"--AND TELL HIM TO GO TO HELL"

It is difficult to comment editorially on the words of Gaspar G. Bacon, president of the Massachusetts Senate, to the Freshman Class last night. What he said has been said before, but perhaps, in the eighteenth century measure of success, neither so well nor so timely. Fully aware of the fact that all freshmen classes the country over are being snowed under with blizzards of advice, he spoke briefly and on a topic about which his public service has given him a rounded knowledge.

It is also as difficult to quarrel with the whole or any portion of Mr. Bacon's speech. However, the words of the Pennsylvania coal miner who sent his son to college at considerable sacrifice so that the latter might be able in after-life to "look any man in the face and tell him to go to Hell", perhaps present a sounder philosophy of life than the noted speaker makes them out to hold in his anecdote. Mr. Bacon's objections to this code are rightly chosen insofar as the man might have meant opposition to the society of which his son is a part. On the other hand, the promise might have implied that in a college education may be found the key to one's independence. A degree is an excellent, if not absolutely necessary, stepping-stone to material security. By that success only, can an individual in modern America, faced with the problems of supporting himself and family, actually be true to the principals in which he believes. Unfortunately, but realistically, one's views have a considerable influence on the maintenance of one's position.

These words might also be, in the phraseology of the modern philologists, the renewing quarrel, between humanism and humanitarism, with both "isms" and their recurrent bickerings conspicuously lacking. They represent a system of philosophy which differs from the beliefs of Main Street, and which includes the strength of character to tell the latter so in no uncertain terms. It is indeed a more than pleasant feeling at times to be able sincerely and safely to "look every man in the face and tell him to go to Hell".