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President Eliot in speaking before the Harvard Club of New York at its recent semi-centennial celebration formally opening the new additions to the club's buildings on "What Harvard Stands For," expressed himself as follows:
"The spirit of Harvard is essentially the spirit of liberty. It is the sprit of liberty for the individual, for society at large,--liberty in government and education--which binds Harvard men together.
"But in these days, since the beginning of the warn in Europe, we begin to hear that liberty must be limited, that it must be regulated. I have heard repeatedly from Harvard men in the last six months that to procure efficiency in peace and war there is great merit in implicit obedience. How is that as an educational doctrine among Harvard men? In the education which we received it was not obedience which was taught to us, but self-control and the development of personal initiative.
"Is it not true that the whole experience of this country shows that to obtain any sort of efficiency in the mass we must have for every individual freedom and the opportunity to develop initiative? Do we not believe that Pasteur's definition democracy is the correct one--democracy is that form of government which permits every individual citizen to do his best for the common good'?
"I believe our observation of the great war which has been going on for the last sixteen months confirms us in the belief that under freedom for the people--freedom in the school, the college, in business--the greatest efficiency is to be developed."
President Lowell also spoke on the prospect of the University possibilities in the next fifty years.
"That the University will grow and grow greatly," he said, "we cannot doubt. The are of great building is probably at an end, but we need a chemical laboratory, and we look forward to the time fifty years hence when the University will house practically all its students. We trust that the students body will become representative of the nation even more than it is now, and we hope that Harvard will have not only the admiration, but the affection of her sister universities. At my inauguration President Hadley referred to me as the President of our greatest University, which shows that to a certain extent we have the affection and admiration of other university already. You read the other day now Yale had of her own initiative disqualified five athletes for unwitting infraction of amateur rules, and you read that Harvard begged Yale not to do it. You may think that is quixotic, but I maintain that it is the true spirit of sportsmanship among gentlemen."
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