into human form if it is to exercise any influence over the affairs of
mankind, or if its alumni are to wield the power of education.

A great thinker and master of the expression of thought has told us:

"It was before Deity, embodied in a human form, walking among men,
partaking of their infirmities, leaning on their bosoms, weeping over
their graves, slumbering in the manger, bleeding on the cross, that the
prejudices of the Synagogue, and the doubts of the Academy, and the
pride of the Portico, and the fasces of the Lictor, and the swords of
thirty Legions, were humbled in the dust."

If college-bred men are to exercise the influence over the progress of
the world which ought to be their portion, they must exhibit in their
lives a knowledge and a learning which is marked with candor, humility,
and the honest mind.

The present is ever influenced mightily by the past. Patrick Henry spoke
with great wisdom when he declared to the Continental Congress, "I have
but one lamp by which my feet are guided and that is the lamp of
experience." Mankind is finite. It has the limits of all things finite.
The processes of government are subject to the same limitations, and,
lacking imperfections, would be something more than human. It is always
easy to discover flaws, and, pointing them out, to criticize. It is not
so easy to suggest substantial remedies or propose constructive
policies. It is characteristic of the unlearned that they are forever
proposing something which is old, and, because it has recently come to
their own attention, supposing it to be new. Into this error men of
liberal education ought not to fall. The forms and processes of
government are not new. They have been known, discussed, and tried in