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both the others and likewise lends them both assistance. For sane,
all-round, constructive work in any one field, the contributions of all
are seen to be needed.
Let us, therefore, take an account of stock, as the business man says,
and note our individual attitude and responsibility. As representing the
home, let us look upon the other two as creatures of our own building
still requiring direction and fostering care. Let our attitude toward
them be neither patronizing nor coldly critical. As representing the
church and the school, let us not forget the source of our being. We
should not ignore the home nor attempt to dominate it. Let us, rather,
seek to carry out its program, rendering a good account of our
stewardship. Thus and thus only can the great work originally entrusted
to the home be accomplished.
VI
NOBLESSE OBLIGE
_A Convocation Address delivered at the University of North Dakota,
January 29, 1916_
There is no audience before which a speaker should have greater reason
for apprehension than an audience made up largely of university
students. There is no audience for which a speaker should more carefully
choose his thoughts and the words for their expression than a university
audience, nor one more worthy of earnest treatment. On the other hand,
there is no audience that a speaker can address more inspiring than an
audience made up of young men and women in the heyday of young life
preparing for better and larger usefulness.
All this is true because there is no other audience that can be gathered
together whose future work can begin to compare, in far-reaching
consequences, in possibilities for usefulness, with that of such an
audience. There is no other company of people of equal number within
whose keeping there is more of potential weal or woe for coming
generations. And these things are true because university students of
to-day are the world's leaders of to-morrow.
This is not so trite a saying as the one that declares that the boys and
girls of one generation are to be the men and women of the next, but it
is just as true and just as significant. Indeed, I suppose it can not be
called a trite saying in the true sense of the term. It has not been
uttered so many times, is not now being used so commonly, as to indicate
its universal acceptance. It is not so obviously true as to preclude
challenge and argument. It is my purpose very briefly to examine the
statement and from the co
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