PROF. COPELAND'S SERMON

In an address on "Studies versus Interests and Activites" Professor Copeland presented conclusions from statistics compiled under the direction of President Lowell and other authorities, to the effect that the simple A.B.,--that is, the man whose degree from Harvard College is without even a cum laude--very seldom indeed attains distinction in either the Law School or the Medical School. Although no facts have been tabulated to show the exact relation between distinction in professional studies and success in the practice of the profession, it is nevertheless reasonable to suppose that the two are closely related, or lawyers would not be so much in favor of a law school training, doctors so much in favor of a medical school training, and the students in those schools would not work with such zeal and concentration during their entire course.

Scholarship and Activities Combined.

Professor Copeland said further:

"Will you listen now to a few facts,--too few to draw general conclusions from, yet still strangely interesting in themselves. Story-tellers and playwrights are not expected to be scholars, are they? Yet Owen Wister, '82, was in the first quarter of his class. Henry M. Rideout, '99, author of "The Siamese Cat", "Beached Keels", and other justly admired tales, took his bachelor's degree magna cum laude. Of the three most successful and most distinguished Harvard playwrights, Knoblauch, of '96, although he won no scholastic distinction, was well known to all who knew him as a deep and thorough student of the drama. Edward Sheldon, of 1908, took his degree magna cum laude, and is in the Phi Beta Kappa. William Vaughn Moody, '93, author of "The Great Divide", which has many claims to be the best play ever written in America, took his degree magna cum laude, gained honorable mention in English, and was in the Phi Beta Kappa. Of the three men from different colleges now most prominently mentioned as candidates for the Presidency. William H. Taft was a very high scholar indeed; and, as everybody knows, might, if he had so chosen, have been appointed to the Supreme Court of the United States; Woodrow Wilson has long been renowned as a scholar and a particularly able writer; and Theodore Roosevelt. Harvard '80, always an omnivorous yet a discriminating reader, was one of the first eight in the Phi Beta Kappa of his year. Although these instances are too few and scattering to prove anything definite, they still point to facts that one day may be tabulated in greater numbers; and they are, at the present moment, interesting and highly instructive examples."