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QUICKENED C ON SCI EN C E 
 
 tV JAMES BURRILL ANGELL 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY O 
 
 . D., 
 
 MICHIGAN 
 
 A BACCALAUREAT. DDRESS 
 DELIVERED JUNE 14, 190S 
 
 h; i^iRL^ BY THE UN:\- 
 190S 
 
http://www.archive.org/details/ageofquickenedcoOOangerich 
 
THE AGE OF 
 QUICKENED CONSCIENCE 
 
 BY JAMES BURRILL ANGELL, LL. D., 
 PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN 
 
 A BACCALAUREATE ADDRESS 
 DELIVERED JUNE 14, 1908 
 
 ANN ARBOR, MICH. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 1908 
 
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The Age of Quickened Conscience 
 
 BACCALAUREATE DISCOURSE 
 
 BY PRESIDENT ANGELL, DELIVERED JUNE 14 
 
 If any proof is needed to show that men are made 
 with an instinct for associated life, not for individual 
 isolation, it is furnished by the frequent spectacle 
 of the rapid spread through a whole region or a 
 whole people of some taste or passion. It may be a 
 fancy for some game, as croquet or tennis or base 
 ball, and in the space of a few months a whole na- 
 tion is devoting all its leisure hours to it; or to rise 
 to higher objects the passion for revolution in a few 
 months seizes on the citizens of France and over- 
 turns the throne which has stood unshaken for cen- 
 turies. So the cry of Peter, the Crusader, suddenly 
 startles all western Europe and shakes the continent 
 beneath the tread of armies, inflamed with the un- 
 quenchable passion to deliver the holy sepulchre 
 from the hand of the Saracen. It is not surprising 
 therefore that the fire of religious zeal should at 
 times as in 1857, when once kindled, spread even 
 through the market places and that the halls of the 
 money changers should become the scene of prayer 
 and of penitent confession. • It is not strange that as 
 in our own time, at least in the middle west, the 
 passion for popular education should be spreading 
 everywhere and overflowing school and college and 
 university with eager youth longing to train them- 
 selves in the most efficient manner for business or 
 professions. 
 
 187388 
 
Since this imitative spirit, the social instinct, the 
 sympathetic impulse, have so led mankind to act 
 together in masses towards some common end, we 
 need not regard it as astonishing that to our great 
 delight we are witnessing a new awakening of con- 
 science all over the nation. How or why it appeared 
 at exactly this time it may not be easy to say. And 
 for the purpose of this discussion it may not be im- 
 portant to decide. But this awakening manifests 
 itself in a great variety of ways. 
 
 Its reaction in our own country against intemper- 
 ance in drinking has been so sudden and has spread 
 over so wide a territory and among communities 
 where it was unlooked for that the movement has 
 seemed almost incredible. Even in Germany and 
 France and England science is beginning to warn 
 the public that reform in drinking habits is essential 
 to the preservation of national vigor, and that a 
 higher morality is essential to the protection of the 
 public health. 
 
 But especially has indignation been excited at 
 malfeasance in the management of great corpora- 
 tions, in the discharge of the duties of public office, 
 in the betrayal of fiduciary trusts. No doubt in the 
 excited state of the public mind reckless charges 
 have been made against innocent corporations and 
 individuals, and have been widely and unjustly cir- 
 culated before the accused have had opportunity to 
 defend or explain their acts. But even those who 
 condemn such unjust attacks or who deem extrav- 
 agant the language used in assailing some who are 
 justly criticised confess that there are many public 
 evils rightly and severely complained of. 
 
 So the halls of legislation, both state and federal, 
 have been for months resounding with discussions 
 of the most effective legislation to prevent misdeeds 
 of the kind referred to. The courts have been busy 
 trying persons accused of them, and the President 
 with his accustomed vigor of utterance has been ap- 
 pealing to Congress and to the people in stimulation 
 
 —4— 
 
of a sound public sentiment in the maintainance of 
 honesty. 
 
 I need not say to you who have been here for the 
 two or three years that among students there has 
 been a wholesome revolt against certain abuses in 
 what we call college politics, and that this has done 
 not a little to purify the atmosphere of college life. 
 
 If we look beyond our own neighborhood and 
 even beyond our own country we find that through- 
 out the civilized world there is a deep feeling that a 
 readjustment is needed in the relations of the em- 
 ployer and employed, that there is a dangerous 
 chasm between labor and capital, that somehow in 
 many cases the workingman is not receiving his 
 shares of the products which his industry is instru- 
 mental in creating. However men may differ in 
 their proposed solution of the problem presented by 
 this difficulty, yet the consciences of many capital- 
 ists are prompting them to study the problem with 
 as much honesty and sincerity as the poorest labor- 
 er brings to it. Never was there a time when the 
 Christain thinkers of the world were so earnestly 
 seeking what remedy the gospels of Christ have 
 for the ailments of the social and economic organiz- 
 ation of mankind. 
 
