A few will have seized the passing honors.
It may have depended much upon opportunity among those who were well equipped for the occasion, who gained the greatest distinction; but it cannot for a moment be doubted that the roll of honor in the future of this class will never again stand as it stands to-day.
It will be a struggle of life to determine who among you will keep their standing in the contest for future honors and distinctions.
You who have been the better students here, and possessed the greater natural qualities, have a start in the race; but industry, study, perseverance, and other qualities will continue to be important factors in the future, as they have been in the past.
Through continuous mental, moral, and physical development, with progress in the direction of your profession and devotion to duty, lies the road to military glory; and it may readily come to pass that "the race will not be to the swift, nor the battle to the strong," as you regard your classmates to-day.
It must be admitted, however, that great leaders are born.
A rare combination of natural qualities causes men to develop greatness. Education and training make them greater; nevertheless, men with fewer natural qualities often succeed, with education and training, when those more richly endowed fail to reach the higher places, and you have doubtless witnessed that in your experience here.
A man in a great place in modern times is not respectable without education. That man must be a God to command modern armies successfully without it; yet war is a great school; men learn quickly by experience, and in long wars there will be found men of natural abilities who will appear at the front. It will be found, however, in the long run, that the man who has prepared himself to make the best use of his natural talents will win in the race, if he has the opportunity, while others of equal or greater natural parts may fail from lack of that mental and moral training necessary to win the respect of those they command.
Towards the close of our civil war, men came to the front rank who entered the service as privates. They were men of strong natural qualities. How far the best of them would have proceeded had the war continued, cannot be told; but it may be safely assumed that if they possessed the moral qualities and the education necessary to command the respect of the armies with which they were associated, they would have won the highest honors; and yet our war lasted but four years.
Some of them had the moral qualities, some the education; and I have known of those men who thus came forward, some who would certainly have reached the highest places in a long race, had they had the training given to you.