ts, they
minister to all humanity.

It is this same ancient spirit which, coming to the defence of the
Nation, has in this new day of peril made nearly every college campus a
training field for military service, and again sent graduate and
undergraduate into the fighting forces of our country. They are
demonstrating again that they are the strongholds of ordered liberty and
individual freedom. This has ever been the distinguishing characteristic
of the American institution of learning. They have believed in
democracy because they believed in the nobility of man; they have served
society because they have looked upon the possession of learning not as
conferring a privilege but as laying on a duty. They have taught and
practised the precept that the greater man's power the greater his
obligation. The supreme choice is righteousness. It is that "moral
power" to which Professor Tyler referred as the great contribution of
college men to the cause of the Union.

The Nation is taking a military census, it is thinking now in terms of
armament. The officers of government are discussing manpower,
transportation by land and sea and through the air, the production of
rifles, artillery, and explosives, the raising of money by loans and
taxation. The Nation ought to be most mightily engaged in this work. It
must put every ounce of its resources into the production and
organization of its material power. But these are to a degree but the
outward manifestations of something yet more important. The ultimate
result of all wars and of this war has been and will be determined by
the moral power of the nations engaged. On that will depend whether
armies "ray out darkness" or are the source of light and life and
liberty. Without the support of the moral power of the Nation armies
will prove useless, without a moral victory, whatever the fortunes of
the battlefield, there can be no abiding peace.

Whatever the difficulties of an exact definition may be the
manifestations of moral power are not difficult to recognize. The life
of America is rich with such examples. It has been predominant here. It
established thirteen colonies which were to a large degree
self-sustaining and self-governing. They fought and won a revolutionary
war. What manner of men they were, what was the character of their
leadership, was attested only in part by Saratoga and Yorktown.
Washington had displayed great power on many fields of battle, the
colonists had suffe