Harding said that if he were ever called upon to deliver the
commencement oration at his alma mater, he knew what he would do.
"Of course you know what you would do," I said. "So do I. So does every
one. You would rise to your feet and tell the graduating class that
after four years of sheltered communion with the noblest thought of the
ages they were about to plunge into the maelstrom of life. If you didn't
say maelstrom you would say turmoil or arena. You will tell them that
never did the world stand in such crying need of devoted and unselfish
service. You will say that we are living in an age of change, and the
waves of unrest are beating about the standards of the old faith. You
will follow this up with several other mixed metaphors expressive of the
general truth that it is for the Class of '14 to say whether this world
shall be made a better place to live in or shall be allowed to go to the
demnition bow wows. You will conclude with a fervent appeal to the
members of the graduating class never to cease cherishing the flame of
the ideal. You will then sit down and the President will confer the
degree of LL.D. on one of the high officials of the Powder Trust."
But Harding was so much in earnest that he forgot to receive my remarks
with the bitter sneer which is the portion of any one unfortunate enough
to disagree with him.
"The commencement address I expect to deliver," he said, "will precisely
avoid every peculiarity you have mentioned. It is the fatal mistake of
every commencement orator that he attempts to deal with principles. He
knows that by the middle of June the senior class has forgotten most of
the things in the curriculum. His error consists in supposing that this
is as it should be; that Euclid and the rules of logic were made to be
forgotten, and that the only thing the college man must carry out into
the world is an Attitude to Life and a Purpose. Which is all rot. There
is no necessity for preaching ideals to a graduating class. The ideals
that a man ought to cling to in life are the same that a decent young
man will have lived up to in college. The dangers and temptations he
will confront are very much like those he has had to fight on the
campus. The undergraduate of to-day is not a babe or a baa-lamb."
He paused and seemed to be weighing the significance of what he had
said. Apparently he was pleased. He nodded a vigorous approval of his
own views on the subject, and proceeded:
"It is not the temptations of the world the college man must be on the
lookout against, but its stupidities, its irrelevancies, its general
besotted ignorance. He is less in peril of the flesh and the devil than
of the screaming, unintelligent newspaper headline, whether it leads off
an interview with a vaudeville star or with a histrionic college
professor. What he needs to be reminded of is not principles, but a few
elementary facts. My own commencement address would consist of nothing
more or less than a brief review of the four years' work in
class--algebra, geometry, history, physics, chemistry, psychology,
everything."
"How extraordinarily simple!" I said. "The wonder is no one has ever
thought of this before."
"I admit," he said, "that it may be rather difficult to compress all
that matter in fifteen hundred words, but it can be done. It can be done
in less than that. My peroration, for instance, would go somewhat as
follows--that is, if you care to listen?"
"It will do no harm to listen," I said.
"I would end in some such way: 'Members of the graduating class, as you
leave the shades of alma mater for the career of life, the one thing
above all others that you must carry with you is a clear and ready
knowledge of the multiplication table. Wherever your destiny may lead
you, to the Halls of Congress, to the Stock Exchange, to the counting
room, the hospital ward, or the editorial desk, let not your mind wander
from the following fundamental truths. Two times two is four. A straight
line is the shortest distance between two points. Rome fell in the year
476, but it was founded in the year 753 B. C., and so took exactly 1,229
years to fall. The northern frontier of Spain coincides with the
southern frontier of France. The Ten Commandments were formulated at
least 2,500 years ago. Japan is sixty times as far away from San
Francisco as it is from the mainland of Asia. Virginius killed his
daughter rather than let her live in shame. The subject of illicit love
was treated with conspicuous ability by Euripides. The legal rate of
interest in most of the States of the Union is six per cent. The
instinct for self-preservation is one of the elementary laws of
evolution. Hamlet is a work of genius. Victor Hugo is the author of "Les
Misérables." I thank you.'"
"Thus equipped, any young man ought to become President in time," I
said.
"Thus equipped," retorted Harding, "any young man ought to make his way
through life as a rational being, and not as a sheep. And that is the
main purpose of a college education, or of any process of education. No
amount of moral enthusiasm will safeguard a man against the statement
that the panic of 1893 was caused by the Democratic tariff bill; but the
knowledge that the tariff bill was passed in 1894 may be of use. It
saves a rational being from talking like a fool. Idealism will not keep
a man from investing in get-rich-quick corporation stock; but knowledge
of the fact that the common sense and experience of mankind have agreed
upon six per cent. as a fair return on capital will keep him from going
after 520 per cent. Mind you, it is not the fact that he will lose his
money which concerns me. It is the fact that there should be a mentality
capable of believing in 520 per cent. The dignity of the human mind is
at stake. Or take this matter of the boundary line between France and
Spain."
"If you are sure it is related to the subject in hand," I said.
"It is, intimately," he replied. "I am, as you know, exceedingly fond of
books of travel. I read them as eagerly as I do all the cheap fiction
that deal with brave adventures in foreign lands. Now a very common
trait in books of both kinds is the author's fondness for pointing out
the differences between the people of the southern part of a particular
country and the people living in the northern part. You are familiar
with the distinction. The inhabitants of the south are hot-headed,
amorous, given to mandolin playing, and lacking in political genius. The
people of the north are phlegmatic, practical, averse to love-making,
unimaginative, readers of the Bible, and tenacious of their rights. I
don't recall who first called attention to the fact. Perhaps it was
Macaulay. Perhaps it was Herodotus. The idea is sound enough.
"But observe what the writers have made out of this simple truth. It
has escaped them that anything is north or south only by comparison with
something else. In the minds of our parrot authors the south has simply
become associated with one set of stock phrases and the north with
another. Here is where my Franco-Spanish frontier comes in. We learn
that the people of southern Spain are gay and fickle whereas the people
of northern Spain are sturdy and sober-minded. But cross over into
France and the people of southern France are once more gay and fickle,
in spite of the fact that they live further north than the sober-minded
inhabitants of northern Spain; and the people of northern France are
calm and self-reliant. Moving still further toward the Pole, into
Belgium, we find that the Belgians of the south are a frivolous lot, but
the Belgians of the north are eminently desirable citizens. From what I
have said you will no longer be surprised to hear that the inhabitants
of southern Sweden are a harum-scarum populace, whereas in the north of
Sweden every one attends to his own business. As a result of my long
course in travel literature I am convinced that the southern Eskimos are
not to be mentioned in the same breath, for hardihood and manly
self-control, with the sturdy inhabitants of northern Congo. People go
on writing this terrific nonsense and people go on reading it. A brief
review in geography would put a stop to the nefarious practice. Have I
made myself clear?"
"The question is whether people are interested in the countries you have
mentioned," I said.
Even then Harding was patient with me.
"That is what I would try to do in my commencement oration--arm those
young minds against the catch-words and imbecilities of the great world.
Altruism, the passion for service, the passion for progress, are all
very well in their way. But first of all comes the duty of every man to
defend the integrity of his own mind and the multiplication table."