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ºnvironment and
Selfhood
A Baccalaureate Discourse delivered
by James BURRILL ANGELL, LL.D.,
President of the University of
Michigan, June 16, 1901 ::
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UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
ENVIRONMENT AND SELFHOOD
A BACCALAUREATE DISCOURSE
BY
James Burrill Angell, LL. D.
President of the University
--
June 16, 1901
-
PUBLISHED BY
THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
1901
3 Q. ºf 2.
o ºr
ENVIRONMENT AND SELFHOOD.
During the last half century two very different ideals of life have been
cherished. The difference in these ideals rests mainly upon different views
of the relations of man both to nature and to society.
According to one ideal, man as the king of created things dominates
nature. He is called always and everywhere to assert his high prerogative.
He is to shape his environment, not to be shaped by it. With regal will he
is to choose his path and trample down all obstacles between him and his goal.
He is not to be the slave of circumstances, but is to make circumstances bend
to his will. Every man is to do his own thinking, and not to be determined
in his opinions by the opinions of his fellows. He is to cultivate his indi-
viduality and be himself in all exigencies. His words are to be the sincere
utterances of his own soul, and not the mere echo of the words of the crowd
about him. He is to mould society, if he is strong enough, rather than to be
moulded by it. He is to be a virile, independent personality.
This view of life came in part at least as a reaction from certain stern
theological and philosophic dogmas, which virtually made man the helpless
victim of destiny or fate and doomed him to grind day by day in a prison
house of a world. From gazing on so cheerless a picture of human existence,
men naturally turned to contemplate the dignity, the power, the freedom, the
possibilities of the creature made in the image of God and commanded to do
godlike things. They pictured to us the great men of the world, the master-
ful leaders in thought and in action, as the shining examples for us who were
young. I wish I could tell you how in my college days the freshly uttered
and burning words of Carlyle, who startled us with his vivid pictures of the
worlds’ heroes, and the winsome and fascinating language of Emerson, who
discoursed to us in his musical tones on “The Uses of Great Men,” flamed
upon our horizon like blazing torches to light us to our loftiest achievement.
No doubt some young men were dazzled and blinded rather than illumined
by these torches of hero worshippers. But the inspiration of those days has
been as wings to many a noble soul through long and useful lives. This view
has always appealed to self-reliant, ambitious men and in some cases has led
them to reckless action; but in other cases it has been like a guiding star,
which piloted them on to brilliant success. They fared forth into life, sing-
1ng on their triumphant way,
“The seeds of godlike power are in us still ;
Gods are we, bards, saints, heroes, if we will !”
4 Fmzironment and Seffhood.
According to another ideal, man must carefully consider his circum-
stances and wisely adapt himself to them. He is the creature of heredity and
environment. He must not hope to war with success against the forces of
nature, which are ever busy around him and within him, but must prudently
yield to them. He must reckon with the beliefs, the passions, even the preju-
dices of his time. The part of wisdom for him is to study the social organ-
ism, of which he is a fraction, and the material world, of which he is an
atom, and to conform to the conditions of his existence.
No doubt the modern scientific investigations have given new efficacy to
this idea of the function of man. Pushed to its extreme results, it tends to
make one an opportunist in all action, political, moral or religious. It substi-
tutes prudence for heroism. It makes its appeal to the cautious. It may be
uniformly successful to a certain degree. It may save one from serious mis-
takes. But it does not always attain such heights of achievement and glory
as are reached sometimes by the uncalculating and self-reliant audacity of
the man, who sets out with unquailing spirit to carve his way over or through
all barriers.
Now standing here on the threshold of your active life, what should you
think of these two kinds of ideal? Doubtless each has its merits. It is easy
to overstate the advantages of either alone.
We must admit that man is here to seize and use the forces of nature.
He must 1earn to train his will to be obedient to the physical laws of the uni-
verse. The powers of nature are not to be disregarded, but, if possible, to be
enlisted in his service. He must watch and study the opportunities which
Providence opens to him and the obstacles which it places in his path. He
must not underrate their true significance. Things apparently trifling do
shape our lives. A chance acquaintance, an illness interrupting for a time
cherished plans, any one of a thousand things which may not at the moment
seem important, may change the whole course of our lives, as a stone loos-
ened by a spring shower from the bank of a brook near its source, may force
a new channel for the stream.
