So here in Columbia seventy
years ago, Francis Lieber prepared and published his "Manual of
Political Ethics." Adam Smith and Francis Lieber were but
prototypes--examples of what I have in mind. The days were when the
Senate of the United States afforded a rostrum from which thinkers and
teachers first formulated, and then advanced, great policies. Those
days, and I say it regretfully, are past. Unless I am greatly mistaken,
however, a new political force is now asserting itself. I have recently,
at a meeting of historical and scientific associations in Boston, had my
attention forcibly called to this aspect of the situation now shaping
itself. I there met young men, many, and not the least noticeable of
whom, came from this section. They inspired me with a renewed confidence
in our political future. Essentially teachers,--I might add, they were
publicists as well as professors. Observers and students, they actively
followed the course of developing thought in Europe as in this country.
Exact in their processes, philosophical and scientific in their methods,
unselfish in their devotion, they were broad of view. It is for them to
realize in a future not remote the University ideal pictured, and
correctly pictured, from this stage by one who here preceded me a short
six months ago. They, constituting the University, are the "hope of the
State in the direction of its practical affairs; in teaching the lawyer
the better standards of his profession, his duty to place character
above money making; in teaching the legislator the philosophy of
legislation, and that the constructive forces of legislation carefully
considered should precede every effort to change an existing status; in
teaching those in official life, executive and judicial, that demagogy,
and theories of life uncontrolled by true principles, do not make for
success, when final success is considered, but that, if they did lead to
success, they should be avoided for their inherent imperfection.
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