The Bozeman courier. (Bozeman, Mont.) 1919-1954, 1921-06-15
THE PRESIDENT AND THE GRADUATES.

President Harding's appeal to the graduating
classes of American colleges and universities to
produce a leadership which shall defend the fu-
ture of tried and tested American institutions ana
theories of government is both a timely appear
and a warning. almost nothing remains that
we may safely think of as sacred and secure from
the attacks of the iconoclasts" he says. ut is
time when men search their souls and assay their
convictions, in which they examine the very fun
damentals of institutions immemorially accepted,
in which no tradition may be held immune from
the assaults of the skeptic and the doubter."
It has been the day for the iconoclasts that
the destructive leadership in colleges as against
constructive training of past years. The icono-
clast tears down. His equipment is the wrecking
bar as opposed to the trowel. He carries torch
of incendiarism against the policies and conclu-
sions that centuries of wisdom and experience
have buided We have had altogether too much
such leadership in and outside of colleges and uni
versities Not that change is not salutary or that
theories and policies and even institutions may
become Outworn and to be replaced with others
adapted to more modern conditions; but the class
of destructionists to whom the president evident
ly refers are destructionists pure and simple.
They strive to tear down and then sit idle and
helpless in the ruins they have made assisted
to make as the ancient warrior sat down among
the scattered columns OF carthage anu CnS cOlU
embers of destroyed civilization.
Much of the freak philosophy and false eco
Monies permitted to be taught in colleges and
universities are the imaginings of unbalanced men
and the bid of small men for notoriety through
the attraction tina tfreakishness holds for the gen.
eral public Were professor to attack the
multiplication table with the assertion that two
times two should be written six he would imme-
diately achieve the notority he sought; and there
is quite as much good judgment in permitting
such teaching as in the leeway given freak profess
sors and unbalanced inconolasts to assail all that
has been proven by human experience and wis
dom to be self evident and Interchangeable.
Research, change the eternal seeking after
better way, achieve the progress of the race but
when all has been said and sought it is only ar
attempt, sometimes and often failure, of life tt
adapt itself to the conditions of life. The grea
and immutabe truths remain steadfast. They d.
not change. There are some things that are I'm
changeabe and sacred. There are foundations
laid by untold generations of study and exper
fence upon which government and peoples and in
dividuals must build themselves. When thos
foundations are wrecked the fabric falls.
1t is the philosophical and economic dynamitar
that the president refers to in his appeal for
leadership of constructiveness and conservative
with the wrecking outfit and nothing else ha
been too prevalent in our schools His influenc
on impressionable minds adapted to receive hi
theory that nothing is good or sacred or immun
from iconoelast incendiarism is not only notict
able but alarming. He sows a seeding of parlC
bolshevists and grows crop of an archists wit
torch and knife.
The presidents appeal to the graduatn
classes of colleges and universities is an appeal
down the line. 1t is an appeal to every gradua
ing class in every high school in the land, wheth
the class be many or few. We need leadersh
that shall stand in defense of the establisht
truths, for the sacred facts made certain by Il
sitting of centuries.
There are evidences that the tide has turn,
again toward the wisdom and honest outlook
our fathers and that revulsion from the tempo
airy insanity of late years is due It cannot a
rive too soon for the real welfare of America al
the globe.
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