in that legend today. But that meaning will so enlarge with the better understanding of the future, that later generations will proclaim that it was written by a prophet. Its work is to distribute people, to lead population out into the open country and keep them there, to improve the conditions of country life and to preserve and distribute its ideals. Its purpose is to blend with the normal fruits of progress, wealth, elegance and culture, the rugged strength that will give them life and value. This hall is not a monument; it is a milestone; it is built, not at the end of a progress, but at its beginning. It has a great economic value. It would be interesting to dwell today on what it will do in this field. Of the new excellence it will give in plants and animals, of the new methods it will develop, of the labor it will save, and the wealth it will produce.

It will help to increase food, to build up a rich commerce, and to contribute to the growth and beauty of great cities.

But we pass these things by today to discuss what we think is its greater value in the effect it will have on the moral life of our people. In the past there have been many civilizations, none of which seem to have been able to preserve themselves. They acquired wealth and learning and beauty and ease, and then these things seem to have destroyed them. They ran their cycle; their work seemed done. They did not seem to be able to pursue, and grow in the pursuit of moral values. They gave way before a more vigorous people. And the conquering peoples were not the cultivated, but the newer and cruder ones. It is the barbarian that history has always feared. It has been the strong man who has occupied the world. Modern Europe is no exception to the rule. Its map has constantly changed, it has postponed its difficulties again and again by the emigration of its peoples to new lands, and renewed its life by almost perpetual war. It would be interesting to point out specific instances among modern European nations, in which we have seen them grow decadent, but to mention such might be to sound a discordant note. Today Europe is burning out its weaknesses in the pitiless fires of the greatest of such wars. And the saddest thought connected with this great sacrifice is not its present slaughter, but the numbing thought that wars seem to be inevitable. Wars preserve the fighting spirit. They spiritualize, they destroy the vices of a people, but chiefly, they give them the new work of restoration. It would seem that with what we know, we should be able to create the institutions of peace, and find our discipline and our work without the cost and horrors of war. We should not have to tear our civilizations down just to have the work and the experience of rebuilding them. There

must be some plan upon which a society may be so continuously purified and refreshed that it will persevere. But unless we can get the fruits of wars from some of the disciplines of peace, we will have, and will have to have, wars.

To find how to do this, to devise a program of continuous industry, to know what are vitalizing agencies, and to cultivate them, is the great work of this generation. Today we feel that we are helping in that task, and helping in a great way by fostering country life and rural industry. We believe that country life is an institution of peace, because it develops in those who live it the preserving virtues, character and earnestness, a moral cleanness, and a strong continuity of purpose. We believe that independence, individuality, repose, changing industry, hard work, family life, contact with nature, with the perpetual hopes and strong convictions that grow out of them, are solid foundations for a state, and that we must more largely build on them.

This is a fine hour in the world; we would be blind to deny the progress we have made, or the great perfection to which we have built it up, but heedless of the lessons of the past, we are in a larger way but building after the fashion of the past, and traveling its same dangerous road. We worship the same values that the older peoples did, and with the tremendous forces of modern knowledge are pursuing the same ends. And those ends, wealth, elegance, beauty, culture, pleasure and ease, have not constituted the materials of an enduring life. They must be continually invigorated by the forces that supply strength and spirituality. And from whence are we getting these values? Education is not giving them. It addresses itself only to youth. It does not reach enough, nor awaken enough of those it reaches.

Moral politics is not sufficient; it is too intermittent and the bitterness it engenders produces too many destructive reactions. The press is not doing it. With many honorable exceptions, it is frankly "printing what the public demands, " and in doing this, the higher demands appear too often to be those least considered.

The stage with all of its popular new accessories cannot be called a socially constructive agency. Its plays and its pictures teach few stern lessons and reflect too little of the wholesome aspect of life. Commercial life is not giving them. Commercial nations have been notoriously those that have bred what history stigmatizes as the weakness of peace. Modern city life won't give us this invigorating strength we are seeking. Disregarding such other weaknesses as it may possess, it is not a permanent force, as it cannot breed its own population. It has constantly to renew itself from the country. To abandon our farms, to leave their work to

be done by men not of our breed, with the knowledge that this means the sure surrender of our state into their hands, we know is not progress. To leave the open country, with its challenge to industry, its strength and its purpose, just to mingle with the crowd and share its aimless motion does not seem to be progress. To acquire great wealth, to live in a palace, to withdraw from sympathy with the mass of mankind, to live at ease and for indulgence, does not seem to be enough. To secure employment, join a trade association and strive ceaselessly to reduce the time of employment and increase its mere financial rewards, with no plan for the leisure obtained, does not seem to be enough. The love of excitement, of display, the pursuit of empty amusement, the passion for constant change, are not sufficient foundations for a personal or a national life. And these things have already impressed themselves upon the life of our times. We have much speech but little conversation; we have much writing but little literature; we have much change but little growth. We have cast off our old restraint to find a freedom in which we seem to be lost.