 Now this new condition of things, this wide- 
 spread quickening of conscience is a great, palpable 
 fact which deeply concerns all of you, who are just 
 going out into active life. You cannot, if you would, 
 utterly disregard it. 
 
 First, it is a grave warning not to try for success 
 by failing to reckon with this state of public con- 
 science. The legislator who gives himself to the 
 wretched work of drafting laws so that they may be 
 easily evaded, the attorney who makes a special 
 business of helping crafty men evade wholesome 
 laws, the physician who by quackery and pretense 
 seeks opportunities to trifle with human life or to 
 conceal crime, the engineer who draws papers so as 
 to further plans of fraudulent contractors, the 
 
 -5— 
 
teacher who organizes and conducts his school so 
 as to make sure of drawing inordinate compensation 
 from wealthy parents rather than impart solid in- 
 struction to his pupils, the captains of industry who 
 coin their gains out of the life-blood of helpless and 
 impoverished operatives, these and all others of kin- 
 dred spirit, whatever their vocation, will hereafter 
 face a public more vigilant in exposing and more 
 merciless in punishing their sins than the genera- 
 tion that has just passed from the stage. 
 
 I will not dwell on the lesson of warning for I 
 trust you do not need it. The American students 
 as a rule leave their studies with high ideals of char- 
 acter and conduct. But it is well for you to have a 
 clear preception of the environment in which yOu 
 will find yourselves, I prefer, however, to point this 
 out to you rather as an appeal than as a personal 
 warning. I mean by this that you should regard 
 this awakening of the public conscience, which we 
 so clearly recognize, as an appeal to you to throw 
 yourselves into your work with the purpose to do all 
 in your power to strengthen this determination of- the 
 people to maintain public virtue. 
 
 I count you as peculiarly fortunate in going into 
 active life in so propitious circumstances. I hearti- 
 ly congratulate you on it. I recall no time in the 
 past half century when one going from college into 
 professional, official or business life could find it so 
 easy and so helpful to himself to set his moral 
 standards high and hold to them. The people at 
 large are everywhere in the mood to welcome men 
 with such standards, to employ them, to give them 
 such positions of trust and responsibility as educated 
 men have a right to aspire to. They are not looking 
 for cunning tricksters, but for earnest, sensible, well 
 equipped men, who can stand ''four-square" to all 
 the winds of temptation and honorably serve their 
 day and generation. They wish unselfish, ungrasp- 
 ing men in great industries, who in the spirit of their 
 Lord and Master shall remember the brotherhood of 
 
OF 
 
 man. It is for you to say whether you will prove 
 yourselves worthy of the times upon which you have 
 fallen. As you launch your craft this week for the 
 long voyage before you, favoring gales and propitious 
 currents are waiting to help you to a happy haven. 
 
 We are this week to lay the corner stone of the 
 Memorial Building which shall keep green the mem- 
 ory of the brave and patriotic young men who, 
 standing where you stand to-day, willingly sacrificed 
 all their prospects in life and poured out their blood 
 on southern fields that you and I might dwell here 
 in peace and prosperity to-day. Do you not -some- 
 times envy them the chance which came to them to 
 make so glorious a record and to render the Univer- 
 sity and the country forever their debtor? That pecu- 
 liar fortune can never be yours. But a fortune hardly 
 less glorious is open to you all. You have the chance 
 in this age to be what the Apostle calls '*a crown 
 of rejoicing" to the University by lives so pure 
 and noble that she will be proud to enroll your 
 names on the tablets of her memory, and some of 
 you by lives so effective and conspicuous that she 
 will wish to place your names on the tablets of bronze 
 by the side of the young heroes of our wars. 
 
 The colleges and universities of the country are 
 about to be subjected to a severe test. The public 
 seems convinced that they are furnishing the intel- 
 lectual training to fit their graduates for useful ser- 
 vice in every vocation. Never were these graduates 
 more in demand, whereas a few years ago many 
 Questioned whether a college training afforded the 
 best preparation for certain pursuits, especially for 
 business and for engineering. Now there seems to 
 be a pretty general consensus of opinion even among 
 those who emphasize what they are pleased to call a 
 practical education that the college or the university 
 or the technical school furnishes the best mental 
 outfit for life in most vocations. 
 
