Trusted Leaders Needed to Advise Voters Says Bacon to Freshmen---Ability to Think is Goal

Following is the speech delivered yesterday evening in the Living Room of the Harvard Union by Gaspar G. Bacon, president of the Massachusetts Senate, before the assembled Class of 1934. President Lowell and Dean A. C. Hanford also spoke.

Members of the Class of 1934:

I am very happy to have this opportunity to add a word of welcome to the Freshman Class. You are about to join the company and share in the associations and traditions of a great University. You have put away childish things; you have graduated from the nurse strings of school rules and regulations, of a perscribed existence, of standardized thought. You have been thrust into a larger, freer atmosphere, in which your career and your conduct, your success or failure, will rest largely in your own hands.

I come here not to attempt to offer anything new, and least of all to deliver a lecture, but to try to help you tackle the problems and appreciate the opportunities of a college education.

Here in this hall are more than one thousand men, having come to Harvard from all over the United States, men of different capacities, aspirations and beliefs, having had different advantages and different experiences, all entering the University presumably for a purpose. In some cases the purpose is a very vague one--to get a general education to fit one for a life of which he knows little or nothing; in others, the field is starred and the student is looking for special preparation. In those who have no serious purpose, but who look upon college as a place merely to have a good time, we are not particularly interested, for after the mid-year examinations, they will probably have fallen by the wayside.

Why College Education?

What, then, is the primary object of a college education? "It is," says President Hibben of Princeton, "to fit 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." It is, is it not, to equip young men to play their full part in the life of their several communities, to give them a keener appreciation of the duties of citizenship, to enable them to contribute something of value to the well-being of their fellowmen. It teaches the obligations of service. It involves a point of view directly opposite to that held by the coal-miner of Pennsylvania, who, with great sacrifice to himself and family, sent his son to one of our universities. When asked by a friend the reason for so doing, he replied: "I am determined to give him every advantage of an education in order that when he finishes college he may be able to look every man in the face and tell him to go to Hell."

Mistaken Notion

This coal-miner had a mistaken notion of man's true relation to the society of which he is a part. The more advantages one has the greater the duty to use them for the good of others. Alexander Hamilton sincerely believed in the necessity of entrusting the government only to men of education and tradition, men of the so-called aristocracy of those days. Any such conception is of course contrary to our principles of equality, but, says President Hibben, "the spirit of a true aristocracy of service should characterize all who, through the privileges of university training, have been particularly equipped in mind and in character for the duties of citizenship." The familiar phrase "noblesse oblige" implies that there is for those of superior calibre, those who have had opportunities greater than the average, a code which exacts loftier conduct than the ordinary code requires.

Harvard endeavors to present to her students a wide field of opportunity, to teach them not facts or formulas, but to endow them with the power to think for themselves, to enable them to discriminate between that which is essential and that which is non-essential, and to reach independent judgments. Justice Holmes has said that education "is not the acquisition of facts, but learning how to make facts live."

This is a great liberal institution. It numbers in its faculty men of diverse tendencies. With some of them I hope you will disagree. No attempt will be made to force upon you the views of any particular person or group. It is not the function of the faculty to dictate to the students. Harvard asks no blind subservience to the doctrines of any man. She bespeaks tolerance and fair play and respect for the sincere opinion of others. She frowns upon all narrow-ness; she resents the imputation of unworthy motives to those from whom we may happen to differ. Her motto is truth. "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."

To fit men for useful service in the world, then, is Harvard's goal; to equip them with the faculties necessary to stand on their own feet, to fight the battle of life, to meet unexpected situations, to overcome obstacles that are regarded as insurmountable. Someone defined education as "what remains behind when you have forgotten all that you have learned." What is it that remains behind? It is your ability to think, to diagnose, your creating power, your will, your ability to concentrate, your mental equipment gained from training, study, and experience.

No Expedient

Someone once said: "There is no expedient to which man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking." Is not this to some extent true? Opinions on public questions are manufactured for us by the various organs of propaganda; information is served up in capsule form; we prefer summaries rather than substance; there are so many diversions to occupy us that we have little time for anything.

Our complex life, however, affords that much greater opportunity to the individual who has acquired the capacity to think. He will be sought after, for the people want to be led. There is so much loose talk, foggy thinking, agitation for reform, partisanship and prejudice that he who can demonstrate the qualities of discernment, sincerity and courage will soon take his place as a leader in the community. The people need guidance. The average person has neither the time, the inclination, nor the ability to form a fair judgment on the thousands of questions and candidates constantly before them. They must necessarily rely on those in whom they have confidence.

