The Tree of Knowledge

In Dean Pound's commencement address to the daughters of Eve at Wellesley he intimated that in eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge we have not partaken of what was forbidden, as did our first parents, but have merely eaten "more than we can digest" and are suffering a no more serious consequence than "a nightmare of disillusionment." We have had an "orgy of idealism," an extravagant faith in "a perfectibility to be brought about by law." If as been as if we, too, had believed the word of the serpent that eating of this tree would enable us to distinguish between good and evil and in doing so "be as God." We have been driven from the Eden of our idealism, yet no angel with a flaming sword bars our return. At any rate, Dean Pound, a discerner of right and wrong of the malum in se and the malum prohibitum, the two varieties of apples that grow upon the same tree by reason of the grafting of law gives us home that we shall again come into that confidence which is essential to happiness. He said: "I am not without confidence "that the new era will find something in which to be confident." New York Times.