The Call of the Twentieth Century, an Address to Young Men

by David Starr Jordan

A higher ideal came from Germany,—that of erudition. The German scholar knows some one thing thoroughly. He may be rude or uncultured, he may not know how to use his knowledge, but whatever this knowledge is, it is sound and genuine. Thoroughness of knowledge gives the scholar self-respect; it makes possible a broad horizon and clear perspective. From these sources, English and German, the American University is developing its own essential idea,—that of personal effectiveness. The American University of to-day seeks neither culture nor erudition as its final end. It values both as means to greater ends. It looks forward to work in life. Its triumphs in these regards the century will see clearly. It will value culture and treasure erudition, but it will use both as helps toward doing things. It will find its inspiration in the needs of the world as it is, and it is through such effort that the world that is to be shall be made a reality. A great work demands full preparation. It takes larger provision for a cruise to the Cape of Good Hope than for a trip to the Isle of Dogs. For this reason the century will ask its men to take a college education.

It will ask much more than that,—a college education where the work is done in earnest, students and teachers realizing its serious value, and besides all this, it will demand the best special training which its best universities can give. For the Twentieth Century will not be satisfied with the universities of the fifteenth or seventeenth centuries. It will create its own, and the young man who does the century's work will be a product of its university system. Of this we may be sure, the training for strenuous life is not in academic idleness. The development of living ideals is not in an atmosphere of cynicism. The blasé, lukewarm, fin-de-siècle young man of the clubs will not represent university culture, nor, on the other hand, will culture be dominated by a cheap utilitarianism.

"You will hear every day around you," said Emerson to the divinity students of Harvard, "the maxims of a low prudence. You will hear that your first duty is to get land and money, place and fame. 'What is this truth you seek? What is this beauty?' men will ask in derision. If, nevertheless, God have called any of you to explain truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When you shall say, 'As others do, so will I; I renounce, I am sorry for it—my early visions; I must eat the good of the land, and let learning and romantic speculations go until some more favorable season,' then dies the man in you; then once more perish the buds of art and poetry and science, as they have died already in a hundred thousand men. The hour of that choice is the crisis in your history."

The age will demand steady headed men, men whose feet stand on the ground, men who can see things as they really are, and act accordingly. "The resolute facing of the world as it is, with all the garments of make-believe thrown off,"—this, according to Huxley, is the sole cure for the evils which beset men and nations. The only philosophy of life is that derived from its science. We know right from wrong because the destruction is plain in human experience. Right action brings abundance of life. Wrong action brings narrowness, decay, and degeneration. A man must have principles of life above all questions of the mere opportunities of to-day, but these principles are themselves derived from experience. They belong to the higher opportunism, the consideration of what is best in the long run. The man who is controlled by an arbitrary system without reference to conditions, is ineffective. He becomes a crank, a fanatic, a man whose aims are out of all proportion to results. This is because he is dealing with an imaginary world, not with the world as it is. We may admire the valiant knight who displays a noble chivalry in fighting wind-mills, but we do not call on a wind-mill warrior when we have some plain, real work to accomplish. All progress, large or small, is the resultant of many forces. We cannot single out any one of these as of dominant value, and ignore or despise the others. In moving through the solar system, the earth is falling toward the sun as well as flying away from it. In human society, egoism is coexistent with altruism, competition with co-operation, mutual struggle with mutual aid. Each is as old as the other and each as important; for the one could not exist without the other. Not in air-built Utopias, but in flesh and blood, wood and stone and iron, will the movement of humanity find its realization.

Don't count on gambling as a means of success. Gambling rests on the desire to get something for nothing. So does burglary and larceny. "The love of money is the root of all evil." This was said long ago, and it is not exactly what the wise man meant. He was speaking of unearned money. Money is power, and to save up power is thrift. On thrift civilization is builded. The root of all evil is the desire to get money without earning it. To get something for nothing demoralizes all effort. The man who gets a windfall spends his days watching the wind. The man who wins in a lottery buys more lottery tickets. Whoever receives bad money, soon throws good money after bad. He will throw that of others when his own is gone. No firm or corporation is rich enough to afford to keep gamblers as clerks.

The age will demand men of good taste who care for the best they know. Vulgarity is satisfaction with mean things. That is vulgar which is poor of its kind. There is a kind of music called rag-time,—vulgar music, with catchy tunes—catchy to those who do not know nor care for things better. There are men satisfied with rag-time music, with rag-time theatres, with rag-time politics, rag-time knowledge, rag-time religion. "It was my duty to have loved the highest." The highest of one man may be low for another, but no one can afford to look downward for his enjoyments. The corrosion of vulgarity spreads everywhere. Its poison enters every home. The billboards of our cities bear evidence to it; our newspapers reek with it, our story books are filled with it; we cannot keep it out of our churches or our colleges. The man who succeeds must shun, vulgarity. To be satisfied with poor things in one line will tarnish his ideals in the direction of his best efforts. One great source of failure in life is satisfaction with mean things. It is easier to be almost right than to be right. It is less trying to wish than to do. There are many things that glitter as well as gold and which can be had more cheaply. Illusion is always in the market and can be had on easy terms. Realities do not lie on the bargain counters. Happiness is based on reality. It must be earned before we can come into its possession. Happiness is not a state. It is the accompaniment of action. It comes from the exercise of natural functions, from doing, thinking, planning, fighting, overcoming, loving. It is positive and strengthening. It is the signal "all is well," passed from one nerve cell to another. It does not burn out as it glows. It makes room for more happiness. Loving, too, is a positive word. It is related to happiness as an impulse to action. The love that does not work itself out in helping acts as mere torture of the mind. The primal impulse of vice and sin is a short cut to happiness. It promises pleasure without earning it. And this pleasure is always an illusion. Its final legacy is weakness and pain. Pain is not a punishment, but a warning of harm done to the body. The unearned pleasures provoke this warning. They leave a "dark brown taste in the mouth." Their recollection is "different in the morning." Such pleasures, Robert Burns who had tried many of them says, are "like poppies spread," or "like the snow-falls on the river." But it is not true that they pass and leave no trace. Their touch is blasting. But true happiness leaves no reaction. To do strengthens a man for more doing; to love makes room for more loving.

The second power of vulgarity is obscenity, and this vice is like the pestilence. All inane vulgarity tends to become obscene. From obscenity rather than drink comes the helplessness of the ordinary tramp.

Another form of vulgarity is profanity. The habit of swearing is not a mark of manliness. It is the sign of a dull, coarse, unrefined nature, a lack of verbal initiative. Sometimes, perhaps, profanity seems picturesque and effective. I have known it so in Arizona once or twice, in old Mexico and perhaps in Wyoming, but never in the home, or the street, or the ordinary affairs of life. It is not that blasphemy is offensive to God. He is used to it, perhaps, for he has met it under many conditions. But it is offensive to man, insulting to the atmosphere, and destructive of him who uses it. Profanity and bluster are not signs of courage. The bravest men are quiet of speech and modest in demeanor.

The man who is successful will not be a dreamer. He will have but one dream and that will work itself out as a purpose. Dreaming wanes into sentimentalism, and sentimentalism is fatal to action. The man of purpose says no to all lesser calls, all minor opportunities. He does not abandon his college education because a hundred dollar position is offered him outside. He does not turn from one profession because there is money in another. He has his claim staked out, and with time he will only fill in the detail of its boundaries.

"Now that you are through college, what are you going to do?" asked a friend of a wise young man.