 But now it is to be demonstrated whether with the 
 intellectual outfit our graduates carry away from the 
 
 —7— 
 
University that high moral purpose which the quick- 
 ened conscience of our day is going to demand of all 
 upon whom the seal of public approbation is to be 
 set. No intellectual furniture will supply the lack of 
 that. No institution will long command public es- 
 teem, whose graduates do not command the confi- 
 dence of the communities in which they dwell. 
 Hence itJrs th^t ,the teachers urge with an insistence 
 that often seems to the undergraduate excessive and 
 puritanical that he shall in his college life cherish 
 high ideals of character and life. It is the habits 
 formed at that age that are to abide and shape the 
 future career. The habits you have to-day are likely 
 to be for most of you the determining factors in the 
 years-in which you are to make your reputation. If 
 we, your instructors, have felt called to give some of 
 you friendly monitions at times, it was because we 
 saw in your present the presage of your future. We 
 are often criticised because we do not impart ethical 
 and spiritual ideals with a compulsory force. But 
 that is impossible with persons of the age of college 
 students. We can affect them only by example and 
 by personal persuasion and warning. Perhaps we 
 do not employ those means enough. But really, 
 when we come down to the hard facts, the shaping 
 of the student's moral and spiritual ideal and pur- 
 pose is his individual work, and in the last analysis 
 can be done by none other than himself. And so it 
 is that you come up to this eventful day with your 
 character, whatever it is, shaped by yourself during 
 all these formative years. That is the moral capital 
 with which you go forth to your destiny. Not that 
 it is complete and unchangeable. Not that you can- 
 not yet repair your errors. Not that you need de- 
 spair of moral growth and improvement, if they are 
 needed. But your reputation and that of the Uni- 
 versity are largely committed to you as you are 
 to-day. Hence for our sake as well as for yours we 
 look with such intense interest upon you, as you 
 turn your steps from our doors, and we follow you 
 
 -8— 
 
with our sympathy through all the trials and vicis- 
 situdes of your career. 
 
 For notwithstanding what I have said to you con- 
 cerning your good fortune in going out into the 
 world when there is such a widespread awakening 
 of conscience, it is still true that along your path 
 you will meet not a few who will ridicule your scru- 
 ples, and by example and by advice will strive to 
 persuade you that the discreditable roads are the 
 short and sure roads to success. They will paint 
 for you the contrast between the practical wisdom of 
 the sharper in the market place and the mere theories 
 of the professor in the class-room to the sore disad^ 
 vantage of the latter. They will argue to convince 
 you that it is by the shrewd tricks of the unscrupu=. 
 lous politician rather than by the straightforward 
 march of the upright soul that most men have 
 reached positions of eminence. These assaults upon 
 your intelligence and your honesty will be repeated 
 in so many forms and with such untiring assiduity 
 and seductiveness that you are in danger of having 
 your confidence in your own opinions and in your 
 own conscience shaken and weakened. You will 
 need to have your self-reliance reinforced constantly 
 by an inspection of the solid moral ground on which 
 you are standing to-day. But I adjure you to follow 
 the great Apostle's counsel when he says "take unto 
 you the whole armour of God that you may be able 
 to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, 
 to stand." 
 
 In spite of what I have said at the outset about our 
 instinct for associated life and our spirit of imitation, 
 we should remember that if we are to build charac- 
 ter on a stable and enduring foundation, we must 
 not trust merely to being borne along on the current 
 of opinion and feeling which is moving our com- 
 munity. We must place ourselves with deliberation 
 and purpose, regardless of the sentiments of others, 
 in right relations to God. Life is personal. To your 
 own master every one of you stands or falls. It is 
 
 -9- 
 
not the question whether we are doing as well as our 
 neighbors. Their consciences do not furnish the 
 measure by which we are to be tried. Public senti- 
 ment does not always furnish a safe, permanent 
 standard of right conduct. Like the tide, it ebbs 
 and flows. It may be your high calling at times to 
 confront a debased public opinion on some subject 
 with the lofty moral standard which your conscience 
 void of offence towards God and man has erected in 
 your heart. What shall be the test of the standard? 
 It must be that which is found in the life and teach- 
 ings of our Lord Jesus Christ. Philosophers have 
 framed many theories of right living. But the sim- 
 plest and best, the only one which so moulds human 
 character that it reflects the divine image and glori- 
 fies our humble lives with the spirit of righteousness 
 and truth, is found in the example and teaching of 
 our Lord. 
 
 One of the most striking and encouraging charac- 
 teristics of the last decade is the increasing power of 
 the life and teachings of Jesus over large classes of 
 men, who hold themselves aloof from churches. In 
 Europe as well as in America associations of labor- 
 ers who have persuaded themselves that the great 
 ecclesiastical organizations are controlled by men 
 who lack sympathy with them have confessed that 
 He is their friend, and that His instructions and His 
 example are full of hope and cheer for them. Even 
 many in non-Christian nations who have not aban- 
 doned their old religions have come to see and ac- 
 knowledge the charm of His life. He is gradually 
 conquering the world. He is fulfilling the prediction 
 He made in full view of the great sacrifice He was 
 to make, 'Mf I be lifted up, I will draw all men to 
 myself." In this age of quickened conscience, may 
 you with the help of the Divine spirit yield your- 
 selves up completely to His gracious influence and 
 find in Him your guide, your exemplar and your 
 Savior. 
 
 10— 
 UMYERS 
 
 
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