and training to every man, and then to put into the few who are capable of it a vision of things as they are in the light of things as they should be."

The Toastmaster. "Irrespective of any partisanship on the one side or the other of the great war across the seas, the heart of every college man and of every man has been torn by the story of Louvain and the destruction of the great and ancient university. We have, morning and night, as we cross the Charles River, the most gratifying stimulating picture of the building of a university, the great white city on the banks of the Charles. I introduce its president, President Maclaurin, of Technology."

President Maclaurin of the Institute of Technology

"Mr. Toastmaster and Members of the City Club. When a few days ago I was honored by the Secretary of this Club with an invitation to speak to you to-night, he was good enough to relieve me of the difficult task of deciding what I was to talk about, by saying that I was to say something on what the colleges and universities of New England are doing, or might do, for the training of public

servants.

"I accepted the invitation, with inward misgivings, because I happen to be one of those who think that we rather overdo in these days the talk about public service. After all, we must all recognize that every man serves the public by performing his allotted task and performing it well, and that he generally does a greater service to the public by so doing, than by devoting a large share of his energy to telling others as to how they should do their task.

"The colleges and universities of this land have always existed for the simple purpose of training men to do their jobs well. They have set up for that purpose somewhat elaborate organizations, and the problem that has always been with them and always will be with them is to make that organization more effective for the great purpose for which it has been set up. The only new question, or the only question that can seriously be considered is whether, having set up an organization for one purpose, it is practicable or expedient to use if for any allied purpose that will not interfere with its efficiency in

any way.

"Now, here we have in Massachusetts some sixteen or seventeen colleges and universities with some two thousand professors and instructors. The primary function of those professors and instructors is to teach; but it has long been recognized that they can and ought to serve some other and broader purpose.

"They must do what they can to stimulate interest and serious thought. They must, as far as possible, extend the bounds of knowledge by written and spoken word, they must encourage men to be better citizens by making them broader in their interests, human

sympathies, freer from primitive prejudice and passions, and better informed as to the actual results of experience.

"The question is, If they perform that great and splendid task can they be, and ought they to be, encouraged to do anything more by way of contributing directly to the solution of the almost countless problems that are presented in the administration of modern cities and States? Can anything be done in that direction?

"Now, those who would answer that question in the affirmative remind us very justly, it seems to me, that it would be wise to associate professors and instructors wherever practicable with civic endeavor, if for no other purpose than to give them a more intimate knowledge and a more vital insight in the actual problems that are presented in modern life. We must all agree that unless they have that knowledge and interest they can scarcely be effective trainers of men to solve those problems.

"But some would go further than that and say that our present system is wasteful of good material. Here, they tell us, you have in Massachusetts alone some two thousand professors and instructors in these institutions. They are for the main part unusually gifted men and women. Many of them are specialists of high order in their particular fields, and the suggestion is made that a great result would follow if these men could be associated in any way with the almost countless State commissions, city boards, and committees that concern themselves with the administration of public affairs.

"The question is far too large to discuss within the limits of an after-dinner talk. I am not even going to attempt it. All I want to say is this: That the field is so wide, the problems to be solved are so numerous and difficult, that there is no reasonable chance of doing anything much in the direction that has been indicated unless by the active and intelligent cooperation of many institutions. It is not the work for any one institution. But possibly we are getting away, if we have not got away, from the stone age, when the colleges regarded themselves as strictly independent and not infrequently as serious rivals. A spirit of cooperation has been working, and the colleges are coming together now in all kinds of ways.

"If I may refer to one or two modern instances of what is being done by way of organized cooperation, I would remind you that in this community, within the last few years only, there has been established a commission of university extension, with representatives from the seven or eight leading educational institutions in Boston, and its neighborhood, and that excellent work, splendid work, really, is being done by that commission, work that is no less excellent and splendid because it is being quietly done. I have no doubt that that work will be greatly extended when there is a larger demand for it in this community, and when institutions in other parts of the State take their fair share in extending it elsewhere.

"The most striking demonstration, to my mind, of the coopera

tive spirit that is abroad is that agreement which has been made within this year between Harvard and Technology, two institutions that have not always seen eye to eye, and not always, at least in the imagination of the public, been on the most friendly terms.

"You know, probably, that those two institutions have sunk all apparent differences, and they have set themselves to the great task of training engineers in a joint effort, all the work being carried on under the direction of a single head.

"That, I think, is a great step in the right direction, and I may say this, that those who have seen the actual working of this cooperation, because it is in effect to-day, have been greatly surprised by the ease with which all the great difficulties that the croakers foresaw have disappeared and the perfect smoothness with which the thing works to-day. It is, to my mind, a great tribute to the breadth of spirit and the high performance of the teachers in our institutions. If they displayed a similar spirit in the larger and broader field of cooperation, we may surely expect great things.

"If it were possible to bring together many of the institutions of this State and of New England generally, in a cooperative effort which would give encouragement to the professors everywhere, and opportunities to the professors everywhere to take their fair share in the solving of the problems of city government and State administration, it would go a long way toward the solution of those problems. In this way we should have perhaps set up, what some people have been talking about with another object in view, a really great and effective State university.

"It seems to me that nothing could be more foolish in a Commonwealth like Massachusetts, with its extraordinary wealth of educational institutions, than to set up a new institution which is simply not needed to-day. But if anything could be done to assemble these sixteen or seventeen units, or any large number of them, in an effort to attack the great problems in the way I have suggested, there surely we would have the nucleus of a great State university mighty in its power for good."

