New Britain herald., 1921-06-20
LIFE IS JUST LIKE
 AN ENDURANCE RACE
So Declares President Hadley in
 BaCCalaureate Address

New Haven, June 20.-"L1fe l' Q series of contests President Arthur T. Hadley of Yale told the graduating class in his baccalaureate address yesterday-"a struggle in which a man proves his worth, not by attain ing a certain fixed standard. but by putting in the last ounce he has in him. With that as his theme Presi- dent Hadley described the fallacies of those who approach life from the viewpoint of the pacifist, and of those also who are uncompromisingly nili- tant.
 Either view of life,' he said, has much to justify it; either works badly when carried to an extreme. Where people have become so peaceful that they refused to fight on principle, re-
 ligion and philosophy have lost touch with life. Peace has been purchased at the cost of progress; morality has suffered for lack of men who could
 fight in behalf of the oppressed. But in going to the other extreme of lov-
 ing a fight for its own sake and mak-
 ing success the primary test of fitness,
 militant philosophers have lost touch
 with real life just as completely as
 did the pacifist philosophers, and
 have failed just as decisively. For po- litical or commercial successes which
 win the admiration of one age meet little but contempt in the next. Mill
 tant Germany seemed but a few years ago unconquerable; where do its leaders stand today, even in the est
 nation of their own people?
 Neither pacifst nor militant is right, because neither takes the trouble to look at the indirect and lasting effects of conflict. A contest is not good or bad in itself; 1t is good or bad according to the spirit in which it is conducted and the kind of leaders which it brings to the front. If conducted for selfish end
 and by interruptions methods, it breeds selfish leaders and narrow minded followers. If conducted for methods, it trains leaders who can serve the people and followers who have better ideals than those of per sonal aggrandizement.
 When the Persians heard that the prizes in the Olympic games were not money but crowns of laurel on of them said: Against what manner of
 men. O king, hast thou brought us to fight. who contend not for money but for honor?' This is the touch stone that determines whether the race is good or bad; this the Greek spirit which, broadened in its scope to include wider ideals of honor and service than the old Greeks had dreamed, underlies and gives vital ity to the teaching of Jesus and of Paul. Not to withdraw from con-
 tests, but to contend on the field of public service; not to stifie ambition
 but to make success in meeting ot1 @F and the test of fitness for leadership this is the Christian teaching.
 'It is to a contest of this kind that
 every one of us is summoned by
 the precepts of his creed and by the | example of his Master. "'L Like every endurance race, it re- | quires training Laying aside every | weight, and the sin which doth so | easily beset us'-this is no idle meta phor. It is the rule to which each one | of us must submit if he hopes to en- l dure to the end and claim the prize 1 Many a man who wished to do much l for others has found his efforts brougt | to nought by sofe sin that he had not
 been able to lay aside; some instinct of selfishness that found him out at | the wrong moment and turned the | confidence of those about him into a l distrust that made his efforts fruit l less; soc love of ease or dread of pain which kept him away from the criti- | cal spot where the contest was to be | decided; some blindness to a part of
 the truth, which neither he nor his l fellows much noted in early years l but which in the day of trial ciouded l his vision when clear sight was most 1 needed. The man who enters this | great race has need to train eye and | nerve and heart from the very begin | ming if he would not imperil the hard | earned fruit Of years of toil'