Ambitions And Ideals

Sunday evening witnessed the opening of the exercises of commencement week, at Univeraity Hall. The occasion was the nnnual baccalaureate address, delivered by President Angelí. The hall was filled to its full capacity, many coming to hear their friend and ideal of a noble man, before his departure for the Turkish mission, having in their hearts the thought, though not the wish, that it rnight possibly be the last time they would ever hear him in a like capacity. Dr. Angelí threw much fervor and feelmg into the delivery of this address, and he commauded the closest attention, everyone being eager to hear every word he might say. After the reading of the scriptures, and a brief musical program, Dr. Angelí carne forward and said in substance : "The week of graduating brings much the same kind and degree of interest to every graduating class. But iritli each successive year this week ftrings a deeper and more absorbing interest to us, who remain and follow ■with solicitude and affection, the hunáreds of young graduates, as full of ïtope and enthusiasm they go forth to their various experiences, dissappointments, and triumphs in life. When, on the baccalaureate Sunday or on conimencement day, we, your teachers, look from this stage into your eager and ladiant faces, glowing with the vigor and hopefulness of young manhood and young womanhood ; what thoughts and emotions crowd our mind. Sometimes the dominant thought which comes to me is of the tremeudous power coucenbrated in these hundreds of active and ■veil furnished minds. If you will parion the siniile I often thinkof hundreds 3Í locomotives, with all steam on, impatiently waiting for the word to start sitli a rush into the world, and I wonder whether under wise self-control ■ they will reach some worthy destination ïearing a precious freightage of noble influence with them and making men happier and better. Alas ! one cannot bút have a certain solicitude lest here and there one with more propulsive power than wisdom, will dash recklessly on, bringing disaster and ruin to himself and to others. NOTE OF SOKROW. "Over the faces of all there flits now and then a shade of sorrow at severing the old intitnacies and dear friendships of college life. And well there may. To those of us who look back over the ehasm of years to our college days the ealization of this fact lends a tender pathos to every commencement week. As a rule the graduates leave us with lofty ideáis oí their calling and life. During the whole course of their study they have been taught to cherish the highest views of their professions and their duty to their fellow men, and have been pointed to the great exemplars of lofty professional spirit and noble living. History, biography, philosophy, have all irnpressed their lessonson them. Fired with burning zeal for truth and purity, they are ready with the most chivalric sourage to plunge into the thickest battles of life with devotion to the right. "So generally is this the case that eynics flnd these high ideáis of the young gradúate a favorite theroe of ridicule, and newspaper humorists &ee in tliem a subject for caricature. Now I wish to waru you that unless you are on your guard, unless you set out in life with a firm resolve to cherish your uoblest ideáis of action, there is a real danger that these ideáis may be supplanted by aierely selfish ambition. Let me at the eutset make clear the sense in which I mse the terms ambitions and deals. One may have an ambition to be true to the highest ideal. But in this discussion I shall use the word ideal to describe one's iighest and noblest conception of purjose and life, and the word ambition to lienote one's selfish aim to win personal success, whether in the actmisition of wealth or power or fame, or in finding a way to lead a life of ease and of self-indulgence. BEGIN EARLY. "I think you will all agree that each of you should continue to enlarge as far as possible your equipment for your work. tío much you owe to yourselves and to your professiou. Your great ópportunity for this is in your early years, when your offices are not unduly disturbed by a throngoí clients, patients or patrons. The lives oi men of great acliievement are full of iustruction on this point. Every school boy knows of the great speech whicb Webster delivereil on nullilicatiou in reply to Mr. Hayne in 1830 in the senate. It will be remembered that he made this reply on the very next day after Mr. Hayne had spoken. He also stated in liis speech that he had slept soundly through the night, and that his few waking hours had been occupied with business. Wonder bas often been ex]ressed that in such circumstances he could have made one of the greatest speeches of his life. "Many years ago John Whipple, a distinguished lawyer of Provideuce, who was an intiinate friend of Webster and was often associated with him or opposed to hitn in court, tcld me this interesting story. " 'When,' said Mr. Whipple, 'I was once walkiug on the beach at Newport with Mr. Webster, I asked him how it was possible for him to make so elabórate and powerful a reply to Mr. Hayne, when he had no time for preparation.' 