life or to enter into the details of a people's interests and welfare. Let our college men do their full duty in impressing the public mind and forming public conscience, taking part in the shaping of public policies, giving their service to the party of their choice in politics, decrying injustice, oppression, elevating the standard of pure-minded citizenship, and building up by the stones of their sacrifice and patriotism this sacred temple of our liberty.

"An enlightened public mind truly is an imperative need; but a more vital need far is a strong public character. Character is the soul of the nation. You may cultivate the public mind and endue it with every grace of a liberal education, until satisfied you stand back in admiration of your handiwork and exclaim in satisfaction: 'Here is the ideal of true American mind-worthy and safe depository of America's precious heritage- her God-given liberty.' But you have fashioned in bronze, producing every line and lineament ad vivumtruly the heroic embodiment of American ideas — and enraptured over your masterpiece, in ecstasy of realization of long-cherished hope, you strike it, crying out: 'Speak, Liberty, speak!' But the lips speak not, the eyes gleam not, the heart beats not. Cold, impassioned, dead. It may serve to hold a torch to light the pathway of your vessels out to sea, a beautiful statue, but only the statue of Liberty. Without character what profits the teeming stores of acquired refinement and knowledge! Public character stands for integrity of life, public and private, honesty of purpose, cleanness of morals, a conscience that admits of no wrong, that will deny no right, inexorable justice, tender mercy, honorable alike in peace and war, true to its obligations at home and abroad, safeguarding with its life's blood its enviable position among the nations of the world through the preservation of its people in their inviolable rights.

"Many are the citizens in this fair State of every creed, nation, and party, whose rugged honesty and transparent purity of life have left to their children and the nation the priceless legacy of a spotless, honorable name. Men loyal to high ideals, who seem cast in some noble mold, men who know not what it is to do an ignoble thing, to whom wrong is always wrong, not can be induced by flattery, cajolery, or abuse to see it otherwise. These are the men who possibly not schooled in the halls of university or college, yet are building up the integrity of our nation, and by their lives strengthening the character of our people.

"The college, whose aim should be to train the whole man, must give us men of character, whose lives can bear the searchlight of investigation, men consecrated to high ideals, whose minds and hearts are devoted to a sacred trust, and whether it be in the halls of legislative assemblies, in the lecture room, on the street, in the factory, in private home, stand ever ready to champion the cause of truth and the blessed possession of those ends for which this nation under God has been founded.

"Character is formed in college, it yields to the influence of inspiration drawn from the life of many a devoted professor, it is rounded through the contact with fellow students' lives, it is strengthened from the constant study of the greatest heroes who have builded their character into their nations, it is gently lifted to true nobility by the soft whisperings of the grace of Him unto Whose image and like

ness we are.

"Let knowledge grow from more to more that we may become a more enlightened people; let character grow from more to more that we may become a more noble people; let the soul grow from more to more in that love of God and his fellowman - and we have guaranteed to ourselves the secure possession of our happiness, and we have handed down to our children, without blot or stain, an inheritance richer than that of sordid gain — a nation enlightened in mind, a nation noble in character, a nation blessed under God.

"Esto Perpetua!"

The Toastmaster. "I refrain from mentioning in this presence the name of my own college. I see it only occasionally. I expect to see a portion of it to-morrow. But there is one college that I see every morning and every night. When I rise at somewhat various hours; but when I rise in the morning and look out at my front windows, across Mystic Lakes to the neighboring hills, I see the college whose president I am about to present. And when I leave my office in the city, coming by train, I skirt its left end, get by if I can, and if I come by motor, I skirt its right end, and get by again if I can. I think, though I do not speak certainly, that this is the first time that we have had the opportunity and pleasure of greeting the President of Tufts in the City Club. Whether for the first time or the second or third time, we believe and hope that it will be only one of many times when some toastmaster or president will have the opportunity to present President Bumpus, of Tufts."

President Bumpus of Tufts College

"Mr. Toastmaster and Members of the City Club and invited Guests. I am sure, Mr. Toastmaster, that if you have difficulty in getting by the campus of Tufts College, I will attend to the matter and see that you are properly entertained as you go, and if you are in a hurry, we will try to speed you along the way.

"Being a new member to this organization of New England colleges, I took the program rather seriously (laughter) and was impressed by the paragraph on the second page, which says:

""The topic suggested for informal discussion is the statement of President Van Hise, of the University of Wisconsin, that the most important function of the University to-day is not to

discover new knowledge, but to disseminate and make vital in the life of the people the knowledge which it already has.'

"Now, that is very characteristic of Van Hise. He can take a thing which we have had over and over again presented to us in our youth, and he will put into that what the newspaper man calls a 'punch,' and then give it to us in such form that it will attract attention. And when it has been put in such a form as to attract the attention of the presidents of the colleges of New England, so that they see fit to place that as the topic of conversation of this evening, it seems to me that President Van Hise has performed his function: because, after all, that is no more than the old statement which I dare say many of us were obliged to throw into Latin and into Greek, but which we probably cannot do at the present time, 'Put in practice what you know.'

