The second ideal has been to act the Golden Rule, as far as in me lay, towards my professional brethren and towards the patients committed to my care. And the third has been to cultivate such a measure of equanimity as would enable me to bear success with humility, the affection of my friends without pride, and to be ready, when the day of sorrow and grief comes, to meet it with the courage befitting a man. What the future has in store for me I cannot tell-you cannot tell. Nor do I care much, so long as I carry with me, as I shall, the memory of the past you have given me. Nothing can take that away. I have made mistakes, but they have been mistakes of the head, not of the heart. I can truly say, and I take upon myself to witness, that in my sojourn among you "I have loved no darkness, 8 72 FAREWELL TO THE GRADUATING CLASS By Edwin A. Alderman (Delivered at the University of Virginia, June, 1920.) There are some events and some emotions that can never become quite commonplace. The reddening of the autumn leaves and the green tide of oncoming springtime in the natural world are perpetual miracles. In the world of spirit, the going over the top of trained, undaunted, and unbeaten youth to face the duties and meet the perils of life's real battle can never become prosaic. And that is why, as the years roll on, this particular scene and this particular duty do not become stereotyped to us who serve at these altars. The mere scene indeed may be conventional, but the human factors in it are ever fresh, dynamic, and dramatic, as in bright recurring waves, year by year, they break on the shores of manhood. My heart is thus newly stirred each year to find and to say a fitting EDWIN A. ALDERMAN. Born Wilmington, N. C., May 15, 1861; graduated from University of North Carolina, 1882; President University of North Carolina, 1896-1900; President of Tulane University, 1900-1904; President University of Virginia since 1904. word to you, young soldiers of the Common Good, at the moment of your civic zero hour. Two primary emotions always rule my mind and spirit at this hour, and I cannot fight away from them. One impulse | is to tell you simply that your University has faith in you and cherishes you; and the other is, after the ancient and sometimes fatuous habit of age, to offer you what age deems good counsel. I sometimes doubt if you quite get the one, for the Anglo-Saxon is a bit tongue-tied and lacks the clarity and felicity of the Gaul, for instance, where his heart is involved; and even the other-the good counsel-may miss its mark as the counsel of dull prudence from those who are weary, to the splendor of life at the dawn. We believe you have gained here some knowledge of nature and men, of laws and institutions, of canons of conduct and taste, of faith and beauty, and of duty and labor. We are justified in defining an educated man as one who holds just notions of such things, and we further believe that these great concepts have been vitalized and warmed by the spiritual consciousness that flows into you from the fount of great traditions which glows and springs here and which constitutes for you an imperishable asset. May the name and memory of the University of Virginia, men of 1920, wherever your paths may lead, or whatever fate may befall you, never fail to wake in you the God that lies sleeping in every man's heart. Naturally I would say to you that I wish you success in life, but I would care to define success. Success in life is an illusive ideal and almost as difficult of definition as democracy. I shall not essay this definition indeed, except to declare that, other things being equal, if there is among you, and I know there is, a man who is thinking of what he can put into life instead of what he can take from life, who has formed a conception of public conscience and a code of public honor which leads him to think of what he can do for his community, rather than what his community can do for him, that man is building his dream of success on a rock which all the storms of life will not wear away. The one great virtue with which I would endow each one of you to-day, could I wave a wand over you like the beneficent fairy in the story, would be the gift of public spirit which would destroy for you selfinterest as a dominant motive and substitute instead loyalty to men and the betterment of the social life of which you are a part. I venture to hold the belief that in the functions of this little University world, the best of you have learned to put your self-gratifications secondary to the public good and to think in your hearts that such action is the essential criterion of a gentleman. You rightly aspire to be leaders. You ought to be leaders. Your University exists to train you for leadership. I, therefore, call upon you as trained young democrats, if you are to be leaders at all, to be leaders of public spirit, to be men willing to pour the full might of your knowledge and power into the great tasks of your time, for only along such paths can you hope to find and enjoy durable success in a decent world. I once heard a man of some personal power and wealth described as the most "private-spirited" man in his community. The designation has always lingered with me as the superlative of dispraise and civic condemnation. I cultivate the hope that each of you may win the distinction of being the most public-spirited man in your community, for that term I consider the major decoration of republican leadership. All the last victories of this world are victories of the spirit of man. For many years before 1914, the world accepted the dogma of achievement, the doctrine of action, the gospel of applied power as the last word of national philosophy. Even universities defined themselves as "knowledge in action." Then there fell out four fateful years when the gospel received its apotheosis, and all the days were vivid with action, and the strong man was the man who was up and doing. Glorious victory emerged at last from the welter of haggard days and nights of anxiety and suspense, and many of the great actors and agencies claimed it, not unreasonably, as their own. But lo and behold! it came to pass that the mightiest actors who saw most deeply into the complex human. heart, knew in their souls that it was pure spirit that had won that stupendous victory. You will recall how the great French Marshal-a very thunderbolt of action-subtly conceded this when he defined defeat as really a state of mind. "Nations are never defeated," said Foch, "until they think they are." You may call this unconquerable, imponderable thing what you will-idealism, morale, devotion, courage: it is just spirit—applied spirit—mightier than bolts or bars or cannons or steel. It is not to be thought of as divorced from action but as the mainspring of all triumphant action. Edith Cavell facing death at dawn, the old Belgian cardinal, the stout-heartedness of English lads trained to fairness in their playing fields; the French love of home, and the American passion for freedom; memories of Valmy and Valley Forge, of Washington and Lafayette; the pity and beauty of ruined cathedrals, the Maid of Orleans, and the tomb of Shakespeare-such streams of spirit flowing onward through the valley of years grew into the resistless volume of martial power that inevitably brought victory on its crest. And it will be spirit -the shining sword of public spirit-sharpened by knowledge, steadied by unselfish purpose, that will yet accomplish the recovery of the nations and guide the tumult of democracy now raging in all lands into steadfast forms of serenity, justice, and liberty. Some 17,000 men, for varying lengths of time, have studied within. the walls of this ancient University. This number will forever grow with the endless years. Let us pray God that when their race is run it may be said of you and of them-"They sought to work for mankind." § 73 SPEECH OF FAREWELL By Abraham Lincoln (Delivered at Springfield, Illinois, February 11, 1861.) MY FRIENDS: No one not in my situation can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when or whether ever I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of that Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance, I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell. See page 341. ! CHAPTER XIII SPEECHES OF RESPONSE 8 74 RESPONSE TO WELCOME By Louis Kossuth (Speech at Harrisburg at a reception in the capitol, in response to Governor Johnston's address of welcome, January 14, 1852.) SENATORS AND RepresenTATIVES OF PENNSYLVANIA: I came with confidence, I came with hope to the United States, with the confidence of a man who trusts to the certainty of principles, knowing that where freedom is sown, there generosity grows, with the hope of a man who knows that there is life in his cause, and that where there is life there must be a future yet. Still, hope is only an instinctive throb with which Nature's motherly care comforts adversity. We often hope without knowing why, and like a lonely wanderer on a stormy night direct our weary steps toward the first glimmering window light, uncertain whether we are about to knock at the door of a philanthropist or of a heartless egotist. But the hope and confidence with which I came to the United States was not such. There was a knowledge of fact in it. I did not know what persons it might be my fate to meet, but I knew that meet I should with two living principles-with that of FREEDOM and that of NATIONAL HOSPITALITY. Both are political principles here. Freedom is expansive like the light: it loves to spread itself; and hospitality here in this happy land is raised out of the narrow circle of private virtue into political wisdom. As you, gentlemen, are the representatives of your people, so the people of the United States at large are representative of European humanitya congregation of nations assembled in the hospitable hall of American liberty. Your people is linked to Europe, not only by the common tie of manhood, not only by the communicative spirit of liberty,—not LOUIS KOSSUTH. Hungarian patriot. Born Monok, Hungaria, April 27, 1822; died at Turin, Italy, March 20, 1894; became president of the Hungarian Republic in 1849; after its overthrow by Austria and Russia, he fled the country and visited England and the United States. |