'Xo time for preparatiou,' exclaimed Mr. Webster, 'Let me teil you. Years before, when I was a young lawyer with :ew clieuts to iuterrupt the tranquility of ray office, I set myself to the oareful and exhaustive study of the constitution of the United States. I raised every question wbich I thought could be raised, and sought to settle it in in y own mind. Amous the questions which I considered was this one, which Mr. Hayne raised in the debate. I gave long and careful study to it, and fixed my own opinions. When, therefore, Ibis issue was suddenly forced on me, I had only to recall the argurnents and conclusions of many years ago, and my speech was ready.' SEED TIME HARVEST. " Xot alone the years of your college ife, but the years immediately before you, should be made the seed time for Dossible harvest in your riper years. This is true of every calling in life. Unlappily, there seems to be a proclivity n some men, when, after strenuous exertion, they have successfully met one ;est in a career, to make no further exertion. We are compelled sadly to icknowledge that there are graduates who are never again relatively so conspicuous as the}7 are on commencement week. They seem to have exhausted iheir will or their power to advance one ncli bevond their position at graduation. Nay, a few, cut off from the stimulation of college duties and college associations, ictually seem to retrograde. There is 10 faculty more to be coveted than the 'aculty of continuous growth. They alone grow and persist in growing who are ever pushing on tovvard sonie ideal. n how many a town we lind educated men, of whom everybody is saying that hey have native talent enough to be he peers of the leaders of their professiou, but by their inertness they have remained very commonplace men until it s too late forthem to rise to the heights vliich were once within their reach. ?hey have allowed tliemselves to become the easy victima of their environnent. But after all one must have, coiled ike a spring in his own soul, the aspiraions, the incentive, the purpose to press orward contiuuously in the face of all liscouragements and obstacles if he is o reach his best d'evelopment. "It should be the ideal of everyone -o build his manhood on so large a scale bat it should overlap and stretch away eyond his profession. The man should )e more and greater than the lawyer, he physician, the engineer, the teacher, he preacher, the inerchant, the farmer, t is to be deplored when one's profesión crushes and limits the largest development of one's manhood. But uness we keep ever before us the fixed purpose to give our powers large play on all sides by diversifying our studies, we are all in danger in our busy lives of being iinprisoned by the routine of our daily tasks, and fettered by the gyves ol our profession. Tlie normal growtli oi our manhood in its best proportions is thus checked. REAL DAXGER POINTED OUT. In these days of narrow specialization in professional and scholarly life, there is a real danger that one's ambition and development should soon be bouuded by the limits .of a single profession, as law, or medicine, or teaching. It means to be shut within the confines of a small section of a profession. However acute and however accomplished in the knowledge of a narrow specialty such a life may make one, it is clear that it greatly increases the difficulh' of securing breadth and range of attainments. Itis probable that we cannot expect to see any more men of the encyclopedie learning of the great scholars of the sixteenth century or of the fiist half of the seventeenth. The domain of learning is now too wide to be thoroughly explored by any man in the period of a human life. None the less, however, it is the duty oi every one of you to remember that your iirst and highest cali is to be a wellrouuded man rather that the mere practitioner of any profession. ïhe more stuuted your manhood theslenderer wil] be your power in the long run in any calling. And it will not do to postpone the realization of this ideal of manhood until you have by a meaner policy gratified a lower ambition. A man who has dwarfed his powers b}T years of compression and stagnation caunotsuddenly, by volition, make himself an intellectual or moral giant. I'IVIC DL'TIES. "The gradúate should cherish a worthy ideal of his social and civic relations and duties. A profession is a diguified and honorable calling, by which one not only gains a livelihood, but also renders some valuable service to his fellow man. A lawyer is not merely an advocate and counsellor for a cliënt, but is au officer of justice, sworn to duties for the aid and protection of society. A physiciau ia not merely a writer of prescriptions in expectation of fees, but is a niessenger of mercy to the victime of bodily ailments even of the pauper, and a guardián of the public health. The true scholar is not simply an accumulator of knowledge to be retailed to others at an advanced price, but a seeker after truth and wisdom, with which he may bless mankind. Every one of you whatever his calling, should regard himself as called by the very fact of his education to cherish this large and humane purpose to render ministrations to society. All who are familiar with the life in American colleges in these days must regard it as an auspicious sign that students have so largely been investigating the great social problems of the time, and inquiring how these ministrations may best be rendered by them. The services they have so cheerfully rendered in the social and college set# tlernents in the congested districts of our great cities not only attest this noble spirit of self-sacrifice, but furnish a happy augury of the philanthropy which is likely to characterize their lives. "Theyshould recognizethe cali wbich their training lays upon them to play a conspicuous part in securing good government. It is a matter for congratulation that for late years more of our youug men of education and wealth and leisure have beeu willing to accept laborious offices in our large cities in the hope of remedying our most crying evil, misrule in municipalities. Men of such special training as you have received ought after some experience among men to be able to be of real service in the conduct of public education, cliarities, penal and reformatory institutions, sanitarv and hygienic boards and in general legislation. When called by our fellow citizens to such work, which is commonly unrequited in money, be ready to do your full part in the spirit not of