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Kansas University Weekly.
What the Business World Thinks of Liberal Education.
Opening Address as Delivered by Honorable J W. Gleed, at the Kansas State University, October 4, 1895.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I might with propriety say young ladies and young gentlemen; but that would be to call attention to a difference in our ages which I am willing to overlook if you are—or can. But can you? Measuring by years, especially years looked back upon, it is not so very long since I finished my course here as a student. Measuring so, I may still lay claim to youth. But measuring by the progress which this institution has made since I was an undergraduate, I am, alas! but a prehistoric relic—a mere fossil brought down from one of those remote geological ages the very name of which I have forgotten. You would not believe—or would you?—that when I entered here this building was barely plastered—the finishing was all yet to do. The faculty consisted of but ten members, the library of about one thousand volumes. Of the professors who said farewell to my class in 1879, but two are here today. One we lost during the past summer, a laborious, never tiring scholar, a faithful, patient, skillful instructor, a kindly, genial, christian man—a man whom thousands of men and women, his former pupils, will hold in loving remembrance for years to come.
You freshmen entering here in 1895 find six or seven buildings, splendidly finished and filled to overflowing with all kinds of equipment, where we, who entered in 1875, found but one unfinished building and practically no equipment at all. You have an ample library in a better building than Oxford has. You find here a faculty ten times larger than ours was in 1875. A century's growth—of old time growth—has been crowded into twenty years
But I do not for a moment admit that you; the members of this year's senior class, are as superior to the class of '79 as might be supposed from all this added and improved machinery. Our instructors, though fewer, were as good as
yours. Though we had fewer books to select from, it may be we read as many as you. We had the same rocks, birds, beasts, flowers, stars and atmosphere, physical and chemical phenomena to study that you have; and we had the same man to make us study them. Human minds, bodies and souls were the same then and now. Neither the Greeks nor the Romans have added much to their literatures since 1875, and German and French are no harder to read and no easier to speak now than then.
We had but two or three courses then and no optionals. But when I tell you that while pursuing the classical course I had to learn something of ten different branches of natural science, you will easily guess that we had no time to waste and that we had ample opportunity to find out what we liked best.
The changes have in one sense been great, but in another sense very small. The earth is the same, life is the same, the problems are the same. You, the convened students of 1895, do not differ materially from the body that assembled here in 1875. You may be a degree or two brighter; you may fight a better game of foot ball; the chancellor might admit this to you; he politely dodged the question when I pressed him; but otherwise you are the same. I feel sure I can describe you most accurately.
Some of you are pretty; you can become strong, bright, good, useful, sensible women in spite of that. It has been done.
You have come here from the office, the school room, the farm and the shop Your fathers follow many different avocations. You represent many races and stocks. A few of you may be rich. That is no fault of yours. It is nothing to be ashamed of. You still have brains and hearts as good as anybody's and if you can accomplish here as much as others accomplish, the greater credit to you.
Most of you are poor. The malaria of wealth has not fastened itself upon your systems to any appreciable extent. If you are relaxed, unknit, benumbed, it is not that; it is not because your way has been made too easy; not because your battle has been fought for you. You are not compelled to waste much energy in persuading yourself to work; you must work. You can run your race with no baggage to bother. You can go into battle undistracted by thought of the impedimenta.
Some of you are handsome, but I should think that need not hinder your attending to business.
Some of you are homely. Be thankful you will not be tempted to rely on your good looks. Besides, homeliness is worn off about as fast as beauty especially under the chisel of well directed life.
Some of you are perfectly at home in the ball room and drawing room, and some of you don't feel at home anywhere. The social graces are desirable indeed, but let me tell you it is a fine thing to feel at home in the study, in the class room, and the laboratory.
Some of you have the advantage of thorough training before you came here. You have been in school steadily from childhood. With others the preparation for this University has been broken and scant; but you come up here with an intellectual appetite that is tremendous.
And so each of you has a great advantage over the other and you must live up to it. If one has a surfeit of preliminary training, the other has the better appetite for his work. If one is selfpossessed and socially pleasing, the other has the good fortune to be bashful. If one has the gift of beauty, the other has the Socratic gift of ugliness. If one has plenty of money, the other has plenty of poverty. Don't spend any time on your disadvantages; keep your eye on your advantages; thank God for them and live up to them.
You have assembled here at the beginning of the academic year from a great variety of motives. Some of you came because you were sent. That is hardly pleasant to think about—to be poked around like a clod or an oyster, to be placed some where by your parents like a baby at a day nursery. If you came because you were sent, I am convinced you will remain because you choose. Some of you come here with matured purposes; you have chosen your ayocation; you have drawn your plans and made your specifications; you are fortunate, perhaps. Some of you have come here because you wish to be rich; some because you
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