So it is our business to fill the minds of our fellow citizens with accurate pictures, with definite pictures, with pictures of reality, with pictures which shall illumine every department of life. If there is any aim in education, it seems to me it is to make man a citizen of the world, to make him at home in nature, at home with mankind, at home with all the great forces which play a part in his personal development, which sweep through him into the lives of generations yet unborn. When his mind is filled with such pictures, when the spectator within him goes out to the best and finest and truest of these pictures with genuine appreciation, then you have the development of personality and the development of a great civilization.
You, my friends, are the keepers of these films and slides. It is your business to see that they are well chosen, to see that they are made available, to see that the people are stimulated, that the people are made to realize vividly what it means to have their minds filled with these true, these beautiful, these inspiring pictures which will enable them to interpret life, to enter into it more richly, to get out of it more joy, the joy of intelligent appreciation, the joy of work well done, scientifically done, the joy of comradeship, the joy of association in great enterprises. When these pictures fill the mind, when the spectator within is loyal to them, then there is richness of personal life, then there is genuine advancement of civilization.
Imagery is the clue to conduct. Without mental imagery there can be no development of character. Without mental imagery there can be no social progress. This mental imagery comes from the experience of life. You are not the sole purveyors of it. Books, as I have said, are dead and inert things until men with some experience of life come to them for further insight and for guidance as they go their way trying to understand life and to interpret it more truly and to get out of it greater richness.
There is a delight in mental pictures. May our pictures be interesting and true and ennobling, may they increase in number as the years go on, may they open up to us vistas of personal satisfaction, give us keener insight into the meaning of life and stir us to larger loyalties and to truer service. May we pledge ourselves to this great work and to the furthering and fostering of those things which Watson has so finely called "the things that are more excellent."
"The grace of friendship, mind and heart
Linked with their fellow heart and mind,
The gains of science, gifts of art,
The sense of oneness with our kind,
The thirst to know and understand,
A large and liberal discontent,
These are the goods in life's rich hand,
The things that are more excellent."
At the conclusion of President Vincent's address, Mr. Lawrence J. Burpee announced that M. Amedee Tremblay, organist of the Basilica, would accompany a number of Canadian folk songs which M. Normandin, of Montreal, would sing. They were given in three groups of three, and between each group was given one of Dr. Drummond's poems in character, by Mr. Heney, of Ottawa, a most excellent interpreter of these sketches of the French-Canadian habitant.
These unique, interesting and well rendered contributions to the exercises of the evening were much appreciated by all present, and at their conclusion the session closed with a brief but hearty expression of acknowledgment from President Elmendorf.
SIXTH GENERAL SESSION
(Russell Theatre, Tuesday, July 2, 3 p. m.)
President Elmendorf occupied the chair.