Even in a nation's history events are often not justly measured at the
time of their occurrence. Historians tell us that though we fix a date, 476,
as that of the fall of the Roman Empire, the people of Rome would have
been surprised, if one had told them at that time that the Empire had fallen.
So the deep and far reaching significance of what may appear at first to be
mere incidents or accidents is often not perceived by us until it is too late
for us to avert the harm from them or reap the advantage which might
have been gained. A careful scrutiny of what each day brings to us is there-
fore in the highest degree wise.
But it is easy and even natural to emphasize unduly the appeal which
some circumstance of life may seem to make to us. We may, if we choose
to yield to every passing influence, make ourselves the playthings of chance,
Fnzironment and Seffhood. 5
the down blown hither and thither by the most fugitive and trifling breezes
of the moment. We may suffer ourselves to float on every current and eddy
of public opinion, into which we drift, and so get nowhere in life, and stand
for nothing in particular, because we are surrendering ourselves passively to
our environment.
Sometimes, in defending ourselves against the charge of being too
much inclined to make our acts or beliefs conform to the spirit or circum-
stances of our times, we say that we are living in a transitional age, and that
therefore we must change our views and our plans to suit the new condi-
tions which successive years bring to us. This may be and often is a sound
argument, but it should not be overworked. For really every age is transi–
tional. All life, whether that of a man, or of a nation or of a race, is trans-
itional. Every life is an ongoing stream. It is constantly flowing, Below
any given point it is never quite what it was above. There may be eddies
in it. At times it may seem to turn on its course. But at last with the
iorce and certainty of gravitation it rushes to the engulfing sea. It not
only may be true, but it must be true, that we are not today exactly what
we were yesterday. The circumstances of our lives may properly, must
necessarily, shape and color them in large degree. We must always be in
transition from the past with its old conditions to the future with its new
conditions. The transient is not accidental, but necessary and natural.
All this we should recognize. But still there should be some rational cor-
respondence between the changes going on in our surroundings and the
changes in our ideas and plans. We must not make the contradictory gusts
of public opinion on every subject an excuse for fickleness in our opinions.
The caprice of the crowd, swept from its moorings by some unreasoning ex-
citement does not justify capricious action on our part, but rather calls for the
steady hand, the brave heart, the unflinching will.
For we must remember that a man has a higher function than to be a
weathercock. He is in some degree able to combat the pressure of environ-
ment and even the forces of nature. As a free moral agent, it is often his
supreme duty to do so. He is not to cringe as a slave to the tyrannical
sway of circumstances and sacrifice his manhood to untoward conditions of
life. If he is to achieve anything, he must sometimes swim against the cur-
rent. Often he must have the skill and the pluck to set the bow of his craft
right up into the eye of the gale, lash himself to the wheel and defy tempest
and storm, if he is to reach a worthy destination. He may be called like
our Lord to confront his age rather than to be subservient to it, to defy the
terrible power of hostile public opinion at all cost, to die as a martyr to
truth and a friend to mankind. The high moral qualities of the soul must be
everywhere and eternally permitted to rule us, though the mountains be
removed into the sea and the heavens fall in ruins about us. Amid the
clamor of mobs and the crash of worlds a man whose heart is right may
6 Environment and Selfhood.
stand erect and look serenely into the face of God and know that omnipo
tence is pledged to his support. w
There seems to be nothing impracticable or illogical in combining what
ever is true in the two ideals we have been considering. One may in the
face of all opposition and danger preserve his moral personality. At the
same time he may in the use of means to accomplish ends pay a wise regard
to the conditions and limitations of his life, provided he does in no case
sacrifice his moral integrity to the attainment of his ends. This moral in-
tegrity must always be paramount. If you will keep yourselves under this
moral control, you need not fear to set your sail so as to catch the favoring
breezes on the stream of life, which with its roaring and foaming current
1s now waiting for your bark.
Let us observe some of the applications of these principles to the con-
ditions with which you are confronted. In studying the environment, in
which you are now to work, two salient characteristics of this era should be
carefully noted.
One is the unprecedented activity and magnitude of business enterprises.
Never in the history of the country has there been such a stir in every de-
partment of industrial activity, agricultural, manufacturing, commercial.
Our surplus of products is flowing outward to all the markets of the world.
Naturally, college bred men, who under the conditions of former days
would have entered upon professional or scholastic life, are attracted in
rapidly increasing numbers to pursuits connected directly with the con-
duct of material industries. We are coming into closer and closer com-
mercial relations with every nation, civilized or barbarous, under the sun.
