o much to say that the best
hope of intelligent and principled progress in economic and social
legislation and administration lies in the increasing influence of
American universities. By sending out these open-minded experts, by
furnishing well-fitted legislators, public leaders and teachers, by
graduating successive armies of enlightened citizens accustomed to deal
dispassionately with the problems of modern life, able to think for
themselves, governed not by ignorance, by prejudice or by impulse, but
by knowledge and reason and high-mindedness, the State Universities will
safeguard democracy. Without such leaders and followers democratic
reactions may create revolutions, but they will not be able to produce
industrial and social progress. America's problem is not violently to
introduce democratic ideals, but to preserve and entrench them by
courageous adaptation to new conditions. Educated leadership sets
bulwarks against both the passionate impulses of the mob and the
sinister designs of those who would subordinate public welfare to
private greed. Lord Bacon's splendid utterance still rings true: "The
learning of the few is despotism; the learning of the many is liberty.
And intelligent and principled liberty is fame, wisdom and power."

There is a danger to the universities in this very opportunity. At first
pioneer democracy had scant respect for the expert. He believed that "a
fool can put on his coat better than a wise man can do it for him."
There is much truth in the belief; and the educated leader, even he who
has been trained under present university conditions, in direct contact
with the world about him, will still have to contend with this inherited
suspicion of the expert. But if he be well trained and worthy of his
training, if he be endowed with creative imagination and personality, he
will make good his leadership.

A more serious danger will come when the universities are fully
recognized as powerful factors in shaping the life of the State--not
mere cloisters, remote from its life, but an influential element in its
life. Then it may easily happen that the smoke of the battle-field of
political and social controversy will obscure their pure air, that
efforts will be made to stamp out the exceptional doctrine and the
exceptional man. Those who investigate and teach within the university
walls must respond to the injunction of the church, "_Sursum
corda_"--lift up the heart to high thinking and imparti