Drexel University - Spartan Yearbook (Philadelphia, PA)

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1'lg'l1lZCOllSIl0SS be established or shall the world be ehaotie? Shall liberty be extended so that the smallest people, as well as the greatest shall have a chance to live as they believe they have a 1'lf. ,'llt to live, to obey the law that they believe has been Set before them from a divine source, and to realize their manhood in the way that by nature they feel they ought to realize it. That is the question that confronts us, and now, through the dis- cipline of our history, we two are coming together again to give a counnon answer. And it is right that we should eonie together, because our past has so much in eonnnon by reason of the discipline through which have gone because of what our fathers have strug- gled for, because we believe, as your President has said, that Htl0lll00l'2H'j' must bc made safe in the earth. l 28

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t t t I mean-Dickens and illllil0li61'i1y. ltlngland is 0tll.Cll called perIidious Albion, hypo- critical, Pharisaical. There may be grounds for this charge, but there have been no 1llU1'0 scathing indictments given of the hypocrisy and l.'harisaism ot Britain than have been penned by ll'hackeray and Dickens. ltf you want to know how vile tl1e 'ltlnglislnnan can be, just turn to his own novelists. And yet you rise from the reading otf their stories convinced that on the whole the people are honest, that on the whole they do love right- eouness, that on the whole they try to do the square thing. That is the quality of their life as seen in their literature, and they have carried that spirit abroad. Just as you fought for a. moral ideal in the Civil 'War, so they have prolfessed that they live for a moral ideal. I can think of no liner representative of the righteousness of Iflngland than John lfiright, who embodied, like Milton, the English character in its purity, and who taught his age, as XV01'tlSXV01'tll says, not otf .lohn liright, but ot' Milton, HIIIZIIIIIGVS, virtue, freedom, powerf, And England sent forth its men in multitudes to extend 1l1e sense of law and order over this world. Adventurers, many otf them have been, but slavery they have put down, piracy they have stamped ontg and Scott who died at the South Pole may be taken as a good representative ol' the very gallant gentlemen who have gone into the t'ar distant parts ot' the earth and who, in spite ot' whatever may be said, Nr. flllilll'lll2lll, have maintained the freedom ot? the seas. Here then, we have the two streams that have been disciplined by a. very varied experience after their connnon origin. lVhat is the result? The result is that both on your side of the Atlantic-well, we Canadians a1'e on the same side, and I should say on our side of the Atlantic, though in times past we we1'e not ,associated very closely-the two branches of the ltlnglish-speaking peoples have an interest in law and in liberty. One of the most distinguished recent historians otf the thought otf the nineteenth century tells us that the distinctive interest of the English-speaking philosopher is ethics or morals, and that their ethics or morals are based upon the coneeption of law as being a divine order, that through the mind off the lflnglish-speaking peoples there runs the view that there is a spiritual sanction behind righteousness, and, at the same time, while we obey the law of righteousness, we must be free in order that we may act as our conscience bids us aet. That principle has been enforced by the experience otf our common history, and in that we are one. We must be free who speak the tongue that Shakespeare spoke, the faith and morals hold which Milton held. Fll1'tll01'lll0l'C, when the law goes forth from your Congress and is interpreted by your Supreme Court, it is accepted by your people. Law is sacred to you. It is an abiding principle of your lite, and you say that it must be just, and yet within it you must have liberty. Again we are involved in a ghastly struggle. The question now before us is, Shall law prevail, not only within our own borders, but the world over? Shall international 27 t 1 l t t t t I r i I t l w 1 1 l t ,. V t l lt l V, 1 t l li

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CLOSING REMARKS OF DR. HOLLIS GODFREY I said to-day that I hoped that every college Convocation, that every college meet- ing, would be made a. meeting which would breathe the spirit of democracy and make clear the purposes of our war. I would like to feel that in every assembly gathered to- gether for serious thought, for a council of duty, there goes a. grea.t flood of belief, of new and strengthened belief. I look back a quarter of a century to that meeting in The Drexel Institute when the Institute was founded, and when there began that passing out of trained men and women, when a great band of wise and great men and women gathered together at that time, and I see through those twenty-five years the influence coming down through the city, out of the city into the state and into the nation. And standing here to-night, honored as we are by our illustrious guests, believing as we do, all of us, in our own society of scholars, in our own state, I believe there is around a cloud of witnesses. I believe that from this marking point will eolne a great, newer increase of power, a liner life and a greater belief in these ideals for which the nation stands, a11d for which we in our part stand too. And so, in recognition of the founder, of all that Mr. Drexel made possible, in recognition ot' all those who have done so much to carry out his vision in the past, and in appreciation of those who helped to do it, I call this meeting not only a convocation, but a commoncement-a. commencement of the next' quar- ter of a century, and with that word I declare this Convocation closed. 29