"It is not the temptations of the world the college man must be on the lookout against, but its stupidities, its irrelevancies, its general besotted ignorance. He is less in peril of the flesh and the devil than of the screaming, unintelligent newspaper headline, whether it leads off an interview with a vaudeville star or with a histrionic college professor. What he needs to be reminded of is not principles, but a few elementary facts. My own commencement address would consist of nothing more or less than a brief review of the four years' work in class—algebra, geometry, history, physics, chemistry, psychology, everything."
"How extraordinarily simple!" I said. "The wonder is no one has ever thought of this before."
"I admit," he said, "that it may be rather difficult to compress all that matter in fifteen hundred words, but it can be done. It can be done in less than that. My peroration, for instance, would go somewhat as follows—that is, if you care to listen?"
"It will do no harm to listen," I said.
"I would end in some such way: 'Members of the graduating class, as you leave the shades of alma mater for the career of life, the one thing above all others that you must carry with you is a clear and ready knowledge of the multiplication table. Wherever your destiny may lead you, to the Halls of Congress, to the Stock Exchange, to the counting room, the hospital ward, or the editorial desk, let not your mind wander from the following fundamental truths. Two times two is four. A straight line is the shortest distance between two points. Rome fell in the year 476, but it was founded in the year 753 B. C., and so took exactly 1,229 years to fall. The northern frontier of Spain coincides with the southern frontier of France. The Ten Commandments were formulated at least 2,500 years ago. Japan is sixty times as far away from San Francisco as it is from the mainland of Asia. Virginius killed his daughter rather than let her live in shame. The subject of illicit love was treated with conspicuous ability by Euripides. The legal rate of interest in most of the States of the Union is six per cent. The instinct for self-preservation is one of the elementary laws of evolution. Hamlet is a work of genius. Victor Hugo is the author of "Les Misérables." I thank you.'"
"Thus equipped, any young man ought to become President in time," I said.
"Thus equipped," retorted Harding, "any young man ought to make his way through life as a rational being, and not as a sheep. And that is the main purpose of a college education, or of any process of education. No amount of moral enthusiasm will safeguard a man against the statement that the panic of 1893 was caused by the Democratic tariff bill; but the knowledge that the tariff bill was passed in 1894 may be of use. It saves a rational being from talking like a fool. Idealism will not keep a man from investing in get-rich-quick corporation stock; but knowledge of the fact that the common sense and experience of mankind have agreed upon six per cent. as a fair return on capital will keep him from going after 520 per cent. Mind you, it is not the fact that he will lose his money which concerns me. It is the fact that there should be a mentality capable of believing in 520 per cent. The dignity of the human mind is at stake. Or take this matter of the boundary line between France and Spain."
"If you are sure it is related to the subject in hand," I said.
"It is, intimately," he replied. "I am, as you know, exceedingly fond of books of travel. I read them as eagerly as I do all the cheap fiction that deal with brave adventures in foreign lands. Now a very common trait in books of both kinds is the author's fondness for pointing out the differences between the people of the southern part of a particular country and the people living in the northern part. You are familiar with the distinction. The inhabitants of the south are hot-headed, amorous, given to mandolin playing, and lacking in political genius. The people of the north are phlegmatic, practical, averse to love-making, unimaginative, readers of the Bible, and tenacious of their rights. I don't recall who first called attention to the fact. Perhaps it was Macaulay. Perhaps it was Herodotus. The idea is sound enough.