraordinary achievements
as the telephone and the telegraph; of
the sciences which have so accelerat-
ed the velocity of movement in social
and Industrial conditions-for the
changes in the mechanical appliances
| of ordinary life during the last three
generations have been greater than
in all the preceding generations since
history dawned. / speak of the
science which has no more direct
bearing upon the affairs of our every
| day life than literature or music.
painting or sculpture, poetry or his
! tory A hundred years ago the or
| dinarv man of cultivation had to know
something of these last subjects; but
the probabilities were rather against
his having any but the most superb