A historic sentiment is associated with the laurel tree, sacred to
Apollo; with the laurel wreath which crowned the victor in the Pythian
games, was the emblem of the poet, rested upon the heads of victorious
generals, later indicated academic honors, and has become a figure of
speech and a gem in poetic literature. The Baccalaureate Day—the day
when victors in the endeavor to reach the graduate’s goal figuratively
are crowned with the fruited laurel—we would preserve. We would
preserve it for its history, its significance, its associations, its
sentiments, its memories, its promise, and its religious suggestion.
We would preserve it, not only to celebrate scholastic honors already
won, but as a fitting occasion to consider some of those deeper lessons
whose meaning will appear through experience in the School of Life.
* * * * *
Higher education ever enlarges the borders of science and leads forth
into new fields. It transmutes superstition into knowledge. It is
the spirit of civilization and the leader of progress. It stands at
the summit of human development, represents the aggregate of human
knowledge, is the goal for intellectual endeavor, and it points the
way for the discovery and progress of the future.
There was a time when many scholars turned the pages of literature, in
which were preserved the deeds, investigations, and thoughts of men,
solely that they might develop and enjoy their own powers; when they
devoted themselves to Truth for its own sake; when they stood isolated,
as in a world of their own, considering naught but their own welfare
and, perhaps, their relation to their Maker. Men dwelt in caves, in
remote deserts, or within gloomy walls to dwarf the bodily and worldly
impulses and to rise to a serene contemplation of God and His truths,
disregarding the appeal of ignorant or suffering humanity and the duty
of adding works to faith.
Our relations to our fellow-men give rise to nearly the entire Ethical
Code. Society cares for us, educates us, develops us, and it has claims
upon us, not on purely selfish or utilitarian grounds, but under a
higher ethical idea, whose sanction is the perfection and will of
God. The law of God requires effort for humanity, government enjoins
it, charity demands it. The Associationist, the Utilitarian, and the
Evolutionist teach it.
An honorable character and a useful life are full of influence. And
there are hundreds of ways, in some of which, without burdensome
effort, one may be a blessing to others. Ignorance may be awakened to
its condition, vice may be shamed, sorrow may be assuaged, fear may
be changed into hope, sloth may be aroused to action, doubt may be
converted into faith.
Go forth and join in the labor you are fitted for. If you have a truth,
utter it; if you have had superior privileges, impart to others; if
you have an insight into principles of conduct, stand for them; if you
have a trained eye and a deft hand, use your skill. Externalize the
powers of your being; find outward expression for your inward thought.
Thank God for a courageous man, a true Anglo-Saxon man, a man whose
convictions are deeply rooted, and who guards them as his very life.
Heroes, philanthropists, and martyrs are his exemplars. He has a work
to do, and he enters upon it as his fathers battled for the right. The
sensualist, the dreamer, and the fatalist lie supine, are lulled by
the summer breeze, and gaze upon the drifting panorama of clouds with
playful imagination. The man of duty marches forth and takes the fixed
stars for his guide.
The educated young man of to-day has every reason to thank the stars
under which he was born. Behind him is the teaching of the civilized
world—the poetry and art of Greece, the laws and institutions of
Rome, the growth of Christianity, the Mediæval commingling of forces
and evolution of rare products, the Renaissance, the religious
and political emancipation, invention, science, art, poetry, and
philosophy. Behind him is the history of the Anglo-Saxon race, its
courage and deeds of valor, its profound earnestness, its stern ideals.
Behind him is Puritan New England and liberty. Around him lies the new
land of promise with its natural blessings of air, sun, mountains, and
plains, with its mineral wealth and industrial possibility, with its
people of pride, energy, intelligence, and high enthusiasm. Before
him lie the development of a great and unique civilization, a wonder
of material progress, a rare growth of poetic power and free spirit
under new and fostering conditions. Before the youth of this State is
the possibility of success in any pursuit, of rise to influence, of
contributing to the formative period of a new commonwealth. There is
every inducement to be a courageous, energetic, and ideal man. Those
who have made our history, most of them, are still living, but their
work is nearly accomplished, and you will take up the responsibility.
May our great system of public instruction contribute to fill the State
in coming decades with noble men and women who are not afraid of ideals.
* * * * *
Man may deceive others, but is shamed at the tribunal of his own better
judgment. A celebrated lecturer describes what he calls the “Laughter
of the Soul at Itself,” “a laughter that it rarely hears more than once
without hearing it forever.” He says: “You would call me a partisan if
I were to describe an internal burst of laughter of conscience at the
soul. Therefore let Shakespeare, let Richter, let Victor Hugo, let cool
secular history put before us the facts of human nature.” We may refer
to one illustration: Jean Valjean, one of Hugo’s characters, an escaped
and reformed convict, was about to see an innocent man condemned for
his own act, through mistaken identity. He tried to make himself
believe self-preservation was justifiable, and as the mental struggle
between Self and Duty went on he seemed to hear a voice: “Make yourself
a mask if you please; but, although man sees your mask, God will see
your face; although your neighbors see your life, God will see your
conscience.” And again came the internal burst of laughter. The author
proceeds: “Valjean finally confessed his identity; and the court and
audience, when he uttered the words, ‘I am Jean Valjean,’ ‘felt dazzled
in their hearts, and that a great light was shining before them.’”
