cultivated persons. Inside the station was another group of young men in
khaki who were quiet, dignified, and decorous. The contrast between the
two groups was most striking, and the bystanders were led to wonder
whether it requires a world-war to teach our young men manners and whether
the schools and homes have abdicated in favor of the cantonment in the
teaching of deportment. In the schools and the homes that are to be in our
good land we may well hope that decorum will be emphasized and magnified;
for decorum is evermore the fruitage of intellectuality and genuine
culture.

As a nation, we have been prodigal of our resources and, especially, of
our time. We have failed to regard our leisure hours as a liability but,
like the lotus eaters, have dallied in the realm of pleasure. Like
children at play, we have gone on our pleasure-seeking ways all heedless
of the clock, and, when misfortune came and necessity arose, many of us
were unwilling and more of us unable to engage in the work of production.
In some localities legislation was invoked to urge us toward the fields
and gardens. We have shown ourselves a wasteful people, and in the wake of
our wastefulness have followed a dismal train of disasters, cold, hunger,
and many another form of distress. Deplore and repent of our prodigality
as we may, the effects abide to remind us of our decline from the high
plane of industry, frugality, and conservation of leisure. Nor can we hope
to avert a repetition of this crisis unless education comes in to guide
our minds and hands aright.

Again, we have been wont to estimate men by what they have rather than by
what they are, and to regard as of value only such things as are quoted in
the markets. Wall Street takes precedence over the university and to the
millionaire we accord the front seat even in some of our churches. We
accept the widow's mite but do not inscribe her name upon the roll of