Our flag is soon to be seen in every mart of trade on all the continents and
on the islands of the sea. Our capital is undertaking great enterprises, not
only all over our own land, but even in the richest and most enterprising
nations of Europe and in the remotest parts of Asia and Africa.
One is reminded of that notable era, the sixteenth century, which trans-
formed England, Holland, France and Spain into great world powers, that
era of daring explorers and navigators and merchants, who laid the treasures
of the world at the feet of Europe. That century gave an impulse to the
human mind that has never been lost. It gave to Britain not only its Fro-
bisher and Raleigh and Drake, but also its Bacon and Shakespeare and the
whole galaxy of geniuses that won for the Elizabethan era an imperishable
glory.
May we cherish the hope that this sudden and tremendous development
of our industrial power, this expansion of our influence both commercially
and politically, this new and emphatic recognition of our strength and im-
portance, both in Europe and in Asia, this consciousness of national vigorand
enthusiasm which thrills the soul of every one of us who has a spark of
American patriotism in him, will also in addition to its important economic
Anzironment and Seffhood. 7
and political consequences kindle in this generation an intellectual inspiration
which shall give us an Elizabethan era in literature?
The mighty currents of our national life ought to drown out the petty
spirit of narrow provincialism, which has afflicted some parts of Our coun-
try. They should lift us to a virile patriotism and intellectual activity, which
should find expression in a manly and masterly American literature. That
literature should realize some higher ideal than the short story and ephem-
eral fiction now poured out in unending torrents upon us, and should enrich
is with some epoch-making masterpieces in poetry and in prose.
Not only should the great economic and political progress of Our country
incite the young to such intellectual growth as will fit them to become cap-
tains of industry or literary exponents and prophets of a great age, but a
second conspicuous characteristic of our time, the remarkable scientific
progress which has distinguished the last few years, lays an imperative com-
mand on every man who expects to be a leader in scientific work to be
thoroughly trained for his task. No previous half century in history has
contributed so much new and useful knowledge to the world as the last.
You stand upon a high vantage ground for the future, provided you have
mastered the knowledge which great investigators have brought within
your reach. But there is no room for the ignoramus or the pedant. The
demand everywhere is for masters in scientific learning and thought.
There has recently been a remarkable change in opinion among the
managers of scientific industries concerning the relative merits of the well
trained and the untrained young man in subordinate positions. Formerly
those managers seemed to prefer the untrained man as a beginner in the
work. But now they are almost with one voice calling for the school-bred
man. They have learned that he has at hand the material of thought and
learning to apply to all the new exigencies which may arise. Accordingly
I am told that the engineering graduates from this University and from the
other leading American schools are now called for almost in a body. The
demand exceeds the supply. The call is for men who are equipped for
varied service.
In every profession, in every calling, which is likely to make an appeal
to you, the present conditions in this country require of all who are to go
to the front, the best possible outfit of learning and the highest intellectual
power. To meet this requirement with a fair degree of success, even the
gifted and accomplished student must have four qualities.
First, he must have untiring industry. He must not expect the possession
of a diploma to take the place of hard work. The real significance of the
diploma is this, that the recipient has made certain attainments and has
learned how to make more, and to use them all effectively when made. But
nothing can be a substitute for unwearying industry. Though we may not
t1nqualifiedly accept the definition sometimes given of genius, that it is the
8 Anvironment and Selfhood.
capacity for hard work, still it is certain that none of us has genius enough
to do great things without hard work, and continuous hard work.
The second quality needed is capacity for growth. Some men seem to
have exhausted this capacity in meeting the moderate demands of a college
course. They reach their culmination at graduation. When the stimulus
is removed, which is furnished by the pressure of authority and the daily
progress of their associates, they cease to advance. Nay, there are melan-
choly cases in which they go back. We have all known men who were less
vigorous and promising when ten years out of college than they were at
graduation. One of the first questions an experienced man will put, when
asked to predict the future of a young graduate, is: “Can he grow P or do we
now see all there will ever be in him?” If he cannot grow, it is easy to ap-
praise his value and fix his future rank. Now, growth is in part at least de-
pendent on the will, on the resolution to continue to cultivate one's powers,
on discontent with the achievements of the past, on the determination to fit
ourselves for the largest and best work possible to the faculties with which
God has endowed us.
