In the appreciation of scholarship is found the strain of intellectual
humility. The scholar is more inclined to inquire than to affirm. He
is more ready to ask "What do you think?" than to say "I know." He is
remote from intellectual arrogance. Humility means greatness.
Cockiness is a token of narrowness. The Socratic spirit of modesty is
as true a manner of wisdom as it is an effective method of increasing
wisdom. The man who has an opinion on all things, has no right to an
opinion on any one.
This intellectual sympathy and appreciation should take on esthetic
relations. You should be a lover of beauty as well as of wisdom. Good
books, good pictures, good music, good architecture, should be among
your avocations. Read a piece of good literature every day. See a good
picture or a good copy of one every day. Hear some good music every
day. The chapel service may give it to you. And see a piece of good
architecture every day. Some of the college buildings can give it.
Alas! many do not. Such visions and hearings will soak into your
manhood.
All this is only saying lead the life intellectual. You should not
only be a thinker, you should be thoughtful. You should be a man of
large thoughtfulness. You should be prepared to interpret life and all
phenomena in terms of the intellect. Many of our countrymen are
intelligent. They know a great deal. They have gathered up information
about many things. This information is desultory, unrelated. Their
minds are a Brummagem drawer. Here, by the way, lies the worthlessness
of President Eliot's list of books to the untrained mind. To the
educated mind such books mean much; to the uneducated, little. Yet, as
a college man, you may know less than not a few uneducated people may
know. I don't care. The life intellectual is more and most important.