personal aggrandizement, but of devotion to the public good. ITCHINQ FOB OFFICE. "It would notbe difficultto name brilliant young men, who for a consideration have placed their talents and attainments at the service of theunscrupulous managers of the worst types of municipal politics in our large cities. It is no secret that a powerful and notorious orgauization in New York City has for years sought gifted young men from all ]iarts of the country a-nd enlisted them in their service in that city, and crowued them with pecuniary and political re(Continued on 7tli Page.) ÜBiTIGliS AND IDEALS, (Continued from4th page.) wards. It would be easy to name many men, who witli no evil intent have by tlieir irrational itching for office wrecked fair prospects of professional usefulness, and are stranded now in rniddle life without office and without professional support. I know of few more meloncholly spectacles than the long procession of these chronic office seekers now crowding the corridors of the capitol and the White House, as they do at every change of the administraron. The adoption of politics as a profession is generally fatal to success in any other profession. "The loftiest ideal, however, is the supreine desire to be an obedient and loving child of God. One may reach the liighest intellectual attainments, one may so pursue his calling as to be of service to society and the state, but yet may come short of the ideal set forth and illustrated by our perfect exemplar, the Lord Jesus Christ, in His great injunction to each one of you not only to love thy neighbor as tby self, but first of all to love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This last he called the great commandment. "Am I wrong or uncharitable in thinking that there is a strong tendency in these days to hold that this is a commandment of little weight compared with the other? In their laudable commendation and admiration of humane and philanthropic work, some men seem to forget that we have relations to God as well as to men. This forgetfulness is doubtless due in large measure to agnostic or pantheistic views current in our day. We have come to believe that they cherished ill-balanced and erroneous views both of their duties to God and of their duties to men. LIFT OÜR HEAETS TO HIM. "But let us uot now make the mistake which is opposite to theirs, and quite as grave as theirs. Tlicre is none too mach love for men, charity for the poor, sympathy for the sutfering. But if we are really to be Christlike, we are not only to help the distressed, as our Lord did, but we are, like him, to remember that there is a loving Father of us all, the common Father of the needy and of ourselves, and that we are to lift up our hearts as he did, above ourselves, above all men, up to him to whoni our supreme allegience and affection are due. The ideal of life is that which is hid with Christ in God. "You have made long and careful preparations ior your careers. You have sought to anticípate the demands which life is to make on you. Have you remembered to surrender your soul to the divine will ? Do your plans contémplate above all harmony with his poses and plans ? As you are eagerly peering iuto the future, are you asking in the siucerity of your heart, 'Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?' Be assured that any plans which run athwart his plans cannot in the long run succeed. I adjure you, then, to put first and highest among the ideáis that are to shape your life and character the spirit of him whose meat and whose drink it was to do the Father's will. "And finally do not be ashamed or afraid to cling to your ideáis in the hot contests and the discouragements of life. You will soon in your contact with the world, find yourselves under strong temptations to fall below those high standards which you are now setting before you. Doubtless you will meet men who will cali your lofty purposes and aims visionary and unpractical. You will be called to compete with men who have few scruples about the means to accomplish their ends. You will be advised, and perhaps tempted, to fight flre with fire. You will be told that ideáis are for dreamers, but ambitions are for men of sense. A HARD TASK. " When you are surrounded and pressed on all sides by men wTith these low ambitions, you may find it harder than you now imagine to remain true to your better self, to scorn victories won with unworthy weapons, to follow the example of him who, when offered by the evil one all the kmguoms ot the earth, said, 'Get thee henee, Satau.' It is not granted to all to behold such a heavenly visión as that which broke upon the soul of St. Paul on the way to Damascus. But to every sincere spirit that seeks with longing for the truth there is granted such a visión of duty that it will ahvays be well for one to be able to say, ' I was not disobedfent to the heaveuly visión.' Otir early years are irradiated with tlie gleanis of such deals. Do not forget them or forsake them. Live up to the high level of your noblest motives and purposes, as so many of the great and good of earth have done. Seek that radiant patli, 'distinct with footprints yet Of mnny a nüghty marcher gone that way.' " Your alma mater will follow you with loving regard in all your endeavors to fulfill the worthy aims with which you leave her halls. She will sympathize with you in the disappointments which may come to you, as they come to us all. She will rejoice in all your successes which are honorably won, for your honorable successes are lier glory and her strength. She has no endowïnent - she eau have 110 endowmént of silver or gold - so precious and so dear to her as the successes and the aft'ection of her ons and her danghters who, like you, go forth to the worid with her benediotíon apon tlieir heads. God bless you and bless her evermore. Amen.''