Presidents' Words

To graduates of 1934 the following university presidents last week made the following remarks:

Yale's James Rowland Angell: As I meet American college graduates, nothing is more depressing than to remark the astonishing number who give absolutely no suggestion of intelligent acquaintance with anything whatever outside the range of business and sport. Indeed, did they not assure you that they were sons of Dear Old Siwash, you would never of your own initiative have made that inference.

Harvard's James Bryant Conant: A person deserves little praise for his talents, which are probably as much of an accident as the muscles of his arms. There are rascals in all walks of life, and we may indulge in the pleasure of condemning them all heartily. Let us be equally generous with our applause of honest men.

Princeton's Harold Willis Dodds: It is easy to be tolerant when things are going well and when the ideas which one favors are in the ascendancy. But when the drift sets against one's cherished opinions or one's class interest, intolerances in various seductive guises may take possession of even the most gentle-natured spirits.

Vassar's Henry Noble MacCracken: The talk about the "brain trust" is all blather. It always was. People have always wanted brains in their rulers, when they could find them. It is not the brain trust that was the bugaboo. It is youth. What frightened Dr. Wirt was the discovery that he was 60 years old, and that his young secretary had more to do with government than he had. . . . He was not going to let on how old he was, so he raised the hue and cry over brains, and it was a false scent, as the folks found out. It's not the professors that politicians are afraid of in Washington. It's the assistant professors.

College of the City of New York's Frederick Bertrand Robinson: American commencements in recent years have become occasions on which distinguished men of affairs express incompetent conclusions concerning the purposes and methods of education, and visionary scholars tell industrial leaders and practical politicians just how to conduct private and public business.

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