A third essential quality is steadiness and perseverance in our plan of
life. Fickleness of purpose is a great weakness, even of many gifted men.
Having fitted themselves in a measure for one pursuit, they suddenly weary
of it and turn to another so dissimilar that they are very inadequately pre-
pared for it. This wasteful change often springs from a lack of patience
in waiting for results which always require time. It is folly like that of the
child who is continually digging up the seeds he has sown to see if they are
sprouting, and then is sowing other kinds to be pulled up in the same
senseless way. No doubt one may sometimes find that he has mistaken his
calling, or that new and unforeseen circumstances make it wise to change
his vocation. But this case is easily distinguished from that of the man who
is constantly and capriciously flitting from one calling to another and so ac-
complishing little or nothing in any. It needs the steady, consecutive and
concentrated work of a life, devoted to some worthy pursuit, to enable one to
come to the end of ones' days with full sheaves of usefulness and honor.
A fourth requisite is pure and noble character. I do not say that without
this, if one has brilliant talent, one may not win notoriety, which is often
confounded with fame. But if one is to exert a permanent and benign in-
fluence, is to fill up the measure of his opportunity to bless mankind and be
honored by mankind, one must have those high moral traits and purposes
which give weight to whatever one says and does. This power of moral
personality is by far the most important of all the qualities essential to the
highest success in moulding one's generation.
It may seem commonplace to suggest these four qualities of industry,
power of growth, perseverance and character. I wish it were unnecessary.
But long observation has convinced me that in nothing are students more
Fnvironment and Selfhood. 9
liable to error than in supposing that mere brilliancy can be a substitute for
them. You will find that nowhere does mere brilliancy count for so much as
1n college. In the narrow horizon of college life the coruscations of the bril-
liant mind are seen and admired of all, and during the brief period of the
college curriculum may suffice to maintain a local reputation. But in the
busy and hard competitions of actual life, the brilliant man, if lazy or fickle
or devoid of strength of character, will soon be left behind by the slow and
plodding man who keeps up “the long and steady pull” at his oar year after
year, who increases constantly in vigor and power, and whose character
commands the confidence of all who know him. How many splendid failures
there are—if any failure of a human career can be called splendid and not
simply sad—of men, about whom his friends all say, “What might not he
with his brilliancy have achieved, if he had only been willing to work and
had been of a higher moral strain.” The conditions of your environment
which forbid as a rule high success to mere brilliancy may seem to you hard,
but there they are before you, and they cannot be ignored with impunity.
They are practically as inexorable as the law of gravitation.
The two striking characteristics of our age which I have mentioned,
namely our unprecedented material prosperity and the dominance of the
, nodes of thought introduced and applied in the study of the physical sciences,
specially emphasize the call for scholarly men of high moral and spiritual
make. There is a real danger that the spirit of mere commercialism shall
divert us from the highest and best things for which life is given us and
that a purely materialistic philosophy shall dull our spiritual perceptions and
blind us to the vision of God. We should not allow the currents of what
we call our practical life to drift us away from the thought of our higher,
our spiritual nature. We need heroic men of so large a mould that in the
most absorbing cares of business or fascinations of scientific research and
speculation they can keep their feet planted on the spiritual foundations of
sane and wise living, can keep their eyes fixed on the true and spiritual
ideals of existence. We all need to be summoned back often from the en-
grossing excitements of the market, the exchange, the forum, the laboratory,
to the “fair humanities” and to the calm meditations of philosophy, which
is the search after truth, all truth, as the guide to our souls. The more stren-
uous is the busy life which is exhausting all our energies, the more com-
pletely we are absorbed in studying the phenomena and laws of the material
universe, the more do we need to hear often and reverently the voice of
prophets, who shall show us spiritual visions and call us back to God, who
builded these worlds that we measure and weigh, and who is the author of
all life in the universe.
But even those who are set to be our prophets, our religious teachers,
find themselves like the rest of us obliged to have some regard to the con-
ditions of their time. They nuts' present religious truth not exactly as their
10 Anzironment and Selfhood.
fathers did a century ago, but in relation to the religious problems now up-
permost in people's minds. This is, it must be confessed, pre-eminently a
period of transition in the conception of the Scriptures and of theological
doctrines. Archaeological discoveries in the East and the critical study of
ancient manuscripts have profoundly affected our views and interpretations
of the biblical writings, and scientific research and philosophic discussion
have shaken the foundations of some dogmas long and widely cherished.