We have grown non-sectarian in religion; non-partisan in politics, internationalists in patriotism. We have no faiths which we hold with a passionate devotion. We are rich in the forces which make us materially efficient and give us pleasure, but not in the elements which build character or make life purposeful. What in this advanced day is taking the place of the hard work, the intense politics, the ardent patriotism, the stern religion of the day that is passed? During those earlier years we had a definite goal. It was to find a lodgment in a new country, it was to achieve liberty, to preserve the Union, to extend our frontiers, to build our cities and to construct our utilities. Too many of our people have cast off these old restraints without finding new convictions. And strangely enough in this golden hour of the world, they seem to have lost their objective; to think that their work is done. We have won the material things and too many of us seem to see no other, no better things to do. These seem to have come to a moral halt.

It is through the growth of this class that society is endangered, that it loses its strength and its aims. It loses its consciousness and compromises its principles. It is here that vices are bred, that governments become corrupt, that people become supine and that decay which seems to attack nations at the apparent height of their strength and pride, finds easy lodgment and rapid growth. It is to this enlarging body that this day's work is directed. Its growth must be checked; it must be given an objective, or be held to one. If we cannot teach them the truths of a rugged and progressive life, we must create the conditions of such truths. If they cannot

be given the strength or the wisdom to cultivate or seek the essential virtues, conditions must be created which will generate these virtues.

We believe that homes upon the land, a large rural population, and the institutions of country life, constitute one of the most effective of such conditions. We cannot teach character and rugged purpose to a people; these things must abide in and naturally grow out of their institutions. A few may do any work, whatever attempted, in a great way, but national greatness must come from the industries and activities of a whole people. Ideals, high standards, and strength cannot be imposed on occupations so much as they grow out of them. And they have always grown out of rural life. However, humble it may appear, no matter how simply it may be organized, it is always strong, and it seems intrinsically to produce a strange virtue which has given power to everything it has touched. If we would live, we must encourage and distribute its growth.

We do not offer country life as a substitute for all elevating and invigorating agencies, we would not ruralize the world, but that with the proud aims of this day should be mingled the strong virtues of the country, we deem to be indispensable. We are proud of our life and time. We do not ignore nor underestimate the value of what we call modern progress. But we know that no human society can carry the load of our civilization unless it is continually strengthened by the discipline and inspiration that comes from hard work, firm faith and renewed hopes; from the willingness to do the difficult thing, from the habit of renunciation, from the living of an affirmative life towards some definite end. Do not think our race will save us. It is more a question of virtue and purpose than it is of breed. All races which possess them grew while they held them, and all races have grown feeble and failed when virtue and purpose were lost.

Because this hall was built to conserve these values, we believe it has been given to a great service; no less a one than the preservation of the life and worth of society. We place this new college, devoted to a new subject, here among its fellows which have the sanction of a long approval with the gratifying sense that we have made a real progress. For ages agriculture was a simple art held in humble estimation. Today it is a proud science, universally appreciated.

Education, which had been invading every field in which it deemed that it might usefully labor, passed it by. Today we rear this structure here, side by side with colleges of the most ancient tradition, Nor have these colleges taken it up and molded it to

their form. It has conquered its own way, because we have come to value education with a purpose, education which contributes to a life which holds a very definite aim.

We believe that this is a character college; that its construction was a work of statesmanship, and that its purpose is one of the greatest before the nation. In that spirit we dedicate it. These reflections recall the memory of our beloved Dr. Hilgard. His life is expressed by this building which has so worthily been given his name. May his spirit brood over California. Today we salute the shadow of that modest and patient scholar and proclaim him one of the heralds of the new morning. The things for which he lived will become the faith of the nation, and that faith will save and preserve us.

HILGARD AS I KNEW HIM

W. B. WELLMAN

As one of those students who were blessed with the instruction of our revered preceptor, I feel grateful that I am able to join you in the dedication of Hilgard Hall-honoring the memory of the one who so thoroughly laid the foundation of that great department of our Alma Mater which has made possible the more rapid advancement of the resources of our state.

During the time allotted, in which I am privileged to dwell on "Hilgard As I Knew Him,'' let us try to visualize that great genius of the soil, his thoughts and deeds, were he here at this hour, facing with us our war problems.

At the time of his early achievements in the days of 1886, when the College of Agriculture had an enrollment of just three students from that class, we had the special advantage of that close relationship and intimate contact with a wonderful personality, which gave us, perhaps, a keener appreciation of his clarity of vision, and the true purpose which dominated his work; grounding us in those fundamentals which have served as guiding principles. We knew that his heart was with the man who tills the soil. He recognized that the farmer's welfare means the welfare of all.

We, therefore, may more truly picture his position and attitude in relation to those two greatest factors for winning the warincreased food production and conservation.

His example of deep-rooted patriotism would cause us to sense fully the importance of agricultural sections from a war standpoint, the specific needs of the men of agriculture, and would compel