The President's Address
PRESIDENT HOPKINS STRETCHED MEN'S minds, as he has a habit of doing, with his opening address this fall. "The Probability of the Impossible" was the fitting title of remarks that reasoned to opposite conclusions to those held by the "It Can't Happen Here" exponents.
The full text of the President's speech was published by the ALUMNI MAGAZINE last month. Here are a few excerpts from the talk, especially pertinent to the question raised above: Is this the concern ofthe College?
"Much as we abhor the purpose to which the Germans were for years conditioned to attempt domination of the world, the thoughtful observer cannot forego a grudging admiration for the scope of the planning that was devised, for the unity of purpose that was secured, for the details of organization that were mastered, and for the efficiency of operations when at last these were undertaken. However mistakenly applied, the bid of Germany for world domination has been the result of originality of thought, of mental concentration, and of self-discipline to an extent unprecedented in world history before. To those of us who do not believe that good can live by appeasement of evil, it seems clear that these qualities, typical of Germany's planning for world conquest, define the nature and characteristics of qualities necessary to defeat them. Nothing less than theirs in intensity of purpose, in mental acumen, or in willingness to undergo the exactions of physical hardihood can be effective.
"In the sharper focus today than ever previously on what the influence and effect of higher education ought to be, I think that we shall see again what the founders of our colleges saw as a necessary concomitant of education and what has been long ignored—the responsibility for inculcating something of a spirit of evangelistic zeal for the establishment and maintenance in the world of the Christian virtues. The whole principle that men should be educated for recognizing their functions as sons of God and members of a great brotherhood goes into the discard beyond recovery, along with respect for beauty and truth, under Nazi reasoning. It is the abandonment of all such conceptions that enables the Hitlerites to ignore the obvious answer to Cain's query to God whether he was his brother's keeper, and by corruption and betrayal to impose ruthless sup pression on races and peoples helpless to defend themselves against sadistic savagery. "Against higher education grave charge may be filed, moreover, that in its own narrow conception of itself simply as a purveyor of sterile scholarship lies much responsibility for our own national reluctance to recognize obligations. If we can genuinely argue that we have no responsibility to ofEer our powerful protection to brother human beings abroad against the brutalities imposed upon them by the arrogance and contempt of their conquerors, it will be a short step to like argument in regard to our brethren at home. If as a resuit of the education which the College offers, no sense of obligation is acquired by the student as to how knowledge shall be applied, it can well be argued that there is little justification in the college accomplishment for all of the anxious solicitude, for all of the altruistic thought, and for all of the self-denying generosity which has made possible the institutional structure of higher education in America. Nothing is clearer than that we shall never be free from threats of war or from war itself until intellectualism has accepted the fact that no people can live to itself alone in a world as small and as closely knit together as our world has become.
"... .Thus we are led away from seeing it (Totalitarianism) as it is,—an attempted world revolution of a kind and of a magnitude never before imagined by the mind of man, which is utilizing the processes of war to destroy decency and right. Thus, if the war is successful, there will be left a void into which brutality and savagery may be injected, establishing a new world order. As Mr. Lippmann has made clear, the dynamics of totalitarianism require ever spreading and always continuing war. From this permanency of war the democracies have no escape, and no approach to peace is open to them, except by military defeat of the Totalitarians."