66

Now that, coming from Van Hise, is a rather interesting thing, in that he is now stating that the thing to do is to pay more attention to the dissemination of knowledge than to what is ordinarily called research. I did not know Van Hise said that until I read it here, and it is in quotation marks, for since his election to the presidency he has insisted from the beginning that at least one-third of the expense of running the University, or at least of paying the salaries of the professors of the University, should be charged to research, and only two-thirds to instruction. And I have repeatedly sat and listened to President Van Hise, when he has plead before the Legislature and before various committees of the Legislature for that one-third.

"I think, however, that this is only a part of a fixed campaign. I think it was his purpose to first get the third, and make sure of that. Then when he has made sure of that, and having made sure of that, he would look out to take up the second question, namely, the question of dissemination.

"The location of the University of Wisconsin in Madison is somewhat peculiar. The city is a city of about twenty-five thousand. There is the University and the State Capitol; and if both of those institutions should be obliged to shut their doors, I think that the population of Madison would be seriously affected. In fact, I think the city would be taken from the map. But the relations of these two institutions have been extremely intimate.

"In the first place, the University has been a large university, and has a large number of graduates all over the State. There is a sufficient number of graduates at the University, so that there is a university influence even in the remote counties of the State.

"In the second place, when the Legislature convenes they look to the University for instruction, and they say, 'If you have there at the University men who are giving courses in economics, send them down here and let them tell us how to solve these problems.'

"The capitol is drawing constantly on the university men. Now,

you know university men well enough to know that after they have had an opportunity to give advice they are very apt to take the initiative in giving advice.

"Therefore, there has been a growing tendency on the part of the university to take the initiative in indicating to the people of the State what they should do and what they should not do, so that certain enemies of the university and the university has enemies, by the way have frequently asked, 'Is this a State university or is it a university State?

"Now the efforts that the university has made to reach the people of the State are rather extraordinary. If, for example, there is budget this year of over $200,000 that is being spent in university extension, and there are located in several parts of the State various cities of the State remote from the university, a center of university activity, and you might draw a radius from those sections of university activity down to the smaller towns and villages and even into the neighborhoods.

"That is, however, an appropriation made only for one department, and that appropriation was made by the Legislature with full knowledge of the kind of work that the university had been doing during the previous years, and they were perfectly willing to give more money than that for university extension. Indeed, I mistrust that they were so willing to give money for university extension that those who were interested in the regular university work were a little afraid that university extension would get more than its share.

"The agricultural college naturally is endeavoring to carry the results of research to the people, and some of the methods of reaching the people are certainly most novel. We had, for example — it was only two or three days ago that I broke my articulation with the University of Wisconsin - so I say we 'had,' for example, and there now exists at the University an organization which affects practically every boy on every farm in the State.

"For a long time the farmers in the State were planting the corn which they raised, taking out a few ears and hanging them up on the roof of the piazza, if they had a piazza, or otherwise in the attic, and then planting those the next spring. Those who had made a special study of plant breeding explained that the crop of the State might be increased by several million if the farmers would only plant good corn, rather than corn which was taken indiscriminately from their fields. And the point was: How could you get this thing home to the farmer? Well, it was discovered that you could interest the child much more easily than you could interest his father. And through a system of organization the boys in each little village were first encouraged to take from their father's field the largest ears of corn that they could find. There was an exhibition then given in the fall and the boys became very much interested in that.

"Then there came the next point. Not the exhibition in the

town; but at the time the exhibition was given in the town stated that in that entire exhibition the ten best ears would be to the county fair.

"Each county had its best ten. Then later on in the s there would be an exhibition at the University, and each co was asked to send in the best ten ears of the county. So that year to year we have been receiving at the University the ten ears of corn raised in the State.

"Now those ten best ears have been shelled and the seed been taken and the University has raised from that seed what call 'pedigreed corn,' and that pedigreed corn when used for will produce its kind in the most extraordinary and pleasing so much so that many farmers have discovered this, and instea raising corn for fodder they send to the University, or anyw they can get it, to procure some of this pedigreed corn, because have already found that it is just as easy to plant that, and it good deal harder to reap it, because there is so much more than could possibly have gotten the other way.

"That thing is just being carried further now, and there is inter-State exhibition of corn. But the point is the ingenious in which the University, through its treatment of agriculture, down under that inertia of the farmer and really got its influence through the children, and that influence has begun to tell, and we n get these splendid crops. I would not attempt to say how ma million dollars have come to that State by that satisfactory and rath scientific manner of handling the field.

"Now another ingenious way in which the University is deavoring to carry this information to the people, is by supplyi certain short courses, and this work is being done by an individu independent college; it makes an effort, not only to send its represe tatives to the field, so that if a farmer has bought a strip of land in th northern part of the State and he desires to know what kind of crop will grow on that farm, he may find right there his demonstratio farm run by the University and picnics are arranged from time time during the year. In the spring there is a picnic to bring in th people to see how the ground is prepared and how the crops ar planted. Then in midsummer they are brought in for some othe reason. They come in from twenty to thirty miles, driving across country with their horses and Fords. Then they come again in the fall, and there, perhaps in one little center, where it costs no more, than the maintenance of a farm of one hundred acres, you are given a practical demonstration of how to handle an extremely difficult problem. And as I ride through the country in the East, I am sur prised to see land lying in waste, producing only scrub grass, where out there they are raising fine crops of alfalfa and cow-peas, and they know how to do it. There is a point where the people of the State are again reached.