ADDRESS TO THE STUDENTS AT THE OPENING OF COLLEGE SEPTEMBER 18, 1913
We are met together at the threshold of the one hundred and forty-fifth year of Dartmouth College. It is my privilege to welcome to the College today teachers, administrative officers, and students; but teachers and administrators are also students, and students are teachers, and every member has an individual responsibility and a part to play in the administration of the College.
Thus the lines of separation among us are lines of convenience, not lines of cleavage. We thrive or fall together, as brothers, shoulder to shoulder.
On the opening day of College it is the custom to announce scholarship honors earned during the previous year, and to discuss briefly some academic question.
Hence I ask:
Is there a possible difference between a college education and a college diploma ? Does the educational "constitution" invariably follow the educational "flag" ?
It is common knowledge that diplomas in the hands of two graduates from the same college, two men graduated in the same class, may signify two very different degrees of mental training, two very different measures of intellectual and moral capacity.
A diploma, in the nature of the case, cannot be made as accurate a standard of value, weight, or size, as a gold coin, — a government guarantee that exactly so many grains of fine gold, no more, no less, have.gone into the minting of it.
Two diplomas from the same college in the same year do prove that their holders have had equal educational opportunities to choose from, but assurance cannot be given that the two men have made an equally wise use of opportunity.
Strictly speaking, the diploma is a voucher for a certain minimum value in mental attainment, a value which depends on the lowest requirements of the college which issues it. The range of value among diplomas is enormous.
In the hand of one man a minimum diploma means a fairly active, short period memory; in another, moderate reasoning power; in a third, only an average mental endowment, backed by moral determination and unflagging industry. But far oftener a minimum diploma means that a youth has given less of himself than he might well have afforded to give, in the getting of it.
The mental growth in college shown by many is far less than might have resulted had college studies been taken more seriously and each day's work more faithfully done. Such young men, in college and out, would find a spur to greater exertion and surer attainment if they felt a firmer and more lasting conviction that knowledge and understanding, faithfulness and intelligence, are vital to success in anything.
Some men in our colleges today are there, consciously or unconsciously, to gain college confirmation, to get a diploma for the distinction, social and other, which that certificate from a good college confers. The matter of getting an education in the true sense, of quickening, rectifying, strengthening, mental grasp and power, is by some considered either as incidental, to getting a diploma or anonymous with it.
But the young man in college who realizes that power comes through knowledge, that understanding grows with knowledge and knowledge with understanding, will also see that a diploma is an outward and visible, but yet uncertain, assertion of another's in ward and invisible stores. Such a student is conscious of the upbuilding which his college training is working within him, and feels competent to prove his qualifications to any man without certification. He needs no letters of introduction, but will make his own way without leaning on the reputation of his college, nor need he use her name and influence to forward his personal fortunes.
The more a man is built up in himself the less he has need of outside support. The broader the foundations he has laid in college, the more significant his diploma and the less often it need be shown as a personal recommendation. The best alumnus is he who through character and trained abilities recommends his college, rather than he who depends on his college to recommendhim.
There are two questions which every young man should ask himself before entering college, and frequently after ward; first, do I want the chief thing the college has to offer? second, am I willing to work earnestly to get it ?
To answer these questions with that conviction which will daily endure smaller sacrifices to attain larger ends, requires both judgment and vision.
What is the chief thing the college offers, and is it worth working for ?
The college offers daily and hourly throughout four years a program of exercises to stimulate mental growth and development, for. education in any true sense is something drawn out in the man, not something put into him. Mental growth and development come from the response made by the mind to ideas presented to it. Reading, lectures, demonstrations, are the agents, the stimuli, working upon the mind from without, and education is the sum of the mental reactions and responses made from within. No man's head should be an open space through which ideas blow idly for his amusement. No youth can afford to enter college as a spectator, nor allow himself later to become one. An idea, to be of use, must arouse enough "individual reaction to enlarge the man. Ideas facilely and quiescently received accomplish no personal results.
The college program is made up 0f facts and ideas. Study of the methods of skilful dissection and appraisal of facts and ideas is the most useful part of classroom, laboratory and examination exercises.
A man's knowledge of facts and his capacity for ideas determine his horizon and define the field in which he can work effectively. The firmer his grasp of realities, the larger his trained capacity for ideas, the broader the field at his command, the fitter he is for leadership in any and every walk of life.
Ideas which do not appeal to men as reasonable, ideas which do not compel human assent and allegiance, seldom lead to united action.
The value of an idea is measured by the results to which it leads, and its chief result is its effect upon the minds of men.
You may have facts and ideas of large importance, but if you cannot interpret your facts with skill and logic, if you cannot present your ideas clearly and forcefully, they are like money withdrawn from circulation, locked in a safe deposit vault, no one is either the wiser or better for your store. Hence to make education effective the college teaches the correct use of language as a vehicle for the expression and exchange of ideas. Ideas not put • into action nor offered for exchange are so much idle capital.
Armed with facts, ideas and a trained logical faculty, the effective man must know men and be able to persuade and convince them singly and in groups. He must have facile control of the varied means of marshalling facts and expressing ideas.
To exert human influence he needs positive human qualities, strong character, alert and keen sympathies with all sorts and conditions of men. He needs self-control and self-restraint, physical, mental, and moral. He can not command who has never learned to obey, nor has he the right to give orders who has never learned to take orders. He must rule himself before he can rule others. Thus to intellectual force he must add moral force and driving power. The college offers you the opportunity, through your own efforts, to strengthen and quicken your every faculty and latent gift.
The proof of a man's capacity and education lies in part in his power to absorb and to reproduce, but it lies far more in his power to respond and to create.
The college educates no man, but many wise men have educated them selves in college. The end of college is not a diploma, but an education, and a diploma cheaply bought is worth no more than it costs.
The whole measure of a young man's college life is not what he sets himself to get out of it, but rather what he is eager to put into it. In real values he cannot get more than he gives. He can gain self-possession through losing selfishness, and he who loses his life in this cause shall find it.
