ADDRESS TO THE CLASS

Members of the Graduating Class:

I suppose it would be regarded as a bit of baccalaureate flattery to assume that college graduates are foreordained to be leaders of men. As individuals, of course, they are not all so destined—as a class they are. More and more in our time and country they are coming to be, and are expected to be, leaders in the communities in which they live-some leaders of few, some of many. When a man emerges into public prominence and his biography is given, we expect to be told at what college he was graduated. This implies the acknowledged potency of a liberal education in life. But it implies much more than that. Graduation in a college of high grade selects men and women by their moral more than by their intellectual qualities. Many are called but few are chosen. Many start but few arrive. A hundred enter a class and fifty are graduated. Not that all who fall out by the way fail because they are unworthy to reach the end. That we could not say remembering those who have been with you for a time and whom you miss today. But in general in our American communities the struggle for survival to the end of a college course, the struggle with poverty and hardship and the chances of life, is a moral struggle, and success means the survival of the qualities that make up strong, masterful character. And the same law holds all through life. Success in any high sense is moral superiority-the ascendency of virtue. And the virtue which here prevails is the aggregate of the simple and elementary virtues which all men may have if they will. What I have been trying to do for you today is to glorify in your minds these simple virtues, to help you to see that they make a plain, humble life bright and strong and even noble, and that no other qualities however brilliant can in any life supply the lack of them. You will be quite likely to meet men who are not college men and who will be your superiors-men who will do more for your art or profession, more for invention,

or statesmanship, or philanthropy, or religion. It may be because they will have more genius than you-but more probably because they will have more industry, more resoluteness, a higher purpose.

You can triple their

Revolving very often in my mind during my many years of college experience the question of the relative importance of the moral and the intellectual factors in the product which we call success in life-success of a high order I mean-I have come to the deliberate conclusion that they stand in the ratio of at least three to one, that saying nothing about heaven above and the life hereafter, the worth of a man or a woman here and now is one part intellect and three parts affection, conscience, and will. Has one a brilliant mind? With adequate moral force behind it and within it, it becomes a mighty power; not so consorted and energized it avails little. Are you conscious of having only moderate intellectual gifts? momentum by aid from the moral side of your nature if that is true and strong. But some of you may say, "I do not aspire or care to be a leader of men. I am content to slip into an easy place and go through life without ambition or struggle or prominence." It is too late for you to choose that position. It is shut against you. In accepting the great trust of a liberal education, in consenting to receive from society this loan of leisure and seclusion, and the costly appliances of study, you have undertaken a great responsibility which you cannot now throw off. Noblesse oblige. You are hereby called of God to service, to influence, to the labor and dignity of leadership. Your college expects this of you. It will be disappointed if you do not, in some sphere, do some effective, helpful, honorable work. Your Alma Mater will rejoice with the great joy at once of self-congratulation and of sympathy when she hears of such good work done by you. Go with her blessing and prayers and come again to receive her felicitations and to join with her in thanksgivings.

THE COLLEGE AND THE STATE

WEDNESDAY MORNING

ADDRESS FOR THE STATE

GOVERNOR FRED MALTBY WARNER

You will pardon me, I am sure, if at the outset I ask your indulgence for a moment while I bid those of you who come from without our borders a most cordial welcome to the Peninsular State and this great institution, and those of you who claim Michigan as your home a no less cordial welcome to a college whose name and fame is known throughout the civilized world.

The exercises of this day and week mark an epoch in the history of this important institution of learning and of the state which made it possible. It is our fondest hope that the close of another half-century may witness an institution and a state that have kept pace with advancing thought, methods, and ideals, and showered as rich blessings upon humanity during those fifty years as have marked the marvelous progress of each during the five decades that have just passed into history. More than this could not be hoped for. Less than this should not for a moment be anticipated.

The welcome which I bid you today, my friends, is not simply an expression of my own pleasure that you have gathered here. I but voice the sentiments of every loyal citizen of this great state when I bid you a most sincere and cordial welcome. Whether you are returning to this institution, your Alma Mater, as those who years after their departure from the home of their childhood return to seek renewed inspiration within its sacred precincts and to live over again the days of long ago, or whether you come with greetings as representatives of other institutions which have a share in the great work of fitting young men and young women to participate intelligently in the great forward