No intelligent man can be blind to these facts. To many persons, especially
to many elderly persons, it is painful to acknowledge them. The transition
for this generation from the old conceptions to the new truth is a difficult
process, and not unattended with some temporary discomfort and even
danger. Doubtless the disciples of the new truth will be led into some
exaggerations and will make some unhappy mistakes. And not a few men who
are allured by any novelty in doctrine or in statement of an old one may be
hastily beguiled into gross errors. We all so constantly train ourselves to be
fair to those who broach some new doctrine, we so pride ourselves on being
hospitable to new truth that we need perhaps to be on our guard lest we
adopt innovations merely because they are novelties.
But the fact remains that the change from old ways to new truth is
Inevitable. We need eminently brave and wise men to lead us through it,
men brave enough to set forth the truth as it is with moderation and rev-
erence and clearness, and wise enough to lead others safely to its adoption.
But never let us be afraid to trust men with the truth. They crave it. They
are sure to be the better at last for having it. May those ringing words of
John Milton, however familiar, never become commonplace to us, “Let
truth and falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse in a free
and open encounter? " * * Give Truth but room and do not bind her
when she sleeps.”
Let us not despair of our age. With all its temptations to greed and
materialism, this generation has deep down in its heart a hungering and
thirst after spiritual truth. The souls of thoughtful men cannot be satisfied
with the things of this material world. They must in their better hours
reach out after something higher and nobler.
When the first excitement concerning these modified views of the his-
tory and interpretation of Scripture, to which the rather vague term of
higher criticism has been applied, is over and the pure truth in them is res-
cued from the dross which now and then clings to them, a fresher, more
widespread and more vital interest will be taken in those incomparable
writings than has been witnessed in the last half century. The doctrine of
evolution many theologians at first regarded as a destructive attack of sci-
entific thought on religious truth. But it is now generally acknowledged
that it gives us, when stated with those reasonable limitations which scien-
tific men of the highest repute are now setting, most exalted ideas of the
Fnzironment and Selfhood. 11
method of divine procedure in respect to sentient beings as well as to the
lower forms of existence, and inspires us with new reverence for the in-
finite wisdom and goodness of the Creator. The devout man need not fear
the truth whencesoever it comes, but should always welcome every new dis-
covery of it as a revelation of God’s thought, and be sure that it will harm no
other truth, but confirm and ratify all other truth.
Such a faith in truth will, I trust, always be yours. The wise combina-
tion of the two ideals considered at the outset of this discourse will, I hope,
be found in the life of each of you. A careful study of your conditions and
of your power will guide you in your daily pursuits. You will mark with
care and docility the indications which a kind Providence gives you for
your guidance. You will by industry, by development of your powers, by
perseverance and by high character do the utmost possible for yourselves
and others in a worthy career. But you will not be daunted by trifling ob-
stacles. Where moral issues are at stake, you will not be afraid to face the
storms of opposition. When you are compelled to decide between right and
wrong, you will not flinch a hair in defence of the right, though abuse and
loss confront you. If surrounded by men who are consumed with greed or
atrophied in their spiritual faculties, you will not plead your environment as
a reason for imitating them, but with heroic zeal will conquer your environ-
ment and show them that even in their circumstances a spiritual life is pos-
sible and joyful and indeed the only worthy life.
The men whom the world has chiefly admired and whom you chiefly
admire as the heroes of the race are not those who have been pliant to
every breeze of public opinion or who have been driven from their
noble purposes by adverse circumstances, but men like John Huss
and Martin Luther and St. Paul, who have sought truth with
open and prayerful hearts and who have faced peril and persecu-
tion and death in the proclamation of what they deemed the highest truth.
Even “their words,” as Jean Paul said of Luther's, “were half battles.” So
they not only moved their own generations, but they are still vital forces, liv-
ing on in the world and destined to live on through all coming generations.
None of us can hope to be great as those men were great. But there is
none of us so humble that he cannot like them be true to the light which it
is given him to see. We can keep the windows of our souls open to new
light, to all light that may be shed upon us from any source, human or di-
vine. The truth which shall thus be made apparent to us we are to cherish
as the dearest possession of our lives. Loyalty to that truth is the supreme
duty of our souls. For it we are to live. For it we are, if need be, to die.