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A Broader
Mission for
Liberal Education...

_Baccalaureate Address,
Delivered in
Agricultural College Chapel,
Sunday, June 9, 1901._

_By_....
J. H. WORST, LL. D.
_President._




A Broader Mission for Liberal
Education.

Baccalaureate Address, Delivered in Agricultural
College Chapel, Sunday, June 9, 1901.


BY J. H. WORST, LL. D.


AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE P. O.,
North Dakota.

[Illustration: J H Worst]




A BROADER MISSION FOR LIBERAL EDUCATION.

BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS, DELIVERED IN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE CHAPEL, SUNDAY,
JUNE 9, 1901.

BY J. H. WORST, LL. D., PRESIDENT.


In America we recognize no aristocracy except that of genius or of
character. Our countrymen are all citizens. Our government was founded
upon the principle that "all men are created free and equal" and though
intellectual endowments differ widely in individuals, yet special
privileges are accorded to no one as a birthright. Therefore the college
graduate, as well as any other aspirant, must carve his way to fame and
fortune by energy and perseverance, or lose his opportunity in the
tremendous activities going on about him. His only advantage is superior
training which must nevertheless be pitted against practical minds in
strenuous rivalry for every desirable thing he would accomplish. The
mere fact of education is considered no badge of merit. Education
represents power, but until it manifests itself in action, it is merely
static, not dynamic, potential, not actual. It conveys to its recipient
no self-acting machinery which, without lubricant or engineer will reel
off success or impress mankind, as a matter of course.

The question is no longer asked by practical men "what does a man know"
but "what can he do?" Knowing and doing have thus become so intimately
associated by common consent as to be inseparable; for knowing without
doing is indolence and doing without knowing is waste of energy. The
former is sinful, the latter wasteful. For many years progressive
educators have been striving against the culture-alone theory and
advocating the education of the whole man--hand as well as head, body as
well as mind. As a result the ancient educational structure is pretty
well broken down, and the erstwhile curriculum has become a
reminiscence. Many wealthy parents still educate their children for the
larger pleasure which they believe education of the old type will afford
them in life, but parents generally have come to look upon life as a
period of intense activity rather than a brief round of pleasure, and
hence provide an education for their children that will fit them for the
every day demands that duty or necessity may make upon them. Since it is
a matter of common observation that wealth is easily dissipated,
especially when inherited, farseeing parents prefer an education for
their children that is adapted to some useful end rather than the
education that is largely ornamental or fashionable.

The vicissitudes of life are many. Fortune is fickle and but few young
people can hope to command perpetual leisure even should their bad
judgment make such a thing desirable. There can never be real
independence of thought and action apart from one's conscious ability to
cope with others on equal terms in any human emergency. The young man
who rejoices in the provident hoardings of his ancestors which exempt
him from strenuous exertion on his own part has but a small mission in
life. Work is the normal condition of man. The stern necessity that
compels him to labor, to think and to plan, lifts him into the
pleasurable atmosphere of usefulness and imparts zeal and ambition to
his energies. There can be no "excellence without great labor", and
"hard work is only another name for genius."

A young man cannot begin life with a richer heritage than good health,
good habits and a liberal education--an education that imparts culture
to his mind and power to his body. If he should never have occasion to
use his hands in some useful vocation, the training they have received
will never prove burdensome. On the other hand, the fact of being in
possession of reserve powers will prove a source of pleasure. It will
disp