Hibben Stresses Obligations of Nations and Individuals

John Grier Hibben, President of Princeton University, last night delivered the Godkin lecture in Sanders Theatre. Treating two subjects under the titles of "Society and the Individual" and "The Nation and the Society of Nations", the eminent educator stressed not only the duties which the individual owes to the state, and to his fellow citizens, but also the duties of the United States owed to the rest of the world, which, he felt, call for this country's joining the World Court as the "irreducible minimum of our international obligations."

Stresses Social Responsibility

In the first part of his lecture, President Hibben gave the "first and most compelling duty of citizenship" as "the recognition of man's true relation to the society of which he is part", and defined the primary object of a college education as the fitting of "each student most adequately to perform his proper functions as an essential part of the social structure in which he is to live and move and have his being."

Then, comparing the relation of the individual to society to that of the nation to the "society of nations", President Hibben went on, in the second part of his lecture, to score the "complacent boasting of 100 per cent Americanism as "questionable" and "a begging of the question," because it "assumes that one is serving America best who holds strictly to a policy of isolation." He urged the country to "recognize the fact that the world is one world and what ever peril may menace a part of it vitally effects the whole."

Government Must Renew Power

After expressing his deep sensitiveness to the honor and privilege of delivering the Godkin lecture, President Hibben began the actual body of the first division of his lecture by denying the often alleged stability of our government merely because it has existed 160 years, declaring that "no form of government can be assured of permanency", for there must be a "constant renewing of its power" to adapt it to the swiftly changing conditions of our modern age.

The interesting complexity of the relations not only between the individual and other individuals, but between the individual and society at large was traced from the beginnings of the United States. Nowadays, President Hibben pointed out, the centripetal forces of the rapid growth and development of the nation have driven us more and more closely together. The superficial antithesis which sets the individual over against society, in seeming opposition to each other, must inevitably rise, he declared, to a more profound view which holds to a higher synthesis which recognizes the interdependence of all individuals in working out a common lot and destiny."

Education Gives Perspection

Then, after asserting that the primary object of a college education was to prepare the student to fit into society as an essential part of the social structure in which he lives, President Hibben showed that Harvard and Princeton were working along parallel lines to produce a body of young men who have "learned to think for themselves," tion in conduct."

President Hibben then stated his idea of the real value of a man to a community, saying that it "did not depend upon his being a so-called law-abiding citizen; his conduct must also conform to the standard of some self-imposed law. . . . Fear of penalties at best can only be a restraining influence. Respect for law based upon fear alone has little or no value in the life of a community . . . . It becomes more and more evident that no government can make man moral by law.

Nation Not Self-Sufficient

The lecturer began the second part of his speech by making a distinction between the phrase "society of nations" as he used it, and the League of Nations. After comparing the individual as related to the nation, to the nation as related to the world, President Hibben remarked that "upon a superficial observation of our natural resources, of our commanding financial superiority as the creditor nation of the world, and our industrial progress unequalled in history, it seems to be a reasonable judgement that our nation so highly favored is self-contained and self-sufficient. A more profound observation of ourselves and of the world problems which confronts us leads us to the conclusion that as in the case of the individual, so also no nation liveth unto itself.

"It is urged today," he continued, "in many quarters that the spirit of true patriotism necessarily excludes any consideration whatever of international obligations. The complacent boasting of 100 per cent Americanism is questionable. It assumes that one is serving America best who holds strictly to a policy of isolation. Does a policy of isolation and international aloofness make us more truly Americans?

Hits National Isolation

National isolation, from a practical point of view, he styled a "short sighted policy." Then enlarging upon the point. President Hibben said. "In the first place we can't be isolated even if we choose to be.... We are connected by more or less intimate ties with all the nations of the earth. In our commercial relations, which no one can deny are essentially practical, we are dependent upon the stability and prosperity of the nations with which we have business intercourse." He urged furthermore, that the United States should "recognize the importance of our "manners" in dealing with all the nations of the earth.

Urges World Court

Continuing on this theme, President Hibben took a very definite stand in regard to the World Court, declaring that he feels it is "unfortunate that there have been seemingly insuperable obstacles which have prevented our country from taking part formally and actively in the World Court. Our joining the World Court has seemed to me to represent the irreducible minimum of our international obligations.

"We have unlimited power among the nations of the earth," he continued, "if we choose to exercise it, and we can exercise it more extensively and helpfully if we do not hold ourselves aloof or attempt to limit our natural power and influence by artificial restrictions and barriers