The Toastmaster. "We are wont to think of Boston and its vicinity, not merely as the Hub of the entire universe, but as the center of all things educational and academic, and of our city across the Charles as the university city of the Commonwealth. But we must not forget, and we do not forget, the heart of the Commonwealth: Worcester, which sits on its seven hills, and with seven great schools and colleges and universities, claims rightly to be not only the heart of the Commonwealth, but a large part of the mind and brains of the Commonwealth. I have the great pleasure of introducing President Dinand, of the College of the Holy Cross, of Worcester."

President Dinand, College of the Holy Cross

"Mr. Toastmaster and Members of the City Club. This gathering.

here this evening reminds me somewhat of the gathering that we held on the top of Mount St. James a short while ago, wherein the faculty and the alumni and the students were gathered together in friendly intercourse and the spirit of true fraternity prevailed. It is a night that we love to call up there 'Holy Cross Night.' This night here partakes in a way of the spirit of that selfsame night, though larger in its comprehension, since it brings together not merely the faculty of one college, but the faculty of seventeen colleges as represented in their heads here, the alumni of seventeen colleges, and the students who are still at their books. However, I believe that the spirit tonight is one of sincere fraternity, and, in fact, I do not understand how it would be possible for any body of men, even be they educators, who could enter within the portals of the City Club and not feel that spirit of fraternity, for if there is an organization in this city. which claims for itself the unique spirit of democracy, it is this selfsame City Club. (Applause.)

"This nation of ours, so democratic in its institutions, in its customs, in its habits of thought and action, must ever stand in need of the college and its influences for guidance, inspiration, and preservation. Her citizens made up of the contributions from every land that have been carried to her shores, with her constantly increasing population, her rapidly developing commerce, her steadily multiplying problems of government, have ever demanded the services of the besttrained minds and the stoutest hearts of her subjects. The college is the leaven in the mass, whose strength and virtue must permeate the entire body public until through this process of fermentation the whole mass of the nation is leavened into the full realization and possession of true American citizenship.

"This nation to live must have a healthy public spirit. More than any other form of government a Republic rests for its foundation upon the popular will. If this most stupendous miracle that the world has ever seen in a republican form of government is to perpetuate forever the principles of liberty—if the hopes of centuries are at last to be realized—if this government of the people, by the people, and for the people is to endure to the glory of our race - then we must see to it that the foundations upon which it rests are rockribbed and immovable. Public opinion must be sound, sane, and enlightened.

"The greatest need of our nation is a public mind open to the light of truth — free from prejudice and bias, superior to party strife and warring factions, single in its unerring pursuit of civil and religious liberty. The day that an unscrupulous, unprincipled minority shall poison with noxious prejudice the well-springs of a nation's thought that day it kills the life of the nation. The mind of the community, like that of the individual, must form its concepts from its sense perceptions. It has no latent power of intellectual self-evolution, it must depend upon extrinsic influences for that enlightenment that

is to inform its mind. To this end that the mind of the nation be free and untrammeled in its pursuit of knowledge and the solution of those perplexing problems of right government, it must be guided by sound principles. The true must be winnowed from the false theories, vagaries, and short-lived expediencies that for a time may mislead the unwary and the rash must be unsparingly unmasked. Subtle and insidious propositions that may blind the mind of the State to its true perception of duty must be ruthlessly condemned.

"Here is the nation's need. Where is the nation's supply? Far be it from me to say that the monopoly of that supply is syndicated in the hands of the colleges. Gentlemen, there never can be an educational merger formed that can hope to completely and exclusively control that supply. The history of our own nation would rise up in scathing depreciation of such colossal arrogance were one foolhardy enough to essay its exploitation. Ever must every man pay his just and unstinted praise to the men who without the advantages of a liberal education have by their innate greatness of mind impressed their genius upon the nation's thought, and by their natural clearsightedness have pointed out the pathways that have led their country to the possession of truth, prosperity, and happiness. Unqualified be our commendation of him who in his sphere of action, whether in the halls of government or in the marts of trade is contributing the service of his natural and unaided gifts to form that public intelligence.

"Shall we then be justified in saying that his glory is in the very lack of advantage, and that this very lack of advantage was the inspiration of his success? Who shall tell us that that harmonious development of the faculties of the mind and heart and soul of man through the school of discipline, self-control, and toilsome task in the acquirement of that knowledge which is its own end-makes a man less fitted to render that mead of service to the mentality of the nation. If then the object of a liberal education is intellectual excellence viewed in itself — apart from its results or its use if it is not an accidental or extrinsic advantage, but an acquired illumination, a personal possession and inward endowment; if its object is, in the words of Cardinal Newman, 'To open the mind, correct it, refine it, enable it to know, digest, master, rule, and use its knowledge, to give it power over its own faculties, application, flexibility, method, critical exactness, sagacity, resource, address, eloquent expression,' then the college has an inalienable right to share in the supply of the nation's need.

"Greater opportunities beget greater responsibilities. The college men to-day, by reason of their education, have received greater opportunities, and for that same reason have assumed greater responsibilities. It is their duty to give the nation the benefit of that training, that while broadening the horizon of their thought, enriching it with the influence of the best culture and refinement of other civilization and expanding the judgment in calm poise and true finality does not make that mind less practical to comprehend the issues of every-day