I should like to interest more young men in politics, not necessarily the quest for public office, for most young men can ill afford to make this sacrifice, but politics in its more accurate sense, meaning the science and problems of government. At least I hope that you will not fall into the error, unfortunately all too prevalent among people otherwise intelligent, of regarding all men who are in politics with suspicion. As in all other occupations, there are good, bad and in-different men in public life, and the calibre of the representative depends to a large extent upon the interest and intelligence of his constituency. If the best citizens do not take the trouble either to vote or to inform themselves on issues and candidacies, they have no right to criticize the kind of government which they will get. If men are elected to public office by only a small proportion of those qualified to vote, the majority deserve to be misrepresented. In 1922, for instance, 13 U.S. Senators received less than 30 per cent, of the possible vote in their respective states, and the lowest received but 9 per cent.

Ignorance and Indifference

Ignorance and indifference are the main foes of good government. Ignorance, we may excuse, but indifference means the intentional abdication to others of our most prized public privilege; it signifies a failure to comprehend the primary duty of citizenship.

There is another weakness in our body politic which deserves serious attention--it is what ex-President Hadley of Yale has called "the increasing demand for ill-considered legislation, and the increasing readiness of would be reformers to rely on authority rather than on public sentiment for securing their ends." Multitudes of well-meaning people have a feverish desire to reform everything and everybody by law. They seem to place some divine reliance in a statute. Once it is enacted, it is often forgotten or neglected in the zeal to enact another. As a nation we are suffering from over-legislation. Every two years the various State legislatures pass approximately 18,000 new laws, and Congress adds yearly to our already groaning statute books. The result it that most people do not know what the law is and do not care sufficiently to find out. They know that many of our laws are foolish and unenforceable and they do not hesitate to disregard them. They are' normally law-abiding, but the violations by our legislatures of the fundamental principles of law-making have been so flagrant that the great majority of the people have no qualms in differentiating between good laws and bad and recognizing only the good ones. This condition of affairs is demoralizing and dangerous, for universal disregard of some laws can only tend towards general disrespect for all law.

More Intelligent Comprehension

We need a more intelligent comprehension by the people of the function of law, and a closer adherence by their representatives to the essentials of law-making. Lawlessness will never be stopped by the passage of more laws, nor by the imposition of more severe punishments. Laws which violate natural rights and which the general will does not accept cannot be enforced. Laws which are unworthy of respect will not be respected. As Cardinal O'Connell said the other day: "History proves that goodness and virtue cannot be forced on a people by statutes or by machine guns." "It is impossible," says Brand Whitlock, "by the use of force, however strong or violent, to impose upon the moral sense of the people a feeling that a given act is wrong just because those whose prejudices it offends have been able to induce a legislature to enact it into what is called 'law'."

And President Lowell once cogently observed: "As a people we have been law-abiding, not by compulsion from above, but from a sense of the fitness of things. The success of self-government is based on a confidence that one's neighbors will conform to the established rules of conduct, and anything that undermines that confidence strikes at the root of our civil life."

No system of popular government can long endure unless, it is backed by genuine public opinion. My hope is to stimulate in the younger generation enough interest in public affairs to lead them to exert their influence in directing and crystallizing this all-powerful guiding force.

Whatever bent you follow, however, whatever subject you pursue, whatever ambition may inspire you, the only way yet devised to bring you success is through work--sheer, hard, consistent work. There is no short-cut. Thomas Edison said that success is made up of 2 percent of genius, and 98 percent of hard work. When asked if he didn't believe that genius was inspiration, he replied: "No, genius is perspiration."

Exert Self to Utmost

All of you will, when convinced that the effort is worth while, exert your-selves to the utmost. A member of an athletic team will play his heart out to win. You will burn the midnight oil feverishly to pass an examination. But the constant, daily toil is more exacting. You may temporarily lose sight of the incentive; you may be diverted by pleasanter things. Your first problem, then, and it is yours alone, is to convince yourselves that steady application is worth while.

May you keep in mind that you have here in Cambridge opportunities never dreamed of by the generations gone by, that at your very doors are provided the best in every field, and that the extent to which you profit by their use will in some measure repay your obligation to those who gave you the chance to come here.

May you also not forget that from now on you are Harvard men. You will be known as Harvard men, and whatever you do, creditable or discreditable, will reflect on Harvard. You are following in the footsteps of thousands and thousands of others who have up-held her best traditions, protected her fair name, held high the torch of truth, and entrusted to those who have followed after the ideals for which she stands. This privilege is now yours