* * * * *
Science does away with superstition and many an error, it makes known
the laws of nature, it applies them to practical ends, it is the
handmaid of civilization, it emphasizes the welfare of humanity, it
shows the working of the mechanism within the field of demonstrative
knowledge, the finite, knowable land of the real. Science exceeds its
purpose only whenever it proclaims that there is no field of spiritual
knowledge, glimpses of which may be seen by souls that dwell upon
the heights. Some would measure the earth with a carpenter’s rule,
forgetting Him “Who hath measured the waters in the hollow of His hand,
and meted out Heaven with the span, and comprehended the dust of the
earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills
in a balance.”
Carlyle says: “Religion in most countries is no longer what it was,
and should be—a thousand-voiced psalm from the heart of man to the
invisible Father, the fountain of all goodness, beauty, truth, and
revealed in every revelation of these; but for the most part a wise,
prudential feeling, grounded on mere calculation, a matter, as all
others now are, of expediency and utility; whereby some smaller quantum
of earthly enjoyment may be exchanged for a larger quantum of celestial
enjoyment.” But again and more truly he says: “Religion cannot pass
away. The burning of a little straw may hide the stars of the sky, but
the stars are there and will reappear.”
Once a pupil asked to be excused from exercises in which choice
extracts from the Bible were sometimes read, simply because they were
from the Bible; but he listened with pleasure to good thoughts from
other books, though these books contained many a palpable error.
Aside from the view which makes the Bible the Sacred Book of the
Christian believer, he had not thought of its value to a large portion
of the human race. He had not regarded it in the light of history
and philosophy. The ideals for which the Hebrew race has stood, the
wonderful prophecies of great and far-seeing men, the grand poems
of faith and promise, the words of condensed wisdom, the maxims for
right living, the Beatitudes, the teaching of the Parables, the spirit
of adoration, the moral code, the allegorical wisdom never had been
contemplated apart from the religious view, against which he had
imbibed a prejudice.
Permit me to speak from the standpoint of history and philosophy. The
Christian religion is a chief source of our peculiar civilization, of
the character of our institutions, of the growth of altruism, of the
equality of man, of the supreme worth of the inner motive, of charity,
of liberty. It has given the world the highest examples of pure and
devoted lives.
I have a friend who is struck with the tale of how Buddha, wearing
a Brahman’s form, when “drought withered all the land,” encountered
a starving tigress with her cubs, and, in the unbounded pity of his
heart, offered himself a sacrifice to their hunger. He says: “Here is
a beautiful religion for me.” And yet he is not touched by the story of
a Saviour who carried the burden of the pains and sorrows of many and
died that they might live.
Disregard no good, wherever found. The human race must have its ideals.
Thousands have felt what a famous man has expressed, that, were there
no religion, men would of necessity invent it and worship a false idea.
The religion of Mohammed is better than the idolatry of the Arab; the
idolatry of the Arab was better than nothing. The races—each at its
own stage—have been improved by their religions. The Scandinavian
conception of Walhalla; the Ancient Oracle at Dodona, where the priests
in gloomy groves caught the responses of Zeus from the whisperings of
the sacred oaks; the ancestor worship of the Chinese, the system of
symbolism in Egypt—all represented the struggle toward ideal life and
the notion of retributive justice. With bowed head and reverential
heart I would stand in the presence of any sincere devotion, the
uplifting of the soul in prayer to the God of its faith; how much more
in the presence of that worship which the best intelligence of the best
races has accepted. And how often one misinterprets the real meaning of
an alien religion. The “Light of Asia” gives a meaning to Nirvana never
heard from the pulpit:
“Foregoing self, the Universe grows ‘I’;
If any teach NIRVANA is to cease,
Say unto such they lie.”
Let young men learn as a common-sense proposition that, though creeds
may change, though there may be frequent readjustments of theological
beliefs, the religious sentiment is an essential fact of our nature,
and has a meaning the depth of which they have not sounded.
* * * * *
The love of Art is necessary to the complete man. Whatever may be
said of the cold, intellectual spirit, one attains a high standard of
humanity only when he possesses a heart warmed and ennobled by a vivid
conception of the Beautiful found in the rainbow, the color of the
leaf, and the sparkle of the rill, works framed in nature and hung in
God’s great art gallery—the universe. Man sees the real spirit shining
through material forms, and architecture, sculpture, painting, music,
and poetry follow. Noble thought and action, right and truth, all
perfect things partake of the essence of Beauty. Art adds to nature; it
casts a halo:
“The light that never was on sea or land,
The consecration and the Poet’s dream.”